The long awaited update

I know many of my loyal readers are waiting on the edge of their seats to read what I have been up to over the last two weeks that would keep me away from updating my blog. Well, rather than give a boring account of the 480 hours since I last updated, I will do a photo update. Here we go!

This is at the MSP airport. The add is for my cosmetic dentist that did all my recent work.
Everything IS bigger in Texas! The first 24 hours we spent at my cousin's camel ranch 2 hours outside of Dallas.

Gimme kiss
Camels like carrots. Notice the size difference.


Don't try this at home. Nick is feeding a camel a carrot from his mouth.
They don't USUALLY spit.


Imagine this sight as you drive down the country road...Then we headed back to the "city" to see the in-laws.

mmmm....Green beer on St Patrick's Day....er...St Nathan's Day

Making faces with Uncle "Nit"

Awesome Cajun food at Buzzard Billy's in Waco Texas


Dr Pepper Museum in Waco Texas. We were going to visit the Branch Davidian Complex, but time and directions as they were, we didn't get to. Maybe next time.
The Fort Worth Zoo. It was a BEAUTIFUL day! 75 degrees and obviously sunny.


The 3 Schutz boys checking out the Rhino.
Yup, Texas is Wild!

After the zoo we went to eat at Uncle Julio's. They serve "fine mexican food"

After a busy week of spring breaking, we came home and tried to catch up with MN life. I had a Relay For Life meeting to prepare for. We got hit with about 5 inches of snow on the same day as my meeting. No worries, most people made it.

We also had the pleasure of hanging out with our niece, Micah. She stayed at our house Thursday night until Friday after work. This picture is Thursday night after a busy day of playing with some friends. We were ready for bed.

We also watched our "nephew dog" Buckley. Chester and Buckley spent some time playing.

This is Friday (Today) Morning. Notice I did take the time to comb and style Micah's hair in pig tails. They did not stay that way. This was my first real experience getting a 2 year old ready and out the door in a time frame that will get me to work on time. It was a success in that we got out the door. Not so much on time.

I left work early today so I could watch Micah. What a beautiful MN day to take off early. almost 60 degrees and mostly sunny. It was awesome. I picked up Micah from day care and we went to the park. She climbed up the play set....

and went down the slide all by herself. Over and over a few times. In both pictures she stopped to look at the camera and say cheese. Really, she said cheese.

This is how cool she is when she wears "Sha's" Sunglasses.

In the course of the last few days, Uncle Nicholas (or Uncle Nick) went from being Nit to Nick. I went from "Asha" or something like that to Sha. I guess my name is difficult to say when you are 2 years old.

So, thats about it. There was, of course, the Twins home opener, start of pot hole season and most of the snow has melted now. Good spring things.

Happy St Patricks Day!

Yup, today really IS St Patrick's Day. Well, kind of. If you are Catholic and celebrate Mass in honor of the Saints, the feast day for St Patrick will be held today. This of course is because of the conflict with Holy Week. Now, that doesn't mean that your favorite St Patrick's Day Festivities need to change. Only the feast day has been changed. We sill plan to celebrate green beer, beef and cabbage and everything else Irish we can think of. I am a tad bit Irish after all. I'm Irish all year, not just on March 17.

An Old Irish Blessing
May love and laughter light your days,
and warm your heart and home.
May good and faithful friends be yours,
wherever you may roam.
May peace and plenty bless your world
with joy that long endures.
May all life's passing seasons
bring the best to you and yours!

I am the superstar!

Sunday evening Nick and I joined a classmate of his, and her boyfriend for dinner, studying biochemistry (i think) and playing the Wii. Now, of the 4 of us, I have played the least amount of video games in general.

We played Mario Party 8. Of the limited amount of gaming I have done, virtually none of it has been Mario anything. No Super Mario Bros, no Mario Kart, or any of the other countless Mario brand spin-offs. Not to mention, the first 7 Mario parties. If I am lucky, I was allowed to play one "world" where I was successful at jumping off something to my own death, or being destroyed by the "bad guys" in whatever level/world I was in. Apparently the point was to get to some mystical castle and save a princess....I had no idea. Anyway, all that to say, I have quite limited experience with Mario and his brother Luigi.

Well, I ended up being the winner, and therefore "THE Superstar" of the game. Yup. My strategy worked. I FINALLY did get a star. But mostly I spent the whole game traipsing around the board. I did a lot of moving around, which means I collected, and therefore ate, lots of candy. Based only on the merits of my success on the board, I was second or third. But then at the end they hand out "bonus stars." I traveled the most distance. Woohoo! accepting the ride on the water slide and DK barrel shot gun thing was worth it! and "eating" candy on almost every turn paid off! Go me!

Now, please don't misinterpret my description of the game for actually UNDERSTANDING what was happening. I don't. I kept thinking it was a lot like "the Game of Life" but you can't buy insurance. Anyway, it was fun, and hopefully Nick did well on the test he was studying for.

A Decade Ago

Today is the decade anniversary of my car accident. It seems like yesterday, and a million years ago at the same time. As is typical with life changing events, I've thought about this car accident quite a bit. At church, Pastor Ben has mentioned miracles several times. This has got me thinking even more about my car accident. Ben has mentioned when "miracles" happen, we tend to overlook them. Now, there is a bit more to it than that, but its the basics. Even when we do see them, overtime they go from "that was a miracle" to "we were lucky."

Well, for me, 10 years ago I thought I was lucky. Ok, it was probably like 10 years ago next week. 10 years ago today I was high on demerol and loving it. It took a week or so to sink in. I felt pretty lucky. People told me I was lucky. Now that it is 10 years later, I know I wasn't lucky. It was a miracle. It was a miracle that I didn't fly through the windshield. It was a miracle that after hitting the dashboard at 50 mph, I walked away, with injuries that were "easily fixed."

So here were are, 10 years, 7 oral surgeries, 5 sets of teeth and countless hours in a dentist chair later, and yes, I'm positive that this was a miracle. God obviously had something important for me to do.

the food, fun and fire

Nick has a classmate Zach, that likes to have "some friends over" as his parents put it. In reality, he invites the entire U of M pharmacy class of 2011 and their significant others. He invites them to his parents place in Lakeville. They live in the middle of nowhere, in Lakeville. Yeah, I guess it seems weird, but it does exist.

Zach's mom LOVES to cook and bake for everyone. (they had a similar party in November) This time she made pasta. We had pesto, mac and cheese, seafood lasagne, beef lasagne, spaghetti with meat sauce and salad. Awesome homemade bread and... the dessert spread...oh my! There were chocolate brownies, chocolate chip cookies with AND without nuts, oatmeal cookies with and with out nuts, almond bars and chocolate chunk cookies with and without nuts. She made the BEST chocolate chunk cookies EVER!!!

Now, this isnt just mom that enjoys entertaining, dad plays a pretty good host. It was like Thanksgiving with tables set up in every room possible. I felt a tad like I was at the kids table, but that was ok. Dad made sure to bring extra bread or whatever we needed downstairs. And he made sure to bring more wood to the bonfire for us. They are so very nice and wonderful hosts. Nick and I teased we were going to get a tent or a camper for a week and just stay on their property for a weeks vacation.

So, the younger, more "thrill seeking" kids spent a few hours sledding down the driveway hill onto and over "jumps" that were made by Zach. Nick and I prefered to keep our aging bodies toasty by the fire.

It was quite an evening that left us pretty tired by the time we got home at 10:30-a full hour past our regular bedtime.

On the schedule for today: legoland, dinner and golf at MOA.

Who doesn't love a day full of puppies and babies?

Sundays are usually church, football, (homework for Nick) and lazing about. Football is over. Now what am I going to do? Well, I decided we would hit up the "PetExpo" at the Minneapolis Convention Center. I like pets. Lets go! We spent about 2 1/2 hours there. It was pretty much what I expected. Lots of pet food vendors claiming their "all natural" food was the best there is. Everyone should feed all natural. Its the best thing for your dog.

I don't buy into the claim (for people or pets) that "all natural" means "all good" things. Arsenic is natural. It can very easily kill you. Bacteria are natural. Many of them will kill you. Anyway, my point is, "all natural" does NOT equal "good"

So I listened to a few spcheals about why their food was the best. Partly because I wanted some information on foods our clients see and will feed, partly because I wanted the free sample.

The Expo also had a large number of breed rescue groups. We got to see all shapes and sizes of dogs, fuzzy, and not. We also got to see 3 separate Greyhound booths. We got our Greyhound fix. We did go back a few times. If it weren't for our 12 hours away from home schedule right now, we would have gotten a Greyhound. Maybe a rottie. Nick got to see (in person, some for the first time) Great Danes and Pyrenees, pugs and shih tzu, Australian Cattle dogs, an English Springer and lots of Golden Retrievers.

So 2 hours of being submerged in all things pets/dogs was pretty fun. Nick doesn't work at a vet clinic, so he doesn't get to see all the different dogs like I do. I take that for granted I guess. I think he enjoyed that part too. We watched some "Frisbee dogs" and a little bit of "jumping into the water after a ball" dogs. Fun times.

We came home for a little bit and were invited to my in-laws for supper. A chance to visit our niece Micah, of course! At almost 23 months she is a little chatter box, and cute as can be. I loved that when we walked in and she was tantruming about something, she was excited to see us. She wanted me to hold her. She didn't want a book or a baby or her bunny, she just wanted to be held. So I did. We were talking about her day, and our day, and mentioned we got to see puppies, her face lit up. It may have been the puppy sounds Uncle Nicholas was making. While we were waiting to eat she brought over "Elmo book" and proceeded to climb up the couch and sit right between me and Nick. She went through the whole book. Then got another. and another. It never did get old.

We make a point to see her as often as we can. She has learned something new EVERY time we see her. She now says Sammy (the cat) instead of "Mimi." Buckley is still Bucbuc or baba. She picked up on puppy. Her most recent cute thing is her response to thank you. If you say thank you, to her or not, her response is "imelcome" or "mymelcome." As an almost 2 year old, NO or "MO" as she says it, is a favorite response. I don't think she knows what that means. When we ask for a hug and kiss when we leave, she almost always says mo, but we get them anyway.

Its amazing how a wonderful little niece and her entertaining antics can make an average day great. What a special little treasure she is.

And since I would hate to brag about her this much, and not put a recent picture up, here is one from December, the most recent we have.

Ode to the fish fry...

Friday night we decided to head out for some local pizza. The first place we were going to go was a take out place only, so we headed to the next one on the list. We came upon the "Red Barn." That is the VFW for those of you that aren't from around here. They do a fish fry every Friday. We decided to go.

We were a little uncertain how it all worked, but we asked a few questions and figured it out. It was pretty tasty stuff, but not quite like the fish frys of my youth. These were large breaded and fried cod filets rather than sunnies, but it was pretty good. And they had yummy tartar sauce. Likely homemade, with full fat mayo. Mmmm. They also offered baked fish, I don't recommend that.

So now we can cross fish fry at the Red Barn off the list. It was a neat experience.

wowsa!

Current temp is -5. Feels like -38. Thats about a 30 degree change in temp since yesterday. Its hard to believe that in this same place on July 15, 2006 it was 101 degrees, with a "feels like" temp of 110. Crazy Minnesota weather.

Deep Thoughts...

I have a blog counter thing. I admit it is really neat to see how many people visited my blog today. But at the same time, now I feel really bad that 9 people visited today, and I haven't updated in a little while. I like knowing people read my blog, but the guilt I now from not updating on a regular basis...wow. Thats a tough one.

Regarding the Super Bowl: I picked the team right. I was excited to see the Giants pull it off. I will admit, much to the surprise of many I'm sure, I didn't watch much of it. It was on in the other room. Nick and I spent the day with my parents. When the game kicked off, I was busy making egg rolls (fantastic by the way!) and Nick was going thru rescued old pictures with my mom. My dad and I both agreed, put your money on the Giants. They are the underdog after all. It was a toss up: a perfect team, to be talked about for a really, really, really long time, or to be so close to perfection, just to miss it by a few little points, and be talked about how close they were for a really, really, really long time. I didn't watch the game, the commercials or the presenting of the trophy, I only know the final score and my Giants pulled it off. Go Eli.

So my parents have a closing date set (it has already been moved though) for the house they want to buy. To sum it up, my mom is excited because "it needs work" which means she can make it anything she wants, that is within the budget. My dad thinks my mom was high when she decided she wanted this house. We got to see it on Sunday. It does need a lot of work. I guess it was a foreclosure. The prev owners appear to have lived like slobs. The floor was so gross! The stove looked like they never cleaned up the spills. They just waited for them to burn up and get black and crusty. MMMM, I want to eat off that stove. The downstairs "finished" basement had 2 bedrooms that had cement floors, no wood trim or frames around the doors or windows (yes, just holes cut in the sheet rock) and were BRIGHT pick and BRIGHT blue and green with a horse border. We called dibs on the pink room. There is also a bathroom downstairs. It doesn't have a toilet. I can see my mom's vision though. With a little hard work, patients and a LOT of elbow grease, the place will be awesome! At least no one died there.

Yesterday and Today have also been a bit frustrating for me. There have been issues going on with in the leadership for the Relay. I wont go into too much detail, mostly because it shouldn't be aired in this forum, but it does have me a little crabby. The sad thing is it makes me reconsider my desire to be part of something that ultimately is so wonderful. Its one of those things that I know this experience is something that make me learn, grow and ultimately be a better person, but sometimes I just can't handle when adults act like they are 5. Phew!

On a lighter, brighter note its 11pm and the temp is 28. Its great compared to the -44 with we had last week. Welcome back "global warming"

I think that about wraps up my ramblings for this evening.

Thank you to the many readers that bookmark my blog (hi Andy!) and make a point to read my ramblings and maybe even comment now and again.

A question..

to my loyal readers....

I'm wondering who it is that googles my name to find my blog. I know someone out there does...just curious as to who it is. I do appreciate people taking the time to read updates about my world. By the way, I was in the Cottage Grove paper last week. My picture was in there and everything! I'm famous!