Windmills Over Iowa

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!

Christmas Travel Over!

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!

Oh Happy Day

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!!

The Curse is Broken!

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!!

OW! A Thanksgiving Story.

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!

Packer Victory

Missing from my last post is my favorite blog topic: the Packers!! Nick and I watched MNF at the Corona Bar in downtown Cozumel. We were the only people in the bar originally and the bartenders were nice enough to turn the game on for us (we'd been tipped off that the bar
had Sunday ticket). They also turned on the English audio which was fun because it didn't always match the screen. Mexican ESPN never shows the booth and we didn't understand all the Spanish graphics.

The game was nerver acking but fun to watch (something MNF has not been often this season). I cannot believe we got to the 1-yd line twice and only got field goals! I was also impressed that Denver got the last second field goal - and thrilled when OT ended quickly in our favor!!

There was another couple from Milwaukee in the bar when the game ended. They were both pretty drunk and bought a round of tequila shots for the bar (about 10 people). We saw them in the airport this morning and they didn't recognize us!

Back in the USA!

Nick and I are safely back on American soil again. We had a wonderful time in Cozumel. With the exception of a few short-lived thunderstorms (they appear quickly and end quickly) the weather was gorgeous. They also have daylight savings time a week earlier than the US so starting Sunday it got dark early (around 6PM).

We spent most of the week sleeping, reading (I'm on my 4th Jane Austen), watching movies, swimming in our private pool and enjoying the local restaurants. We walked or biked everywhere so we both feel great! No scuba diving but we did go snorkeling in the ocean. That was awesome!

It was a fantastic vacation - hopefully pictures will follow soon!

Porn, Porn, Porn, $20!!

This past weekend Nick and I went to Vegas for the second time this year. This trip had a completely different purpose however: to celebrate the marriage of my cousin Cindy and her new husband Ryan :) We flew in Saturday morning and settled into our fancy-dancy room at the Bellagio. It was probably the nicest hotel I've ever stayed in. We didn't spend a lot of time there, but it was definitely fun to do! After a quick trip up to the Monte Carlo to see if our favorite 100-Hand Poker machine was still there (it was) we met Cindy and Ryan, Sandy and Bob, and Mike and Michelle at the Riviera (where they were staying) to ride the Deuce bus up to Freemont Street, something Nick and I missed the first time we were out there. The light show was amazing - not at all what I expected!!

Nick and Karin outside the Bellagio. We ran into Sandy and Bob on the street in front of it and had them take this picture :)


Our fantastic bathtub at the Bellagio! It was heavenly.


The Freemont Street Experience gang


Random mural we saw on the outside of one of the downtown casinos. Go Packers!


One of the scenes from the light show.

Sunday we got up bright and early and headed over to the Imperial Palace for the wedding. Everything went quickly and smoothly. Cindy looked just radiant in her dress. After the ceremony we hopped into a limo with Cindy and Ryan and Matt and Jodi (best man and his wife) and rode out to the "Welcome to Las Vegas" sign - something we also hadn't seen before. Our driver was very friendly and knew a lot about Las Vegas. When the ride ended, we ate a group brunch at the Imperial Palace before the bride and groom disappeared! Mom and Dave and Sandy and Bob walked over to the Wynn with Nick and I. It's one of the newest and fanciest hotels in Vegas and we wanted to be slightly more dressed up when we went. The coolest part? They had a circular escalator inside! Of course we rode up and down it just so we could say we've done it.

Cindy and Ryan, post ceremony.


Standing at the Las Vegas sign - our limo driver took the picture for us.


Circular Escalator!

After changing out of our wedding clothes, we met up with Mom and Dave again to watch the Packer-Bear game at the Monte Carlo Pub. Unfortunately it was a case of the Jekyll and Hyde Packers. They looked really good in the first half, even getting a running game going, but fell apart in the second half and lost by seven. It was a huge disappointment and the worst part of the trip. Nick and I did win $10 playing slots afterwards though.

We also caught the fountains on our way back to the hotel. I think we watched them about 10 times while we were there.

Monday and Tuesday we were pretty much on our own. Cindy and Ryan were off doing honeymoon stuff and everyone else had left the great state of Nevada. Monday we gambled a little and saw the white tigers at the Mirage. We wandered into the Flamingo casino and found that they had a flamingo habitat, so we got to see real flamingos too! From there, we walked to the Paris and "Mon Ami Gabi" to eat supper outside on the sidewalk with a great view of the Bellagio fountains. We watched the second quarter of the Dallas-Bills Monday Night Football game (can't believe that Dallas won after 6 interceptions!!) then went to see The Producers starring Tony Danza!! Neither Nick nor I had seen it before and it was excellent! 90 minutes long with no intermission and completely enjoyable the entire time.

The white tiger.


Flamingo habitat. The guy on the right was photographing that dark-colored bird the entire time we were there. He was practically in the water trying to get a shot!


View from our dinner table (yes the fountains can shoot higher than the hotel)

Tuesday we ate at the #1 buffet in Las Vegas 2007 - it was fantastic! I couldn't even eat my way to all the different cultural stations they had (it was the Spice Buffet at Planet Hollywood). They also had areas where they would make pizza, a brat or a hamburger to your specifications. The burger was delicious. I didn't try anything else custom-made but the pizza they had out was some of the best ever. I would defiantly recommend this buffet to anyone going to Vegas. My greatest gambling coup also came at Planet Hollywood. While waiting for the buffet to open for lunch Nick and I each put $5 into 10-hand poker machines. Nick ran out of money and I had enough money left to bet the max possible (10 hands at 12 cents each). I got 5-of-a-kind on the flop! That was a $10 payoff- enough to get us back to even :)

After lunch we didn't have much time left, but we buzzed on over to the Tropicana to see the Titantic exhibit that was there. It was really neat, I'm happy we went. They had lots of artifacts that have been brought up from the wreckage on display. The coolest part was the re-creation of the Promenade deck. You went through a swinging door and out onto what looked and felt like the actual deck of the ship. They had it overly air-conditioned so it was only about 50 degrees, a fog machine making fog where the water would be, and little Christmas lights on a dark background where the sky was. Unfortunately no pictures allowed but it was pretty sweet!

That's the trip! We got back to Minneapolis around midnight, and went straight to bed after eating some Taco Bell. Until next time - Viva Las Vegas! Oh, wait, you're probably wondering about the title to this post. Well, if you've never to Vegas, there are a ton of guys who are passing out "porn cards" (size of business cards). On Monday morning, we were walking over to buy tickets to The Producers and I was looking down because the sun was really bright. Mixed in with all the porn card litter was a $20!! What a find! Nick and I gambled it all away though!

Camping In Wisconsin

A couple of weekends ago we went camping in Wisconsin with my mom and aunt and their husbands. It was fantastic! We stayed at Lake Wissota State Park, which I enjoyed far more than the campsite we stayed at in Minnesota. For one, we didn't have a gravel problem! Second, there were tons of trees; you couldn't even see the campsites on either side of us. That's how campsites are supposed to be set up (disclaimer: I still had fun camping in MN, I was just disappointed with the facilities of the place I chose). If we do another birthday camping trip for Nick I'm going to plan it in Wisconsin.

Our spacious campsite. Yes, we were allowed to have two tents on the same one.

The weather was just right too. On Saturday morning we got up and decided to take a bike ride. We rode all the way to Chippewa Falls (about 8 miles on a paved path and some roads). We then ran into some other bikers and asked them what was ahead; they told us that the Leinenkugel Brewery was only about two miles further. Of course we decided it was worth the ride! We made it there and signed up for the next tour. It was a nice relaxing hour-long break waiting for it to start. Everyone but me got to drink free samples of beer (I didn't have my ID so they wouldn't serve me even with my mom there! They gave me root beer as a consolation beverage). Nick was very excited to find that they had a creamy dark beer.

Karin and Mom waiting for the tour to start. What a fun hat!

The tour was very interesting. Leinie's is a much, much smaller facility than the Budweiser plant we toured in St Louis! I even won a key chain by being the first to yell out the answer to our tour guide's random trivia question (what is their most popular beer?). I was also amazed to find that all the beers that they sell have only been in production since the mid-1990s - they did a complete overhaul then and got rid of all the older flavors. After the tour who did we run into but the friendly bikers who had told us how to get there! They had been riding away from the plant when we last saw them, but made a big loop and just happened to be riding past it at that moment in time.

Our group outside the brewery (taken by the friendly bikers)

At first, the ride back seemed much faster than the ride there, but that ended once we got back to the front gate of the state park. It felt like we should be almost back but in fact it was two more miles of riding! I didn't think I'd make it but of course I did. The entire trip was about 20 miles; a good chunk of exercise! We made up all the calories we burned off by eating pudgy pies and s'mores though!

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!

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!

Vegas Pics

Just a couple of pictures for those of you who couldn't make it.

The Bellagio lobby ceiling


Hanging out with Siegfried and Roy...


...and John Wayne!


The arch at the Venetian - inside is all one big moving walkway (it doesn't break over the hump)


Lions playing at the MGM Grand

Can't wait to go back!

Vegas!

Nick and I are home safely from Las Vegas. We had a ton of fun seeing all the sights (lions, M&M's, volcanoes, fish, fountains, wax museum and more), eating yummy food, and going to TWO different shows. We stayed at the Monte Carlo, which doesn't have any sort of special attraction (see above), but does have a fantastic pool with a lazy river that I spent a couple of hours in and a delicious Brew Pub where I got an order of cheese curds!

I wasn't sure that I liked Vegas the first night - it's big with lots of lights and noise and people - but after that day I loved it! I got lucky on the slot machines (the Magic Unicorn paid me $21.05 off of $0.40) and thought the Bellagio fountains were awesome! Nick and I are looking forward to going back for Cindy's wedding in October. Nick has even picked out the show he wants to see next time. :)

The icing on the cake was the chance to see so many of our far-flung friends. Jeff and Heidi came from California and brought a friend who is probably going to end up in Minneapolis soon. Krista and Nic were there with friends from Texas and Chicago, all of whom were a lot of fun. Even if we split up, it wasn't long until you ran into someone you knew again. Our best chance encounter was the monorail - Nic, Krista, and Keith were scrambling to get on and ended up in the same car as me and Nick - what luck! I guess anything is possible in Vegas :)

Camping Pics

A couple of quick pictures of last weekend's camping trip. If you're interested in seeing everything, drop me a line - I have an album of about 150 pictures. We had so much fun :)

Camp is ready!


Nick and Luke model the impossibly tall, ripped, and only-tied-at-three-corners volleyball net


Loading the pontoon


Pudgy pies!

Volleyball and Family

Tonight we played the other team from my work at volleyball, so most of both teams have to work together on a regular basis. We unfortunately lost all three, but we hung in there and kept our scores respectable. They are a top-3 team in the league! Nick won the All-Heart award - he not only blocked a serve and did a diving one arm saving dig that went over the net, he also saved an amazing ball. It was headed straight towards the out-of-play net and he managed to bump it backwards and over the net without it or himself touching the side net. Dave and Rob were in close contention to steal the award away from him though!

After volleyball, Nick and I came home to Bob and Sandy visiting us! They are just finishing a three week driving tour of southwest America and decided to spend their final night traveling with us. We played a game of Settlers (won by me again, I'm on a roll!) then looked at my scrapbooks and talked about their trip. It sounds like they had a wonderful time - I can't wait to see pictures of everything they did! Everyone just now went up to bed, I guess I should too - good night :)

Stereotypes

So, how does a group of just-graduated high school students celebrate? Quietly, camping near their parents' or grandparents' permanent camper, then spending the day on a 16-foot pontoon which only holds 4.

Or so the story goes. We don't really know, but that's what the other campers thought of us this weekend.

In reality, we were a group of 10 20-somethings, all with at least one college degree. We were quiet, but we didn't know anyone in any of the permanent campers set up in the park. And the pontoon was just a mix-up - the woman at the desk thought Luke asked about a fishing boat.

We did have a fantastic weekend. We had two sites next to each other, and set up two tents - our tent and "The Lodge", a tent we borrowed from Ben and Sarah. We spent Saturday out on a regular pontoon boat that fit all of us, fishing, swimming, and playing poker. I had plenty of food for all and only forgot one thing - the butter for the pudgy pies. Not bad. We finished the weekend by going out for dinner at a local restaurant before driving back to the Cities.

Happy Birthday Nick!

Weekend Fun

Busy post day! I just want to share some of the fun that we had this past weekend. We flew into Chicago with Dave, then drove to Smeeta's place. We went out for Chicago deep dish pizza and then back to Smeeta's apartment to play games. Smeeta had a new one called "Buzz Word". We played 4 times and I'm happy to say that I won each of them. We played teams, Nick and I against Dave and Smeeta, twice, then decided to make our own rules and play a couple of free-for-all matches. It was fun :)

Smeeta loved her birthday scrapbooks!

Saturday morning we got up early and drove south to the St Louis area. It was a very easy and pleasant drive. We got there in plenty of time to change and meet up with my mom, aunts, and grandparents. We even ate a quick lunch of 50 cent brats from a gas station anniversary sale! The wedding itself was beautiful - my cousin looked great, and her husband is pretty cute too. After the ceremony and pictures, we went over to their apartment and had a yummy supper of sloppy joes and pulled pork.

A picture of the happy couple that I altered slightly.

Back at the hotel, we introduced everyone to Whoonu. They thought it was unfair at first because they didn't know Nick very well, but we all learned some interesting things about each other and I didn't win every time, so I think it was pretty enjoyed by all.

Sunday morning, my family all left for the drive home, but Nick and I spent the day as tourists in St Louis. We started off the morning by going up to the top of the arch, then walking around downtown St Louis and eating a "picnic" lunch in the arch's shadow. After that, we toured the Anheiser-Busch world headquarters.

Our first "sight" at the arch - this car's door was left open. We pushed it shut after I took the picture. It was still sitting there when we left a few hours later - I wonder if the driver ever figured out what he did!


My first full view of the arch


View of St Louis from the top


Nick looking at the river from the top of the arch


Crammed in the tram car that brought us up and down


An ice-cream truck in downtown St Louis!


View of the arch from downtown


History of the Growler


Beer running over our heads


Some of the famous Clydesdale horses


Central clock tower - part of the Busch family's original brewery. I didn't get a picture, but for over 50 years the corporate headquarters was the old schoolhouse where the founder and his children used to go to school.

We finished our trip by driving back to Chicago, eating out at a Mexican restaurant, then crashing early so we could wake up at 4 AM to catch our flight back the next morning. What a terrific weekend!