Techy people without techy gadgets

So Jason and I are both fairly techy people. He is a computer programmer, and I am the Microsoft Office Queen, but neither one of us have been into techy gadgets. Well, this year we finally caught up to the rest of the world. Both of us got iPods, and together we got a TomTom. Yea! Now we can listen to music and watch movies while NOT getting lost in the car. Thanks to my mom (who by the way has had a iPod for years) and my brother we have a huge assortment of music and videos already.

We had a really great time visiting family and friends this holiday season, but the best part was spending so much time with our neice and nephew. They are little bundles of joy...well...most of the time. :) We're still not sure if we're ready for kids yet, but we get a little more practice every time we see them. Hope everyone else had a great Christmas!


Oh yeah...one more thing...Jason has started singing Thomas the Train songs randomly since he has them memorized now. Joy!

"It's a Winter Wonderland!"

...the words spoken by my grandma. Usually, Grandma, we don't live in Siberia. Sorry you had to endure the -20 degree wind chills and ice, but we're really glad that you came to visit us. Maybe you can come back when the weather is a bit more pleasant.

The scenery was beautiful especially when the sun peeked in through the ice covered trees, but I hope to goodness that it's melted by the time we get back from our visit home for Christmas. In other news...it's snowing...once again. When will it ever stop?? Thank you Illinois weather for making travel treacherous for the holidays.

So Jason and I became "Bears fans" this year. Our friend Matt thinks I'm bad luck, and it's always my fault if they lose...convenient, huh? Well anyways, we went over to his place to watch the game last night, and the Bears were really doing terrible. Orton threw two intercepted passes and things weren't looking good...and we still haven't seen the great things that Matt speaks of regarding Hester. Well the game was dragging on forever, and I ended up falling asleep during the fourth quarter. And apparently when I fell asleep, the Bears started doing decent, tied the game, and won in over-time. Did me not watching the game help the Bears win? Who knows, but Matt and Jason think so.

Charlie the Gingerbread Boy

So I've always wanted to make a gingerbread house. Laurin and I were going to make one but it just never worked out. When I was at Walmart the other day, I saw a big gingerbread boy cookie pan, and I knew I just had to buy it. Jason, the cheap ass, didn't want to, but I convinced him that I could use it to make other giant cookies as well. I finally made it today and I think it turned out really well...and it tastes good too! We named him Charlie, so Charlie is now missing his feet. Oh so sad...What's next you ask...his poor little hands. Muah-ha-ha!

Snow Day...err...Ice Day

Well...as you can see from the pictures below, we got hit by the ice storm that went through central Illinois. All the local schools had a snow day, including mine. Today was supposed to be the second day of finals, so now the students have to take them on the Tuesday after we come back from break. Not a good situation, but I guess that's mother nature for ya. Jason stayed home from work today too, but he's still working. We've heard that the roads aren't terrible, but we're not going to chance going anywhere. It's a good day to curl up on the couch in a blanket with sweatpants on. :)

I love the trees when they're ice covered. They look so beautiful. We only had one casualty in our backyard. The limb broke sometime during the night presumably from the weight of the ice. Everything is starting to melt as the temperature approaches the above freezing level. Let's just hope it doesn't re-freeze tonight.

Only 10 Days Until Christmas!

Well...not exactly. Christmas came early this year! Unfortunately, Jason's parents aren't going to be in town for Christmas, so we went to their house this past weekend to celebrate. Got lots of great gifts, had some great laughs, and played a lot of cards. Pam can play Euchre now! Woohoo! They also taught us how to play a version of Pitch. Here's a great shot of the fam...

Alright, so I've got to preface the next three pictures. Tim opened up one of his gifts and it was a double pack of Old Spice body wash. He was like alright, I love this stuff. So Jason makes the comment, I'm glad you got that because I don't really like it. A few more presents are opened...Tim gets a Leatherman...Jason gets a dremel tool. So here's where the story really picks up and where the pictures begin. Next present Jason opens...Old Spice body wash. Hilarious! Next present Tim opens...another Leatherman...hmm. So Pam couldn't decide which one he'd like so she bought him two so that he could decide. Jason moves over to his dad with the look on his face like I'll take the one you don't want. Tim picked the one he wanted and then they made a trade. Old Spice for the Leatherman. Too funny!



Kissy faces! We're such dorks!

The Bet

Wow...it's been awhile since my last post. Nothing terribly exciting has been happening. We've been working non-stop on our grad classes that will finally be over this week. Then we'll start again in January...fun, fun!

On to another topic. We actually have friends in Pekin! We've been hanging out with Laurin and Lucas quite a bit on the weekends playing cards and having a good time. They are both into Euchre, and so are we. Thus, we thought it would be perfect to have a little Euchre tournament...guys vs. girls. We started out just keeping track of who won each game so that the team to win could gloat about it. However, we thought it'd be interesting to make a bet. If the guys won, the girls had to cook them breakfast and then leave them alone all day so that they could play video games. If the girls won, the guys had to cook a three-course candle-lit dinner...including a dessert...and it couldn't be store-bought. The score last night before play began was 9-8, girls ahead. We were playing to 10. Who came out victorious you ask....GIRLS! Whoop! Whoop!

Any suggestions on what we should make them cook for us?? Keep in mind they aren't that skilled... :)

Six...glorious...years

On Novemeber 11, 2002, my life was changed forever. It was a cold, rainy day, much like today was. I was working out at the rec and ran into a guy in my calculus class. He asked if I was doing anything that evening, and I responded with the typical...working on homework. There was an exhibition boys basketball game that night, and he was going with a couple friends. Of course, he asked if I wanted to go, and I, of course, said sure. My initial thought...what am I going to wear? Was it a date or was it just hanging out? We were going with his two friends...what will they think of me? All these thoughts and questions just boggled my mind. I decided on a black turtleneck sweater and jeans, and when he picked me up at the door with his two friends in tow...I knew I was a bit overdressed. The three typical college boys were wearing t-shirts. Oh well, I thought. The game was boring and the team wasn't very good, but I was in great company, and we even got shown on the big screen. We left early, and he walked me back to my building. We were both a little nervous, not knowing what to do, but someone made the first move, and we shared our first kiss. It was then that I knew we were on our first date...even though it was with his two friends...and that this guy was special.

What happened on our second date, you ask? Nothing...he cancelled it to play cards with his friends. I was pretty bummed, but we rescheduled for the next night and went bowling. This time, he was the one overdressed...khakis and a button-up shirt. Me...jeans, an old sweater, and tennis shoes. He beat me at both games, and got razzed by his friends for not letting me win at least one game. He learned his lesson though and tried to keep competive games close enough for me to at least think I was good.

The rest they say is history. It has been six wonderful years knowing the man I now call my husband. He will do anything for me and always has my back. He comforts me when I'm sad and protects me when I'm scared. He runs errands for me when I'm swamped with work and calms me down when I'm stressed. We've had our ups and we've had our downs, but I wouldn't change a thing and I hope he wouldn't either. Here's to the best six years of my life with many more to come.

(This really wasn't a "toast" but with all the wedding toasts I've heard this year, I just couldn't resist that last line.)

Obama '08!!!

I hope everyone went out and voted today. What a historic election taking place!

In honor of a new presidential era...I have a new haircut. Yikes! It's short!

Beautiful fall weather...

What a beautiful weekend! Jason's parents came up on Saturday, since they hadn't been here in a while. We decided to take advantage of the great fall weather by playing some frisbee golf. We had a fun time...even though Pam hit me with the frisbee...not once...but twice! No bruises! :) Honestly though, it didn't even hurt, but we all enjoyed razzing her about it.

Pumpkin carving time!

Halloween is upon us. Here are some pictures of our annual pumpkin carving event.



This one is my pumpkin...


...and this one is Jason's.

Update!

Two things:

1) The new microwave is a-mazing! Old microwave: 12 minutes to defrost 1 pound of hamburger. New microwave: 3 minutes...nice!

2) Here's a picture (again courtesy of PJStar) of the Extreme Home Makeover House in Pekin.

Another project crossed off the list...

My parents were in town this weekend and you know what that means...project time! Jason and I had been looking at new microwaves since ours is probably from the 1970s. It was a Quasar...do they still make that brand?? Anyways, we found one we liked, so Dad and Jason installed it today. They also moved the outlet behind the stove up so that now we can plug things in without having to pull the stove out.


We also went to a Peoria Rivermen hockey game on Saturday night. I was pretty disappointed though...no fights. :( The refs were in there so fast that the players didn't have a chance to throw any punches. Oh well...maybe at the next game.

Gotta get a plug in for CAT...

Extreme Home Makeover is in Pekin!!

Who would have thought that Extreme Home Makeover would be filming in Pekin?? Not me...but they are! It has been really neat to see the progress of this house being built in a week. It truly is amazing that so many people are volunteering their time and money to such a great and worthy cause. If you want to read about the family visit the Peoria Journal Star.

I've tried to go to the house every day, but I have missed a few, so I'll take you through the progression...

Here's the original house still standing on Tuesday morning (photo courtesy of PJStar).

Here's the house on Wednesday evening...as you can see it's gone. They were using three backhoes and filling a huge dumpster about every 15-20 minutes. Notice who's equipment they're using...but also notice what they did to hide the name...butt munchers!

Here's the new house on Friday evening...what a transformation!

And, here's the house as of Sunday morning.

As we were driving by the location on Saturday morning, we were lucky enough to get to see one of the carpenters of the show, Ed Sanders. He's the bald one on the right. We're still not sure if the guy on the left is important or not.

Then on Sunday morning, Michael Moloney was signing autographs. We didn't get one because we didn't have anything for him to sign, but I did get quite a few pictures.

I'll have more pictures as the days pass. They'll be completely finished with the house on Tuesday. Unbelieveable...a 4,000 square foot, 7 bedroom, 4 bathroom house in 1 week...

My first apple pie...

I'm a big fan of apple pies, and after Jason and I picked apples yesterday, I just had to attempt to make one. The crust design was awesome, but it wasn't the best pie...probably because I deviated from the ingredient list...oops! We had some ground cloves in the spice cabinet, and I thought what the hay...let's add some cloves. Probably a bad idea. Something was definitely overpowering, and I'm betting that the culprit was the cloves. Nonetheless, it's still edible...but...I've been informed by Jason that he's going to buy some ice cream tomorrow to go along with our pie. Why do you ask?? He claims that you only put ice cream on apple pie if the pie itself isn't good...what a supportive husband!

Fun at Tanner's Orchard

Since today is Columbus Day, I didn't have to work...woohoo! Jason decided to take the day off too, so we went to Tanner's Orchard north of Peoria. We had a great time picking apples and a couple pumpkins. Jason of course had to try out the apples before we picked any. He approved!


Come to find out this orchard is right next to a huge wind farm. Jason is absolutely fascinated with the wind turbines, so he thought that was the best part of making the trip and wanted the turbines in every picture.

They also had some billy goats, llamas, and ponies for the little kids to pet and feed. They even had a little bridge for the billy goats to cross from one side to the other.

And of course Jason couldn't resist this...

Grand Central

Grand Central is a cool telephone service that Google bought and provides to anyone for free. We use it instead of our cellphones so that we don't have to worry about dropped calls or using our minutes. Jason uses it to ring our house phone, then Google will call his parent's house phone. No long distance charges either.

To call us, click the Call Me button below and then type in your name and the phone number of the phone you want to use. Click "Call me" again and Google will call the phone number you entered and will then call our phone number.

Jason's baking experiment

We were at Wal-Mart this morning, and Jason wanted to buy some yeast but he wouldn't tell me what for. So we bought two little packets of yeast, and when we came home I wasn't allowed in the kitchen. He told me that he was going to have to put flour on the counter top, and I was really worried and very curious at that point. You can tell how much baking he's done by himself because he had to ask me if he needed to pre-heat the oven. I said yes, and he replies back that the recipe doesn't tell him to.

So anyways...a little bit later, he comes back down and says that he thinks he needs my assistance. He finally had to tell me that he was trying to make pretzels. So I went upstairs and his "dough" was the consistency of pancake batter. You certainly can't knead that. Come to find out, he added 1 3/4 cups of water instead of just 3/4 cups of water. Oops! So then he made another batch...luckily he had bought that 2nd package of yeast. Then he needed my help again because he didn't know how to shape the pretzels. He was trying to do it all fancy and spin the dough in the air, but it definitely wasn't working. So I just shaped them lying on the cookie sheet.

They turned out really well (but they kinda looked like piles of dog poo) and tasted pretty good, but we didn't have any course salt which would have made them better. Next time, I think we're going to make four giant pretzels instead of the smaller ones.

The year of weddings continues...

On Saturday we set out in a different direction than we have all year...St. Louis. I've been so used to going to Chicago for weddings that it was a nice change. Our friends, Andrew and Jamie, got married, and we were able to catch up with a lot of my friends from high school. Fun was definitely had by all!