Couples Weekend at the Cabin

Two weekends ago, Michael and I had four other couples up to the cabin for our first Couples Weekend. We invited our Chicago friends circle, and ironically, all of them but one couple (of the 6 total we invited) now live in the Twin Cities.

Here's our group that attended:

Michelle and Chad - my best friends from college.
Lara and Jordan - Lara and I worked together at Northwestern in Chicago. She was my "work wife."
Becky and JB - I met Becky and JB through my friend Corey (see next description). They moved to the Twin Cities two weeks after M and I did.
Corey and Brittany - Corey worked with Lara and I in Chicago. They are the only ones left from our circle still in Chicago, and they flew up for the weekend.

Chad and Michelle brought their 4 year old Golden Doodle, Roxie, and we had Winnie and Toby up as well. Winnie loves playing with Roxie so they had a blast all weekend.

JB acted as the official photographer for the weekend and I thank him for all the pics, because I didn't take any.

All of these people were at the wedding so they were at least familiar with the cabin area itself. We all arrived Friday night and after a quick boat ride, we grilled burgers and brats for dinner.

View from the cabin. I still cannot believe we fit 135 people on the lawn for the wedding...

Boat ride

JB driving the boat

Corey and Brittany

Corey getting comfortable.

Jordan

Ladies starting the buffet for dinner.

Everyone at the dinner table

Instead of having a fire down by the lake, we opted for an indoor fire in the living room. Someone found the tape deck (yes, tape deck) and we listened to some awesome tapes, including the Dirty Dancing soundtrack. Someone also got out the original Trivial Pursuit and we spent most of the night answering questions. Us 30 year-olds are a wild group :-)

Everyone hanging out. 

Michael and I woke up 2 hours before everyone else both Saturday and Sunday. I actually prefer getting up early at the cabin. I love enjoying the quiet, beautiful scenery with my cup of coffee and watching Winnie run around. It is so peaceful.

Breakfast was doughnuts, coffee cake, and frittatas.

Lara and Jordan brought yummy doughnuts to share. 

Corey and Jordan helped do dishes.

Lara and Becky relaxing.

Brittany loved our cookbook. We love it too!

This picture pretty much sums up the relationship Corey and I have with each other. Love this guy!

After breakfast, we headed down to the lake and enjoyed the absolutely perfect weather. The guys turned our floatie "Fun Island" into "Dude Island" and the ladies enjoyed the Adirondack chairs and the shade. We all went out on either the boat or jetskis for several hours in the afternoon. It was great to catch up, relax, and veg out.

Dude island is the floatie on the right. The guys spent hours on it with a cooler of beer.

Perfect morning.

Gorgeous day.

Jordan and Lara eating lunch.

Holding Winnie so she doesn't eat everyone's lunch. 

Love Chad's face in this photo.

Winnie and me :-)

Corey and Brittany. They just became an aunt and uncle!

JB and Becky.

This is pretty typical for Corey and JB. They are the best of friends.

Oh Corey.

Jordan enjoyed napping in the porch (and he REALLY loved Winnie so I think he locked her in there with him on purpose).

Brittany and Lara found a turtle.

The ladies. Some of my very favorite people in the world.

We made pulled pork sandwiches with cornbread, coleslaw, and corn for dinner. Then it was another boat ride around the lake - my favorite time to go out - followed by apple crisp and smores by the fire at the beach. The evening was perfect - no wind, perfect temperature, and no bugs. That was the first time in a long time I didn't have to sit in the screened in porch because of the bugs. We listened to music and enjoyed the stars.

When everyone got up, we made a quick breakfast before saying goodbye to everyone but Chad and Michelle. The four of us and the dogs went for a long boat ride before packing up and heading home. We saw a bald eagle, which was really cool!

We are pretty blessed to have the cabin to gather our friends and spend quality time together. We look forward to many more couples weekends at the cabin over the years, inviting more friends (and kids!) and creating more memories.

Goals - July 2013

Well, June just FLEW by so my goals were hit and miss. Let’s hope for better success in July!

Professional Goals - June 2013

Meet our financial and participation goals. We’re close on all of them except one so we should be ok. We made them all!!!

Finalize thank you card. We need one more piece of data that won’t be done until next week, then it’s ready to go.

Meet with data researcher about what end-of-year reports I need. Done.

Start website overhaul. Not started yet. Next week!

Hand off my old job to the new “me.” Did I mention her name is Jen and she’s tall and blonde? :-) Done but I still get a lot of questions from people. I’m happy to redirect them to Jen.

Personal Goals - June 2013

Keep up with training schedule. We only missed one day all month!

Complete 30 day ab challenge. I stopped at day 22. 

Do one open water swim practice. Done. So. Unbelievably. Hard!

Eat healthier lunches. Yes, yay me!

Menu plan each week. We did pretty well on this.

Keep up on our gardening/yard work. Eh, we could have don better.

Go to the cabin the last weekend of the month. Yes! Cannot wait to go more in July.

Have a fun weekend with Jessi. Yes! But I forgot to take pictures :-(

Eat all of our favorite Chicago foods – deep dish pizza, Ann Sather’s cinnamon rolls, and a Chicago-style hotdog. Yes, yes, and yes!!!!!!!

Reschedule our meeting with financial planner. Rescheduled but not until this month.

Have a girls night. Yes. Winnie even joined us.

Go on walks in the evenings. Yes – thank you, Winnie 

Catch up on my magazine reading. Sort of – looking forward to doing that over the 4th!

Blog three times a week. I sucked at blogging this month. Shame on me!

And now for July’s goals!

Professional Goals - July 2013

Finalize and send thank you card. 

Start working on all my end-of-fiscal-year reports.

Start website overhaul.

Send volunteer thank yous.

Meet with graphic designer about next year’s projects.

Move into my new office (supposed to be done by the end of the month – I’ll believe it when I see it).

Celebrate two years at my school.

Take the last week of the month/first week of July off for a stay-cation :-)

Personal Goals - July 2013

Complete my first (and only?) triathlon!

Keep working out post-tri.

Eat healthy lunches. 

Menu plan each week using things from our garden – herbs and tomato recipes needed!

Enjoy our long-weekend at the cabin for the 4th of July.

Have a fun weekend with the S family.

Have a fun weekend in Minot for my cousin’s wedding.

Meet with financial planner.

Lunch with Michelle.

Start puppy kindergarten for Winnie.

Go out on a date night.

Check off at least two things on my summer to-do list.

Continue training Winnie – potty training, walking, no nipping, etc.

Blog three times a week.

Tri Training – Week 6

I’m exhausted. How we will train for 32 more days, I have no idea!!!

Last week ended well. We had a good swim on Thursday, a kick-butt spin class at 5:10am on Friday (it was so hard  but so good – Michael kept glaring at me), and an awesome run along lake Michigan on Saturday. Well, the scenery was awesome but my run was slow. I was dressed too warmly and was sucking air the last ten minutes. But that was nothing that some yummy Ann Sather cinnamon rolls couldn’t fix!

We don’t have an off day this week, as we skipped our brick Sunday after getting back from our trip to Chicago. There was no way we were going to brick that night so we did the bike portion, and then ran Monday. I pushed myself and ran faster than I normally do, which made me happy. This Sunday, we are going to do a practice course with race officials. We’ll do the actual course for the bike and run at 7am so that should be interesting.

This week, our schedule is:

Monday – 30 minute run
Tuesday – swim – 150 yard warm up, 400 yards, 150 easy, 50 cool down
Wednesday – 40 minute run
Thursday – swim - 150 yard warm up, 400 yards, 150 easy, 50 cool down
Friday – bike – spin class at 5:10am
Saturday – run 40 minutes
Sunday – brick - practice course – will probably be a 60 minute bike and 30 minute run

My 30 day ab challenge is going well. I haven’t missed a day and today’s agenda is 55 sit ups, 65 crunches, 40 leg lifts, and 45 second plank.

Goals - June 2013

Ah – it’s already June 11 and I’m just getting around to blogging my goals. It’s been one of those months where I feel like I have no downtime. Last night, Michael and I went for a run, made dinner, did dishes, and a load of laundry and by the time that was all said and done, it was 9pm!

My May goals went pretty well. I’m going to go a bit conservative for June, considering everything we have going on. If it’s not related to our travel plans or the tri, it probably is not happening.

Professional Goals - May 2013

Get the fiscal year end mailer out the door. Yes. I was happy without it turned out.

Take the “thank you” photo. Yes, but the quality isn’t great. Hoping our graphic designer can make it look good!

Finalize reunion volunteers and party locations. Almost finished. Just a few left and after next week, it won’t matter to me anymore because I am not in charge of it!

Recruit golf and tennis hosts for August event. Done.

Only work late one night per week.  I have been staying late two to three nights a week, but only until 6 a few times so that’s good.

Hire someone for my job! FINALLY – YES!

Personal Goals - May 2013

Stick to triathlon training schedule. We have stuck to the schedule but had to do some switching of days. But we did not missed a workout.

Yoga once a week. Ha – I went once. I just don’t have time. Post-tri, yoga will be back in my routine. I promise!

Eat healthier lunches. I did pretty good but now that the students are gone, I really can because I’m bringing my own lunch every day, so I’m not tempted with all the yummy things our chef (yes, he’s a chef, not a cook) makes.

Try a new recipe. I’m sure I did but I cannot even remember – the month seems like such a long time ago!

Menu plan better each week. We did much better with this in May. This not only helped us eat better but kept our finances in check.

Move into our new room at the cabin. Done.

Plant garden/flowers. Done.

Go to a Twins game.  Success!

Go to my school’s spring musical (Hair Spray). Yes – it was pretty cute.

Have a date night with Michael. We had informal date nights/days but not a formal one. That’s ok though – informal is good for me :-)

Host Mother’s Day brunch. Yes, and it was delicious. We made a sausage frittata, veggie frittata, cinnamon rolls, and a yogurt bar. 

Have a girls night. Yes. We had a nice “walking” girls night around one of the lakes – hope we do more of those!

Go on walks in the evenings. We were not so good about that.

Read three books. I read a lot this month - 5 books. After the TV finales for all my shows, I became engulfed in several books.

Blog three times a week. I need to be better about this. But since I feel like all we did was workout, there was not much to blog about...

Professional Goals - June 2013

Meet our financial and participation goals. We’re close on all of them except one so we should be ok.

Finalize thank you card. 

Meet with data researcher about what end-of-year reports I need.

Start website overhaul.

Hand off my old job to the new “me.” Did I mention her name is Jen and she’s tall and blonde? :-)

Personal Goals - June 2013

Keep up with training schedule.

Complete 30 day ab challenge.

Do one open water swim practice.

Eat healthier lunches. 

Menu plan each week.

Keep up on our gardening/yard work.

Go to the cabin the last weekend of the month.

Have a fun weekend with Jessi.

Eat all of our favorite Chicago foods – deep dish pizza, Ann Sather’s cinnamon rolls, and a Chicago-style hotdog.

Reschedule our meeting with financial planner.

Have a girls night. 

Go on walks in the evenings. 

Catch up on my magazine reading.

Blog three times a week. 

Sunshines and Creeps

Sunshine to going to one of my favorite cities in the world today: CHICAGO! Our friends Corey and Brittany (remember the Perfect Strangers Save the Date video?) are getting married.

Sunshine to going to Chicago with Michael for the first time since we moved. We cannot wait to be back in the city where we met and fell in love.

Sunshine to deep dish pizza tonight!

Sunshine to seeing Jen and Kristie tonight!

Sunshine to a run along Lake Michigan tomorrow.

Sunshine to Ann Sather, my favorite breakfast place, tomorrow.

Sunshine to seeing lots of other Chicago friends tomorrow.

Creep to having to do a brick on Sunday night when we get back from Chicago. That is the last thing I want to do when I get home, but I'll probably eat a week's worth of calories while I'm there so it's for the best.

And now, some non-Chicago posts...

Sunshine to reading the entire new Dan Brown book "Inferno" last weekend. Creep to not being able to find a new book that I'm interested in.

Sunshine to some good workouts this week. Creep to waking up at 4:45am today to go to spin class.

Sunshine to a productive work retreat this week. I will be very busy this summer. Thank goodness that the person we hired for my job starts on June 17!

June - crazy-busy month!

We have a ton of stuff going on in June! Nearly all of it is really fun stuff but it will be a crazy-intense month.

Here’s what’s going on:

June 7-9 – Chicago for our friends Corey and Brittany’s wedding
June 12 – dinner with friends Allie and Christian
June 14-16 – Jessi is coming to visit and we are seeing War Horse
June 16 – Father’s Day – don’t know what we’re doing yet but I’m assuming dinner with the M’s fam
June 20-22 – Chicago for Amy’s graduation, plus a special pit stop on the way home (more on that in a later blog post)
June 26 – Girls Night
June 28-30 – weekend at the cabin

Also, we train for the tri all month long, with a practice mini-tri on Sunday, June 30. And did I mention that it is also the last month of the fiscal year at my school? So I have to raise another $92K to reach our goal by June 30? NBD…

Tri Training - Week 5

It’s a busy week of tri training here. We thankfully had Monday as an off day. After 7 straight days of working out and ending with a brick, I was very, very thankful for Monday (which never happens – I hate Mondays).

We ended last week strong, but had a set back Thursday, as we rushed to make a 5:10am spin class (hello, 4:45am alarm!), only to have it be cancelled. So we just rode spin bikes for 45 minutes at the gym. Michael was dying of boredom. Our brick on Sunday went better than last week’s. We did it at 7:30am on Sunday so it was quite cool. I changed from capris to fleece-lined tights at the last minute and was really glad I did. And I wore an earband under my bike helmet - because I’m cool like that - and I was headache free after the run. I ran further this time but my pace was still pretty slow. Hopefully that will improve as the weeks go on.

This week, our schedule is:

Monday – off
Tuesday – swim – 100 yard warm up, 3x200 yards with 30 seconds rest, 100 easy, 50 cool down
Wednesday – 40 minute run – our route around our neighborhood is getting more and more creative. And it’s apparently National Running Day today so we planned that nicely 
Thursday – swim - 100 yard warm up, 3x250 yards with 30 seconds rest, 100 easy, 50 cool down
Friday – bike – spin class at 5:10am – I checked and it’s still on
Saturday – run 40 minutes – so excited to do this run in Chicago along Lake Michigan!
Sunday – brick – 35 minute bike, 25 minute run

I ordered a few top options that should be here this week so I’m hoping to nail down my day-of tri outfit soon. And I started doing a 30 day ab challenge for June. So far, it's not too bad but by the end of the month, I will have to do 125 situps, 200 crunches, 65 leg raises, and a 2 min plank. Ugh!

Different Kind of Sunshine Today

I don't have time to write my usual Sunshines and Creep because it's Reunion Weekend and I'm super busy working the next few days (Creep to that).

So instead, I leave you with this video. My two friends, Corey and Brittany, are getting married this summer in Chicago. Corey and I worked together at Northwestern and have remained close friends over the years. Though he can be completely inappropriate and hilarious, he has one of the fondest hearts of anyone I know. And Brittany is the perfect fit for him. I just adore her and I am so excited for these two to tie the know.

Ok, back to the video. Instead of doing a regular Save the Date, the made this fun Save the Date video instead. And if you never watched the TV show Perfect Strangers (set in Chicago), I recommend you watch the video below FIRST, and then click on the link above. Great job, Corey and Brittany. Cannot wait to celebrate your big day!

Happy weekend everyone!

Wedding Wednesday: The Wedding Day Part II

So in last week’s post, I left off at the end of the ceremony.

When the ceremony ended, Michael and I headed inside the cabin. We got the marriage license filled out, my dress bussled  and some food and drink from the caterers. And then we relaxed a bit. We had planned NOT to attend our cocktail hour from the beginning. We knew the night would fly by and we wanted that time for just us. We watched our family, friends, and the caterers quickly move all the chairs inside the tent so everyone could take cover from the wind. Thank you if you helped with this! It was done in minutes! Then we went up to the loft and watched out the window. People were all over the antipasta display and I heard that people enjoyed the passed apps too (I wish I had had more of those!). My parents hung out with us a bit and then we practiced our dance (more on that in a minute). It was nice to have that "us" time, as we didn't really get that again. At 6pm, we left the cabin and headed for the tent.

Entering the tent was a lot of fun, and slightly overwhelming. It was the first time I had seen it completely set up and I loved it! And then there were 130 of our family and friends in there with us. It was great, but like I said, a bit overwhelming because there was so much to take in. And once I was inside the tent, I didn't think about the wind at all for the rest of the night. Take that, Mother Nature!

When we sat down at our table, I looked at my dad and there was our conversation:

Me: Are you ready?

Him: For what?

Me: Your speech.

Him: I thought I was at 8.

Me: No, you’re now (as the wedding coordinator handed him the microphone).

But his speech was great and I so appreciate that he welcomed everyone and gave a toast. It was the perfect father of the bride speech. Then Michael’s dad gave a toast, Michael’s mom gave the blessing, and it was time to start eating dinner. Our amazing caterers did such a good job with the food. I’ll go into more detail of that in a future blog post, but let me just say that several people told me it was the best wedding food they had ever had, which was a great compliment. We did not want rubbery chicken with a weird sauce and I think we delivered some pretty amazing food.

In between courses, Michael and I table hopped so we could talk to all of our guests. We opted not to do a receiving line so we could spend some more time with everyone. It took a long time to do but we hit everyone but one person (who was in the bathroom and left early) so I think we did pretty good.

Following table hopping, we cut the cake. I had no idea what I was doing so I made a cut in the bottom layer. Mistake! We had no way to get it out. So we made another cut in the top layer and that went much better. Michael and I both hate when people smash cake in each other’s faces so we did not do that. We had a chocolate cake with vanilla buttercream frosting and it was delicious. One of my friends told me she still dreams of my cake. I also love that our baker gives us a free top tier of our wedding cake for our one year anniversary. No crappy, freezer-burnt cake for us on September 8, 2013!

Then it was time for the speeches. My one regret is that we didn’t tape these. I really wish we had them on video. Our best man, Patrick, went first. I’ve known Patrick longer than I’ve known Michael and I know he hates speaking in front of large crowds. But his speech was perfect – so heartfelt and so genuine – and he did great. The best part was at the end when he started to congratulate us as a couple. Only he said “My condolences” instead of “My congratulations.” The entire room, er tent, burst into laughter. It was such a great, unscripted moment.

Then my sisters did their joint speech. Like Patrick, neither of them is too keen on speaking in front of large crowds either but they did a wonderful job. Jami had told me how nervous she was but you would have never known that either of them was. They told great stories about our family and Michael and I. Everyone was laughing the entire time and it could not have gone better!

Michael and I spoke last. We wanted to thank a few people and talk a little bit more about us as a couple. I completely broke down when I asked everyone to remember those who are not with us anymore (three of our grandfathers and my friend Adam), but pulled it back together for Michael’s part of the speech. He shared the reason why we got married at the cabin and what it means to us, as well as his wedding gift to me: a bronze plaque for the cabin that has our names, wedding date, and a quote from his vows. I can’t wait to put it up on the cabin this fall.

After speeches, we moved straight into dancing. As I said in an earlier post, Michael and I took dance lessons this summer. Our intention was never to have a choreographed dance. We just wanted to learn together and have fun. But as soon as our instructor found out we were getting married, he insisted on choreographing a dance for us.  Our first dance was to “Then” by Brad Paisley. We both love that song and it was perfect for our first dance. We practiced our dance a lot – I think our neighbors think we’re weird, since we practiced in our driveway – but it was worth it and we had a lot of fun with it. Thank you to Chad for taping this for us! We did a combined father/daughter and mother/son dance. I am a firm believer that these dances are sort of boring for the guests but important to those who are dancing so we did a combined one to make it faster. It was nice to have that time with my dad.

After that, it was an open dance floor and let me tell you, it was hopping! Michael and I knew we both had families that dance and they didn’t disappoint us. They were on the dance floor the whole night – thank you, awesome family! Most of his friends dance after they hit up the cigar bar (yeah, we had a cigar bar) and a few of my friends danced too. I was glad we upgraded the size of the dance floor a few weeks before the wedding b/c it was completely full! Our DJ did a great job of playing oldies, goodies, slow, fast, and everything inbetween. Our photographers took pictures the entire dance and Facebooked at one point “BEST WEDDING DANCE EVER!” I had so much fun bopping from one group of people to the next all night long.

During the dance, our caterers served the late night snacks. That was actually the easiest part of our menu to plan – Michael and I knew exactly what we wanted and our caterers got it perfect. The Chicago-style hot dog was for where we met and the Vahlrona drinking chocolate was for where we live now. Both were delicious – in fact, I had two drinking chocolates :-)

When the dance ended, we had a sparkler exit. It went by so fast! My cousin Jacy took this short video of it – thanks Jacy!

Then it was into our getaway car – a 1962 Rolls Royce – and off to a hotel in Minneapolis for the night. Our driver was really nice and we had fun chatting with him and reliving the memories of our day. We stayed at Hotel Ivy in downtown Minneapolis and if you are ever looking for a nice hotel here, I highly recommend. It was really nice – I wish we would have had more time there. When we got to the hotel, our caterers had sent a care package and gift (Vera Wang picture frame from our registry at Macy’s) to our room. We didn’t even know we were hungry until we started eating! Then we ate a whole bag of chips and jar of salsa :-)

I hardly remember pulling the bobby pins out of my head, showering, and falling asleep. I slept in a hotel robe and Michael didn’t even un-prop his pillows. When we woke up the next morning, his pillows were exactly as they are when you enter a hotel room – vertical and three deep. We woke up to some yummy room service and then hit the road to head BACK to the cabin to clean up and say goodbye to family. We made it just in time to say goodbye, helped do the last of the clean up (our families had done most of it already – nice people) and then relaxed the rest of the day.

Were there things that I wished had gone differently? Sure. Would I change a thing? Absolutely not. It was the best day of my life.

Pictures and more details to come!

One Year Anniversary in MN

Last week was my one year anniversary in Minnesota. It's hard to believe it's only been a year since I left Chicago and moved to MN with Michael. So much has happened since then!

Since I've moved here, I've been making note of things that I love about MN and things I don't love. Here's my list:

Things I love

• Living with Michael. There is just something so nice about waking up next to him every morning, falling asleep next to him every night. Not having anyone else in our house is just so nice.
• Speaking of our house, I love having a house. Sure, we have yard work to do and a driveway to shovel in the winter, but I love having a place that is ours. We have a private deck, I have my own garage stall for the first time in my life - it's just great.
• Driving places and finding a place to park. In a lot. Easily. For free.
• The lakes. I love running, walking, and biking around them. Lake Michigan in Chicago was nice, but so crowded and you couldn't go in a circle. It's one of my very favorite things.
• Getting visitors and being closer to my family. When we lived in Chicago, my parents visited a few times a year and my sisters came once. Now that we are in MN, I see my parents a lot more often and Jessi has already visited us too. 
• Being closer to my girlfriends. My best friends from Chicago all live here now. And my best friends from college either live here or within in a few hours drive. Even though we don't see each other that much more, it's nice to know how much closer we are now.
• The difference in light. Chicago and MN may be in the same time zone but it stays lighter here a lot longer than it did in Chicago. 

Things that I don't love (and never will)

• The driving. OMG - my road rage here is out of control. No one knows how to merge. Speed limits are just suggestions. The traffic jams are caused by people being WAY too cautious. And the lack of signaling when changing lanes or turning is mind-boggling. I truly don't get it. It's like no one took drivers education. That, or MN has a REALLY poor drivers education program.
• The mosquitos. We had mosquitos in ND but then I moved to OH and Chicago and was without mosquitos for 6 years. It was great! And now, the number of mosquito bites I have is kind of ridiculous. Just this morning, after our run, I got a few bites when we were doing abs in the driveway, one of which is on the bottom of my chin. Really? My blood tastes that good?
• The lack of fancy restaurants. Maybe I just haven't found them yet. And I know Chicago is a much bigger city than MSP but I really miss the food in Chicago. M and I used to try new restaurants all the time, and we very rarely eat out here.
• The price of airline tickets. Flying out of here is a lot more expensive that it was in Chicago.
• Having to go to three different grocery stores to get all the things I want. I had one store in Chicago and they carried everything I wanted. Now I have to store hop to get the right brand of turkey, goat cheese, bread, etc. 

Even though I don't love everything about MN, I do not regret my move here for a second. It was the best decision I've ever made, and one that I had been wanting to make for several years. Here's to many more years in MN!

Sunshines and Creeps

Lots of  Creeps this week...

Creep to the bad weather preventing my parents from coming today. No wedding dress shopping this weekend :-(

Creep to have to reschedule all the bridal shop appointments.

Sunshine to Michael trying to be sweet and saying he'll go dress shopping with me. I don't care if he sees the dress, but I really wanted to go with my mom. I'm nearly 30 but sometimes, girls just need their moms.

Creep to the gym being closed for maintenance this week. I did a workout video one day but it's not the same. I wish it would warm up so I could be outside!

Creep to feeling sick. Do you ever take cold medicine in a pill format and feel sick to your stomach afterwards? That's how I'm feeling right now, and it's not fun.

Creep to my office being FREEZING!

Creep to lunch at the School on Monday. It is my LEAST FAVORITE school lunch of all time, stemming from my time in school. Chicken Ala King. YUCK!

Sunshine to going to Chicago next week for work. I haven't been since I moved in June and I miss that city SO much! Cannot wait to see my friends and the city.

Creep to going to Chicago without Michael. This will be the first time we haven't seen each other for more than a day in months.

Sunshine to the weekend. Now I just need to figure out what to do with myself...

Sunshines and Creeps

Woop woop! It's finally Friday! And that means Sunshines and Creeps!

Sunshine to seeing my GPhiB besties this weekend.

Sunshine to my weekend of showers: Kristen and I throwing Steph's tomorrow, and then it's Kristen's baby shower on Sunday.

Sunshine to the weather forecast for tomorrow.When you plan an outdoor shower, you take a big chance. And I think it's going to work out just fine for us. Whew!!!

Sunshine to seeing Jessi this weekend. I haven't hung out with her in forever!

Creep to not feeling great this week. Maybe I need more sleep or something...

Creep to Toby being a little devil this week. You can read about our dog sitting experience here.

Creep to not packing for my weekend trip yet - oops!

Sunshine to quality time with Michael last weekend and this week.

Creep to the Twins for trading Jim Thome. I love that guy...

Sunshine to ordering the pictures for our room. Now if we can just get rid of the fluorescent lights...

Sunshine to my parents LOVING their anniversary gift for me and my sisters. We made them a family cookbook with pictures, recipes, and stories. It was a lot of work but totally worth it. I can't wait to see it in person!

Sunshine to M and I planning a fall weekend getaway trip that doesn't revolve around a wedding, seeing family, going to the lake, etc. Don't get me wrong - I love doing all those things. But sometimes you just need a trip that doesn't involve those things.

Creep to missing Chicago this week. I kept seeing all these commercials and talking about the city with others, and it made me realize just how much I loved living there. Don't get me wrong - I am THRILLED to be in MSP, but I will always have a fond place in my heart for Chicago.

Sunshine to having a couch. Finally!

Sunshine to my GF Johanne. Love you GF and cannot wait to see you in November, if not sooner :-)

Traveling Tuesdays - Vegas

I promise that I will one day finish blogging about my trip to Belgium. But for today, I'm going to blog about my recent trip to Vegas for my Girlfriend Johanne's bachelorette party.

I was supposed to arrive on Friday morning at 8am Vegas time, but stupid Delta cancelled my flight (this is my second bad experience with Delta in a row - no more Delta flying for this girl!) so I didn't arrive until 9pm (Vegas time) on Friday night. I was exhausted from waking up at 4am to try to Delta, but I rallied and went out anyways. There were 10 ladies on the trip, and I met about half of them before. We walked around the casino in our hotel, the Monte Carlo, for a bit, and some of the ladies gambled. Not me. I just don't have the desire to gamble. Maybe I will someday but for now, I'm good watching others. So that’s what I did. Once people were done losing money, we went to a club at the Aria. I hadn’t been a club in years and although my feet hurt, we had a good time. My favorite part of the night occurred when I tried to order a Sprite from the bar with my free drink ticket. “$7” said the mean bartender girl. I said “But I have a free drink ticket?” She said “It’s only for drink drinks.” So I got a free rum and diet. Weird! We ended the night with “4th meals” at Sabaro, Subway, and some Mexican place. When I crawled into bed at 2am Vegas time, I had been up for 24 hours.

The blonde in the middle is Andrea, one of Johanne's HS friends. This just shows how many people were in this club. Crazy! (also, please note the SUPER skinny girl to the right of Andrea - yuck! Give that girl a steak)



Sarah (Matron of Honor), Johanne, and me

Saturday we walked around the strip most of morning and went to the big mall. We spent some time at the Bellagio so I took some pics there.

I thought this was neat.

I was hoping to lay by the pool that day but that didn’t happen :-( We met just before dinner to do presents and a champagne toast for Johanne, which was lots of fun. She got some really cute lingerie and panties. Then it was off to dinner at an Italian restaurant in the New York New York hotel. We sort of had our own private room, which was fun, and we had a funny server, which made the meal even more enjoyable. After dinner, we walked just down the hotel to a piano bar, where were settled for the night and had a great time. The pianists even invited Johanne up and sang her a special song (it was dirty but still funny and she was a good sport about it). After 3 hours and several jello shots, we called it a night, but not before another 4th meal at McDonalds and Subway.

Pics from the night

Some of the ladies before we went out

Me and my GF

Me, GF, and Sarah (Matron of Honor)

Trying to do a BJ shot

Failing at the shot

Hilarious!

It's much easier to use your hands.

Girls with some random guy

Me with my roomies, Jenny and Heather

Sunday morning, I had breakfast with my friend Kristie from NU, who just happened to be in Vegas with her parents. It was so fun to see her and since she lives in Nashville, we only get to see each other a few times a year. Then it was a sad goodbye to my GF and new friends before heading to the airport and home to MSP and our house! M and his family had done a ton of painting and moving over the weekend and that night was the first time we slept in our house.

I don’t know if I’ll ever go back to Vegas, but I’m glad that I’ve been and experienced at least once in my life.