glingdidit June 28th, 2008
Yesterday we took the day off from work…to get away for the day. To start with…I went to contest a speeding ticket that I got a few months ago. Luckily I succeeded! I’d never had a ticket before…and I certainly didn’t want to start now. I was supposedly caught speeding in a school zone…however…school hours were over…so the ticket was easily dismissed. Hooray! After that we caught some lunch at Jimmy John’s (yummm!) and spent some time shopping. Then we caught a matinee at the movie theatre…we went to see “The Happening” by M. N. Shayamalon (or however you spell his name!). It was really good…but definitely not our favorite of his. It will keep you on the edge of your seat though! After that we headed over to Alton to spend some time with Steve and Nicole. We hung out and got some supper. Jared hung out with Steve while Nicole and I headed over to the Muny in St. Louis. She was given tickets to go see “High School Musical” and invited me to go along. It was really cute! Cheese…but lots of fun! The weather was perfect and it was a great night. We made it back to Greenville around 1:45…and fortunately slept in quite a bit this morning. It’s been a relaxing day filled with TV…S’mores cereal…and some cleaning.  Good times!
glingdidit June 21st, 2008
Last night we headed out for some BBQ with Steve and Nicole at 17th Street (our favorite…of course). The food was delicious…and the company was even better. After we ate we ran (well…drove quickly) over to Guitar Center to drop off Jared and Steve, while Nicole and I scanned the home decor section at Gordman’s. I found a couple of cute things for the house…and a great pair of Nine West sunglasses. Then we played an exciting game of mini-golf….which is always fun. I definitely didn’t play my best…but oh well! Then…to top of the evening we headed over to Lotawata Creek for desert. Nicole had seen these “chocolate nachos” on the menu before…and they supposedly fed four…so went to give them a try. They were…in a word…scrumtrulescent! It was probably the biggest plate of yumminess that I’d ever seen…this thing was huge! There was a layer of cinnamon suger tortilla chips…then like 4 or 5 enormous scoops of ice cream….then mounds of whipped cream…and then the whole thing was covered in hot fudge and caramel. Oh…and a cherry on top. The four of us couldn’t even make it through the whole thing. It was amazing…I’ll definitely be giving that a try again. And that leads us to today. We’ve slept in and are being lazy….and it’s great. We’ve got a wedding to go to at 4:00….so we’ll actually have to get off the couch at some point…but not until then! Ah yes….yay for lazy Saturdays.Â
glingdidit June 20th, 2008
So life seems to be speeding by as of late. There always seems to be something going on…all the time. This past weekend we were able to get back up to visit family for Father’s Day and our niece’s 1.5 birthday party. As always…it was great to be back home and to just relax for a bit. Mom and dad got Jared a bocce ball set for his birthday…so that took up a good chunk of Friday evening. Sunday was a bit more chaotic…but still a great time. We got my dad an ipod for Father’s Day…and it was a lot of fun seeing how excited he was about it. We went to church with my rents and then headed to Monical’s for lunch…dad’s choice. It’s probably one of my favorite pizza places…so I’m always eager to go there when we’re home. We also got to spend some time with Jared’s mom and his dad…which was a nice treat. Then we headed off to Geof and Lauri’s for Aubrey’s birthday bash. Lots of people…lots of good food…and lots of fun. It was a great evening! Then we made the long trek back to Greenville. This week has pretty much flown by. One of my coworker’s resigned last Friday…so I’ve now got double the workload…but I’m ready for the challenge. Needless to say…my phone hasn’t stopped ringing since Monday. Yesterday was Jared’s 29th birthday. He had praise band practice for church…so our celebration was a rented movie…dippin’ dots ice cream…funfetti cake…some cool presents…and camping out on the hide-a-bed for the night while we watched said movie. It was relaxing…and I think he had a really good day. So today is Friday…thank goodness! We’re planning on getting out of town with some friends for the evening….which will be nice. Until then…adios!
glingdidit June 6th, 2008
So yesterday was our 4 year wedding anniversary…and it was great! It’s funny…because on days like that…most people ask if it seems like it’s been that long…etc. It does seem like time has flown…but at the same time…I have a hard time thinking about life before I knew Jared. He’s just been such a huge part of my life for so long…that it seems longer…but in a really good way! Either way…since we’d just taken vacation a few weeks ago…we didn’t have a ton of cash to do something crazy fancy. Sooo…we decided on the Amazing Pizza Company and a movie…both of which were AWESOME! What’s better than spending 4 hours of all-you-can eat pizza and otherdelicious goodies…and lots of mini-bowling, mini-golf, ski-ball, go carts…with the bestest hubby ever?! We also went to see “Baby Mamma”…which was hillarious and a great movie to just sit back and watch…without much thought. It was great night away from Greenville! Now it’s the weekend…which is great. I have a lot of cleaning to get through in the house this weekend…and some homework too. Hopefully it’ll be a nice low-key weekend at home!
glingdidit May 31st, 2008
So today I did something amazing…I ordered tickets to see The New Kids on the Bock’s reunion tour! Ahhh!!!  Jared said that he absolutely didn’t want to go…so I invited my good buddy Nicole and one of her friends. It’s not until November 10…but I’m still already pumped! Maybe we’ll crimp our hair…and tightroll our jeans…who knows!? Either way…aside from that…it’s been a pretty good week. We started working on our basement…which will take some time…but it was great to at least get a little bit done. Hopefully we’ll be motivated this week to get the ceiling totally painted…and all of the cracks filled. We had a lot of rain this week…thus our yard turned into the amazon….again. It finally dried up enough to mow and weed. I weeded in the garden for about an hour…and it’s looking pretty good. The plants are all looking really full….especially the potatoes. (I need to get some stakes to keep them from falling over onto the peppers.) I was excited to see the beans and sunflowers were both peeking through the soil this week as well. Oh…last night I also had sushi for the very first time. It was vegetarian sushi….which was good…because I don’t like fish. I was pretty nervous about giving it a try…but to my surprise…it wasn’t half bad! Definitely not something that I’d crave all the time…but definitely something fun and tasty to try. Today we’re lounging around being lazy this morning…which is great! This afternoon we’re heading to the first wedding of the summer for us…so we need to start getting ready pretty soon. It looks pretty nice outside…so it should be a great day to get dressed up and have fun with friends at the wedding. Later!
glingdidit May 21st, 2008
It’s been over a week since I really had time to sit down and give some updates….since then, life has been a whirlwind (to say the least). To start with…last weekend we headed out for a few days of much needed vacation. We took off on Sunday…and swung through Emden and Bloomington to visit with our mom’s on mother’s day. It was nice to get to see our family…even though it was a quick visit in both places. From there we traveled on to Chicago for a quick mini-vacation. It was only 3 days/3 nights….but it was just what we needed to get out of town and re-charge. Some highlights of the trip included (but certainly aren’t limited to):
-Staying downtown on Michigan Ave (even if it was a really old hotel).
-Chicago-style pizza at Giordano’s (our favorite!)
-Shopping the magnificent mile.
-Bowling downtown.
-The Field Museum (with a great new exhibit on mythical creatures)
-Passes for the “L”
-CUBS!
-Lots of walking around Grant Park and Millenium Park
-Walking along the lakeshore
-Flight of the Concords concert (which was AWESOME!)
There were a lot of other great things too, but those were the definite highlights. From there we headed back to Emden to be with my family and my dad as he had surgery this past week. For those who don’t know, we found out in January that my dad had cancer…and we’ve been through months of chemo/radiation and the surgery portion to remove the tumor took place this week. He’s doing really well and we’ve been blessed as a family to see the great doctors and nurses he’s dealing with. He’s been very positive and excited to get back on his feet…which is also a big blessing. It was great to spend time with family and to stay with my mom for 4 days…and I certainly wasn’t ready to come back to Greenville. We’ll be heading back up this weekend to visit dad and spend some extra time with family. I probably won’t do much updating about all of that online, just because it’s pretty personal and I don’t know that my blog’s the best place to write all of that. If you’ve got any questions or want to know how he’s doing…just let me know!Â
Other than that…we’re back in Greenville and are slowly getting back into the swing of things. The garden’s growing and looking tastier each day. In fact, I’m going to pick some fresh lettuce for salad tonight…yummm! We’ve got plans to start painting and sealing up our basement….so hopefully we’ll be done with that fairly soon. And that’s about it…adios!
glingdidit May 7th, 2008
So it’s been nearly a month since I last posted…my apologies. Life is just really busy right now! Over the past few weeks we’ve had a variety of visitors and people staying over at the house. (8 people to be exact.) I’ve also been busy with my current graduate class that I’m taking. (Financing…no fun!) A few weekends ago we got season passes to Six Flags…something that I’ve wanted since I was little. Maybe I’m too old to be excited about Six Flags season passes….but who cares! We also have been doing some work in the yard….thanks to my parents. Our garden is growing and looking more delicious each day. My flowers are starting to come up as well…which is a reminder of how much I love spring. I’m going to wrap things up with that…but do promise to be a better updater (is that even a word?!)!
glingdidit April 11th, 2008
So it’s Friday…and the end of the workday just can’t seem to get here soon enough! It’s so pretty outside….and I’m finally over that beast of a cold…and I just want to be at home. Only a few more hours to go I suppose. My parents are coming to visit today and tomorrow…so I’m pumped about that as well. They’re bringing some flowers to plan and a few things to put into our garden as well. (Fingers crossed that our garden isn’t a swamp when they get here….it’s been quite rainy here lately.) I’m just excited to have visitors, regardless. The one thing that stinks about living where we do…is that all of our family is like 2 hours away. Most people don’t want to take the time out to drive all the way down here…which I completely understand. So it’s super great when we actually do get visitors! Here’s to hoping the weather stays nice!Â
glingdidit April 9th, 2008
So I typically dream most every night…and I usually remember most of my dreams pretty vividly when I wake up. This morning was certainly no exception. I had a dream that Jared and I bought this really amazing victorian house. We started the work to completely gut and remodel the whole thing. As we remodeled….we discovered this amazing room in the attic (which apparently we payed no attention to when we bought the house). Anyway…we gut and redo this amazing attic room and make this awesome game/tv/movie room out of it. Then weird things start happening…and what do you know…we’d bought ourselves a crazy haunted house. It was crazy…and actually a little creepy. We ended up hiring the ghostbuster’s to come and take of the situation…and everything was fine. I guess I’ve been watching to many episodes of “A Real Life Haunting” on the Discovery channel. Silly me.Â
 In other news…still getting over this whole “being sick” thing. I’m pretty much just congested and tired at this point…but man….it’s getting old pretty fast. It’s been pure torture being stuck inside while the weather gets nicer by the day. Hopefully I’ll be back to normal by the weekend!
glingdidit April 4th, 2008
So after someone is sick like I was earlier this year, one would assume that it would take away your chances of being sick again for the rest of your life…or at least the rest of the year! Needless to say, I’m cooped at home…and sick…again. Not quite sure what it is. I’m sneezing, running nose, some nausea, and lots o’ dizziness. I’m sure it’s just a cold…thanks to this crazy weather we’ve been having. Cold…then warm…then cold…then warm again. It’s driving me crazy! Just stay warm again already! I’ve also decided that working where I do probably doesn’t help either. Our office is hopping with current students and lots of visitors…every single day. So germs are probably just loving our office. One thing’s for sure…I’m getting a flu shot next year. I don’t care how big the needle is…or how much it costs….I’m getting one.Â
 In more exciting news…Jared and I had a fun night on Wednesday. We headed over to O’Fallon…once again…to our favorite BBQ joint…17th Street. They were having a party to celebrate their being on the Travel Channel that night…on a show called “BBQ paradise”. We decided it sounded like a fun time that we didn’t want to miss…so off we went. We started with a delicious meal and some yummy desert. All the while…Mike Mills (aka. the BBQ legend) was sitting right next to us. He’s the owner…and a huge name in BBQ…and of course Jared was drooling to meet him. So there he was…and we actually got to talk with him quite a bit that night too. He even gave us a BBQ calendar…which was fun. So everyone there watched the premier of the show…which was quite entertaining…and even more exciting knowing that the star was sitting right next to us…just chatting away. Good times!