For all the cows...

Sleepy girl

2010-02-18T21:08:00.006-06:00

Emi has met her match. This is what happens after spending a week with a golden retriever and two toddlers....

She must have played hard because we picked her up Monday night after we got back into town and this is pretty much all she did for the rest of the night and the next two days after that. I was also told that she was pretty much dead out before we came to get her. She was one pooped pup!

A Rockin' Party

2009-12-13T13:42:00.004-06:00

Last night was the annual volunteer party for anyone who volunteers at our church. There is always a theme for the party, and this year it was a murder mystery dinner. This year was by far the best Quest volunteer party that we have been to. Everyone got to dress up as a Rock or Country star to go to an awards banquet for Quest Records. Justin and I, of course, chose to be rock stars and were assigned to be Elvis and Pink. For me, this worked out very well because I coincidentally had a hair cut scheduled right after we found out our characters for the dinner, so I used Pink as inspiration for my new 'do (my hair stylist was thrilled; I think she has been hoping that I would do something a little more edgy for a while now). Anyways, it was awesome to see so many people get into their parts last night. I think that's what made the dinner such a success.

As for the murder mystery part of the night, Elvis, Jon Lennon, and Aretha Franklin were up for the Quest Legend Award and during the dinner someone killed Jon Lennon. To add to this, Quest Records is caught up in the economic crisis and can no longer support both the Rock and Country divisions of the business so they are going to have to chose a direction to go in for the future. Naturally, Pink wants them to stick with Rock because that's the foundation of the company (I also got to be suspicious of Mick Jagger all night... he turned out to be an accomplice). Elvis wants rock to be chosen too, but he was a little more proactive about it because it turned out that he and Suze Orman (Quest Records' CFO) were the masterminds behind the murder of Jon Lennon.

The murder mystery plot line was fun to act out and try and figure out who all the masterminds and accomplices were. The group I was in at the end of the game was lucky to have Justin since he knew that Elvis and Suze Orman were two of the masterminds (unfortunately, he remembered his information wrong and thought that it had said that they were 2 of 5 masterminds, but what he remembered was still helpful and we managed to get a lot of points). I still think that the best part of the night was seeing everyone's costumes and how they acted out their character. Everyone's character seemed to have been chosen thoughtfully, since I felt like pretty much everyone fit their character in some way or was able to act out the character such that they embodied (Jackie and Canaan as Courtney Love and Kurt Cobain, and Jon and Celina as Jon Lennon and Yoko Ono were particularly awesome). I hope the pictures go up on the website soon so I can post a link!

Festive Turkey Day Pup

2009-11-30T17:25:00.000-06:00

Thanksgiving 2009

2009-11-30T12:10:00.002-06:00

We had a lovely Thanksgiving once again this year. My immediate family and Justin's father, step-mom, and youngest sister joined us for dinner this year. This was the third time that Justin and I have hosted Thanksgiving dinner and I am sure it won't be the last. We have found that cooking and cleaning is way more fun and less stressful than traveling all over Illinois for the long weekend. Besides, if you do most of the prep work on the day before Thanksgiving, then you get to just relax with family and watch football on the day of. I decided to try a new turkey recipe that involved brining the turkey before roasting - a process that is highly recommended by Alton Brown and my Uncle Kurt. The brine is supposed to keep the turkey moist and flavorful during roasting. Alton Brown explains why this works on Good Eats.... you can see the clip below (this happens to be the same recipe that I used).

And here is the rest of our Thanksgiving menu with links to some of the recipes:

Appetizers
Frog Eyes (pickles wrapped in cream cheese and ham)
Cheese plate
Shrimp Cocktail
Veggies with creamy horseradish and dill dip

Main Course
Roast Turkey 
Mashed Potatoes
Best Ever Green Bean Casserole
Cranberry sauce
Stuffing (Maggie's dad)
Maple glazed carrots with dill (Maggie's mom)
Corn dish (Joan)
Rolls (Joan)

Dessert
Pumpkin pie (Maggie's mom)

Halloween Party

2009-11-17T22:16:00.005-06:00

Justin and I decided that it might be fun to have a Halloween party this year. So... we did and it was. At least I thought it was fun, I hope everyone else would agree. It was awesome that almost everyone came in costume too. I guess dressing up never really gets old. Here are a couple of group pictures. More pictures can be found here.
This is everyone who came to the party.

This is the C-U contingent of Midnight Massacre (our WoW guild... yes, I'm a nerd). This is also the only picture I got that had a decent view of Justin's and my costumes - he was a blindfolded knife thrower and I was the target... he missed.

Buzzed Brothers

2009-10-13T20:45:00.003-05:00

We visited Justin's family this weekend for Nick's going away party and this is what happened...
My sister-in-law, Michelle, gave both Nick and Justin buzz cuts. Nick's haircut was planned; Justin's wasn't. I wasn't sure how Justin would look with a buzzed head, but it's actually kind of cute. I'm not sure what made him do it though. He did need a hair cut, but I wonder if part of it was motivated by wanting to support his brother or as a reaction to his brother joining the Army?

Nick decided that he was going to join the Army after he finished college this summer and he left for basic training yesterday. He's not going to have much contact with the outside world for a few months so we're going to miss him, and of course we are going to worry about him for the next few years while he's in the service.

Good luck, Nick! We love you!

Veggie Garden Update

2009-10-09T18:30:00.002-05:00

Now that fall is here and I'm pretty sure there is going to be a frost any day now, our garden is nearing the end. The project wasn't a complete success, but wasn't a total failure either. We got a lot of tomatoes out of it which we used for a fantastic pasta sauce, salsa, BLTs and a caprese salad or two. Unfortunately, with all I planted, tomatoes were really the only thing that made it... I knew it was a bad sign when the herbs in my Aerogarden died. I originally thought I had killed everything except the tomatoes, but the pepper plants somehow made a miraculous recovery and we've gotten a couple of small green peppers off of those. I would say that the garden this year was a learning experience, and now I know of a few things to do differently next year:

Get better supports for the tomatoes. There was a tomato-plosion in the garden, which is good, but all the plants are falling over and take up way too much space - they needed to grow up more.
Plant less. I could have kept the variety of veggies, but used a few less plants. I think more would have survived this way. Before they all died to something (I blame those pesky Japanese beetles) I had 4 zuccini plants - this was way too many for the space.
Build a better anti-bunny fence. Ours ended up being kind of flimsy and was a pain to deal with, although we didn't have any bunny problems so it did its job.
Don't ignore the garden for the first few weeks after planting. I didn't really mean to do this, it just happened that we were busy many weekends early on in the summer. No excuses, though. If I had just taken 5-10 minutes a couple times a week to pull weeds and make sure the plants were supported properly and had enough space then the garden wouldn't have been such a mess.

Quest for Hope 5K

2009-10-09T17:45:00.001-05:00

Quest held its 2nd annual 5K run/walk on Sept. 5th. And even though running a 5k was supposed to happen after I finished the C25K program, I ran in it anyway. Being out of town for 2 weeks followed by having a houseguest for the week after we got back from vacation didn't exactly help the C25K progression, but I'm still committed to finishing all the workouts anyway. At the very least, I made it into the weeks in which you have to run for the entire workout with no walk breaks.

Running the 5K was fun. My goal was just to finish; meeting or beating my time from last year would have been an added bonus. I finished the race, running the entire time, but my time was 2 minutes slower than last year, which really highlights how much better shape I was in last year (I'm working on that though, slowly but surely). The cool thing about the race this year was that I had a running buddy, a woman named Marie Christine, she and I had fallen back a bit after the start and were at about the same pace so she asked if I wanted to run with her so we'd both have some moral support. It was very encouraging to run with someone else and I think it helped keep me going. Justin ran the 5K too, but he's always been much faster than me so running together only lasted about 2 minutes. It would be awesome if one day I could get fast enough to keep up with him.

Here's a picture of me and my running buddy. We had completed 1 lap by this time (1.5 miles) so I was already pretty tired.

More 5K pictures can be found here on the Quest website.

Rue La La

2009-10-09T17:19:00.001-05:00

I found out of this through a friend who posted an invite link on Facebook. Rue La La is an invitation-only online store that showcases different "boutiques" everyday. These boutiques sell designer brands of clothes, jewelry, home goods, etc. at discounted prices. From what I can tell, most of the stuff is marked down about 50%, so at the very least it's a website to keep an eye on for any steals. Anyone who is interested can click on my invite link below. Happy shopping!

http://www.ruelala.com/invite/maggiemiller

The BIG Krannert Wine Tasting

2009-10-09T17:13:00.001-05:00

This past Monday was the annual BIG wine tasting at Krannert sponsored by Piccadilly Beverage Shops. Justin and I have made a point to go to the big Krannert wine tasting for the past couple of years. If you are in Champaign and have never gone to this then keep on the lookout for it next year because it's awesome. The entry fee is $10, all of which goes to charity, there are hundreds of wine to taste (this year there were cheeses too!) and there's a discount on any wines ordered that night. We like to do a make-your-own case type deal where we pick our 12 favorites - definitely worth it if you drink a lot of wine. Aside from there being cheese I think the highlight this year was the comparative tables. There were two Tempranillo tables and one Sauvignon Blanc table. We tasted all the wines at one of the Tempranillo tables and a couple of wines at the Sauvignon Blanc table. I'm always amazed at how the same type of grape can produce wines with different flavors.

If you missed the BIG Krannert tasting, no worries there are plenty of weekly wine tastings to go to in Champaign-Urbana. Here's a few that I know of...

Uncorked: Thursdays, 5-7 pm @ Krannert. Price: free!

Piccadilly Beverage Shops: Fridays 4-8 pm and Saturdays 1-4 pm @ the Neil and Village Crossing locations. Price: $3

Sun Singer Wine & Spirits: Saturdays 12-4 @ Sun Singer. Price: free!

Sun Singer is also having their annual gala wine tasting on Thursday Oct. 22nd, 5-8 pm @ the Orpheum Theater in downtown Champaign. Price: $20/person. I've never been to this one, but I love Sun Singer so maybe we'll check it out this year.

Up North Vacation 2009

2009-10-06T21:17:00.010-05:00

During the first week of August, Justin and I went on a vacation with my family in northern Wisconsin. We had a blast! This year we rented a house on South Turtle Lake in Winchester, WI. There was lots of relaxation, games, fishing, boat rides, and bacon (although I don't think we went through 25 lbs. like we did one year...probably because Joe wasn't there). I didn't really do any fishing, but Justin did. He actually caught the first fish, a delicious bass, without even trying. My dad and Justin were just sitting on the boat drinking beer one afternoon and had their lines in the water, and all of a sudden Justin is looking around and says, "hey, where's my bobber?" It had drifted under the pier and attached to it was a fish!
Justin learned how to clean the fish too. My cousins, Mia and Kaylie, didn't really understand this part. When we asked them if they wanted to keep the fish they caught, they wanted to keep them as pets, but when we say "keep" we mean "keep to eat". The weather was too cold to go swimming, but we still wanted to see if Emi could swim. On the one day where it warmed up just enough to be tolerable we put her in the water. Justin got in too.... There was no way I was getting in though - that water was cold! We found out that Emi can swim, she just doesn't really want to swim. She loved riding on the boat, though. I'm sure that was mostly because she got to be with everybody. She was never very happy when Justin and I went on the boat without her. We could hear her barking from all the way across the lake!

Even though we caught a lot of fish, we still went to the trout farm in Watersmeet, MI. We had a lovely fish fry on the last day we were at the house. We probably didn't even need to use any of the fish that we caught at the trout farm since we had caught so many in the lake.Here's Kaylie with the very friendly butterfly we met on our bog hike. It kept landing on people. I've never seen a butterfly do that before. It was pretty cool.
More pictures are on my Facebook page, and if you are friends with my Uncle Kurt, he has some up on his page too. I'm looking forward to next year!

Wait, wait... I know that town!

2009-10-06T20:43:00.001-05:00

Kalona, Iowa was featured in the Bluff the Listener segment of last week's "Wait, Wait... Don't Tell Me" (the hilarious NPR news quiz). I know it sounds weird to be excited about a small town in Iowa, but that's where Justin's grandparents live! This is the second time that there's been a story about a town where my family lives. The first was when Beach Park, IL, where my parents live, was a part of Bluff the Listener. Something crazy needs to happen here so that Chambana can be on the show next!

"Wait, Wait... Don't Tell Me" can be downloaded (for free!) from iTunes. Listen to the 9/26/09 program to hear about Kalona, and 11/9/08 to hear about Beach Park.

I recommend listening to the "Wait, Wait" episodes first, but the actual Kalona story can be found here and the Beach Park story can be found here.

The Total Package

2009-10-03T14:48:00.003-05:00

The last week of July I was at a conference in Andover, NH on Cellulases, Cellulosomes, and Other Carbohydrate Modifying Enzymes, but that doesn't really matter. What does matter is that the conference was held at Proctor Academy, which is a prep school that prepares kids to go to Ivy League schools. And at Proctor Academy, all of the talks were held in the main auditorium in which many of the seats had little gold plaques on the armrests indicating that someone had donated money to, and I'm totally guessing here, the theater, most likely to purchase those very seats. Most of the plaques say something to the effect of "The Jones Family" or "In loving memory of Sue", which is generally what you expect from this kind of donation-type thing. What you don't expect to be written on one of those little plaques is:

Jeff Peach "The Total Package"  

This is what was written on the plaque of the chair that I sat in for pretty much the entire duration of the conference. I would actually look for that particular seat because I found the armrest plaque so amusing (it also helped that it was in the center of the last row, but I digress). I feel that this plaque brings up such questions as.... Who is Jeff Peach and why is he the total package? What makes someone the total package? Could I possibly someday be the total package? And the big question that you are probably asking yourself right now.... Why is Maggie obsessing over this little plaque and not paying attention to the lectures? Well friends, I may not be able to answer the first few questions, but I can definitely tackle the last one - because if you ever have to sit through an entire morning's worth of crystallography lectures you had better pray that there's something amusing written on the little donated plaque on the armrest of your seat. ;)

Playing catch-up

2009-10-02T14:10:00.004-05:00

Procrastination is what I do best, so be ready for a series of "catching up" posts that will most likely be interspersed with a few recent events/random thoughts. I'll try to get completely caught up with the events of the last few months (July-September) within the next two weeks. I am also pledging to you, my loyal readers (of which I'm guessing there are only a handful) that I will continue to update the blog on a regular basis from this point onward. And by regular basis I mean a bare minimum of 2 posts per month. (I'd commit to more than that, but lets not get too ambitious, eh? Baby steps.)

C25K

2009-07-01T17:00:00.001-05:00

I decided about a month ago that it was time to start getting back into shape. I hadn't exercised in a few months so I chose to try the Couch-to-5K (C25K) running plan. I liked the C25K plan because you only have to do 3 workouts per week and the workouts are only 20-30 minutes long so it's easy to fit into a busy schedule. I figured that by easing back into it and using an actual training schedule I could avoid injuries and stay motivated by having some short term goals. I am currently in week 5 of 9, so I'm about half way through. Week 5 is the first week that has a workout where I will have to run for a certain amount of time without any walking intervals so that's pretty cool. I also got a heart rate monitor so I can see exactly how hard I'm working and how many calories I'm burning...I've been keeping track of both to see if my heart rate will decrease over time as I get stronger and if there is a correlation with how many calories are burned (and to really show how much of a geek I am I'll probably make some sort of graph eventually). The long term goal with all of this is to make it a habit to run/workout at least 3 times a week, and not turn into a couch potato again.

If anyone is interested, the whole C25K plan can be found at http://www.coolrunning.com/engine/2/2_3/181.shtml or at http://www.c25k.com/

1 year (+2 months) Anniversary

2009-06-05T17:03:00.019-05:00

Justin and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary exactly 2 months ago (there would have been a post 2 months ago, but it was a busy spring and I'm a hard-core procrastinator). On the whole, I'd say its been a good year. And to all those who have asked "how's married life?" I say, married life is great! Sure, we've had our fair share of arguments about stupid things (cough...WoW...cough) and we've both put on what I'm now referring to as the married 15 (I'm chalking that up to newly-wedded bliss), but I would say that the good times have far out-numbered the bad.

Speaking of good times, we decided to go all out for our first anniversary (you only get one first anniversary, after all). And, no, we did not eat freezer-burnt, stale, year old wedding cake...we polished that off after the honeymoon when it was still delicious.We took a weekend trip up to Chicago and stayed at the new Trump International Hotel and Tower. Very fancy, let me tell you. It's the nicest hotel that either of us have stayed at....not only was the room big and luxurious, there was a TV in the bathroom mirror, people...yes, in the mirror. The service was also amazing - everyone was incredibly friendly, polite, and helpful - it reminded us of Jamaica.

Aside from the hotel, we had a lovely dinner at MK The Restaurant, which serves contemporary American food. We tried fois gras for the first time to see what all the fuss was about and, surprisingly, I get it now (this is coming from someone who doesn't like liver...for some reason fois is different). If you ever have a chance to try fois gras someday I would highly recommend it, and if the whole force-feeding of geese to fatten their livers makes you feel bad, just remind yourself that geese are mean anyway. ;) The fois was the highlight of our dinner, but the rest of the food was great too. They even gave us an extra dessert for our anniversary (I would have preferred more fois, but cookies are good too). My one complaint about MK was that the tables were really close together so it's a little awkward if you want to have an intimate dinner with your significant other.

On our actual anniversary we went to The Art Institute. Justin had never been there before, so it was quite an honor for me to share in his first Art Institute experience. I look forward to more firsts in the years to come!

Our Veggie Garden

2009-05-27T18:33:00.006-05:00

It took 3 years, but we finally did it! Justin and I planted a vegetable garden in our backyard this past weekend. I'm really excited about it and I'm hoping that I do better with an actual garden than I do with houseplants. If all goes well we should have lots of fresh, yummy veggies this summer. It really is amazing how much you can put into a 3' x 6' space. I used this nifty interactive garden planner on the Gardener's Supply Co. website to plan the garden, although I altered the original plan slightly once I bought the plants and seeds. The planner was really helpful because it also gives tips on how to plant, care for, and harvest each type of vegetable.

Here's a run down of what we planted
(in no particular order):
Tomatoes
Zuccini
Lettuce
Scallions
Leeks
Green and yellow peppers
Cucumbers
Butternut squash

This needs to happen more often

2009-04-06T13:50:00.004-05:00

If you have ever wished that life could be more like a musical, or if you don't like musicals because no one in real life ever randomly bursts out into song and dance, you need to watch this video. Either way it should brighten your day. I couldn't help but smile when I saw it.

Bunnies Beware...

2009-03-30T20:09:00.003-05:00

...because Emi knows where you live.

I let Emi out tonight after I fed her and there was a bunny in the yard in Emi's area (she's not really territorial, her area is just where her tie-out allows her to go). Emi saw the bunny, but it ran away before I had clipped the tie-out to her collar. She ran out after it anyway, ran around a little like she usually does, and then went over to the bunny hole that's under our patio and sniffed it. This is promising. I really want her to keep the bunnies out of the yard, especially when we put in the vegetable garden (it's going to happen this year - I'm determined!). I wonder what she would do if she actually caught a bunny, though. I'm not entirely sure I want to see that.

Maybe there's something to the "reality" of reality TV

2009-03-17T23:18:00.011-05:00

OK, Bravo. I've got the next great reality show for you..."The Real Housewives of Champaign-Urbana". Yeah, it could happen and I'm pretty sure I experienced the pilot episode the Saturday before last. Justin and I went to "Front Ro" a fashion/hair show put on by Bacaro, Ippatsu Salon, and Circles (clothing boutique). We were actually kind of invited to go by Rebecca, who owns Ippatsu. I happened to have a hair appointment on the Wednesday before the show and there were still a few tickets left and Rebecca promised it would be awesome...and it was. The actual runway show was in between food courses with the bar being used as a runway, which was a great idea because then everyone has a front row seat (hence the name of the show). So we were seated at a table with seven other people. They were all very nice, but Justin and I soon realized that we were sitting with some of the wealthier people in C-U, and while listening to them talk about their apartments in Beverly Hills and about how they come to Bacaro on a regular basis so that their kids will learn to like quail or whatever I couldn't help but think that this was just like those "Real Housewives" shows on Bravo and Justin and I were like the down-to-earth couple who just happens to know some of the rich people. I was just waiting for some producers to suddenly emerge to take us off to the side for one of those interviews where you say what you're really thinking about everyone and completely forget that you are on camera and that everything you say will be broadcast on national television. And now I've just revealed that I watch way too much TV. :P

Life after prelim

2009-01-28T21:46:00.002-06:00

I've now had about a week to digest the fact that I passed my prelim...woohoo! I took it last Friday (Jan. 23rd) after preparing for over 2 months, although I've probably been unofficially preparing for it for a little over 4 years. Before I get into my prelim experience I'm going to answer the two questions that everyone asks me when I tell them I passed my prelim:

Q1: What is a prelim?

A: It's where you propose your dissertation and in the case of my department it's also where your committee tests the limits of your general knowledge surrounding your field. Just about anything is fair game from knowing the history or important scientists in your field to actual technical knowledge. Ultimately the prelim decides whether you can continue in the PhD program.

Q2: So what will you do now?

A: I need to finish up my research and write my dissertation...I still actually have a lot of experiments to do. I should be done in December, by the way.

Now onto my personal prelim experience....

I was incredible nervous beforehand, although according to Justin I wasn't really showing it. It's weird because I pretty much knew I would pass, but there's always that bit of doubt of what if I fail, or worse get deferred (i.e. they don't decide either way and it usually means you have to do something extra like write about Carl Woese). Actually I think most of the stress I felt came from fear of the unknown...I had no idea what it was going to be like and I knew my committee could make it very painful for me if they felt like it. Luckily, it went really smoothly and was almost dare I say...easy. I gave my presentation (the abridged version since two of my committee members could only stay for two hours), I answered some random-ish questions, and then it was over. They sent me out of the room while they made their decision...I couldn't hear what they were saying but every so often I would hear them laughing I was correct in thinking the laughter was a good sign since I passed. :) Of course, the best part about the whole thing is that I might be able to get a job at a local biofuels company...how awesome is that? :D

So now thing are pretty much back to normal. I'm relieved to be done and happy to have some free time in the evenings again. I feel like I have some extra motivation to finish now since I've proven myself and could have a job lined up for when I'm done with the PhD. It's nice to know that there's finally an end in sight.

Merry Christmas

2008-12-31T15:21:00.006-06:00

I would say that Justin and I had a fantastic Christmas together this year. It was our first Christmas as a married couple so we decided that we would spend Christmas Eve and Christmas Day together just the two of us (and Emi, of course) and then visit our families between Christmas and New Year's. On Christmas Eve we went to church in a barn...it was cold, but still a wonderful experience and a joyful service. I hope that Quest will do it again next year! After church, we had a lovely dinner of scallops, crab stuffed mushrooms, shrimp cocktail, angel hair pasta with alfredo sauce and a little truffle oil (yum), and an herb and goat cheese souffle. Everything turned out awesome. I was especially happy with the souffle - it was my first time attempting a souffle of any kind and ended up being our favorite dish of the night.

On Christmas Day, we had a relaxing day of opening presents, eating, and watching movies and tv shows. I loved having a day where we got to spend tons of quality time with each other and didn't have to worry about anything else. The day after Christmas we left town to visit our families and have belated Christmases with them. We started with Justin's family and ended with mine. We had a great time visiting everyone. I think some of the highlights would be...

a very competitive game of Cranium (girls vs. boys) with Justin's siblings (unfortunately the boys won, but not by much)
the food - we had some awesome dinners at my father-in-law's house and at my parent's house
helping my parents make raviolis
playing board games and hanging out with everyone

Merry Christmas!

Hey Top Chef Fans

2008-11-12T10:42:00.003-06:00

Top Chef season 5 starts tonight (exciting!) and the Top Chef power rankings are back! During the last season of Top Chef, I discovered an awesome food blog called Skillet Doux (thanks to Ted Allen's blog on the Bravo website) in which the blogger ranks all the chefs competing in the current season of the show (in addition to posting about restaurants and interesting recipes). He also gives his reasoning for why they are ranked the way they are, and he's usually pretty accurate at picking who will most likely be the next chef to pack their knives. It's a good read, especially if you are as borderline-obsessive about TC as I am. ;)

Election Night

2008-11-05T10:23:00.000-06:00

How exciting was the election last night? I've never been this excited about an election before. Of course, this is only the 3rd time I have been able to vote for president and in the last two elections the choices were pick the lesser of two evils or vote for a third party candidate...both choices are slightly depressing. But not this year. We finally had an intelligent, inspirational candidate who might really shake things up the next 4 years, and dare I say it, change things. I have to say that after what seemed like two campaigns that went on forever I'm sick of hearing the slogans and catch phrases. Thank goodness it's over! Congratulations to Barack Obama! How cool is it that the US was able to elect an African-American president? And we get to be a part of it! I was glued to the TV last night watching election coverage. Justin and I kept switching between all the news channels, but I think CNN's coverage was the best - they had holograms, people, how do you compete with that?! Plus it was entertaining to watch the guy with the touch screen thing (as parodied by Saturday Night Live)...hilarious. We switched over to the Daily Show's coverage once that came on, so we actually heard that Obama won from Jon Stewart. I guess now we just wait and see what happens. Let's hope that our country can start to dig its way out of all this mess.

Our Vacation in Wine Country - part 2

2008-10-25T00:16:00.020-05:00

OK, so it's been about a month, but here's a synopsis of our California trip (better late then never, eh?).

On Thursday (9/25) we flew out of Indy to Sacramento. We had a short layover in Vegas so we passed the time by doing a little gambling. Here I am playing the slots.... Alright, I'm just pretending. The machines only took dollar bills and we didn't have any. It still amuses me that there were slot machines in the airport. I had been wondering if there would be and lo and behold as we got off the plane there they were. We mostly relaxed for the rest of the day, but my aunt took us out to dinner at a new Italian restaurant in downtown Vacaville called Fuso, which was very good.

Justin and I spent the afternoon in Napa on Friday. My aunt and uncle were kind enough to let us use their GPS while we were there so we told the GPS to use the least amount of freeways and we got to take the scenic route there on some very twisty roads. We were amazed to see how dried out all the grasses were - everything was kind of brownish - the last time we were in Cali it was at the end of the rainy season so everything was green. My aunt told us they hadn't had any rain since February. Once we made our way into the Napa Valley, we drove to Beringer Vineyards and did a wine tasting in their reserve wine tasting room (they had another room to taste their non-reserve wines, but we decided to just try the reserves). We had lunch at Mustard's Grill, which to our surprise did not feature mustard in their food, although it was a very good lunch. Then we went to Opus One because it has a cool looking building. Little did we know it was a rather snooty winery that only puts out one very expensive wine a year. Apparently Opus One is a collaboration between Robert Mondavi, who basically put Napa on the map in terms of wines, and some other big wine guy who also owns a lot of wineries. There was a concierge that you had to check in with before you could even go to the tasting room - she had to call to make sure there was still some wine for us to taste. The wine was good, but I don't think it was $200 a bottle good. Later that night, as a special treat for Justin's birthday, we went to the Wine Spectator Greystone Restaurant which is at the Culinary Institute of America. Of course, we didn't really need an excuse to go - the food is always amazing! Happy birthday, Justin!

Saturday we went to Merryvale (one of my favorite wineries) for a Wine & Food Pairing seminar. This was one of my favorite things that we did on our trip. Since it was harvest time, we got to see grapes being brought in to be sorted and put in fermenters before they go into the oak barrels to age. After the winery tour we went to the cask room to learn about wine and food pairings. I liked how the instructor emphasized that pairing wine and food is really about your own tastes and what you think goes together well...he also gave some pointers throughout the seminar as well as teaching us how to do a wine tasting properly (so now we can look like we know what we're doing). He also told us that he thought that Opus One makes a very good $50 bottle of cabernet....hehe.... Justin and I liked that comment. After the seminar we did a vertical Cabernet tasting at Merryvale and signed up for their wine club. It was cool to taste different years of the same type of wine and see how they were different. I had never done that before. So now that we were a bit tipsy, it was time for lunch. My aunt and uncle and my cousin Jenny met us a Merryvale and we all went across the street for hamburgers and hot dogs at Taylor's Refresher, which apparently has been on the Food Network. Then we all made our way to Sterling vineyards, which is a winery that is up on a hill and you take a gondola to get up to the actual winery. That was pretty cool and they had some good wines. We tried going to this one castle winery just because it was a castle, but when we got inside we decided that it wasn't worth it to pay $15 before even getting to the tasting room.

Sunday was spent in Sonoma with my aunt and uncle. We went to Vernias, which is kind of on the outskirts of Sonoma. They had some great dipping sauces that you could taste. We didn't bother tasting the wine there since my aunt said it wasn't that good. I've noticed that the places that have good deli type stuff generally don't have that great of wine. As we made our way into the valley, we saw there was a festival going on in downtown Sonoma so we stopped to check it out. Turns out they had a bunch of wineries there all set up to do some tastings. We traveled to 3 more Sonoma Valley wineries after perusing the festival. We went to Sebastiani, Ravenswood, and St. Francis.

Justin and I spent the whole day in Napa again on Monday. We did a tasting at Heitz Cellars, another one of my favorite wineries - they have an awesome port (and I'm not much of a port fan). We walked around in downtown St. Helena to get chocolates from the fancy chocolate shop as a little surprise for my aunt and we also stopped at an olive oil shop where we tasted different olive oils and got some white truffle oil - yum. Then we had lunch at Tra Vigne and then it was off to more wineries. Our waiter at Tra Vigne suggested we try some places on the Silverado trail since they are not on the main road through Napa and tend to. So we went to Robert Sinskey, Miner Family Winery, ZD, and Mumm Napa. We really liked Robert Sinskey. They gave us a little bit of food to taste with the wines so that was fun.

We traveled back home on Tuesday. We were sad to leave, but hopefully we'll be able to get back out there again. Go here for more pictures.

Good-bye hair!

2008-10-01T17:45:00.000-05:00

I got a new haircut today. I've been getting bored with my long locks so I decided it was time to cut them off. It feels good to have short hair again and this style should be really easy to take care of since all I'll have to do in the morning is put some product in and let it air dry. So what do you think of my new 'do?

Our Vacation in Wine Country - part 1

2008-10-01T17:31:00.000-05:00

Justin and I just got back yesterday from our short vacation in northern California. We had an awesome time. My aunt and uncle live out there so they let us stay with them. I don't get to see them as often as I used to, so it was great to be able to hang out with them. They live about 45 minutes from the Napa Valley, which is where we spent the majority of our time. Our entire vacation can pretty much be summed up in one sentence: We visited wineries, drank lots of wine and ate a lot of tasty food.

More details and pictures to come!

SR2 Launch Party

2008-09-20T10:00:00.004-05:00

The launch party for Saints Row 2 was on Thursday night. This was the second launch party that I've been to (SR1 was the first). It was fun and a little crazy, although not as crazy as the SR1 party (and I'm speaking from Justin and my standpoint here), but that's another story. I like that Volition celebrates the end of a project, and that significant others are invited since we have to put up with the long hours during crunch too! SR2 should be out in mid-October. I'm excited about it and I hope it does really well!

The vehicle artists are the four in the middle. They did an awesome job, in my opinion, and yes I know I'm a little biased.

Justin and me.

I surrender

2008-09-16T20:21:00.001-05:00

That's right, I'm waving that little white flag. I surrendered to pop culture. I gave in to peer pressure. I joined Facebook. Am I being melodramatic? Yes. Will I eventually come to be happy about my decision? Probably.

I've been rebelling against Facebook for years. I remember people talking about it when it first came out; when it was still exclusive to college students. At the time I simply wrote it off as something that the "kids" were doing. I didn't see why you would need to have a webpage to keep in touch with people, especially when you see most of those people regularly. I mean, what was wrong with email? Of course, nowadays everyone is on Facebook and all of them try to convince those of us not on Facebook to join Facebook. So why after all this time resisting signing up for a Facebook account am I doing it now, you ask? Well, my reasons are twofold. (1) I'd like to try and get in touch with my high school friends that I haven't talked to in years just to see what they're up to (I miss them!). (2) I'm tired of people telling me that they have these awesome pictures of such and such event, but they only put them on Facebook so that it's impossible to see them unless you too are on Facebook. Basically, I'm giving in to everyone who keeps telling me I should be on Facebook.

And so I say to those of you who are still not on Facebook.... Way to go! Stay strong. I totally support your decision not to get wrapped up in yet another interweb time-waster. But then again, don't you want to see my Facebook page? I'll probably have some awesome pictures up there soon. ;)

Olympics Recap

2008-08-23T17:17:00.009-05:00

The Olympics and my borderline obsession with the Olympics will soon be coming to a close. It's a good thing the Olympics only happen every 2 years because I really haven't done too much other than watch Olympics for the past 2 weeks. With the closing ceremonies scheduled for tomorrow night (or will they be tonight in China?) I figured it's time for my own little recap of the games.

Pros:

The opening ceremony. Justin and I went to our Adam & Erin's house to watch the opening ceremony with friends. Justin had the idea to make the olympic flag out of cottage cheese and dyed pineapple rings for the party. China did an awesome job of putting on a show. It was beautiful, interesting and not too over the top. My favorite part was probably the 2008 drummers in the beginning - that was cool.
Michael Phelps. A record 8 gold medals and 7 world records - that kid can swim! The 100M butterfly had me worried, though, winning by 0.01 seconds - crazy!
The 4x100M freestyle relay where Jason Lezak came back from being at least half a body length behind to win it. This was probably the most exciting moment of the entire Olympics.
Nastia Liuken winning gold in the gymnastics all-around. She is absolutely beautiful to watch too. I love how elegant she is.
Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh winning gold for the second Olympics in a row in beach volleyball.
DVR. I was able to watch all the broadcasts on NBC which means I got to see more sports and I could fast forward through commercials and other random non-sport stuff although I tended to watch the primetime broadcast in real time.

Cons:

Too many commercials, too much commentary, not enough sports! I'd also like to see a greater variety of sports - not just swimming and gymnastics. I don't care if the USA is bad at a certain sport or if it isn't popular enough here to show it - I still want to see it.
The new gymnastics scoring system. I was disappointed, but dealt with not having the perfect 10; the thing that really bugged me was that they changed the system so that there wouldn't be any discrepancies like in Athens but Beijing was not without its controversies: Nastia should have been able to at least share the gold for the uneven bars and Alicia Sacramone was completely robbed of a bronze medal for vault.
Michael Phelps. Yes he's awesome, yes he won lots of gold medals and broke Mark Spitz' record, that doesn't mean I want to hear about him all the time especially when someone else is swimming a race.
Cheating. As far as I know right now this is mainly aimed at China. They had a girl lip sync during the opening ceremonies just because she was cuter than the girl who was actually singing, and they may have some gymnasts who are under 16 years old. I'm not saying that those gymnasts don't deserve to be there - they were outstanding - I'm saying that the rules for their sport clearly state that you have to be 16 at the end of the Olympic year to compete. You'd think that with the huge talent pool in China (they start training olympians at age 3) that they could have found a couple more girls who were 16+.
The attitudes of nearly all the runners. Get over yourselves and be sportsmanlike.

I'm sure there is more that I could have listed, but I think that pretty much covers the major stuff. Thanks to Beijing for putting on a great summer games. I can't wait until Vancouver in 2010. Enjoy the closing ceremonies everyone!

What's your walk score?

2008-07-29T17:01:00.006-05:00

I found this website (www.walkscore.com) after reading an article about how the walkability of your neighborhood can contribute to weight loss/gain. The website is pretty interesting. You can find out where the most walkable neighborhoods are, compute the walk score for your address, and sign a petition to tell congress to provide more support for walking, biking, and public transit. I typed in my home address and it computed my own personal walk score based on how much stuff is within walking distance (0.25-1 mile). I didn't do so well, or I should say my neighborhood didn't do so well, because my house scored 8/100 (you can see my results above) - not surprising at all since we live on the edge of town - definitely car-dependent.

She did it again!

2008-07-27T14:53:00.003-05:00

This is the 4th year in a row that Erin has won an ice cream party from Edy’s. And it’s the first year I was able to go (I was out of town last year) so I was thrilled when I found out that she won again. I don’t know how she does it. I’m sure she wrote another excellent essay to win the party, but I (and many others) have been starting to wonder how much competition she has. Of course, I won’t complain…I mean who’s going to pass up free ice cream?

Karaoke

2008-07-27T14:28:00.008-05:00

We went to Star Karaoke with some friends on Friday night. I know Justin and I had a blast and I’m pretty sure that fun was had by all. This being my second trip to Star Karaoke, I noticed that there’s something about singing pop songs into a microphone that brings out the goofiness in some people. I’m not sure why that is and I really don’t care because it’s really entertaining. ☺ Star Karaoke looks a little strange from the outside since they advertise having BBQ and pizza. I know that whenever I would go to Savoy 16 for a movie I would wonder why anyone would go to a place that serves such an odd combination of food. After going there a few weeks ago with some friends, I understand that it’s not really about the food (although the pizza was pretty good). One thing to keep in mind for next time, though, is to either get a room that has a karaoke machine with the controls in English or learn to read Korean.

Matt and Anne singing a duet

Justin on tambourine

Jon and Jeremiah were really getting into it

Hanging out at Jupiter's after karaoke

This is the creepy kid who stood by the window of our booth at Jupiter's and kept waving at us...we really don't know why he was doing this (I think Justin might have egged him on a bit) and we really don't know why he was outside a bar at 11:00 at night.

Get well soon, Emi!

2008-07-14T17:27:00.004-05:00

We probably didn’t need to go to the emergency vet clinic, but when it’s 6 am and your dog can’t seem to move the bottom half of her body it seems like a good idea to take her in right away rather than wait another hour and a half for your regular vet’s office to open. Yes, that’s right, Emi somehow managed to injure herself and couldn’t pick up her back end to walk. We noticed that something was wrong last night when I tried to get her to go upstairs for bed and she wouldn’t move. I ended up carrying her upstairs and figured she was just being stubborn for some reason. When she hadn’t moved from the spot where I set her down in the bedroom, I started getting concerned because she was acting weird. We definitely knew there was something wrong when Justin went to put her in her nighttime crate. She would normally walk into the crate when led up to it, but she just sat there and tried to move forward, but couldn’t. We let her sleep between us on the bed instead, thinking that maybe in the morning she would feel better. We hadn’t seen her do anything crazy that would cause an injury so we wondered if maybe she had an upset stomach or something that might just go away. No such luck. The vet took some x-rays, but didn’t see anything so it’s most likely a soft tissue injury…we have no idea how it happened. Emi is now on a painkiller and an anti-inflammatory and we are supposed to keep her rested (no jumping or playing). She seems to have perked up since this morning and has been able to walk around so that’s good. We hope that whatever it is that she did wasn’t too bad and she’ll continue to get better.

Peach Cobbler

2008-07-14T17:13:00.005-05:00

I bought some peaches at the Farmer’s Market about a week ago and they were starting to be overly ripe and mushy, so rather than let a bunch of wonderful peaches go to waste, I took the advice of some of the ladies from my small group and made a peach cobbler yesterday. I’ve never made a cobbler before, but it was surprisingly simple...possibly due to the fact that the recipe I chose to use was entitled “Easy Peach Cobbler.” All the recipes I saw online seemed to be about the same so I’m not sure that this recipe is any easier than a plain ol’ peach cobbler recipe. But who cares what it's called because it turned out really well and Justin gave it his seal of approval so I was happy. If you try out the recipe, I recommend warming up the cobbler before eating and put vanilla ice cream on top if you have any. Yum.

4th of July

2008-07-07T20:13:00.004-05:00

We went to our friends' house for some fun festivities on the 4th. It was your typical 4th of July gathering...friends, good food, and fireworks. Jon and Erin had even gotten some legal fireworks and sparklers - and who doesn't love sparklers?

Dogs are so entertaining

2008-07-02T22:14:00.003-05:00

Emi did the funniest thing last night when a dog food commercial came on the TV. She heard the dogs in the commercial and she completely stopped doing whatever she was doing and sat and stared at the TV. It was so funny and cute that we had to rewind and watch her watch the commercial a few more times. I thought she would get distracted and go about doing her Emi things, but every time she would hear the dogs she would just stop and stare. I wish I had thought to go and grab my camera - gah! Maybe next time…

Saving the world with some pretty little bottles

2008-06-27T18:31:00.006-05:00

In my quest to save the world, I have sworn off bottled water in favor of using reusable water bottles. I originally bought a couple nalgene bottles, but then the Today show happened and, a couple weeks ago when Justin noticed that I was still daring to use my nalgene bottles, he insisted that I replace them with something that will not give me cancer. I'm still skeptical about the whole BPA leaching thing (if I'm going to get cancer it's most likely not going to be from drinking out of plastic bottles), but I thought I might as well appease my husband since it was really sweet of him to be so concerned for my health.

I looked around online for some new non-plastic, non-carcinogenic reusable water bottles and found a brand called SIGG (www.mysigg.com). They make these really awesome aluminum bottles that are decorated with all sorts of designs. They are also completely recyclable once they get to a point where they are too beat up to use (some people claim to have had their SIGG bottles for 20 years!) and better yet, as with all reusable bottles, they (1) prevent tons of plastic bottles from going into the landfill, (2) reduce the amount of petroleum used to make and transport those plastic bottles, and (3) all this helps to reduce my carbon footprint. So SIGG bottles score bonus points in my book because not only are they earth friendly, they are also really pretty.

I have no complaints so far. In fact, I like them better than my nalgene bottles - they weigh less and they look way cooler. These are the bottles we got off of the REI website (www.rei.com)...

Memorial Day Cookout

2008-06-02T21:17:00.006-05:00

We were lucky and had some nice weather for our little grillin' get together. I got to introduce some of our friends to Strawberries San Francisco, which is strawberries with sour cream and brown sugar. It sounds strange, but believe me it tastes awesome!

Justin did a great job of grilling the mini burgers and brats - they were yummy!

Erik and Marc chillin on the swing.
Jon, Celina, Corban....and one more on the way!

Corban and Erin

Not much longer and she'll be walking on her own I bet!

Aww...Good-bye kisses.

If you want to see Scott's penguin kite (and other pictures) go here.

Honeymoo-hoon!

2008-05-16T21:08:00.029-05:00

April 7-14, 2008

Jamaica me crazy!

We had a blast on our honeymoon! We went to Couples Negril in Jamaica for a week of total relaxation. Yeah, mon! Basically, it was a lot of eating, drinking and lying around all day, but we also found some time for snorkeling, scuba diving, a couples massage, and a catamaran cruise. It was paradise! The pictures don't even do it justice!

Go here for more pictures.

Just Married

2008-05-05T21:43:00.005-05:00

OK, so maybe not just married - it's been a month. Happy monthiversary to us! I know I've been really slow to get something up about our wedding, but I've been really busy (and I thought things would settle down after the wedding... ha!). Between writing thank yous, going back to work, trying to figure out where to put all our new gifts, and finding some time in there to just enjoy married life I haven't exactly been very diligent about blogging. Anyway, enough excuses - lets talk wedding.... Our wedding day was awesome! We couldn't have asked for a better day. It was sunny and 60 degrees - absolutely perfect! Not to mention everyone and everything looked fabulous!

Our ceremony was amazing. Everything was so meaningful and heartfelt. I told Justin afterwards that God was definitely there with us because I think everyone there was touched in some way by His presence. There were definitely a lot of tears...happy tears I hope!

The reception was awesome (a BIG thank you goes out to my parents for putting on the reception - we couldn't have done it without you!). Best reception ever - and I'm not making that up. The people at Kennedy's said that we were the best wedding they had had there - everyone was friendly and having a good time. The food and the cake were both very good...there were lots of rave reviews from our guests. There was lots of dancing, which I thought was awesome because at a wedding you never know if people are going to want to dance. I was exhausted by the end of the night, though. It takes a lot out of you to try and mingle with everyone in addition to it being a very emotional day. I really don't think it could have gone any better - it was like a dream wedding!

Pictures are still online at web.sendtoprint.net (let me know if you need the event code). And for something extra special that our photographer put together go here (this made me cry when I saw it).

Bachelorette Party

2008-04-30T10:15:00.007-05:00

My bachelorette party was on March 29th (I was so busy with final wedding plans that I never got a chance to post anything). We may not have been totally wild and crazy, but I had a lot of fun hanging out with the girls and I hope everyone else had an awesome time too!

Michael Dougalicious even made it to the party...I haven't seen him since college. And in case you're wondering why there is lingerie hanging in my living room...all the girls had to bring lingerie that somehow represented them and I had to guess who it was from. Let me tell ya, it was very challenging!

This is a lovely veil that one of my aunts made for me, and yes, I wore it out in public.

More games...picking out which "macho" to pin on the man. There was such a variety to chose from ;)

The bride-to-be gets to go first. (Justin informed us the next day that we had actually played this game wrong because we let everyone touch the poster, which resulted in all the "machos" ending up in about the same place. Whatever...it was still entertaining to watch everyone "feel up" the guy on the poster....hehe.)

All the gals out on the town.

Happy Easter!

2008-03-23T20:11:00.026-05:00

He is risen! I love Easter. It has always been my favorite holiday. I mean, think about it.... Jesus dies for our sins, He comes back to life, gives us hope, and now we get to celebrate and remember that every year. Andy had a great message about hope at Quest's Easter service. You can check it out by going to the Quest UMC podcast on itunes.

It's tradition in my family on Easter to also have a brunch, which consists of mostly eggs and butter... yum. This year my parents came down here and we made brunch together after church.

Here are my parents and Justin enjoying some mimosas while coloring eggs. Justin is looking rather suave as he opens the champagne. ;) Here is our lovely brunch... crepes, strawberries with sour cream and brown sugar, lemon butter, hard boiled eggs, english muffins, hollandaise sauce, ham, asparagus (that's pretty healthy, right?), and mimosas. Justin is very excited about the brunch.

New Baby

2008-03-23T20:10:00.003-05:00

As of March 18th, I have a new cousin or first cousin once removed or second cousin...I don't know which. Her name is Audrey Ann and was born to my cousin Scott and his wife, Tara. She is very cute! I can't wait to see her in person!

This is my cousin Scott. Justin and I think Audrey looks a bit like him, but you can decide for yourself. ;)

Spreading the good news

2008-03-19T12:13:00.024-05:00

I happened upon this website not too long ago and if you're tired of always getting bad news from TV and the internet you should check it out. The site is called Gimundo and only includes good news and positive stories. Other than reading some interesting stories that might be overlooked by the normal news, I've also been enjoying all the tips for "going green" and little things you can do to give to charity.

www.gimundo.com

Happy St. Patrick's Day

2008-03-17T16:44:00.008-05:00

Here's lucky clover for you to get in the spirit of things. And if you want some history and fun facts about St. Patrick's Day (yay for Wikipedia) go here. I tend not to get too excited about St. Patrick's day, of course if we got the day off then that would be another story. But I decided to wear some green today just for fun and because I like the color green. There's also a possibility that I might be a little Irish. The verdict is still out on that one, though, since the Irish part could actually be Scottish (which would be way cooler in my opinion)....oh well, close enough. :)

Par-tay

2008-02-26T21:06:00.003-06:00

This past Saturday some of our friends threw a little pre-wedding party for us. We had a blast! It was great to get all of our C-U friends together in one place so they could meet each other before the wedding. Here's a few pics from the party...

Here we are opening presents. We got some really cool stuff, including a food processor, which we used on Sunday to make hummus (yummy).

We also got a rolling pin. Justin is attempting to threaten me with it...as you can see I'm taking him very seriously ;)

A couple of our swing friends volunteered to teach a swing lesson to anyone who wanted to learn so they could bust out some moves at the wedding. Jamie looks like she's getting the hang of it.

Jen and Corban....Say cheese!

Ya know, it's not often in adulthood that people throw a party just for you. It was kinda weird to think that Justin and I knew everyone who was there, but many people were meeting each other for the first time. It's cool to have people from different parts of your life all come together in one place...it should happen more often! Thanks to everyone who came...we missed those of you who couldn't make it, but we'll see you all at the wedding!

Good times

2008-02-17T18:48:00.010-06:00

I turned 26 on Friday so Justin and I met up with some friends at Sun Singer, and the peasants rejoiced...

-Scott, Jon and Erin

-Jenny, Adam, Justin, and Scott

-Justin and me - aww, so cute ;)

Pretty in pink

2008-02-15T18:47:00.018-06:00

Happy (belated) valentine's day! Justin and I went out last night for our annual valentine's day dinner at Bacaro...yum. And no, we did not have the quail ;) We had a great time and great food and wine. Last night was the first time we've been to Bacaro since last valentine's day so we saw the new wine lounge for the first time...very nice. We might have to go back sometime to do some lounging with some wine.

Justin also gave me my birthday present at midnight because I've been dying to find out what it was - he's had part of it since Christmas. He got me a pink Nintendo DS...woot! It's all pretty and girly and totally awesome. He even got me a pink carrying case for it and three games (Zelda, Brain Age, and Cooking Mama 2). I'm currently waiting for it to charge so I can play. Very exciting. But what is more exciting is seeing who will join us at Sunsinger tonight! You can't go wrong with friends and wine!

Going postal

2008-02-12T17:36:00.003-06:00

I'm going to start off by saying that I'm really impressed with the speed of the US postal service. I mailed out all of the wedding invitations on Saturday and from what I've heard, they were delivered to (nearly) everyone today. So on the whole, job well done USPS...if only their customer service could be as good...

I ended up having to go to not one but two post offices on Saturday because the first one I went to doesn't do the canceling (I mailed the invites in person because I wanted to request that they be hand canceled). The woman at the first post office was also a bit sassy as she told me that they don't do the canceling and she also told me in her high and mighty postal worker tone that she doubted that they would hand cancel them anyway. I thanked her and left. At the second post office I again waited in line (why is there always a long wait at the post office?) and when it was my turn, I again requested that the invitations be hand canceled. The woman told me I needed to have stamps on the envelopes (apparently she assumed that I have never mailed anything in my life). I politely told her that they had stamps already. She said she would put a note on them, but that obviously didn't help. To top things off, my friend Anna's invitation was sent to my house because it had been canceled on the wrong side (by machine, I might add) meaning that I have to go to the post office again. Oh well, at least the invitations were delivered quickly.

Counting the days

2008-02-05T20:28:00.000-06:00

The countdown to the wedding is officially at the 2 month mark. (yay!)

Justin and I have now been together for 3 years and 1 day. (yay!)

I turn 26 in 10 days. (meh.)

And 1 more year of grad school may have magically turned into 2 today. (boo.)

I guess two and a half out of four ain't bad. ;)

Go Giants!

2008-02-03T23:11:00.000-06:00

How about that Superbowl? Man, that was a nail biter. But first, a moment of silence to mourn the Bears not even remotely having a chance this year... (sigh) there's always next year. I'm so happy the Giants pulled it off, though. Yes, I was rooting for the underdog because I felt that the Patriots have won too many times and it seems like they've had their fair share of Superbowls in the past few years, so it was time for someone else to win. Besides, their coach is a cheater, and their quarterback is a jerk (you don't get your actress girlfriend pregnant, dump her, and start dating a supermodel...you just don't). On a more positive note, it's kind of cool that the Manning brothers have now won back-to-back Superbowls, even if that means that the Bears had to lose last year (sigh).

Snow day!

2008-02-01T10:12:00.001-06:00

Yep, that's right Justin and I have a snow day today. Woohoo! Justin's is official since Volition took a snow day. The U of I is still open (of course), but there was no way that I was driving all the way across town. They predicted that we'd get 8-10 inches of snow by this afternoon and according to the news, we've already gotten about that much.

Emi had fun playing in the snow this morning. I think some of the drifts are taller than she is! She does love the snow.... she keeps ringing the bell to go outside.

Happy puppy in the snow:

Emi in action:

The best things in life come in small packages

2008-01-30T21:06:00.001-06:00

Exciting news! On Friday, January 25th, our friends Erin and Adam had a beautiful baby girl named Adsen Elise. If you're wondering about the name, it's their version of the all too popular Addison, meaning "child of Adam", and Elise is a form of Elizabeth meaning "consecrated to God". I'm really loving the name Adsen - Adam says it grows on you after awhile and it really does. But enough about the name, she's so cute! Justin and I got to see her right after she and her parents came home on the 27th. This is the youngest baby that Justin has ever seen (that he remembers) so as you can see, he was very excited...

Seeing this brand new baby has gotten Justin and I talking about having children of our own someday. We both agree that it will be an incredible experience, but for the time being we're just going to concentrate on getting married and enjoying a few years of marital bliss before we start having kids.

And speaking of marital bliss.... It's time for a wedding update. This past weekend my friend Jenn and I started addressing invitations. I can't thank Jenn enough for her help. She made an overwhelming task much more manageable. I'm hoping to finish up the invites this weekend and send them out pronto! It will be so exciting to start getting replies in the mail. The website should be updated in the next couple of days as well, so keep on the lookout for that. With two months to go, my biggest worry is whether everything will come together. Fortunately, everything seems to be going all right so far. I'll be a busy bride-to-be for the next two months, though!

Starting now

2008-01-25T20:42:00.000-06:00

This is my very first post on my very own blog. Up until recently, I never considered myself to be someone who would have a blog, but as I was reading my fabulous friend Amy's blog, I started thinking that this would be a great way for me to stay more connected with family and friends. I will try my hardest to keep this updated with photos and happenings in my life, and I encourage all of you to write comments to me so I'll know what's going on with you too.

But why "For all the cows..."? As most of you know, I'm a bit of a cow fanatic, but that's only part of it. While the title appears to be a dedication to those beautiful bovines, I thought I'd try and be clever by giving it a hidden meaning. There happens to be a Foo Fighters song entitled "For all the cows" (how cool is that?). And one line in particular stood out to me as way of giving my blog title a double meaning. This blog is actually dedicated to all the people I love, and therefore... the cow is you.

Enjoy!

Love,
Maggie