Pre- Travel

Starting Weight: 175.9 lbs.

Last Week: 163.4
New Weight: 163.0 lbs.

Loss for the Week: 0.3 lbs
Total Loss: 12.9 lbs

As I won't be able to weigh in every Tuesday as I have been while I am on the road, I thought that I would post my weight loss pre-travel and then evaluate again when I am done. I may weigh in periodically while I am on the road, but it definitely won't be weekly. The above numbers were from Monday, 9/15 - my last work out before I left Omaha. I'm going to try to get in as many workouts as I can and eat as well as I can while I am on the road. My schedule tends to be unpredictable, but I think I can maintain the good work I have done.

A distraction from the destruction...

One of the reasons the damage to our house was a little stressful for Matt and I was the fact that we were scheduled to leave Saturday morning for a short trip to Kansas City to see our friends Andrew and Amy and to go the the Cardinals vs. Royals game on Saturday night. After determining that out house was not in any danger of further damage (no ceilings falling in, nothing hanging off the house, etc.) we decided to go ahead and make the trip. We did not get out of town as early as we had planned on Saturday and it took us a little longer to get out of town than we anticipated because there were many traffic lights that were still not working and traffic was backed up. Andrew and Amy were spending the weeknd with Andrew's parents, Charlie and Judy, at their house in Lathrop, MO. We arrived in time for a late lunch at El Guapo, a little, hole-in-the-wall, Mexican restaurant about 10 minutes from their house. We have eaten at El Guapo every time that I have visited Andrew's parents - which is fine with me because the food is really good. After lunch we hung around the house for awhile, Matt and I took a ride in the 1928 Model A Ford that Andrew's dad is restoring, and then headed to KC to the ballpark. We saw a great game - especially since the Cardinals were 0-4 in the series until Saturday night and actually won the game. There is nothing better than an ice cold beer, an order of nachos, a nice evening, and enjoying a great baseball game with good friends. Oh, and seeing Amy almost get into a fight with the really annoying girl who sat two rows in front of us was just the mustard on the hotdog for the evening :)

Here are the four of us enjoying the win!

The game was also a great win because the final score was 5-1 and the one run the Royals scored was scored during the 7th inning, which meant that we could take our ticket stubs to a Sheridan's Custard for a free sundae.

So, we stopped in Liberty on the way home for some hot fudge sundaes.

We spent most of the day Sunday at Andrew's parents house. We enjoyed a breakfast of bacon, eggs and toast (yum!), played MarioKart for about 2 hours, and spent some time sitting by the pool after we had lunch. We headed back to Omaha about 4 because we had agreed to help my parents move some furniture.

When we arrived at my parents house, my mom showed us what they had discovered the morning when my dad arrived home from his trip (he was in Kentucky for the weekend) that the rest of us had failed to notice:

This is a fairly major support beam on my parent's deck just barely resting on the concrete block on the ground. All of us, including my almost 88-year-old grandmother had walked around on this deck before my dad noticed this.

Wow!

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.

Updates....

Quite a bit has happened since my last update. First, I started a new job. I'm now working at Creighton University for the School of Pharmacy and Health Professions at an admission counselor and I LOVE IT! Next week, I begin my travel season which will last the entire month of October. I plan on updating this blog throughout my travel season (hopefully - I'm not so great with the updating) so that I can keep all of my readers updated on my whereabouts and adventures. I have included the list below of where I will be and when - let the adventures begin!

September 30th-October 4th - Urbana/Champaign, Chicago and Rock Island, IL
October 7th-October 11th - San Francisco
October 12th-October 19th - Lincoln, Kearney, Seward, and Omaha, NE
October 22nd-October 24th - San Diego
October 25th-October 26th - Honolulu
October 27th-November 1st - Los Angeles

It will be a crazy month, but I am very excited about traveling and talking to students about Creighton and Omaha.

Oh, and Matt and I are buying a house. We put an offer in on one this past weekend and it was accepted. We plan to close on November 9th, so Matt will have alot to do while I am gone to get us ready to move. Maybe it will keep him from missing me too much :)

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.

I've decided that it takes about three days to become comfortable with a city. I think that Matt and I finally feel today like we have a little bit of a clue about where we are going in this city...and we leave early tomorrow morning. Ironic, huh?



We got going pretty early this morning and headed downtown. There isn't much available for breakfast around our hotel besides Starbucks and fast food so food was on our minds the minute we got off the MAX. Luckily we quickly found a Rock Bottom Brewery. I first ate at a Rock Bottom Brewery in Indianapolis last fall when I went to NACADA and really liked it so I was excited to see one here and I knew that Matt would like it. The atmosphere is really nice and we enjoyed just being able to sit for a little while - I think we both felt like we have been go-go-go since we got here. Rock Bottom Brewery has the most fantastic pint glass sundaes made with Starbucks Mud Pie ice cream, homeade Stout Hot Fudge, chocolate wafers and candied walnuts = heaven in a pint glass. We shared.

After lunch we walked around downtown for awhile and the headed up to the Nob Hill area of Portland which has everything from local boutiques to large nationwide stores like Pottery Barn and Williams Sonoma to restaurants, coffee shops and other businesses. It was a really neat area and actually just up the street from where Alice lives. I shopped at a store called SameUnderneath and found a couple of fantastic shirts that I cannot wait to wear. Amazingly we got to meet the owner and the clothing designer while we were there! They are completely down-to-earth genuine people. Take some time to read about their products - it is made out of bamboo and is incredibly soft and comfortable.

It started sprinkling while we were shopping so we caught the streetcar back to downtown and stopped at a pub called Henry's Tavern - where they have over 100 beers on tap! It was incredible to see. Matt enjoyed a Honey Orange Beer while I opted for a Mojito that was made with pineapple juice - delicious!

We headed back to our hotel after finishing our drinks and relaxed for awhile. We both spent a little bit of time doing some research for out trip to Seattle tomorrow. I've heard so many good things about it - I cannot wait to see Pike's Market and the Space Needle. I've also heard the drive up there is beautiful and I am excited to experience it!

It is strange that everyone here complains about this weather - it is either too hot for this time of year, too cold, they are tired of rain or it is too humid. Matt and I offer them so sympathy as we have loved the weather here. Saturday was cool and rainy, but we thought it was such a nice break as we have not seen rain and cool weather in Nebraska for quite some time. And I can't hardly feel the humidity here as it is nothing like the 100% humidity we have in the midwest sometimes.