Twins and Trains

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!

A Post Without a Theme

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!

Is It or Isn't It?

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?

Spring!

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??

Snow Outage

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).

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!

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!!

Snow Day!

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!

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!

Cold and Rainy

Cold and rainy yet again today. I've been using the heated seats in my car all week. I wish the rain would go to some other part of the country that needs it more than we do!!

Again, Again!

No, not the Twins - the Packers! It was a huge blowout of Seattle! The next game is Thursday night on FOX so I should be able to see at least the couple of series that Favre plays in.

Yesterday I worked on scrapbooking the honeymoon and Nick got the trim up in the bathroom and the living room. The living room trim looks fantastic! I'll post a picture once it's painted. For supper, we went over to Smeeta and Dave's and had fantastic steak fajitas. After we ate, we played Bohnanza and I had my best finish ever - tied with Nick and Smeeta for the win.

Another rainy Sunday means some more scrapbooking for me. Have a great day!

More Storm News

We went outside and talked to a few of the neighbors. Sounds like at least two other houses had their screens shredded. There's still big hunks of hail out in the yard, and it's been at least two hours since the hail stopped. The rain stopped too so I guess we're on for volleyball tonight!

Turns out we didn't get the worst of it. The guy on the corner had a skylight and the hail ended up shattering it and flooding his family room. What a headache. I'm off to go hose down the front of the house. It's always something to keep us from making progress on the bathroom!

Storm!

It was raining this afternoon with a thunderstorm watch, but I didn't think much of it. When I got home, however, I found out it was more than just a simple storm:

Our entire street looked like this too! Leaves everywhere!


A close up of the leaves "stuck" to the wall of the house


The worst part: all of the screens in the sunrooms now have tears. I guess there was hail. This is the worst one, but all of them have multiple holes with one at least the size of a golfball. Luckily the window parts are fine, but this still sucks.