Post Backlog: What's Been Going On

The Twins won 3 in a row! And Nick and I had fun in the Dells, he even brought up "next time we go" so I think we'll be back next summer. I'm glad he enjoyed my favorite childhood vacation spot. When we got back yesterday I was flipping through the camera and found a number of pictures I've been meaning to share, so here goes:

How much have the volleyball refs changed since last season?
A lot - one of them took this picture!


Nick and his newly refinished poker table - no more fuzz!


Megabus sighting on the way to the Dells!


Nick and his Moosejaw sampler platter.


One of the Army ducks in the Dells. In addition to riding the Ducks, the Moosejaw restaurant, and Noah's Ark, we also went to the Pizza Pub and drive-in theatre (The Simpsons Movie) while we were on vacation this weekend. In addition to all that, we got the free added bonus of getting stuck in the elevator at our hotel with 4 other people (max elevator capacity: 5 people!). We all got in, pushed 2 and 3 and the elevator didn't move. We called the front desk from the phone and the woman said "Again?? I'll come help you," as the elevator moved up to floor 2. However, the doors didn't open and soon it went back down to 1. After we pushed each button about 3 more times the doors finally slid open just as the hotel clerk arrived and started opening the elevator closet on the first floor. We all opted for the stairs.


Work started on our house today!


Oh, Roomba. First he found the piece of wood that broke off our mattress. Today he ate a dollar (still not sure where it came from). He almost shouldn't be allowed to vacuum our room!

Another Bad Volleyball Week

The summer Bacos team just isn't playing very well. I wish we would have less criticism, less ball hogging, and more fun, but instead everyone seems to feel that it is more fun to yell at all the other players while getting highly upset if anyone else criticizes them. Then everyone is just upset and plays worse. Sorry for the downer post, I know I normally only post happy things, but after my terrible day at work I'm just not in a good mood right now and I feel like posting something sad.

Trying to think happy thoughts...two of my eBay items went for more than $5 more than I thought they would so that was a nice surprise! And Nick won the darts game. Rob didn't play, but I gave him a good run for his money. I was points leader for most of it and just couldn't close out my final 19 or my bullseyes. Next week!

Done!

I finished Harry Potter about an hour ago, so I am all-knowing now :) I've spent the last hour reading all the spoilers on the internet, but I would really love a real-live person to discuss it with. So if you've finished it, give me a call!! :)

Harry Potter is Here!!!

Like a dork, I was sitting on the front porch reading a different book while waiting for the mailman (he normally comes about 1 on Saturday). Nick came around the house and asked me for some help moving the picnic table off the deck. I went, leaving my book on the front porch. We moved it quickly and I ran back to the front of the house, looking at the mailboxes across the street (the neighbor had their flag up). The flag was still up, whew! Then I noticed a strange car parked in front of our house. I came around Nick's truck and saw a guy on the porch and said hello. He had my Harry Potter book!!! The mailman accidentally left it at his house and he brought it right away! I am so happy he did that!

Now it's off to the backyard to find out what happens. :)

I was right!

First out! But I did last up until the 10-20 blinds, was chip leader at one point, and lost on pocket 4s instead of A-K this week. Nick won so we came out ok!

Harry Potter arrives tomorrow!!!

Game Theory

Last night the Bacos didn't play very good volleyball - we just barely won the first game in OT, then dropped the next two to the team that's next highest in the rankings. That takes a little of the pressure off for the playoffs in two weeks. Afterwards, Nick, Rob and I continued our new volleyball tradition and played a couple of games of darts while watching the 7th and 8th innings of the Twins game. My first dart game was terrible and Nick ended up overtaking Rob's early lead to win. In the second game, I finally got my hand settled down and ended up winning a close game easily. Everyone had everything closed out except the bullseyes. I had two bullseyes and 74 points. Rob had 0 and 54 and Nick had 0 and 34. So it was basically bullseye to win! I ended up getting a double with my second dart and won with 99 points! Unfortunately the Twins lost both last night and tonight - so much for our fantastic start after the All-Star break.

I won at spoofing today on a gutsy 1-call with 0 in my hand; guess I won't be winning at poker. Good luck anyway :)

Harry Potter Weekend Recap

First off, yes, Harry Potter was #1 at the box office for the extended weekend. I got to talk to Ashley about it and she was disappointed in the same bits and pieces that I was, so I'm guessing that many Harry fans feel the same way. They were discussing it on the radio and most viewers gave it a grade of A-/B+, I think I fall in about the same area. Needless to say, I'll be buying the movie when it comes out on DVD so that my series continues intact. Speaking of which, the seventh book comes out this week! I think I'll be sitting in the backyard reading all day Saturday :)

Since we saw the movie on Wednesday, there was plenty of time to do other stuff on the actual weekend. Friday we went to ValleyFair with Sarah, Ben, Ken and Sarah's dad and brother. We had a lot of fun running around and going on all the roller coasters. I really liked Renegade, which is the new attraction for this year. Steel Venom was cool as always, and I found out that Sarah is excellent at the Tilt-a-Whirl. Along with Nick, the three of us had that thing maxed out on speed! After about 4 hours of rides, Nick and I decided to hit up the water park. No one else had a suit, so we were on our own for the rest of the day. They only have 3 slides and a lazy river, but we enjoyed about 3 hours there on our own.

Saturday was spent on boring mundane things - cleaning the house and yard. But Smeeta called and saved us - we were invited over for dinner! We ran some errands and went bowling on the way over - I destroyed Nick yet again! I had two good games - 177 and 160 - and one bad game - 100 - and beat Nick in all three of them. We had a mini-cookout in Dave's backyard, then moved inside for card games and Trivial Pursuit. Nick won at cards and the guys won at TP so that pretty much reinforces my "Smeeta is bad luck" theory (ok, Smeeta, I'll stop saying that).

Today we made a trip to Costco, after which I worked on my scrapbook and Nick worked on the deck. I am bored with the wedding stuff, so I'm taking a break from that and working on the Christmas pages instead. Nick was able to borrow a pressure washer from one of the neighbors and clean off the deck. He's fixing some loose nails now before he stains the whole thing. Another bit of storm damage almost done!

To finish off our weekend, we had a "Stew and Seafarer's" party in our backyard. Nick used up some more of the stew meat (just making those T-Bones more accessible in the freezer) and we ate outside on the picnic table. After I forced everyone to take a walk, we ate Drumsticks (the ice cream kind, not the chicken kind) and played a long version of Seafarers. Partially long because it was six players and partially because there were some new rules that caused debate, either way, a loooooong time. Ed was victorious in the end!

A final note: The Twins swept the A's! We are 4-0 off of the All-Star break and trail six games in our division. We play both the Tigers and the Indians in the two weeks so if we continue to win we're golden!

Travel Tidbit

For anyone who thinks we go on a lot of trips - my co-worker and I were just talking and I ended up counting. If we don't add anything else on and we go on all planned trips, we will be gone 16 of the 52 weekends in this year. Crazy!

Quick Notes

We played some pretty good volleyball Wednesday night, but only managed to win the first game. All-Heart award goes to Bob, who was perfectly consistent and served us to victory in our only win.

Harry Potter was pretty good, although they changed a bit too much for my tastes. Good movie, just not the book. It was fun to play hooky though and see a movie. We went to the outlet mall afterwards and I got a new shirt and the kitchen scoops I wanted so it was a doubly-beneficial trip.

Nick got the first-ever Thursday night royal flush tonight (correct me if you remember another one by someone else) and still managed to be first out :( Later James got one in our second game of Crazy Pineapple, which I took second place in.

Twins won their first game back after the All-Star break. Keep it up guys!

And that's your adventure snapshot for this Friday morning! I should have pictures, but I'm too lazy to upload them, maybe later :)

Silly Boys

After losing 2 of 3 Scrabble games to Nick (oddly, I won the one game I was behind on early and lost the two that I had an early lead - go figure), we decided we needed another game and some fresh competition. Bob and Seth heeded our calls, and I found out my "Smeeta-is-bad-luck" hypothesis was correct. :)

We played a game of Settlers first and I won by getting three points on one turn - a wood monopoly, then a city and a single road to gain longest road. Much like the last time we played, Bob could have built a single road on his last turn to win.

Next, we moved to Puerto Rico. I thought Nick had me, but thanks to an overall sound strategy I was able to beat him by two points in the end.

Sadly, the Twins weren't as successful as I was. After two monster games on Friday, they were unable to produce runs on Saturday and today and ended up splitting the series with Chicago, leaving us 7 games back from Detroit and Cleveland going into the All-Star break. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for better luck against Oakland on Thursday. Go Twins!

Holy Scrabble

What do FE, KI, OI, QI, and ZI have in common? They're all new acceptable 2-letter Scrabble words. Karin needs a new Scrabble Dictionary. Goodbye 3rd addition, Hello 4th edition. When the Official Webster Scrabble Dictionary sales slow, I think they just decide to add a handful of 2-letter words. Not sure how I feel about QI or ZI yet. That's a pretty significant development. I believe the Q & Z should be lowered from 10 points to 8 points.

Lucky Sevens!

How could I write a blog post today and not use that title? After all, it'll be another 100 years before 07-07-07 rolls around again!

This morning one of our contractors came over and started on our new deck. Nick went out and helped him because we sort of know the guy (he is married to one of Nick's co-workers). It looks fantastic! They'll do the last side after the new siding is up.

The old deck


The new deck (for now). Nick also hauled away all the lumber from the old deck while I worked on my scrapbook.


From last weekend: the screens that Nick expertly replaced!

Our new roof, siding, and windows have been ordered - I cannot wait for them to get in so our home make-over can continue!

I was wrong

It was an exciting game! The Twins won 12-0. Morneau hit 3 home runs (is that worth a post, JC?) and had 6 RBIs. We watched most of the game from Granite City, then listened to the end on the radio. I found out later Rob was watching the game at Mama G's without us. Oops. Go Twins!

Why do I get the feeling...

That tonight's Twins game is going to be a 1-0 affair? They are playing their afternoon game (make-up for one that got cancelled in April) right now and winning 20-11. They play again at 7 pm and I somehow think it's going to be much lower scoring. At least this game is boosting everyone's averages!

Happy Fourth of July!

Another major holiday over. It was nice to have a Wednesday off for no real reason in the middle of the week though! Smeeta threw a fantastic BBQ for us at Medicine Lake; I think about 30 people attended. There was volleyball, bocce, swimming and frisbee, although I just sat in the shade and chatted for the entire time. I only put suntan lotion on my face, and my arms are slightly burnt, but other than that I'm ok.

After Nick and I left, we went grocery shopping and then came home and ate dinner and watched some more Friends, during which Smeeta called and invited us back over. We got there just as they were starting to eat, so Nick and I played a game of Trains in the living room while they ate in the dining room (we did converse back and forth). I played brilliantly, outscoring Nick by more than 50 points :) When the eating was over, we played a game of 7 Up 7 Down (won by Dave) and then a game of Euchre (won by Nick and Smeeta). We also went outside and blew up the $10 Nick spent on fireworks. It was fun! :)

So Happy!

We finally have a DVD remote again! Our old one disappeared a couple of months ago and despite tearing the basement apart twice, it never turned up. We think it may have gotten picked up with some dinner dishes and accidentally thrown away at some point. I configured the TV remote to operate the DVD, but that only gave us "stop", "play", "forward" and "reverse" - you couldn't navigate menus or use a "menu" button or chapter selection or anything else. Last week, I found the same remote on eBay and bought it. Thank you to the guy who somehow had a 5-year-old remote control up for sale!

Gambling, Windows and Bikes

What an exciting weekend! Saturday Nick and I took our first trip of the season down to Canterbury Park to bet on the horses. Similar to Friday night's Puerto Rico game, Nick started off better than me, and I finished better than he did, thanks to a lucky bet - I had the best possible ticket for one of the races (#3 to place!). Overall, including the cost of our food at the track, we ended up up $0.70. It was fun and I hope we get to go back again soon.

Also on Saturday, Nick decided to see if he could fix the screens on our sun room windows himself. He bought the supplies and found out it was super easy to do. He got all the screens in yesterday, then today he trimmed off the excess and put in the pins again. All that's left is hanging them up!

To address the third piece of my subject, we also pulled out the bikes and went for a ride today. I found a new feature of Google Maps today (don't know how old it is) - you can drag the lines of the suggested route and change it to whatever you want. Doing this, I was able to determine that we rode about 5 miles. Not bad at all! It was really hot and I'm out of shape, so hopefully we'll go again soon when it's a little cooler out.

On our agenda for tonight: eat pizza and watch the Twins on national TV! Go Twins!