Karin IS the limiting factor!!

And the truth comes out! I didn't play (or attend) volleyball tonight because of my flu virus and in my absence Bacos managed to go 3-0, plus win the exhibition game. Guess they really are better off without me :)

Teasing No More

It's been snowing steadily since this morning and instead of working on my scrapbook, I was sorting pictures for my regular photo album. As such, here are the ones I've been planning to share online:

The empty living room - you can see where the TV is. Nick and I tested all the chairs beforehand to make sure they all had a good view of the TV!


My Costco Superbowl Cake


A portion of our guests enjoying the game. We had 24 people total over!


A dinner party! We used my wedding china again and then tried to play as many games as possible. We ended up with three!


The 2007 Delorian Ice House

Thanks for looking!

Couples Skate

Thursday night, my boss invited my entire team over to dinner at his house. He sent his kids, wife, and dog over to Grandma's and made us a delicious meal of chicken parmesan, bread, multiple appetizers, and a homemade chocolate cake for dessert. Yummy! Apparently I was playing poker at the same time because when I finally got home I still had a chip stack (they were playing 4-8 and making origami at the poker table so it's not hard to see how I was doing so well! Poor confused people) and the hand in front of me was excellent. I managed to make quite a bit of money on that one and then coast into second place, even though I never got another decent hand. Nick managed to finish in the money for the 4th consecutive week with a 3rd place finish. Sergei won it all after taking Seth out (his 5-2 off-suit beat Seth's pocket Ks) and then getting a flush to beat Nick's straight and drain Nick of his chips.

On Friday night, Rob and Katie organized a couples skate at The Depot in downtown Minneapolis. To be perfectly fair, there were plenty of non-couples invited, but all those people said no so it was just couples left over. The Depot is an old train shed that was converted into an ice skating rink. I'd been there once before in college, and I did impress Rob with my ability to drive straight there without any directions. It's a very nice ice rink and the eight of us had a good time skating around in circles for 2.5 hours. Neither Nick nor Rob had ever really ice skated before, but by the end of the night they were catching on and having fun. While we were sitting down waiting for the Zamboni to clear the ice, we decided ice cream was a good idea (it was only about 5 degrees out and sleeting lightly, not to mention we were sitting in a cold ice rink) so after everyone had gotten their fill of skating we headed over to Sebastian Joe's in Uptown, a place highly recommended by Sergei and Janelle and Adam and Alyssa. Again, I'd actually been there once before, but not since college (I used to get around!). It was delicious and I think we sat there for another hour, eating our ice cream and talking and laughing. If you're looking for ice cream, I think it's even better than Coldstone and the prices were a little more reasonable too. Remind me about it if you're visiting us in Minneapolis - it's worth the drive! To finish off the night, we stopped at Dave's house to check for packages on our way back out to the 'burbs. He's off doing his own couple thing with Smeeta in Chicago and didn't want the socks he'd ordered to sit out too long.

And now it's Saturday - Nick is going to help Paul move into his new apartment and I'm going to work on my scrapbook, then we'll reconvene to go to dinner at another friend's house. Sunday is still wide open as to what adventures we'll attempt though! Maybe the ever popular "Karin returns her library books before they're due." Or, of more interest to you, maybe it will be "Karin finally posts those pictures that have been sitting on her camera forever instead of just talking about it." Time will tell :)

How Many Times Have You Seen Byron Leftwich Lately?

Seriously. The Jaguars missed the playoffs this year, finishing 8-8 in the AFC South, so not often. Or so you'd think. Nick and I have seen him twice in 2007. First, he was on a random show that Nick was watching, a version of Pimp My Ride where they were re-doing a car for him. At the end of the show, he came on and inspected it and rode off.

Then, this last Sunday, Nick and I went out on a "date" and saw We Are Marshall at the dollar theatre. I thought it was a fantastic movie, although it was much, much sadder than I anticipated. It's about Marshall University, and how they rebuilt their football program after all but four players died in a plane crash on the way home from a game. It focused much more on the human reactions and much less on the actual rebuilding than I thought it would, but it was still very good. I especially thought Anthony Mackie did a great job in his role. If you're prone to crying at movies you're going to need some tissues though. Anyway, to tie this to the post title, at the end of the movie they showed some footage of famous players who came out of Marshall, and there was Byron! Two viewings in two non-football months from a player who isn't local and doesn't do any nationally televised commercials. Crazy.

Also - since this is vaguely a sports post, I'd like to add that the Twins home opener is on April 2nd and Nick and I will be there to cheer them on!! I can't wait to see Mauer and the gang again. I've been a little sad without a sport to follow. Go Twins!! :)

Friday Night Poker

Yes, you read that correctly. We played poker on Friday night this week. On Thursday, we saw Karen Rontowski at Acme Comedy Club to celebrate Ed and Rob's birthdays. They have a great birthday deal - 6 free passes during the month of your birthday. It was a fun show and we even got our drinks before the first act was over, a special bonus.

Friday night Smeeta came to town and we played poker at Dave's house. Nick continued his winning streak, coming in first again this week, while I continued to suck, going out second. We had a lot of people though (14) so two more people went out pretty quickly after me and we played our own special second game: $1 buy-in, winner take all. Janelle managed to clean up in that game and take all our money. In the third game, we had 10 players and I managed to hold on for second, losing out to Sergei. So it was a fun night and Nick and I are coming out way ahead for poker so far in 2007.

As for our Superbowl party - I know I haven't mentioned it much yet; that's because I have a couple of pictures I want to post and I've been too lazy to get them off the camera. But we had a great time. There were 24 people, most of whom spent the entire time crammed in our living room. Almost everyone was cheering for Indy, although there were a few Bears fans among us. The commercials were a bit subpar, but the turnovers kept the first half of the game interesting. Finally, unlike last year, all the broccoli I set out was eaten. So yay to perseverance (both me and Peyton)!

Bacos with Heart

We played the #1 team tonight and won 2 of 3. One nice win, one decisive win, and one in which we were tied at 17s but then lost. Go Bacos! :)

Before I forget

Happy Birthday, Abraham Lincoln! I've read two books about Mary Todd Lincoln (one a novel based on her life, the other an actual biography) so I feel like I know him better than I ever did in school. I plan on reading an actual biography of Lincoln next to round out the first half of his life.

200 years. Wow! Good luck on those candles.

We did it!

Nick and I won a set in tennis! Ok, I probably shouldn't be this excited, but it was against a team we've played many, many times and never beat so it was fun to actually do it. Unfortunately we lost the match: 0-6, 6-3, 2-6, but it was a lot of fun!

The Robbery (by popular demand)

We were on the train, headed south from the southrim of the Grand Canyon to Williams, AZ. We had been traveling about 2 hours and were enjoying our complimentary champagne when the train started to slow down. I looked out the window to the left: desert. To the right: more desert. The depot was no where in sight. But then, over a slight rise I saw a cloud of dust that seemed to be growing larger as the train got slower. Suddenly, four men on horseback appeared. The train slowed to a stop and three of the men, bandanas covering their faces, hopped on the front car of the train. The fourth man grabbed the reins of the other horses and took off away from the train. The three men on the train made their way through the cars, stealing money and jewelry. Luckily the sherrif was on board, but unluckily he was quite slow and kept posing for pictures so he was always a train car behind the bad'uns.

So there's the truth: It was the laziest group of train robbers attacking the laziest train engineer: the only train that actually stops to help the robbers out.

Grand Adventure

As many of you know, Nick and I spent last weekend at the Grand Canyon. We had a wonderful trip. We flew to Phoenix on Friday morning and decided to sight see there first, eating lunch at the Matador restaurant and then checking out Bodyworlds at their local science museum (yes, we realize that the same exhibit was in Minneapolis for quite some time). After that we drove to Glendale in an attempt to see the Cardinals stadium, but unfortunately it was closed to the public for a private vendor sale (even the ladies in the gift shop weren't allowed to go in and look at it!).

With our sightseeing complete, we drove up (both north and about 5000 miles in elevation) to Williams, AZ. There we spent the night in the Grand Canyon Railway hotel, ate at Max and Thelma's, and swam in the hotel pool. We got up bright and early to ride the train north to the Grand Canyon. For anyone interested in visiting the canyon, I would definitely recommend this way of travel. Each train car has its own attendant, who is pretty much just there to make sure that you have a good time. It was a very relaxing 2.5-hour ride north. From the train we jumped right onto a tour bus that took us to some lookout points on the canyon. The views are amazing - it doesn't even look real when you're standing there looking at it because it's just so big! That night, as we were waiting in the lounge before dinner (there is a 5-star restaurant, El Tovar, right on the rim that serves delicious food) I accidentally deleted all the pictures from my digital camera by reformatting the memory card. Luckily we still had another day at the canyon, and we rallied, shooting an additional 203 photographs on Sunday.

Sunday morning we got up early and watched the sun rise over the edge of the canyon. It was cold, but not nearly as cold as Minnesota was and still is (mid 40s).

Sunrise at the Grand Canyon


We didn't get to ride the mules but they did oblige us with this photograph.

Next we decided to try hiking. We weren't prepared for the "down the canyon" hike, so instead we took a shuttle bus to Pike's Peak, about five miles east of the train depot we had to back at by 3 o'clock. From here we "hiked" back, taking plenty of pictures along the way. There were a lot of tourists out, and we saw some people do some crazy things, like go way to the edge of tiny precipices for "the best picture". We also saw a raven who would do anything to protect the golf pencil he had somehow gotten a hold of. In fact, he dropped it over the edge and had to make a diving catch in order to get it back!

Our hiking trail. There were plenty of smaller detours you could take that got you closer to the edge and out on lookout points, but for the most part this is what it was. The Rim Trail was a very nice, easy walk, although I think the lowish temperatures helped a lot - I can't image walking that far in 100-degree heat!


The raven and his golf pencil.


One of our Canyon photographs. There were signs that showed the distance to the "bumps" over the horizon. Some were more than 50 miles away!


The Colorado River gorge. We were so far up that you couldn't even see the water in the bottom, although there were points (we were told) where the water was not only flowing, but had 10 foot rapids!!


Proof that we were there and I'm not just making this all up.

We made it back in plenty of time to catch the train; in fact, we were even able to eat lunch at the same fancy restaurant we'd had supper at the night before. The train ride back was just as enjoyable as the train ride there, except that we were robbed!!! Not only were we robbed, but the train actually STOPPED so the robbers could get on. Oh my. Luckily, we were able to hang onto my jewels and purse and get off the train minus only a quarter. We made it safely back to Williams, and then survived the drive back to Phoenix and flew home to Minneapolis. Of course, the plane part wasn't completely uneventful, but Nick wants to write that part so it's a 50/50 chance as to whether or not you ever actually hear about it. The important thing is we're back and we had a GREAT time away from frigid Minneapolis.

Yes!

Brett Favre is coming back!!

Up-to-the minute coverage.

Back to work :)