Back from the silence

My sister informed me that I need to update my blog because I am not in California anymore. She is correct...it is 3 stinkin' degrees outside which is definitely not characteristic of most of California. Matt and I went to the Creighton basketball game with Dan and Becky last night and then went to Barley's Tiptop for some drinks. After driving them back to their car (we left it at California Pizza Kitchen after dinner so we only had one car downtown) we arrived home at about midnight. The gauge on our car indicated it was a balmy 48 degrees outside. I remember not buttoning my jacket when we walked out of the Qwest.

I woke up this morning to the sound of wind howling so I turned on the tv to find out what the temperature was and discovered it was 10 degrees. I think that was our high for the day. Matt and I headed out to do some Christmas shopping and froze running in and out of buildings. But, we got some very important Christmas shopping done! Ma tt talked to his sister this afternoon and they went from 60 degrees to 20 degrees in about 30 minutes!

I also finished decorating our hearth tonight. I started working on it last week and bought the finishing touches today. I included a picture below just for fun.

In January, our household is growing! Pell and Bren have decided to move back to the midwest and Omaha was on their list of possible cities to move to. Matt and I let them know that they would be welcome to move in with us until Pell finds a job and they are able to sell their house in Oregon. They have taken us up on our offer so we are gaining three roommates (they are bringing their cat with them) around January 25th! We are excited to have them close by and thrilled that they will be able to live with us while they figure things out! We will be spending some time over our holiday breaks getting the house ready.

I am working a 4 day work week this week (I'm taking Friday off to finish some Christmas shopping and get some things done) and then I only work Monday and Tuesday the following week. I love working in Higher Ed - especially Creighton because we were supposed to be off until January 2nd, but the university imposed a mandatory vacation day so I don't have to go back until January 5th. Twelve straight days off! And I need it - especially since we have plans to go to Shelbina for a few days and then thought we would head to Saint Louis because Gregg is home for the holidays and there is a Jameson baby we haven't met yet!

I have decided to give candy making a try this year and will be starting with english toffee. I bought a candy thermometer the other day and plan to make a batch sometime in the next week. I need to figure out when the humidity will be the lowest - maybe next Sunday since the high is supposed to be 5!

Last day in Portland

Alice worked today, Nick nursed his hand and I headed out to enjoy my last day in Portland. Nick has been keeping ice on his hand pretty constantly since he burned it, but says that it is still bothering him. Alice and I both tried to convince him to go to the emergency room, but he says it is fine and just needs to heal.

I slept in a little and then walked up to the Rose Gardens that are about a mile from where Alice and Nick live. The Rose Garden is actually the International Rose Test Garden and features just about every variety of rose out there. It is incredible! I spent about an hour walking around admiring the roses and taking lots and lots and lots of pictures. I’ll post – I promise! The Rose Garden is a can’t miss in Portland!

I then headed to the Portland Saturday Market for some shopping. Now that I have been there a couple of times I started recognizing the vendors. I purchased Matt some of the honey roasted cashews that he loves and found a great sterling necklace for myself. I promise pictures soon! The Portland Saturday Market is basically a huge marketplace that assembles every Saturday and Sunday from Spring – December. There are food vendors, jewelry makers, clothing, pottery, woodworking, metalworkers – pretty much anything you could possibly want. I enjoy just walking around and people watching. I stayed for a little while and then began walking back – and got caught in a huge, sudden rainstorm. It absolutely poured and I wasn’t anywhere where I could jump under an overhang or anything like that. And, because it was Sunday, most of the office buildings were closed. So, I got soaked. Luckily it didn’t last too long and I was able to dry out while I waited for the streetcar to take me back to their house.

We decided to cook tonight so Alice and I headed to the market when she got home from work. We picked up some pieces of sole that we breaded in potato chips, fried lightly on the stove and then finished in the oven. We had black pepper potato chips, spicy thai potato chips, and buffalo blue cheese potato chips that we used to coat the fish and then we shared. (The spicy thai proved to be the favorite, btw – and I’ll be making this sometime at home because it was super easy and delicious!). Alice also made a sage and mushroom risotto that was very good, and we made some broccoli. Alice also shared her secrets for using the a Kitchenaid mixer to make butter! We made dill butter that we used tonight on our bread and I found it to be really good on the broccoli, and we made honey butter to use later – especially on the English muffins we bought for breakfast tomorrow.

Wine Tasting

Nick, Alice, and I did not get as early of a start as we had hoped this morning. Alice is still recovering from a cold, and Nick is still recovering from his finals this week. I got up and went for a long walk/run this morning. I pretty much wandered the streets around where Nick and Alice live. It is a neat area and easy to get around in because the streets in one directions are numbered ( 20th, 21t, 22nd, etc) and the streets in the other direction are in alphabetical order (Hoyt, Irving, Johnson , etc). So, I can wander all I want and not really get lost. We headed out a little before noon for the Dundee Hills for wine tasting. Alice drove as she was taking cold medicine and didn’t want to drink. We visited Sokol Blosser first, which is not a winery we typically would have stopped at (we all like the smaller, more family-oriented wineries), but I love their Evolution blend wine and really wanted to go. The tasting room was crazy, but we did get to taste a couple of excellent wines and I purchased a bottle of the Evolution #12 to enjoy later.

We then continued down the road to Methven Family Winery – which was smaller, and we were the only ones there during our tasting. This was quite a contrast to SB which was packed. We again tried some wonderful wines and our pourer was a hilarious guy who kept us laughing the whole time. I love wine tasting in Oregon because they tend to have a good mix of white and red wines. I really only like white wines while Alice and Nick (and most other people) are partial to red wine. It makes tasting more fun for everyone. Methven has a winery cat (as opposed to a farm cat) who enjoyed visiting us.

We then visited one final winery whose name I cannot remember. This winery offered some very interesting wines including a Tempranilla Rose' that was very good. All three of us liked it and Alice and Nick ended up purchasing a bottle. We then took the recommendation of one of the guys at that winery and headed to DaVinci’s in Salem. DaVinci’s turned out to be a great recommendation – Italian food, but not traditional Italian. I had a seafood fettuccini that was wonderful (with shrimp and scallops), Nick enjoyed a pasta with sausage dish and Alice enjoyed a stuffed pork. We shared an appetizer of blue cheese scallops with pears that was incredible! The nice part about the restaurant is that they offered two different sizes of meals so Alice and I could get the smaller one that was more suited for us. All three dishes were incredible and I would add DaVinci’s to my list to visit again.

Nick and I were both in desperate need of haircuts so we decided to head to Alice’s salon to get that taken care of. I really wanted my hair shorter and darker and I totally trust Alice to take that explanation and do a good job. And she did a great job. My hair is now just below my shoulders and not as dark as I pictured it, but I think it was good that I did not do a drastic change – a gradual change will be better. And it is super easy to style and will dry much more quickly than my long hair! Before we got our hair cut, Nick and I walked down the street to grab some hot tea from a cute pastry place that just opened. As Nick tried to hand me my tea it tipped and he ended up burning his hand. It didn’t look that bad in the beginning, but got redder and more irritated as the night wore on.

Wonderful

The wonderful smell of homemade banana bread in the oven is filling my house right now. Matt and I had some bananas that had moved beyond the edible point so I whipped up some banana bread for him while he was at the softball coach's meeting tonight. I'm not a huge fan of banana bread, but the smell filling my house right now is pretty incredible. I'm excited to see how the recipe turns out because it is a new one and I was intrigued because it includes plain yogurt. I guess we will know soon how it turns out.

I stayed home from work today. I woke up at about 4am this morning and felt like I was going to be sick. I never actually got sick, but I still wasn't feeling 100% when my alarm went off at 6am. Stephanie is 38 weeks pregnant and we have an agreement in our office that we will not come to work if we are sick, so I called in. The last thing I want to do is give Stephanie the stomach flu or something like that. The good news is I don't think I have the stomach flu, but I still don't know why my stomach was so upset in the middle of the night.

Matt and I spent Friday night watching the opening ceremonies of the Olympics. We decided to enjoy some Chinese food to keep with the theme of the evening and then spent the evening ohhing and ahhing over the opening ceremonies. I'm a huge sucker for the Olympic Games and I usually enjoy the opening ceremonies even though some people find them boring. Friday night's ceremonies did not disappoint. The Chinese put on a wonderful show for the world and it was fantastic to see all of the athletes together for the Olympics again.

As a Olympic junkie I've been pretty attached to the television for the last couple of days. However, a DVR is an Olympic junkie's best friend - as long as you can keep up with watching. The US women's basketball team played during my workout on Saturday morning (beating China handedly) and I tried to stay caught up until I picked up my mom for some shopping on Saturday afternoon. I was in desperate need of a new work shoes - both winter and summer and I managed to find a pair of each at Yonkers on Saturday and only spent $55! I found several items at Pottery Barn I could have purchased on the spot, but held off for the time being.

After shopping I came home, watched a little more of the Olympics and then Matt and I headed to Becky and Dan's for their annual fiesta. It was a little tamer this year that it has in the past and we had a great time chatting with them, Becky's mom and playing with Josie - their chihuhua who was absolutely thrilled with all the people at her house (insert sarcasm here). Poor Josie. Interestingly enough - it was the tamest fiesta I have been to, but apparently the cops paid them a visit after we left. Isn't that how it always goes?

Yesterday, my family attended Flip's memorial service. Flip's wife Kathleen, his daughter Rachael, and sister Phyllis all traveled up from Kentucky for the service and it was nice to see them. Ron's brother Richard also attended and while I've heard many stories about him, I had never met him before. We got the chance to laugh and share stories about Ron and his life. And, as would be fitting, we ended the evening at Pizza King in CB, which was Ron's absolutely favorite. I don't think he ever returned to the area without visiting Pizza King.

Matt and I are currently wtching the US Mens' Gymnastics Team in the team competition. Holy Cow! They totally rocked it on the high bar! I love when the underdog succeeds!

Snow?...In June?...In Nebraska?.... (Warning - this is a long one)

It sure looks like snow, doesn't it? These photos were taken the evening of Friday, June 27th at about 7pm. Two hours earlier a sudden, violent, and crazy storm blew (quite literally!) through the Omaha metro area. Matt and I were not at home as we had planned to spend the evening at the Summer Arts Festival in downtown and the storm literally followed him as he drove across Omaha toward Creighton. We waited out the storm in my office and then decided to head home. We knew our house had sustained some damage before we arrived home because Matt called out neighbor, Lee, and Lee told him that our garage door was damaged along with everyone else's on our block. We managed to get home fairly quickly on the interstate, which was a surprise because we heard reports of power outages and traffic jams caused by power outages across the city. We decided to drive to my parent's house first because neither of them were home and their is very unprotected. You can see what greeted us in the picture below:

Those are hosta plants that prior to Friday night were huge, green, leafy and gorgeous. Now it looks like someone ran them through a shredder. Behind the hosta plants was this sight:

This is my parent's air conditioner - which is looks like someone took a baseball bat to it. You can see all of the dented areas.

We made our way around my parents house and except for some MAJORLY damaged plants, bushes and trees, it appeared that their house was in pretty good condition. So, we headed to our house. I'm including pictures below of some of the many sites that we found.

You can see our majorly mangled garage door. It looks like someone took both sides of it and twisted it around. My car was, at the time, stuck inside the garage and there was absolutely no way that we lift it up. The hail you see in the last picture is what was piled inside of the left side of our garage. The wind was blowing so hard that it blew rain and hail all the way to the back wall of the garage after it blew the bottom of the door inward. It also blew the cover of the opening to our attic in the garage upward and dropped the cover back down sideways.

You can also see that the storm blew one of our downspouts off and literally wrung the remainder of the downspout like a dishrag.

We found the downspout in our backyard.

The storm completely shredded the screen off of our bedroom window.

And if you look closely in this picture, you can see the leaves from our gorgeous front yard tree absolutely plastered to the side of our house :(

Matt had to use the hose to get them off.

Once we had assessed the damage outside and made a list of items to discuss with the insurance company, I headed upstairs to change my clothes so we could start some clean up and we were also going to wander around the neighborhood to see how everyone else faired.

Unfortunately, I found this in our bedroom.

Somehow, water got through our bedroom window, ran down the wall, and across the floor. We don't own a wet/dry vacuum so I headed to my parent's house to borrow theirs. I spent the next hour or so vacuuming water out of the carpet and have spent the last four days running fans in our bedroom so we don't get mold.

Matt and I certainly did not count on having to use the insurance that we arranged for last October so soon, but we certainly appreciate the necessity of it now. There was so much damage in the Omaha metro that most of the insurance companies sent catastrophy teams to the area and have been able to respond quickly. Our adjustor visited today and actually dropped a check by our house tonight. We will definitely be arranging for a new front door, a new bedroom window (there are cracks around the seal of the window) and half of our roof (the part that faces west) needs to be reshingled.

We drove around a little on Friday night and traveled to 132nd and Maple, which was completely without power because the power lines were hanging on top of buildings and trees.

The picture above is of a gas station that was hit by wind so violent that it literally shredded the metal off of the sign.

We definitely consider ourselves lucky in the grand scheme of things. Some homes in Omaha are still without power four days after the storm and some estimates indicate it could be Saturday before power is fully restored. Several of our neighbors have damage far worse than ours - windows completely broken by wind and hail, fences literally ripped from the ground or twisted a million times, outside playsets that are completely toppled, and a deck hanging from the back of a house. Our neighbor two doors down had part of his roof completely ripped off and unfortunately his ceiling fell in on Sunday sometime. And one of our neighbors about a block away just finished building a new deck on their house, only to have it hit by a huge section of the fence, and to have most of the vertical supports disappear.

And just so everyone knows, the hail was still in our yard Saturday morning.

First Post of 2008!

Happy New Year!

Matt and I just returned for a wonderful, story-filled weekend in Missouri. We departed early Saturday morning after a quick stop-off at Starbucks for an Eggnog Latte for me (I never know when they are going to stop carrying Eggnog!). We arrived in Shelbina during the middle of the afternoon, spent a little time with Matt's parents and Eric and then headed back into town to visit Jason, Sara, Samuel, and their parents for the evening. We enjoyed pizza, football and good conversation. Samuel entertained us all.

Sunday brought a little bit of sleeping in, visiting Matt's grandma, and celebrating Christmas with the Caldwell's. The entire family was able to make it and we had a great time. The kids ripped into their gifts and had a blast playing with them and we had a great time enjoying the time together - it doesn't happen often. We were able to meet Rebecca and Kade (the woman that Mike is dating and her son) and spend a little bit of time with them. It will be nice to get to know them better sometime when things are a little less hectic.

On Monday Matt and I took off for Bren's parent's house outside of Maryville. The wind was really beginning to blow by the time we arrived and some of the snow that had fallen was blowing back onto the roads. I was glad to be out of the car for the evening. It was great to see Pell, Bren, Andrew and Amy. The six of us used to spend so much time together and it is hard now that we are so spread out. It sound like Pell and Bren will be putting their house up for sale soon in anticipation of a possible move back to the midwest - or at least closer than they are now! It would be great to have them closer so we could get together for fun more often.

Pell made a huge batch of pizza dough and we all helped getting ingredients together for pizza. It was the best homeade pizza I have ever had and we enjoying being about to have six different combinations of toppings. Bren and her mom also made a gorgeous salad ( I don't know where they find such fresh ingredients in the middle of winter) and we sat around the table and enjoyed our time together. After dinner everyone else joined in a ping-pong tournament, but I was taking it easy because my back started hurting the moment I got out of the car. By the time the tournament was over I couldn't stand, sit, or do anything comfortably. Luckily, Pell has some experience with manipulation and massage and was able to eliminate a huge knot that had wedged itself between my spine and my hip bone and was also able to relieve some pain I was feeling in other parts of my right side because of the spot on my back that was sending me out-of-whack. Thankfully, after a couple of days of recovery by back is finally back to normal, and I am thankful for a friend who is so talented :)

On New Year's Eve we also played Apples to Apples before toasting in the New Year
(with champagne!) and then played Catchphrase before heading to bed. Pell proved himself as an excellent cook again the next morning by making fantastic pancakes that we enjoyed with cinnamon rolls and coffee. We spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon playing more ping-pong and working on a puzzle that Bren's family had started. It was great to be able to be together before we returned to Omaha and Andrew and Amy returned to KC.

I returned to work yesterday (a little late because I couldn't sleep on Tuesday night because my back was really stiff and painful) and am very grateful that this is a short week. We are swamped at work and I'm looking forward to being able to use the weekend to catch up a little and get some things done at home before a full work-week.

Gorgeous flowers for sale at Pike's Market!
Pike's Market Sign

Fresh Fish! Yes, we bought some!

Matt and I at lunch in Pike's Market - we had fish and chips and shrimp and chips - YUM!

I got behind on my updating near the end of the trip - we couldn't access the internet from the Bed and Breakfast we stayed at on Wednesday night and I just never got around to it while we were with Pell and Bren so I'll spend some time updating over the next few days. I may have to take a hiatus Thursday -Sunday as I am headed to Milwaukee to meet up with my college roommates for a girls weekend! I leave tomorrow evening and I am not planning on touching a computer while I am gone.

Last Wednesday (I can't believe it was a week ago) Matt and I were able to enjoy half a day in Seattle before we needed to take off to drive down to Corvallis. We decided to get up early and head to Pike's Market to avoid some of the crowds we experienced on Tuesday. We found a cute little French bakery called Le Panier where we enjoyed some fantastic pastries and a sat and watched the market come to life. We definitely made a good choice by arriving early because there was hardly anyone there and we were able to wander around without fighting the crowds. We shopped a little bit, purchased some Halibut to take the Pell and Bren's for Fish Tacos, and ended up eating lunch at a park near the Market before we headed out of town. I've included some of my favorite pictures from Seattle above. Pike's Market is a complete unique experience and one everyone should have once in their life.

As Matt and I were driving out of Seattle we got a great view of Mount Rainier in the distance, however none of the pictures turned out very well because the mountain faded into the sky. It only took us about 4.5 hours to get to Corvallis. We stayed at an adorable Bed and Breakfast called Harrison House. We arrived in town and called Sam. He came and met us, showed us around campus (Oregon State University), and then we had dinner at a "townie" bar that had great cheeseburgers. We ended up returning to the B&B early as we had more driving ahead of us the next day.

Seattle

I got to cross another state off of my list today! Matt and I rented a car early this morning and drove up I-5 to Seattle. We are staying at the beautiful Westin in downtown Seattle - about 3 blocks from Pike's Place Market. We managed to find the hotel (side note: this was actually quite an adventure - apparently Seattle is putting in some sort of light rail or street car system in their downtown area and the streets around the Westin were complete torn up) and checked in. Our hotel room is beautiful and we have a great view of the down town area. We dropped off our stuff and headed down to Pike's Market for some lunch. We found a little oyster bar where we enjoyed fish and chips and shrimp and chips. I swear I will never be able to eat the seafood served in the midwest again now that I have eaten such fresh, wonderful seafood on the coast.

We walked around the market for awhile, got trapped by the pepper jelly lady (who was serving beer jelly, merlot jelly and all other crazy kinds of jelly) and saw some really interesting people. We decided to plan to return to the market early tomorrow morning to do the rest of our shopping and headed to the Space Needle. The Space Needle provided some really incredible views of Seattle and the surrounding area. None of the peaks were really visible today even though the weather was clear and wonderful - which makes me think they never really are visible because today was so gorgeous and we couldn't see them. The view looking out into Puget Sound was really incredible though!

We headed back to the hotel to relax for a little while and then left for our dinner. We spoke with the concierge earlier today who recommended we eat at Ponti's Seafood Grill. We decided that since this is technically our honeymoon that we would splurge on one meal while we were traveling. We were not disappointed - Ponti's provided fantastic atmosphere, excellent service, and the food was to die for. I had Arctic Snow Crab with Risotto and an Heirloom Tomato Salad and Matt had Salmon with Spanich and Whipped Potatoes and a bowl of Tomato Bisque. We then shared a decadent chocolate molten cake with strawberry and mango puree. Ponti's sits right next to the water and we were able to score a great seat outdoors so the view was perfect. The restaurant kindly provided outdoor heaters so I didn't freeze on this cool evening.

We plan to get up early tomorrow morning and head to Pike's Market for some breakfast and some shopping before heading to Corvallis.

After our "date" tonight (every Friday is datenight for Matt and I) I spent some time on homerealestate.com looking at houses for sale. I'm ready to own a house. I'm ready to paint rooms, landscape (not just plant flowers in planters for our tiny deck), and get "settled in" someplace for the long term. I've never lived anywhere independently where I actually didn't have the thought that I would be moving sooner rather than later. I'm also ready to bring a dog into our lives. I think we are both ready for that one. I want a dog I can take on a walk, who will greet me at the door when I arrive home at night and who will curl up on the couch next to me. So, we are working on that one. Matt and I both love our apartment and it is perfect for us right now so I'm content to wait until we can save the money we need to not only purchase a house, but also purchase the items we need to put in the house. But it is fun to look and see what is out there. There is so much growth in Lincoln and between Lincoln and Omaha - there are new houses popping up all over the place. I've also found some really cool vintage houses that just need some TLC and Matt has been ready have things to do around the house for a long time.

I'm so ready for this 3-day weekend. Minus one vacation day that I took and one unexpected snow day, I haven't had a day off since mid-January. It was definitely time for a long weekend and a couple of days of rest and relaxation. Matt and I have zero "set" plans - just some things we would like to get done.

• We are going to visit Alltel to discuss our cell phone plans because it has been ages since either of us changed ours and we are fairly certain we can get a better deal that what we are paying for now.
• My co-worker gave me some grape tomato plants that I need to find a planter for and get planted.
• We want to clean our apartment from top to bottom.
• We plan to watch the movies we rented: In Pursuit of Happyness, The Holiday, and The Illusionist. However, Matt was very clear that The Holiday is my movie and he will not be joining my chick-flick fest :)
• If the weatherman is incorrect, we may be making a trip to the Farmer's Market tomorrow morning for some fresh fruits and veggies and other fun things.

Matt and I are on a complete ice cream kick - it must be summer on its way! We made homemade ice cream on Mother's Day and it turned out so good that we are making it again tonight so that I can take it to work tomorrow to share with my co-workers. One of our student workers graduated earlier this month and stayed to work for a few weeks so we are celebrating him tomorrow with an ice cream shin-dig in the afternoon. This batch took about twice as long as the first. I guess we will have to try it again so we can figure out the best method...not that I mind - more ice cream for me!!