In case you are wondering...

Tonight was the Relay For Life of Cottage Grove area kick off. In case any of you wanted to check out my personal fund raising web site, click here. Don't worry, I will be sending out emails to hit up everyone soon! Feel free to check it out.

1 day 'til kickoff

The Relay for Life of Cottage Grove Area is kicking off tomorrow! That means I will have my personal fund raising page up and running...and you can all look forward to donating! Yay! Anyway, If you want more info on how you can get involved, let me know!

I am making cookies for the kick off event. They are ribbon shaped with purple frosting. They are good.

This week I am also making a new recipe I got yesterday. Poppyseed chicken. It's very tasty. The 50g of fat per serving probably has something to do with that...but all things in moderation, right?

a much needed thaw

For those of you not keeping track, we have had almost a week of sub-zero temps. Yes, even the "highs" for the day were below or barely above zero. If you don't know how cold that is, its REALLY cold. On Friday it was starting to warm up. It was so "warm" in fact, you could step outside and not have your nose hairs instantly freeze. Yesterday was about the same. Today it is hovering around 32 degrees. The inch of snow we got yesterday morning is nice and slushy now. Tomorrow's forecast includes rain. Wednesday the forecast calls for a high of -1. Seems this global warming "early thaw" is going to be short lived. So goes life in MN. It is infact MN, it gets cold here.

Next Sunday is "The Big Game" (don't want to get in trouble for using a protected name) but I'm not that excited about it. On the one hand, it would be cool to see a team go 18-0 and be perfect. On the other had, I don't like Randy Moss and would rather it not be his team. On the other hand, I don't know that Eli and his team has what it takes to pull it off. On the other hand, the have gotten better, and the did almost pull it off last time...I think thats enough hands. My pick, Giants by 6.

Idol's back

American Idol is back. I'm not sure if I think this is good or bad. I like Idol, but at the same time, I don't need the reason to watch more TV. And really, the first few weeks are funny, but they do get a tad long. How many "worst auditions ever" can there be. The guy that waxed his chest...pretty creepy! And the "stalker" guy....CREEPY! Im excited that this year they are going to focus on "Who they are" and not on famous people talking to them. I do like Simon, usually. He could be a bit more soft and fuzzy, but then he would be Paula and throw off the whole balance of the show.

A Clean Bill of Health

For those of you that follow along and are concerned....Chester was at the vet yesterday. He, like many dogs and cats (and people) in their "golden years," has kind of a laundry list of issues. The first is the low Albumin level (serum protein) that we seemed to have ruled out all of the causes for, but haven't figured this out yet. The good news is his numbers are back up, close to normal. He seems to be pretty stable from that stand point. The other issue he has had lately is a front leg lameness. He limps pretty well on one of his front legs, we just couldn't figure out for sure which it was. The list of rule outs for a 10 year old dog is cancer, arthritis or soft tissue injury. There is no sign of cancer on his x-rays. He will be on pain medications for the rest of his life already, thanks to 2 knee surgeries, but don't think he will be like Dr. House popping a Vicodin every 3 or 4 hours. He will get his yummy chewable Rimadyl twice a day. He does like them. He ate 14 of them once. (i dont recommend this!) The other issue he was seen for was a decrease in appetite. If you know chester, or any of my pets, you know a missed meal is something noteworthy. For him to not gulp down his food the moment it hits the bowl...I get a little concerned. We again, didn't find anything to be concerned about right now. Don't get me wrong...he eats, just not with the enthusiasm we are used to from him. He also has bad breath with tartar on his teeth, he is starting to loose some muscle mass and has little lumps and bumps growing all over now. But these are all part of being a 10 1/2 year old Brittany.

an anniversary

Tonight Nick and I went to W.A. Frost to celebrate the 2 year anniversary of our engagement. 2 years ago tonight we got engaged. 2 years ago tonight the snow was slushy and melty and it was warmer than 1 degree.

A few things about tonight stand out for me. First, my husband can parallel park. As he will point out, it wasn't perfect on the very first try, but it was quite awesome. Me, not so much with the parallel parking. He says his brother's mutant power is the ability to parallel park.

Second - get the duck! Ive had duck a few other places and it has been ok, but this was awesome!

Third - we had a waiter that seemed to genuinely like his job. He wasn't hounding us every other minute, but paid enough attention for us to know he was still there. He made recommendations about the desserts, he kept the drinks adequately filled (but not so often that if you took a sip he refilled it) and he talked enough and made conversation enough to know he was still human and not just performing the tricks of a well trained waiter. I give him a 4.5 out of 5.

the other notable thing, both Nick and I have indents on our ring fingers from our wedding bands. neat.

Road Trip Tales

I believe it was crossing over the Iowa River on our return trip that I said "Iowa River, I think we have crossed over a river named after the state in every state we have been in." Sure enough, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa and Minnesota all have rivers with the same names, and we crossed each on this trip. That of course led to the next question...how many states have rivers with the same name? Well, I pulled out the handy State Farm provided atlas and began to research my question. (I was not driving!) Thank you State Farm and Bonine! On the road I found 12 staes that have rivers with their same name. Once home though, I wanted to verify my findings. Turns out when you search Wikipedia and look at the rivers in each state there are 16: Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas River (Kaw River), Kentucky, Maine, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Ohio, Tennessee, and Wisconsin. What exciting things we can learn on road trips.

There's no place like home.

So, our week long Christmas celebration has come to a close. We are back home and reunited with the dog. We will get the cat later. Aside from the weather related delay on Saturday, the rest of our trip went very well. We were fed amazing spreads of food. We got to visit with family and spend time playing games, socializing and even just hanging out. We saw National Treasure 2. (Nick and I also watched the 1st) Both were better than expected, but we liked the first better. We also saw Hairspray. It too was better than expected. We gave and received wonderful gifts.

We are also thankful that our church has been blessed with such wonderfully talented musicians. For our Christmas Eve service we sang 2 hymns I had never heard of. This isn't uncommon, but the 2nd one, I don't think ANYONE knew. Its a bad sign when the song has 3 verses and even the "organ" player stops in the middle of the 2nd. We did sing a pretty neat version of Silent Night that included a banjo. Yup, a banjo. It was pretty neat. We did not get to sing Joy to the world. I think it just isnt the same with out some Joy.

Our return trip started at 5:15am. I tend to suffer from some motion sickness (remember our cruise?) so long road trips aren't always fun for me. My mother-in-law recommended Bonine. It worked remarkably well for me. I wont say the 14 hours flew by, but it sure did help to be able to sleep, read and look at an atlas for long periods of time. My atlas story will come in a bit.

We got to MN and went right to my parents house. Saturday morning we went to my Grandma's house to move her out. She was moved into an assisted living place. She hates that it isn't "home" yet, but seemed to be pretty agreeable to going to the room for meals and MAYBE looking into the activities they have planned. I think she will adjust and find it isn't as bad as she has made it to be in her mind.

My mom's siblings and kids (minus one of the kids) came to her house and we celebrated Christmas and family. We had a lot of fun and a lot of food. Today (Sunday) we celebrated as a family with my parents and brother. We ate MORE food and exchanged gifts and watched some football.

We arrived home a little while ago and unpacked most of the car. We have quite a few treasures. We got quite a few DVDs, which isnt a bad thing with the writers strike still going on.

Anyway, I think that is all for my holiday update 2007. We plan to continue our tradition of New Years eve trilogies, we just haven't decided which it will be yet.

I hope you all had a Merry Christmas and wish you great things for 2008.

just kidding....

so I said I wasn't going to blog until our return...but we have a bit more time on our hands than we expected... we are just north of Des Moines, Iowa in Ankeny. We got to Ames and stopped for some food. A few minutes after we were back on the road, the wind and snow started. Apparently the storm was sitting right over Des Moines. It wouldn't have been so bad if it weren't for the wind. Where there isnt much to stop it (like trees or buildings) it whips across the 4 lane interstate like nothin. When we made the decision (a few minutes into the snow) I called the Marriott in Kansas City, MO to cancel our reservations. I also got the number to the Ankeny Marriott. It seems it is one of the very few places to stay. They had a room and were just 6 miles down the road. In the 10 or so miles we drove, there were no less than than 20 cars in the ditch. There was a group of about 8 all in the center ditch. We saw a truck overturned in the bushes along the road. Basically, it would have been waaaaayyyy to long of a trek to make it to KC.

We took it as a blessing from God that the Marriott was so close and had room. The "best" part, is we are across the street from the Kum and Go. What a horrible name! They seem to be all over in Iowa though.

It does look like it will be a 2 hour drive to get to the Waffle House tomorrow morning, but I think it will be worth it!

Santa Claus is coming to town!

In about 3 hours we will be leaving MN to begin our week long Christmas celebration. It is my goal during that time not to check my email or blog. That being said, feel free to leave messages, but I probably wont reply until after we return to our home. -Do you think Santa will know where to find us this year??

We will start out on our trip to Arkansas today, and stay in Kansas City, MO for the night. That is about half way. We will leave tomorrow morning and make the rest of the trip after having breakfast at a waffle house. I have never eaten at one, so this will be an experience for me. On Friday we will leave in the morning and drive straight thru to my parents house. We will be there for a few nights. Then return home for new years eve. We will not be doing our "trilogy" night this year, but I think that is OK.

Merry Christmas! I hope you all have a great holiday, blessed with family and friends and the joy of the season.