Hello 80’s…here I come!

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!

What a week…

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! 

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!

I’m still here!

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?!)!

It’s Finally Friday…

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! 

Spooky

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. 

 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!

Oh no…not again…

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. 

 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!

Things that make you go hmmm…

So yesterday Jared and I decided to head over to O’Fallon for yet another delicious meal at 17th Street Grill.  After that we swung by Home Depot to pick up some waterproofing materials for the basement.  And then…we headed off to see a movie.  To start with, the movie started at 10:30.  I haven’t seen a “late” movie since college…I wasn’t sure if I could make it through the whole thing!  I did though…whew!  Anyway…so here’s the situation.  You walk into a movie theatre…it’s empty…and you pick out the best spots in the whole place.  (Higher up…since the screen is huge…and right in the middle.)  After you enter…another group of 3 guys comes in…and picks some seats up about 5 rows in front of us.  Then…another couple comes in….and looks around…and appear to also be looking for the best spot available.  Mind you…there are over 100 seats available…all with a great view of the enormous screen.  Needless to say….the perfect spot for them were the 2 seats RIGHT in front of us!  Who just does that?!  I was tempted to move…but we didn’t.  It was fine…but seriously…we must have smelled really good or looked really good…because they just had to sit right in front of us.  The movie was great though…”Run Fat Boy Run”.  Definitely a potential buy once it comes out on DVD. 

Still Here…

Whew…these past few weeks have flown by!  We had an amazing Easter…even though we didn’t get to travel back home to be with family.  Instead, we were able to celebrate our Saviour with our church family.  It was a great afternoon with food and fellowship…and of course, an Easter Egg hunt.  This past week I got the chance to stay over at my parent’s house on the way to a college fair in Peoria.  As always, it was nice to snooze in my old bed.  The college fair was really good too…always a bonus!  I stopped by my grandma’s house…where she had saved me a bag full of ham loaves from Easter.  (One of my favorite meals there!)  I was super excited to prepare them for Jared last night…since he’s never had them.  At first he thought the texture was a little strange…but then he gave them a thumbs up.  If you’ve not had ham loaves before…it’s almost like meatloaf…but with pork products and a tangy tomato sauce…quite yummy with mashed potatoes!  (Thanks grandma!)  On another note…since we’re still cleaning up the basement (thanks to the crazy amounts of rain in our area), we’ve been having fun camp-outs in the living room.  We pulled out the sofa bed and have been watching lots of fun movies.  Not something for every night…but definitely a fun little “retreat” for a few days.  It’s raining again here…and there’s more water in the basement again…so that will probably consume a chunk of our weekend.  Otherwise…I’m looking foward to sleeping in tomorrow…finally!  Adios!

rain rain…please go away!

It’s been raining here in Greenville this week…a lot.  Thanks to what was apparently close to 10 inches of rain…we now have a soggy basement.  So lots of moving and soaking up water with the shop vac…and not-so-exciting things like that.  We’re having a guy come in a few weeks to give us an estimate on what it would cost to put a “dry system” in our basement.  Please pray that it’s affordable for us!  And now back to the cleaning up of our “swamp”…

Day O’ Nothing

So Saturday morning I had to crawl out of bed and work on campus for an hour or so helping out with a Free Methodist Bible Quizzing competition.  Did my admissions speal…gave away t-shirts…the usual.  I grabbed some yummy McDonald’s breakfast and was home early enough to crawl back in bed for a few more hours.  We slept in until noon or so.  After that…we managed to crawl to the couch…reheat our now chilled McDonald’s food (I had put it in the fridge)…and there we stayed until nearly 4:00 p.m.  Yes…we sat around watching crappy Saturday television for that long.  At 4:00 I got up and rented a few movies…ran to Value City (snagged some great new shoes) and came back in time to sit around on the couch watching movies for a few more hours.  It was seriously one of the laziest days I’ve had in a LONG time…and it was so great.  Nothing like sitting around in your jammies all day…cozied up next to your hubby…eating girl scout cookies…and watching movies.  Speaking of movies…one of the movies we rented was “Into the Wild.”  If you haven’t seen it…I definitely recommend it.  It was one of the most emotional movies I’ve ever seen.  It was so chilling towards the end…but it was so good.  I won’t go into more details…because if you don’t know anything about it…I don’t want to ruin it.  So that was our Saturday…and boy was it great!