The Continuing Adventures of Nick and Karin

Brook Ghazer

2009-05-17T18:47:00.002-05:00

Is a big winner! I bet $2 and won $19.20. It was very dramatic - he threw his jockey when they were loading the horses into the gate and delayed the race. Then the jockey said he was ok and he still wanted to race. After that, Brook Ghazer was first out of the gate, which normally means a loss, but not in this case! I was pretty nervous. Nick knew I bet on this horse, but he thought it was to place, not to win!

The rest of the day went pretty well too. We only made 5 bets and 3 of them won. The two bets that didn't win each came in 4th, so it wasn't too far off. Gorgeous weather too, it was nice to be outside.

Baseball is Back!

2009-04-07T23:33:00.001-05:00

Twins are now 1-1. I was listening on the radio tonight and gave up when they got 2 outs in the bottom of the 9th (down by 2). Bad decision! They got 3 walks followed by 2 nice hits and WON! Crazy! Go Twins :)

Biggest Loser Snoozefest

2009-03-03T22:45:00.002-06:00

Two of the most boring hours of the show followed by "To Be Continued". Man, it just keeps getting worse and worse. I miss Mark and Jay and Dan and Roger and Ali. Although I do have to say, Tara is lookin' good!

Also, the new fridge is here and installed. The dryer has been dying slowing and apparently the fridge felt the need to show it up so out it went (we think) Thursday. It took us a day and a half to pick out a new one and so far I am very happy - but that could just be the joy at not having to use a dorm fridge anymore!

One Year Anniversary

2009-02-02T10:53:00.001-06:00

I watched the SuperBowl on our projector in the basement. The projector we set up "just for the SuperBowl" last year and have been using ever since. Happy Anniversary, Projector!

Move Over Brett

2009-01-02T12:21:00.001-06:00

Looks like one of your records has been equalled. But Peyton's a good guy too so don't be too worried. I still like you both!

Full Responsibility

2008-11-10T17:32:00.002-06:00

Prior to yesterday the Packers had beaten the Vikings 5 straight times: twice in the 'Dome and three times at Lambeau. So it's not the fake safety or the missed field goal that cost us the game, it's what was missing from the Metrodome yesterday: me and Nick. That's right, after attending two years in a row, we skipped this year's game and watched from home. So it must be our fault, right?

More Brett Favre Stuff

2008-10-10T20:40:00.002-05:00

So Eric Magini's (Jets coach) wife had their third child today, Brett Favre's birthday. The child's middle name is Brett. Magini says that doing so was part of the contract negotiations to get Brett to come to New York. Also interesting: his other two children's middle names are also after football players. I thought that was interesting; you can read the article here.

I am not happy with my Packers right now. If they lose to Seattle this week I will be pretty upset. I am also cheering for the Jets, there's a little more to be happy about there.

Kudos

2008-10-06T17:16:00.001-05:00

...to the Playtex company for sending a full refund, no questions asked (or receipt necessary) for defective merchandise.

...to gas being $2.99/gallon!!!

Minus and Plus

2008-09-26T12:37:00.002-05:00

Last night we went to the "World's Largest Ice Cream Social" at Coldstone. I was very disappointed. Not only were you limited to blueberry, marshmallow or Nutter Butter ice cream, but you didn't get a mix-in to go with it. I know you get what you pay for, but it seemed like a pretty weak promotion to me.

When we got home the Twins were losing 1-6 to the White Sox. With only 4 games left in the season and trailing the Sox by .5, this game mattered A LOT! We sat down and watched the Twins battle back, winning 7-6 in the 10th inning. Most exciting game I've watched this season. It put the Twins in first place! Now we just need to do well against the Royals this weekend and the division is ours. Yay!!!

It finally happened

2008-09-24T11:29:00.000-05:00

Looks like Matt Millen has been fired.

This was a long time coming.

Priorities

2008-09-15T23:13:00.001-05:00

I was checking out at Kohl's today and the little girl behind me was begging her mom for one of the books they have on display by the checkouts (Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What do you see?). The mom kept saying no. The girl must have asked about 5 times. Then the child picked up the polar bear stuffed animal and said "Can I have him?". The mom said yes. The girl asked "And the book?" Mom says "Maybe next time".

Maybe there's a back story I don't know, but the whole thing made me pretty sad. Books are friends!

Quarterbacks

2008-09-11T10:21:00.003-05:00

I really enjoyed this article about quarterbacks of yesterday and today. I'm also looking forward to my "Brett's a Jet" SI later on today. The Packers are still my favorite team but Brett is still my favorite player.

Score!

2008-09-09T15:23:00.003-05:00

The Packers beat the Vikings! The Favre-Rodgers comparisons were a little annoying, but not too bad. I thought all the "Mr Rodgers Neighborhood" signs/comments were much worse.

Off to a pretty good fantasy start too. I won two games and lost one. I only lost by 5 points - I had enough bench points to win too. Oh well. The first week is such a crapshoot. Joseph Addai didn't do that well, but after Brady went down I'm glad I picked him (I was debating between the two of them in the #4 slot; in that league QBs score 6 per passing touchdown).

DirecTV

2008-09-08T09:49:00.002-05:00

Yesterday was our first Sunday of DirecTV and NFL Sunday Ticket. Since GB is playing tonight, it was a good chance to mess around with all the features and not worry about missing "the Game" (although it was odd not to watch them). The verdict: it's lots of fun. We mainly watched Jets-Dolphins (never thought I would say that 2 months ago) and Steelers-Texans. My last minute pick-up of TE Anthony Fasano should get me points for a second consecutive "coach of the year" award - 83 yards and a touchdown! However, all of my fantasy games are too close to call until after the GB/MIN game tonight. Nick and I did both survive in the survivor pool, which is significantly shrunk thanks to the Indy and Charger losses.

Yay for football!

Tomorrow, Tomorrow

2008-09-06T14:45:00.003-05:00

Lots of football, tomorrow. It's only a day away. Since Green Bay plays on Monday night, my "game of the day" will be Jets-Dolphins. Scary. I'm also looking forward to the Colts-Bears, but I need to watch a daytime game as well.

Also: Many thanks to Rob and Katie for a fantastic party last night! :)

Countdown

2008-09-02T10:48:00.002-05:00

1 week and 7 hours until Packers football. Aaron Rodgers v Tavaris Jackson. GO PACK GO!!

Oh So Close!

2008-08-17T21:05:00.002-05:00

One of my two fantasy football teams has been drafted!! I'm not completely happy with all my picks, but I'm thrilled to have a team again. Football season is almost upon us!!

Football!!!

2008-08-03T23:31:00.002-05:00

Yay to football!!! Yes, it was a meaningless preseason game in which I hadn't heard of most of the players, but I was watching it on time delay and fast forwarded through all the boring parts (commercials, etc). I'm looking forward to watching all the games from the comfort of our basement with my new Direct TV Sunday Ticket :)

Also, congrats to the Twins for being on top of the division! Still another 2 months left but it's fun to have that spot for the day :)

Rolling, Rolling, Rolling

2008-07-17T17:15:00.003-05:00

Further congrats to Morneau as he scored two runs in the All-Star game, the second being the game winner in the bottom of the 15th! He slid in as the ball was thrown home and just barely made it - too bad I was asleep on the couch and missed it. Nick said it was awesome though. :)

The other Twins didn't do so bad either: Nathan went 1-2-3 in his single inning of pitching and Joe Mauer was 1-1 with a walk. Way to represent!!

Congrats Morneau!!

2008-07-15T08:20:00.002-05:00

Nick and I watched our first Home Run Derby last night. What a derby to watch! Josh Hamilton hit 28 homers in the first round, but our man Morneau (Twins first baseman) won the trophy. Congratulations Justin!!

Tom Hanks Quiz

2008-06-27T16:41:00.001-05:00

I scored a 10! How about you?

Tom Hanks Quiz

More Wii Fun

2008-06-09T12:20:00.001-05:00

Last night Nick got a gold medal on one of the MarioKart races that I could only get a silver medal on. He ended up unlocking the ability for us to race as ourselves! So now instead of being Koopa and Toad, we can race as Karin and Nick. What fun!

Twins and Trains

2008-06-01T00:07:00.003-05:00

Today started off sunny and gorgeous; Nick did a bunch of work outside, including cleaning our windows. Then the sky stayed bright but started to pour hail down on us! The hail lasted about 2 minutes and then it rained for about 3 more and the storm was over. There were reports of funnel clouds nearby, but luckily we didn't see any of that. No damage either, except for some downed leaves and we can live with that!

Tonight we went to the Fieldhouse with Rob and Bob and watched the first half of the Twins game (they almost won for the second night in a row). Afterwards, we had them over here and played TransAmerica and MarioKart. Bob won TransAmerica and I won MarioKart, but I've had a lot of practice. I've now beat the 100cc level (although one race is still just a silver cup)! Nick is catching up - he has all golds in the 50cc and is 75% done with the 100cc. I've had a lot more opportunities to play though!

I Did It!

2008-05-23T23:20:00.001-05:00

I beat the 50cc MarioKart race! I have all 8 cups unlocked and 2 new drivers, plus a couple of cars. I haven't been this good at a video game since Tetris :) Only 6 more cups to go until I beat the 100c race!!

I probably shouldn't admit this

2008-05-18T23:33:00.001-05:00

My entire day can basically be summed up in two words: sleep and MarioKart. I think I played for about 5 hours today. Jeff drove up from Iowa and we got him hooked too - he even beat me and Nick in a few of the races. So much fun!!

Small Victories

2008-05-17T13:49:00.003-05:00

For Karin: 2007 is completely scrapbooked! Yay!

For Nick: The downstairs bathroom is fully functional. Not finished, but the sink, toilet, and tub work. Yay!

For the Twins: Back up again. After going 3 of 4 against the Red Sox, they were swept by Toronto, but they beat Colorado last night! They are currently a half-game out of first place.

More Exciting Stuff

2008-05-06T07:44:00.003-05:00

On Sunday, Nick and I went to the Twins game. We got to the gate about 10 minutes after it opened and they still had about 4 Gardy bobbleheads left - yay! They are pretty heavy too. We've unwrapped one and it looks really nice. The game started off on a low note - the Tigers scored 6 runs in the top of the first and the Twins didn't score until the 4th inning. However, their defense did step up and didn't allow any more Tiger runs. Thanks to a 2-out, nobody on, 4-run rally in the bottom of the 7th, the Twins came out on top, 7-6. It turned out to be a very exciting game.

Yesterday, we went over to Dave and Jeff's to celebrate Cinco De Mayo (thanks to Jeff for the link). Ed made tacos for everyone! It was a pretty big crowd for a Monday - at least 12 people, maybe more, including some that we haven't seen for a while. Even Heidi was there, visiting from California! We got home around 9 and I gave Nick his birthday present early because I couldn't wait any longer - MarioKart for the Wii. It is so awesome. Way better than the N64 version, which is the last one that I've played. The Wii wheels make it more fun to drive your kart. I think it was a hit!

Go Twins!

2008-05-03T22:37:00.004-05:00

What a big day for the Twins! They not only won their 4th straight game, but also took first place in the AL Central! What a turn around from the mediocre start of the season. :)

It's Been a While

2008-05-03T14:02:00.002-05:00

But not much blog-worth stuff has happened.

Last week for my birthday we played poker at Dave's house, including a yummy choclate Costco cake for me! I thought I was going to finish in the money, but ended up going out on the bubble - my big stack dwindled away to nothing. It was a double-bubble night because Nick went out one person before me. On Friday night, we went with a group of 11 to Old Chicago, then back to Dave and Smeeta's where my team dominated at Cranium! We then started a Euchre tournament but Nic and I didn't do very well - we were awesome at getting 9s and 10s but not awesome at winning tricks.

This week at poker, Nick and I both did much better. I was a monster and took out the first 5 people (including Nick and Sergei on the same hand!), then cruised into the top 2 without losing my chip lead. However, James got A-A TWO hands in a row and took the majority of my chips (I had 9-9). I was able to fight my way back and get a third of the chips, but I finally lost to him when I had the low straight and he had the high straight. It was still a good battle and I was elated to break my bubble-girl streak. We were actually ambitious enough to play a second game and Nick and I split - we were the last two people left! He had a lot more money than me so I think I would have gotten second again though.

At home, we've been on a huge Scrabble kick, playing pretty much nightly. I think we only played Empire Builder twice in the last two weeks! Beyond that, we haven't been doing much at all. Working, sleeping, and spring cleaning; just call us Mr and Mrs Boring :)

Volleyball Rockstars

2008-04-23T22:31:00.002-05:00

Team Bacos continued to dominate this week, going 3-0 against team Volleylamas!!

Spring!

2008-04-20T22:30:00.001-05:00

Tonight Nick and I headed over to Dave's for some grilled burgers and firepit time. We played bocce until the food was ready, then sat around and talked for a couple of hours with Dave, Jeff and Ed. It was so nice and peaceful - the dark sky, the fire popping, no mosquitos yet! A perfect Minnesota night.

DMV Update

2008-04-14T19:22:00.002-05:00

We both got our licenses today! That's more synchronized than the passports were!

Leave the Poor Man Alone

2008-04-09T19:19:00.002-05:00

The media is never happy.

When Favre was still playing, they only talked about him retiring.

Now that he's retired, it's all about whether or not he'll come back.

Sheesh.

Bigger question: if they retire his number and then he comes back later, would he be allowed to wear it?

Amazing DMV

2008-04-05T13:36:00.002-05:00

Nick and I stopped in at the DMV today to renew our driver's licenses. Since we both officially moved to Minnesota in the same year, they expire in the same year, which is nice. We were amazed that we were able to walk in, go right up to the counter, and get it done. We both did a vision test and got our picture taken and we were back outside again in about 15 minutes. Yay! I was expecting it to take 45 minutes at least. Now if we can only get the actual licenses in a decent amount of time we'll be all set.

Twins Home Opener: Undefeated!

2008-03-31T23:23:00.004-05:00

Baseball season is back! Nick and I went to the home opener tonight and had a fantastic time! We left a little late and only gave ourselves an hour and forty-five minutes to get there so we missed the top of the 1st inning, but we did get to see protesters in front of the courthouse so maybe that balances things out. We walked in just in time to see Joe Mauer hit a ground ball RBI and run safely to first. Go Mauer!

The rest of the game was exciting too. The Twins were playing the Angels, which meant Torii Hunter was back in town. He tipped his hat to the crowd before his first at bat and got a standing ovation. Of course, he later got booed when he caught a fly ball to get one of our batters out. In addition to Torii being gone, there was a lot of other turnover in the roster; only three starters back from last year. Carlos Gomez, one of the new players, was very entertaining to watch and stole two bases (the Twins had four overall)! We also saw the "Walk Ghost", Pat Nescheck, Joe Nathan, and Torii's bat break and fly way out into left field.

Who are these guys?

Mauer catching behind Hunter

The "Walk Ghost"

Nick and Karin

The only thing missing from this year's game was a crazed fan running onto the field before the ninth inning, but we did see some interesting fans. The woman sitting in front of us was wearing a blue flowered shirt (note: not matching) under her autographed Rondell White jersey with a pink MOA Twins cap. She turned around and said something to us about how Nick should just carry me out by my head. I wasn't quite sure what she was talking about and it turns out that Nick wasn't either, so we just let it go.

Back in the ramp, we were sitting in the car waiting to leave (we waited 30 minutes before turning the car on and getting in line because we were at the top and the gas light had turned on when we first pulled in) and a man came in and put a baby in the car next to us (luckily there was an empty space between his car and ours), got on his phone, and started to back up. He looked angry when the car behind him wouldn't let him in. In the other car's defense, it had been sitting motionless for about 20 minutes itself and still wasn't moving, so there was no where to go. The angry man proceeded to go forward and backwards and even when the other cars started to move no one would let him in. He finally gets out and we see that he had hit the car on the other side of him, which had two adults and at least two children in it. Left a huge dent in the side and took off some of the paint. A hit and run right in front of our eyes, because he never tried to talk to the other driver.

Eventually the traffic cleared and we made it home. I hope the Twins can ride the momentum and win (or sweep) the series!!

A Post Without a Theme

2008-03-31T23:16:00.005-05:00

1. Will winter ever end? Yesterday we had one tiny snowpile in front of our house (by the curb from the snowplow); today Nick had to shovel twice.

Bye-Bye Lawn

The skyline driving into downtown Minneapolis tonight

2. Went to Horton Hears a Who last night. It was adorable! A great kid's movie.

3. The Packers get the MNF game opening weekend! That would be an awesome game to get tickets to.

4. The new bathtub has been filled once and attached to the wall. Progress!

Scrabble Redemption

2008-03-25T22:45:00.003-05:00

We couldn't resist and played a rematch of Scrabble tonight. Again we failed to use a good quarter of the board, but we were a little more cautious this time and managed to finish! Each of us got away with a non-word at one point when a challenge wasn't a good idea. In the end, I laid my last tile first to make the score 285-286. After getting the point from Nick's U I won 286-285. You don't have games much closer than that!

Nick spelled spelt - it's a type of wheat

Addiction

2008-03-25T21:44:00.003-05:00

After last night's Scrabble fiasco (I see no one else could make a word either), Nick and I decided to try a Wii game we borrowed from Krista: Big Brain Academy. I won more of the head-to-head games, but Nick tested higher than me by 10 points (despite me trying twice). It's a very addicting game!

Worst Scrabble Board Ever

2008-03-24T23:27:00.003-05:00

Nick and I actually had to abandon our game because neither one of us could find a word:

For the curious, we built up the entire lower left corner of the board, then the words on the upper right, then the words on the upper right. The last word made was "AY" on the lower right. My letters are on the bottom and Nick's are to the right. Does anyone see any possible word for either of us to make? It has to be in our Scrabble dictionary to count.

Is It or Isn't It?

2008-03-24T00:22:00.002-05:00

Another snowy day has come and gone in Minnesota. It's actually pretty crazy here weatherwise - it's getting warmer but the snow just keeps coming. One day this week it was coming down as snow but hitting the ground as rain. I wouldn't quite call it sleet because it looked very snow-like in the air. Despite all this the ground that was exposed earlier in the week has all been covered up again, even as the trees have dropped all the snow that accumulated on their branches. On the news tonight, the weatherwoman said to expect more of the same this week. So I guess the real question is: when will spring arrive for real?

Volleyball

2008-03-19T22:05:00.003-05:00

There's something I haven't blogged about very much! Tonight was the first round of the double-elimination play-offs. Team Bacos was first place overall so they had a first-round bye and started off in the second round, where they won-lost-won. Everyone played really well. Go Bacos!

Spring!

2008-03-14T00:00:00.002-05:00

It was so nice out today, I love spring (I hope I'm not jinxing the weekend)! Nick and I got home at about the same time and decided to walk to Subway for dinner. It was perfect weather to do so. When we got home we left for Seth's house and poker. I was knocked out 7th out of 14, but Nick made it to the final two. We were down to 5 people by 10 pm, but it took until 11 to knock out the next 3. Nick and Paul finally agreed to split the pot just to end the game.

Also, my random weird thing of the day: today's spoofing bill at Caribou (6 drinks) came to exactly $20. Our supper at Subway was exactly $10. What happened to the cents??

Windmills Over Iowa

2008-03-10T20:49:00.003-05:00

Our first trip of 2008! Quite a change from 2007, but the fun has to end somewhere. :)

Windmills Over Iowa

Nick and I spent the weekend in Iowa visiting with his family. We drove out on Thursday after work and were greeted by the newly redesigned family-living room area! It looked fantastic and was almost finished -all the furniture and such was in place already. It still needs some tiling, but they were working on that when we left so I'm sure next time we go everything will be complete (I'm sure Nancy hopes for the same).

Friday night we attended the rehearsal dinner for Nick's cousin's wedding, and Saturday was the wedding. It was a very nice ceremony and I had fun talking to all Nick's relatives at the dance. We came home and played Scrabble afterwards. I think all three games had the three of us finishing within 10 points of each other; one went to Nancy and one went to Nick. I was second both times. Sunday morning we had lunch and came home to Minneapolis. It was a very relaxing trip!

It's Over

2008-03-04T10:11:00.003-06:00

ESPN

Brett Favre Tribute

It had to end eventually, but it's still a little sad.

Weekend Update

2008-03-03T22:09:00.004-06:00

Nick and I took it pretty easy Friday night, then Nick kicked off the 2008 phase of the bathroom remodel by getting the tub put in place! It took some help from Krista and Nic, but we got it in there. Everything else should be pretty easy from here on out. The tub takes up a lot of space, but the bathroom is still extremely spacious.

The faucet is just sitting there, not attached to anything

I, meanwhile, kicked off another mini-scrapbook project which is about 75% complete. I should be able to finish it on Wednesday night while Nick plays volleyball. Then I can get back to my regular scrapbooks. Yay!

Snow Outage

2008-02-29T00:10:00.002-06:00

We got our March snowstorm early this year - a couple of inches during rush hour. That didn't stop poker though - 10 players and it came down to me vs the Borchs. I doubled each of them up when their pocket pair was better than mine. Luckily, Katie took out Rob but as she was gathering her chips the power went out, then on, then out, on, out. Outside the bay window we saw two huge flashes of light, sort of like lightening. Then nothing. It's two hours later and still no power. We finished by flashlight - Katie won! Being the only two girls we did call for an all-girl heads up when we were the short stacks, so our psychic abilities are intact!

The power stayed off, but our friends are troopers and stayed for a second game. We played by laternlight and the second game ended much like the first, but with Nick taking 2nd instead of me. It was a fun poker night!! I just hope the power comes back on soon (I'm writing this via Nick's cell phone - will fix it up later).

The Wait Is Over

2008-02-25T22:39:00.004-06:00

Nick beat Dave and me at Empire Builder tonight!! It was a close race at the end but he had it easily in hand. We also read the rule variations in the instruction book and came up with a couple of interesting possibilities for the next time we play. We're looking forward to it.

Games, Games, Games

2008-02-24T11:49:00.003-06:00

Despite the Scrabble debacle, we've still been playing games. That same night, Nick beat me at Trains, but I've beaten him twice since then. Yesterday we proved that we are slaves to advertising by going out to eat at Houlihan's after getting a coupon in the mail earlier that morning. The food was pretty good, not outstanding. Afterwards, we swung by Coldstone to get some dessert to take home with us.

As we were waiting in line Nick's phone rang; it was Smeeta! So we took our ice cream over to her and Dave's where we ended up playing 20th Century Trivial Pursuit (the weirdly impossible version). Smeeta and I decided we would take on all the guys (Nick, Dave, Ed and Jeff) and we managed a come-from-behind win by knowing that the Forrest Wood fishing competition is a bass-fishing competition. Ok, maybe that was a guess, but it doesn't matter because we beat them! It was our first question in the middle too!

Ice Fishing!

2008-02-23T16:51:00.005-06:00

Last weekend I finally made it out to the ice house. The guys are still in the same spot they were before and they are still catching lots of perch! The new roof makes the whole thing nice and cozy.

Ice House 2008

Fish in the hole!

Nick and Ed each pulled up a fish at the same time!

Sergei's "Big Catch"

Beyond that, we are just staying warm at home. Nick and I saw another movie, Dan in Real Life, and went to Granite City with Ed and Dave. Nick and Dave won at tennis for a second consecutive week and I got to go to a free show at Acme courtesy of Ed's birthday. Neither of us did very well at poker this week.

Today is a gorgeous day. The snow is melting and Nick and I felt comfortable as we were running errands. It wasn't a pain to walk from the car to the store and back out again! I got a new battery for my cell phone (hopefully this fixes the problem) and Nick bought a new racquetball racquet (maybe he can beat James now). We even took a walk around the block when we got home!

Scrabble Hates Me

2008-02-18T22:02:00.002-06:00

I pulled my new letters from the bag and made "BUTCHER" - but no where to put it. After I tried to sneak a word past Nick and he challenged successfully, I realized there was a spot that it could have gone if I had noticed it. I then made the word "BUT" and pulled out "TEA". Couldn't get that on the board either and had to settle for "TEACH". Finally, I pulled out FELD. Yes, three turns in a row and I didn't get a single one of them on the board. Final score: Nick 308 to Karin 280. He was happy to finally win a game against me; I've been on a great win streak lately.

Domination!

2008-02-15T22:46:00.002-06:00

Dave and Ed came over tonight to share some of the ice house fish, followed by a game of Empire Builder. Apparently, all my recent practice against Nick paid off because despite having a slow train for about 10 turns longer than everyone else, I won quite convincingly!! It was a sleeper win too - no one noticed all my Mexico City/LA routes adding up to big money until it was too late. It's only 11 PM but everyone's heading out and we're going to bed too. Quite the exciting Friday night.

Happy Valentine's Day!

2008-02-14T22:58:00.003-06:00

Nick and I didn't really celebrate. We both worked late, then came home and exchanged cards that were on Woot today. Then it was flying out of the house and over to Sergei's for poker. We got there early and ate pizza - yum! We had 8 players and Nick and I did pretty well: 2nd and 3rd. Ed beat us both! Hope your day was fun for you too!

I did it!

2008-02-13T23:08:00.002-06:00

The 96-page monster scrapbook is done! I plan on making the next one a more reasonable 60 pages - I already have all my September pictures printed out and ready to go!

The DeSantification Process is Complete

2008-02-10T21:34:00.000-06:00

Christmas is officially over. I took down the Christmas cards on Thursday after work (I liked how cheery they made that corner of the kitchen but I was sick of sweeping up glitter!) and today Nick and I made up the bed with our wedding quilt again so the Christmas quilt is folded up and put away. There are no signs of the holiday anywhere.

We had a pretty low-key weekend. Saturday we went to another movie - August Rush. It was interesting but SO SLOW! The movie could have easily been about 45 minutes shorter without losing anything. I don't know if I could recommend it just because it was so slow. Rent it maybe and you can fast forward to the end of scenes. We also played a game of Empire Builder (won by me) and ordered pizza. Today was also pretty boring - church, a little shopping, and two games of cribbage (split). We are enjoying our time spent quietly at home though!

Poker Hosting

2008-02-07T23:00:00.000-06:00

We had a very good turnout for poker this week - 13 players and 4 non-players. I started off with two awesome hands and things quickly went downhill from there. Nick, however, finished 4th. Ed was the big winner - he fought back from a rough beginning and managed to take it all. We were also celebrating Rob's birthday and the cards obliged him. Rob played pocket 7s against Ed's pocket 2s and a pair of 5s, a 2 and a 7 showed up on the board. So they both had boats :)

I also played in a 6 person "speed poker" dollar game. We raised the blinds every 5 minutes, so it was possible to miss an entire blind level. It was fun - probably more so because I won and got $4!! Woohoo!!

Most Efficient Trains Game EVER

2008-02-06T19:34:00.000-06:00

Nick and I just finished a game of Empire Builder in about 65 minutes! Wow! We both had lots of good routes and the final score was close: 272 to 262. Good practice for next time Dave comes over.

Useless Information

2008-02-05T18:59:00.000-06:00

Worth a laugh nonetheless:

I often have trouble estimating the size my plastic cultery will be.

Beyond Football

2008-02-03T23:21:00.000-06:00

We had a fun weekend! On Friday night, Dave came over for random stir-fry. Nick mixed a bunch of small bags of frozen veggies together to clean out the freezer and served it over rice. It was delicious and now we have more space. We played three games and everyone won once so it was nicely balanced. Nick and Dave each won a game of Puerto Rico and I won Empire Builder, handing Dave his first loss since the very first time he played.

On Saturday, Nick and I slept in then tore through the cleaning before heading out to have some fun. I saw Enchanted with Jess. It was so cute! I loved all the Disney movie spoofs in it. Both of us were glad that we went with each other and not our husbands though - I think it would have been another movie where Nick asked if we could leave halfway through. I am impressed that Dave sat through the entire thing! Afterwards, we went shopping at Archivers. I bought a ton of paper. Now if I only had some pictures I could finish up the blue scrapbook and start on the green one. Yes, I am obsessed! Working on August now and I barely took any pictures in January so it should go pretty quickly.

Meanwhile, Nick went out to the ice house. They had a ton of people crammed in there and the fish were biting! I got home and the sink was full of live fish! He didn't count them, but I am looking forward to the perch fry soon.

Nick's fish!

Also on Saturday, Mom and Dave swung in for a visit after dropping off some furniture for Thomas. We made tacos for supper and Mom and I played Trains while Nick and Dave talked. It was a close game, but I won. Sunday morning, Nick and Dave went on a Fleet Farm mission to find a creamer and then stopped out at the lake so Nick could show off his ice house. Mom and I played an old favorite while they were gone: Priscilla! I started off pretty slow and Mom won the first game, then I came from behind to win the second. In the tie-breaker, it was back and forth until the final round when I managed to win again! Luckily Mom doesn't mind losing. :)

What a great weekend. We're having fun staying home in 2008...wonder what happened to that travel bug???

Bittersweet

2008-02-03T21:32:00.000-06:00

The game today was pretty bittersweet - on one hand, I was a little sad because we elected not to have a party this year and because Green Bay wasn't in it. On the other hand, it was actually the best SuperBowl in the last couple of years, the Patriots lost, and there were a few good commercials. My favorite was Shaq as a jockey, although the Jeter/Manning one was good as well.

Congrats to the New York Giants!!

Random Activities

2008-02-01T12:26:00.000-06:00

Sunday night when Nick got home we decided to go out and avoid the wet carpets for a while. So we headed off to the movie theatre and saw Charlie Wilson's War. I was a little surprised that it was at the dollar theatre already - Julia Roberts and Tom Hanks? Regardless, Nick and I both enjoyed it. Since the kitchen was also a mess (all the stuff not in the sunroom was in there) we stopped at Arby's for supper afterwards.

Wednesday night, we got our pictures taken for the church directory. I think we looked pretty sharp - I can't wait to get our free 8x10. We've been debating whether to cover up the engagement photo or the wedding photo with it. Do we ditch the 2 year old picture or the 18 month old picture? We don't really need a 3rd 8x10 of ourselves displayed in the living/dining room area! Since we were already dressed up we decided to try out Pittsburgh Blue - a new steakhouse in Maple Grove. It's a fancy place though and we've never felt dressed up enough to go there before. The food was fantastic! Nick had a porterhouse and I had a New York Strip on the bone (never had that on the bone before). We shared a tear-apart bread and hashbrowns, then had a piece of Red Velvet cake for dessert. Scrumptious!

Thursday we skipped poker, so no wonderous bragging stories this week. Maybe Ed can comment and let me know who won. We stayed home and cleaned up instead. Not extremely interesting but we're happy with the progress being made. We're almost back to our pre-carpet cleaning state! Now all I want for tonight is a game of Empire Builder - shouldn't be too hard to make Nick indulge me!

Trapped

2008-01-27T17:45:00.000-06:00

A tale of a football-less Sunday.

It's like the preview for what the rest of winter is going to be like: no football. This one isn't so bad because I know there will be a game next week. But after that, it's a huge blank slate until the regular season starts in September. At least this year there isn't a huge amount of talk about Favre retiring (knock on wood).

Nick and I got up and went to church, then tried a new resturant for lunch: Salsarita's. It was pretty good but a little expensive for two lunches. Nick liked that the tortillas tasted like the ones we got in Cozumel. Then it was over to Lowe's to rent a Rug Doctor! I was still pretty wiped out from girl's night so I fell asleep while he did it. When he finished, he went out to the ice house. I woke up and cautiously made my way down to the sunroom - the carpet is still wet! So I'm trapped in this room unless I want my socks to get soaked. Guess we won't be moving any furniture back today!

Robbed!

2008-01-27T02:00:00.000-06:00

I got home from girl's night and something seemed to be missing. Where's all our stuff?

What a big living room you have!

Oh, here it is :)

This doesn't look right

Throwback Week

2008-01-24T22:48:00.000-06:00

Last night the Bacos volleyball team played a new team that decided to name themselves "The Trixsters" (note the use of the letter "s" in the middle). In celebration, Nick, Krista, and Bob wore throwback jerseys to the game:

Bacos won all three games.

Tonight, I went on an old-fashioned rampage at poker and won one for the girls. I started off doing poorly, not even winning a hand until the 2-4 blinds. I think I was down to about $50. Then I won a couple of small hands and got my first big break: pocket Qs. Perfect flop too: A-Q-10. I had first decision and checked, figuring someone would bet their A (since I had raised pre-flop). I got a nibble and a medium-sized bid. I knew the guy who raised didn't have K-J so I check-raised and went all-in. He thought about it for a long time and then called - he had A-10. The hand played out and I won! After that, I was pretty much on a tear until heads up. Of the 8 people left at table, I took out 5 more and ended up heads up with Ross. Only Katie, Dave and Rob were immune to my streak. I had a bigger stack, but doubled Ross up. After that it was pretty slow for a while; I won the only big hand which put us about even. From there, I had a run of great luck: lots of pocket pairs and A-face card suited. Ross never called my all-ins, but I got 50 from him each time. Finally the last hand: I flopped mid-pair and a 4-card flush draw. Ross went all-in and I didn't believe him so I called. The turn gave him a bigger pair and the river gave me a flush! Yeah, I'm bragging, but it was a pretty fantastic comeback from the short stack (and I know I'm dooming myself for next week). I'll enjoy the feeling while it lasts. It was a fun poker night.

A Return to Normalcy

2008-01-22T21:43:00.000-06:00

After a brief hiatus (one night of Scrabble, one night of cribbage and one night of [gasp] no games), Nick and I returned to our new favorite, Empire Builder. Thanks to a brilliant last-card pick-up (coffee to Savannah when I was already in Mexico City!) I was able to defeat him by 15 million dollars! I even gave him $4 million on my last turn - I was trying to help him out. I think it was one of our best games ever.

In other news, the scrapbooking store by our house closed today. They lost the lease on the space they were renting. So from now on it's a 10-15 minute drive to get supplies instead of a 2 minute one and I have to actually go through stop lights and on the freeway. To those of you in Iowa, you're probably thinking big deal, but to me it's a little sad.

Repeat!

2008-01-21T21:32:00.000-06:00

Nick and I won another set! We went 6-3, 4-6, and lost the tiebreaker. Maybe 2008 is our year for tennis!

ARG!!! Disappointment.

2008-01-20T21:21:00.000-06:00

What a terrible showing by our offense today. I was happy initially to see that Driver was able to make some big plays, but when it really counted they couldn't get it done. Good luck to the Giants against the Patriots in two weeks!

Home Improvement

2008-01-20T00:16:00.000-06:00

My camera hasn't been very busy recently, but we have! Nick was taking a few pictures for his Mom tonight and left the camera out so I thought I'd take a few of some of his recent home improvement projects. Luckily they are all pretty small and don't really require "before" pictures.

The drawers are fixed! If you've never used my kitchen drawers this means nothing to you, but to anyone who has ever gone into one, you know this is a reason to celebrate!

Our new kitchen table, purchased and built after we dropped Erin off at the airport on New Year's Day (but photographed 15 minutes ago).

The new projector, ready for the game!!

Projector screen - it hides behind the crossbeam when not in use.

More to come I'm sure!

Scrabble WTF

2008-01-20T00:09:00.001-06:00

Nick and I sat down to play Scrabble tonight for the first time since New Year's Eve. Apparently things didn't quite get put away correctly when we were done that night. The board was starting to fill up and there were still a lot of letters left in the bag, then I pulled out a 5th D. Uh-oh. We played a little while longer, but Nick was creaming me and there were so many tiles that we ended up calling the game. We sorted out the letters and found that we were missing both Cs, an I and a U. Meanwhile, there were 20 extra tiles in the bag, mainly As and Es. Oops. After some counting, we now know that both sets have all their letters! Next time we play two games at once we'll have to use two tables or erect some sort of physical border between the two. Now for a rematch...

Interesting Article

2008-01-20T00:08:00.001-06:00

Guess the Giants will have sort of a home field advantage later today when they play the Packers. Somehow I don't think it will be much help. Go Pack Go!!

We Beat Ed!

2008-01-14T23:29:00.000-06:00

Tonight Nick and I played tennis and managed to beat Ed and his partner in one of the sets! Final score was 4-6, 6-3, 2-7 (tie-breaker). I'll take it! After tennis Ed and Dave came over and we had supper and played Empire Builder. My 4-player game stinks!! I didn't even have $200 million when the game ended (but I was close). Dave won again - he's gotten really good at the game, really fast. Go Dave...I guess...

Upset Weekend!

2008-01-13T19:43:00.000-06:00

While Nick was busy at the fishhouse today, I stayed at home and watched the Chargers upset the Colts and made two scrapbook pages. He came home with a pizza and we sat down to watch the second half of the Dallas-Giants game. It wasn't a great game but the Giants managed to win! That means they get to come to Green Bay next week. The teams I was rooting for over the weekend went 2 for 4, but the most important two won so I can't complain. Green Bay beat New York 35-13 in New York in Week 2 - hopefully a good omen. Go Pack Go!

After the game, we played the concluding round of Empire Builder. Nick had a better train and was consistently about $30 million ahead of me, but I caught up at the end and managed to beat him by $20 million when his cards stalled out. Go Karin! To finish the weekend, I'm going to make one more scrapbook page and Nick's going to play his computer game. Here's to a good week before the NFC Title game comes around!

More Weekend Details

2008-01-13T00:47:00.001-06:00

Nick is doing some work and I'm still up and feel like posting so here's some random blabbings. Last night Nick went out to the ice house - still no fish! Better luck next time! I finally got the right paper and was able to finish up the pontoon pages from our camping trip in June. That gets me caught up through our first Vegas trip of the year and leaves me with only about 20 pages left in the blue scrapbook. It's a monster too - almost 100 pages! I think the next one is going to be a little smaller because that bugger is heavy (yes, I just finished a book set in England).

Today (Saturday) I got up early and started cleaning. Our house is now sparkling clean, and with the exception of my Christmas cards and our wreath, completely de-Christmas-itized. A little sad, but only 10 more months til I can get it all out again! And the wreath and cards are going to hang around for a while longer because they're easy to clean up and I like how they look. Nick and I then made a run to Costco to get some food, then came home and played Empire Builder until the game began.

Our Spread - Only the butter didn't come from Costco!
Amazing but true: 6 people ate 95% of that veggie platter!

Keeping a stiff upper lip - this was after the Seahawk's first touchdown!

Ryan Grant gave me a scare early on with his two fumbles that were converted into touchdowns, but after that the game was all Packers. I knew Brett was going to come out throwing and when Greg Jennings caught his first touch down pass I knew it was all clear sailing until the end of the game. It was great! We watched most of the Patriots-Jaguars game afterwards - wish the Jags would have played a little better in the second half and taken care of business!

When football was over, Nick and I sat down and finished our game of Empire Builder. He beat me, but I put up a good fight (had about $215 million). I demanded a rematch and managed to dominate the entire time, leaving him with one city unconnected and only about $150 million. Guess we'll have to play again to determine the ultimate champion - darn!

Ok, guess our day wasn't all that interesting, but I had fun writing about it. Big football day tomorrow - good luck to the Colts and the Giants!

Go Pack Go!

2008-01-12T21:25:00.000-06:00

We had an impromptu football party today. After a rocky start, the Pack prevailed to outscore the Seahawks 42-6!! So awesome! Gotta cheer on the Giants tomorrow - we're only one game away from the Superbowl!!!! :)

Goodbye Tree!

2008-01-06T12:07:00.000-06:00

Nick is outside right now taking the lights off of it. The tree stopped taking water about a week before Christmas, so it wasn't good. We wanted to keep it up through our "Christmas morning" with Nick's family on the 29th, and today was the first chance we had to drag it outside. I took the ornamanets off yesterday and it made a huge mess. Nick started to take the lights off this morning and decided it would be easier to do it outside. We got it onto the tarp to drag it outside and it sounded like a rain stick so many needles fell off!

Yesterday we got to hang out with Smeeta - she is in town for the very end of her winter break. She, Katie, Krista and I went shopping then had lunch at B Dubs while our guys (and Ed) got the ice house set up on the lake and built a new roof on it. Sounds like I won't be seeing Nick for a while!

The play-offs seem to be going well. Seattle beat Washington so we'll be playing them on Saturday. Matt Hasselbeck got it out of his system already, starting with post-game press conference with "We want the ball and we're gonna score!" before anyone could even ask for it. Pittsburgh fell to the Jags and the Tampa Bay-New York game just started, tied at zero six minutes into it. GO PACK GO!

Happy New Year 2008!

2008-01-05T16:40:00.000-06:00

A pictoral story of our New Year's Eve. We had a great time celebrating! All of our games had randomly selected teams, and everyone was tied going into the last one. Ed and I ended up winning so we were the big winners! Without further ado:

I couldn't resist this Costco cake! It says "Merry Christmas" because it served a dual purpose as the dessert for our dinner on Saturday as well.

Tacos for supper. Yum!

Choose a game, any game!

We used a timer for Trivial Pursuit and it came down to the wire - both teams were trying desperately to land on brown! In the end, we tied, but it was very close!

Tequilia shots! No one saw that coming!

Cranium winners.

I've still never won a game of Bohnanza - I did add to my stash of ties though!

Talking to Smeeta in her remote location after another of her favorite games - Taboo.

We went downstairs and turned on the TV to watch the new all-LED ball drop. They were at 18 in the New Year's countdown - not bad. Check out Ryan Seacrest's circa 1988 headseat!

Ed won the battle for first over Nick in 7 Up - 7 Down. No one else was even close.

Dueling Scrabble was a lot of fun. Our board was quite a bit more serious - Dave, Ed and Nick never used more than 3 letters in a single turn!

Catchphrase! winners.

I think we used every glass in the house.

If you're wondering, we ended up partying until about 3 AM, then went to bed. We got up around noon and Dave cooked breakfast for everyone. Yum!

Welcome 2008!

2008-01-01T21:14:00.000-06:00

Happy New Year, everyone! We made it through with a fun party last night - lots of games lasting until about 3 AM. Hoping to post a picture story of that later so no more details for now.

Today we got Erin safely to the airport and I managed to burn all my pictures to back-up DVDs - it's nice to finally have some time to do stuff like that. Nick and I are looking forward to a January of staying home and catching up; we haven't had a weekend here alone since the first one in December!

Here's to a good 2008 for all!

Into the Post-Season

2007-12-31T01:01:00.000-06:00

The regular season ended today with the Packers beating Detroit 34-13. They played MUCH better this week than last. Favre was pulled with 10 minutes left in the second quarter when the score was 21-3, quite an insult. Some of the other top seeds fell this week like we did last week - both Dallas and Indy lost. Only the Patriots won after the Giants collapsed at the end of the game. Now it's watching the games next week and wondering who we'll get in the second round of the playoffs.

In other news, Nick and I have lost at Empire Builder now. After beating Erin last night, we were pretty confident, but the newly home Dave came over tonight and beat us all.

Looking forward to New Year's Eve tomorrow night - should be pretty low-key as we're spending it at home but I'll try to take a couple of pictures for your viewing pleasure. Enjoy the end of 2007!

The Great Cinnamon Polar Bear Debate

2007-12-27T23:46:00.000-06:00

The rest of my day went well; I got to the library, JC Penney's and Cub. Cub was a little scary - the cashier chided me for not using any coupons. Apparently if I'm a conscientious coupon-clipper I can save enough each year to go to Florida. Too bad for her I prefer to get most of my groceries in bulk at Costco.

I arrived home just after Nick and Marsha, and we settled in and made Marsha eat a giant cupcake before she could do anything else. After that, I took her downstairs and we played with the Wii. She seemed to do better as a lefty than a righty for some reason...

No poker due to the holiday, so after a brief game of TransAmerica (I kicked butt!) we met up with Nic and went to Fuddrucker's for supper - yum! We sat for quite a long time chatting, then headed home, avoiding a strange box of garbage that was left near our car. Nic couldn't stay, but Marsha and I took on Nick in a game of Trivial Pursuit and won easily. The final answer was It was a dark and stormy night. After that, we started doing movie trivia, TV trivia, and random trivia. It was a fun night with plenty of games and entertainment - and it was great to see Marsha again!

Goal #1 Finished!

2007-12-27T12:12:00.000-06:00

Our trip is St Louis last May is completely scrapbooked! I've been working helter-skelter on the pages, so the Memorial Day party is also already done, and Nick's birthday camping trip and our Vegas trip are both halfway done - 3 more pages for each of those and I'll be done through the end of June. That was my first goal for the day, selfish yes but more exciting than cleaning the kitchen and putting away laundry. Yesterday Nick and I sorted out all the stuff we want to bring to Goodwill and then watched Spider-Man 3, so it's a little bit of work and play everyday. I'm enjoying these couple of days at home without work!

Christmas Travel Over!

2007-12-26T12:33:00.001-06:00

Home again! And for the long haul this time - we have no travel plans in our immediate future at all! We spent last Saturday - Tuesday in Wisconsin, attending about six holiday parties and managing to see the majority of my family. It was a lot of fun! We ate lots of food and had fun visiting. Nick got TransAmerica, bringing the number of train games we own up to 3! We enjoyed playing it with Mom and Thomas and then just Mom, but decided it's not a very good two player game after we attempted to play it by ourselves. We also got enough china to expand our wedding set up to 12 place settings, plus a few serving bowls, and some nice NFL North Champions T-shirts! Finally, in the year of sequels we got Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Spider-Man 3, and Shrek the Third. Yay to movies! Of course, there were other presents too, but these are just some of the highlights. We had pretty good luck driving - fog the last hour driving there and blowing snow the last hour driving back, but it was pretty uneventful overall. Hope everyone else had a wonderful Christmas as well. Merry Christmas to all!

Swept!

2007-12-24T18:19:00.000-06:00

By Kyle Orton and the Bears! What a depressing game! At least we were in good company to watch it and we still are guaranteed to get to the second round of the playoffs.

Merry Christmas to all!

Ready for Christmas?

2007-12-22T11:03:00.000-06:00

How well do you know your Christmas carols? I got an 80% - one dumb mistake and a couple I honestly couldn't think of. You might find yourself singing out loud trying to get the right answers! Too bad there wasn't a Mariah Carey song, I know that one backwards and forwards!

Nick Makes Beef Jerky

2007-12-21T16:41:00.000-06:00

Using some deer meat we got from Nick's dad and a dehydrator Nick borrowed from a co-worker, Nick was able to make beef jerky with hardly any effort at all. I have to say, it's delicious!! :)

Nick and his homemade "Jerky Extruder"

Still Hydrated

Ready to eat!

Empire Master!

2007-12-19T22:34:00.000-06:00

As of today, all our Christmas shopping is done. Yay! Only 3 of them still have to be wrapped, and I got our Christmas cards in the mail today, so it's almost time to relax and enjoy Christmas. The extra trip to Green Bay threw off my planning a little bit, but that's ok. The Packers are worth it!

We also enjoyed another game of Empire Builder tonight. I got ahead early and managed to hold on as Nick and Dave attempted to catch up to me. Yay victory! Still no wins for anyone outside the two of us. That takes a lot of pressure off Erin when she visits next week.

Holiday Culture

2007-12-17T23:26:00.001-06:00

As some of you may remember, last year Nick and I went to a bell choir concert by Twin Cities Bronze in St Paul to celebrate the holiday season. This year we continued the tradition by going to see Tonic Sol Fa at the Minnesota Orchestra Hall. We met Andrea and her friend Matt after work and headed downtown for dinner at the Staccato Restaurant before the show. It was a great meal and a fantastic show. I can't believe Christmas is only a week away!

Oh Happy Day

2007-12-17T12:42:00.000-06:00

Another Packer game aired on TV in Minneapolis, another week we were out of town for it. So far the only game we've watched on our own TV was the Packer-Viking game we didn't attend in person!

We watched this week's game at Nick's grandparents' house in Iowa, where we were celebrating Christmas with his family. Great game, great fun to see Brett break another record (with his favorite receiver this time!). As a special bonus, it was nice to see Dallas fall as well. If Detroit would have finished the job last week we'd be winning the NFC right now! Guess I have to be happy with a guaranteed first-round bye. This is a much better place to be sitting in than a year ago. Hooray to the post-season!

Go Pack Go!!

Karin Goes to Costco

2007-12-12T22:21:00.000-06:00

Mmmm, supper!

We followed that with a game of Empire Builder - I won easily. So far the tally is Karin 4, Nick 2, all challengers 0. But it is fun :)

The Curse is Broken!

2007-12-11T18:16:00.000-06:00

Nick and I spent last weekend in Green Bay. We took the afternoon off on Friday and got to town around 6. We met up with Marsha and Jill and went out for a yummy perch fry at the Redwood Inn. After that, we hung out at Mom's house, playing Whoonu and messing around with a wooden nutcracker that she had.

My famous friend.

Saturday was our "running around day". After breakfast with Mom and Dave we headed over to Dad's to go out to eat at Brother's Three, one of my favorite Wisconsin restaurants. From there, we stopped over at Grandma's to visit with more family and get a few of Grandma's old Christmas tree ornaments. Then Mom and Dave made a delicious roast for supper back at their house. After that, I was tuckered out and fell asleep. But everyone else played Sequence and watched How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Sounds like it was fun!

Sunday was the true purpose of our trip however: our 2007 trip to Lambeau Field. I was hoping that we would finally see a victory and I was rewarded when the Packers beat the Oakland Raiders 38-7; a blow-out victory. We started off the day by bundling up - I had 4 layers on under my coveralls! Then a round-about drive to the stadium in which we completely avoided all the traffic! Inside, we surprised Sandy and Cindy, who were working at the Hemophilia Booth selling Packers merchandise.

Surprise!

Happy Workers

From there we climbed up to our seats. There was a huge line of people waiting to get into the stadium and there were only 20 minutes until game time. Guess they don't call that side the main gate for nothing!

That's a lot of people!

The game was fantastic! We were sitting with some friends of mine from work who are Raiders fans, and they really enjoyed the stadium and talking to the fans sitting around us. Another Raiders fan I know who was at the game said he didn't care much for the game but that our stadium was awesome! He wants to come back to watch another game. Here are a couple of pictures documenting our time at the game:

Flyover! We actually saw 4 jets practicing the flyover on Saturday. This is so cool - no comparison to when they show it on the JumboTron at the 'dome.

The first kickoff attempt - the ball fell off the T so they had to reset it and line up again.

Touchdown!

Victory - and we clinched the division!

Celebrating the win - do we look cold?

And that was the weekend. GO PACK GO!!

Bacos Squared

2007-12-05T22:15:00.000-06:00

Tonight we played volleyball - Bacos I vs Bacos II. Rob is on the other team now and it was fun to watch him setting balls back and forth with Dave and Nick. My team won 2 of 3. I have no clue what the standings are but it was fun to get out and play!

Snow Day!

2007-12-02T12:54:00.000-06:00

We did end up getting lots of snow! Nick and I had originally not planned on going out, but ended up doing a Costco/Lowe's/Joann's run when I had a scrapbooking emergency (no more glue). It was slippery, but we arrived back unharmed - and we got all the stuff we needed to fix the drains in the bathroom. Yes, both the sink and the tub weren't draining right, but Nick got both of them fixed. It's so nice to take a shower and not be standing in three inches of soapy water when you are done!

The snow on our back deck.

In addition to the bathroom, Nick (and I!) made more progress on cleaning out the airplane room. I think we just about filled up our trash bin for the week, but we also boxed a lot of stuff up to move down into our newly-redesigned basement closet (pictures of that coming soon). Around 9 PM we got brave and decided to finally play the new game that Smeeta and Dave bought Nick for his birthday. We had gotten it out once before, but after spending a half hour putting all the little stickers on decided not to play. It was a lot of fun! It's another train game, but it's pretty complicated. It took about 4 hours to play, so we didn't finished until around 1. I ended up beating Nick by $4, so it was very, very close. We'd love to try with more players so if anyone has a lot of time to kill give us a call!

The game board - Nick is brown and I am green.

Today's plans: stay home away from the snow! Nick has already shoveled the drive, and is working on the basement while I play on here. We're listening to the Viking game but not really watching - looking forward to the Pittsburgh-Cincinnati game tonight. I'd better go help!

Happy December!

2007-12-01T10:28:00.000-06:00

It's snowing and has been since I first got up - getting progressively harder too! It's all sticking so maybe later today Nick and I will build a snowman! I'm so happy that all our plans for today involve staying home. Green Bay already played, so we have no real reason to go out tomorrow either. Let it snow!

Rough Game

2007-11-29T22:46:00.001-06:00

As I feared: our defense made stupid penalties and gave the game away. The offense played well, even with Brett out. We had two nice touchdowns but it wasn't enough - Bigby and a couple of other guys kept giving Dallas first downs when the rest of the defense would have held them. ARG!!! Still, I guess 10-2 is still respectable - the third place team is 7-4 so we've got a nice lead in the NFC.

Next up: 11 days for Brett to heal and a SUNDAY game. GO PACK GO!

Game Night

2007-11-29T18:04:00.001-06:00

GO PACKERS!!!

Christmas Tree!

2007-11-26T17:56:00.000-06:00

Here's a picture of our beautiful tree! Please ignore the streetlight in the background!

Fantasy Football Love

2007-11-26T16:57:00.001-06:00

I haven't posted, but my fantasy teams are in a decline right now and I could really use a win. Hoping for some Pittsburgh magic against Miami tonight (none of that crap we saw against the Jets last week!).

Here's what I need:
Ben Roethlisberger: 200 yards, 3 TDs, no INTs
Hines Ward: 40 yards, 1 TD

That should be doable, right?

OW! A Thanksgiving Story.

2007-11-25T20:59:00.000-06:00

Another Thanksgiving weekend is over and Nick and I are ready to embrace Christmas! We drove to Iowa on Wednesday night, arriving just in time for one of Nancy's delicious suppers with Erin-made cupcakes for dessert. We decided to skip playing a game and watch Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark instead. I thought I hadn't seen it before, but after we got to the end I realized I had. Maybe next time I'll graduate to whatever the second movie in the trilogy is!

Thanksgiving was spent with Nancy's sister, her husband, their daughter and granddaughter. We had turkey and stuffing - no suprises here! I got to watch the fantastic Packer victory (after missing the rough first quarter while eating) then napped while Erin beat Nick and the others at Scrabble. From there we headed over to Nick's grandparents, where I got to meet more family members and visit for a couple of hours. Back over to Nancy and Jeff's, where Nick won at Trains and we discovered that the rules to Sorry! actually have a subset for "adults only" play. We switched halfway through and I won the game!

Friday was our lazy day. The kids slept in while the grown-ups went to work. We went and bothered Nancy at the post office, then got lunch at Godfather's while we waited for the lady to measure Nick for a tux to get back from lunch. After Nick was taken care of, we drove home and Nick and Jeff headed out to Jeff's hunting "shed" while I won three games of Trains (two against Nancy and Erin and one against just Erin). Then we went to the "shed" as well. Jeff has built a pretty cool 3-story building out on his hunting land. We had a cookout on the second-level balcony and sat inside for a while to visit. We then swung by Nancy's sister's house because I have never seen it. She lives in a very nice log "cabin" that is huge. I loved her decorating style. We played a game of Scrabble (won by Erin at the last minute) and Balderdash (won by Nick's cousin) before heading home. Nancy and Jeff were still up and Jeff joined us for some Euchre. Nick and I lost two of three games to him and Erin. Then we got devious - Jeff quit and Erin went upstairs and Nick and I pulled all the queens out of the Euchre deck. I dominated at 3-handed: won every time and got to 15 first by a landslide (Nick had 1 and Erin had -1). I was golden! Then we played Sorry. We decided that it wasn't fair to have one side of the board open so we made a ghost player to take over that side. The three of us played using the newly found "adult" rules and the ghost played the kid rules. We agreed that the ghost would always make the best strategic move and wouldn't target any one person no matter what happened to it. The ghost won.

Saturday was our last day in Iowa. We had lunch with three of Nancy's sisters before they headed off to a baby shower and Nancy gave us early Christmas presents which were fantastic! I think Adam is getting the same thing so I don't want to say what it was, but all three of us were very happy. We had an uneventful drive back to Minneapolis and took Erin to Costco and Boston's once we arrived. Then she and Nick played Wii until they couldn't keep their eyes open any longer!

Today, today was one of my favorite days of the year: decorating the house for Christmas! Erin and I got out all the Christmas decorations and put them up, then we went to lunch at J. Cousineau's with Nick. The three of us headed over to get a tree after we were done eating.

I was standing innocently in the parking lot, looking at two trees and trying to decide if I should call Nick over to get his opinion on either one of them. All of a sudden, I was thumped on the head. My first thought was "man, that's pretty solid to be a Christmas tree!". Then Erin was rushing over and pulling a 2x4 off of me! It had a couple of nails sticking out of the end of it - luckily none of them got me. The 2x4 was about 20 feet long and had been standing up in the middle of one of the X-shaped Christmas tree holders. The holders are designed to hold four trees and this one only had two tiny ones in it. The 2x4s are used to hold up the overhead lights for when it is dark out. We threw the 2x4 on the ground and told the kids working the place what had happened. They're all just high school kids though and they were pretty freaked out. I am fine though - it only hurt for about five minutes and it happened seven hours ago so no problems. We ended up not getting either of those trees though!

Erin was able to help us get the tree set up in its stand and the lights on before Nick brought her back to the airport. She always complains that we get here there too early, so Nick purposely only got her there about an hour before she was scheduled to leave. However, she was delayed an hour in the airport and then stuck on the tarmac for another 2.5 because Georgia was too busy to accept her plane at its scheduled time. At least it wasn't completely our fault this time! When Nick got home we put up all the ornaments, made some pasta and settled in to watch SNF - the Patriots almostlost.

Now my house smells like the pine needles and ready to go. I love Christmas!

Turkey Day Victory

2007-11-22T23:04:00.000-06:00

After a slow start, the Packers rolled over Detroit today, winning 37-26. I got to watch Detroit's opening drive and the hand-off fumble in the first quarter before we sat down to eat and I'll admit, I was a little worried. But the Packers pulled it together and Brett was even smiling in the third quarter. He quit once the Lions quickly scored two touchdowns in the 4th quarter, but was able to drive his team down for a field goal (taking 5 minutes off the clock in the process) and secure a victory, earning himself the totally bogus chocolate "Galloping Gobbler" award. He also set a Packers franchise record for most consecutive completed passes (20) and beat Marino's record for the most 3 touchdown games (63).

Unfortunately, Dallas also rolled over the Jets today, winning 34-3. This means we are tied at 10-1 and next week's Thursday night game will determine NFC supremacy. GO PACK GO!!

Happy Thanksgiving!

2007-11-22T09:52:00.000-06:00

Hope everyone has arrived at their holiday destinations safely and without any major problems along the way. Enjoy the turkey and the football - I'm dressed in game-day clothes (less than 1.5 hours 'til kick-off!).

Two funny things:

First, for the kid who can't make honor roll: I saw a bumper sticker on a car that said "My child had a perfect dental appointment with Drs. Blah and Blah." Good for you kid!

Second, apparently the Gap can't not put the little baggie on their clothing. I'm wearing my new turkey-eating pants today and behind the hang-tag was the little baggie that normally has a button in it for pants or thread in it for a sweater. My pants don't have a button in the front so they just gave me an empty bag. Good call there.

Have a great holiday!

Cold and Rainy And

2007-11-18T15:34:00.001-06:00

9-1! Another fantastic day to be a Packer fan! Brett was definately the game MVP :)

When No Adventures Can Be Found

2007-11-15T16:35:00.000-06:00

Nick and I have had a pretty low-key week. On Sunday night, the power went out in the middle of our dinner, right around 8 pm. By 8:20 it still wasn't back (and the entire street was dark so it wasn't just us) so we left to go see Bee Movie. It was cute, we got our private showing, but it would have been better to see it at the discount theatre in a month or so. But the power was back on when we got home, which is really the important thing, right?

Monday night we played a hard-fought tennis match - in an hour and a half we were unable to finish two sets. Tuesday we kept it simple, wrapping Christmas presents as we watched The Biggest Loser on TV.

Last night was probably the most exciting night of the week. We played volleyball and only won our 3rd game (but did lead in the second game 24-23 so we could have had it), then headed over to Granite City to celebrate Dave's birthday a week early (but the last night he's planning on being in Minnesota for a while). We had a very good turnout for a Wednesday night - 16 people. We had to split up between two tables, but it all worked out pretty well. It was great to finally get back there to eat again. Happy Birthday Dave!