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!

Landscaping is finally done!

Mom and Dad came to visit us this weekend, and we put them to work. On Friday night we had 7 tons of rock delivered...that's a lot of rock! We got started around 8:00 on Saturday morning and we were done with the project by 5:00. Our friend Matt also came over to help, so that made things go faster too.

When Jason and I were picking up the original rock, we found a bunch of flagstone that was hidden by our huge hostas. We thought we might use it, but ended up not needed it. So on Saturday evening we set it out by the street with a for sale sign on it. Around 10:00 on Sunday morning, a guy came by and bought it all. How lucky is that?? Anyways, here are some pictures from the weekend.













We still have a few places where I want to put some more flowers or plants, but we may just wait until next spring to do that. We're both a little tired of working on this project and have other things that need done...like our school work! At least this was only a month project...the bathroom remodel took us five months!

Disc golf!

Jason and I tried out a new sport this evening...disc golf...and it was a lot of fun! There were 18 "holes" just like in real golf, but we only played 16 because our hands were getting sore from throwing the disc (an expensive frisbee). The holes wound us around a wooded area that had nice trails to walk on if you weren't playing disc golf.

Luckily we only lost Jason's disc once (he had a wicked curve), but my keen eye found it after about 5 minutes of searching. We've determined that a yellow disc is not the best color. It really blended in with all the greenery and when the sun hit it, you could barely see it. Mine is a bright pink color, so it was pretty easy to spot.

As promised...

As promised, here are the pictures of our new plants in the front.

What a busy day!!

Jason took today off, and it was fun and filled. We started out around 7:00 this morning by going to my school. He helped me hang up posters, and I sure did appreciate it. We got done in about 2 1/2 hours compared to probably 3-4 hours if I would have done it by myself.

We left the school around 10:00 and stopped at the landscaping place on the way home to look at plants for the front. We made some notes and took it home to discuss (can't rush into anything with Jason). We decided on what we wanted to do, and then ate lunch around noon.

At 12:30 we went to the golf club house...to rent a golf cart!! I told Jason that I would go with him if we got a cart. He obliged (thankfully!). It was a little slow going at first. There were a ton of people out there, and we got stuck behind a group of three and a guy by himself. After the first two holes, the guy in front of us said that Jason could hit with him if he wanted to. We had a great time as you can see from the photos below.



We got done on the golf course around 4:45, rushed home, and left again. We had talked about the plants while Jason was golfing and decided to go ahead with them. So we rushed to the landscaping place since they closed at 5:30. We ended up buying two hydrangeas, two boxwoods, and two rhododendrons (pictures to come!). After we unloaded the plants from the car, we went to Subway for supper, and then headed to Menards to get some dirt. Got home around 7:00 and immediately started planting. We worked until we couldn't see anything anymore. Unfortunately we only got three plants in the ground, so we'll finish up tomorrow and I'll post some pictures then. What a busy day!

All in a day's work

We started working on the landscaping project this morning around 10. It was sprinkling, so we worked in the front since there's a lot of tree cover. I guess you could say we did a little bit more than anticipated. It started out that this project was just rock/mulch removal. Now it seems that we're doing a full blown landscaping remodel. See the 'pretty' bushes in the front??

Now you don't! It looks totally different and sooo much better. The rock removal was being hindered by the bushes, and I hated them anyway. Jason was like, you wanna take those out? I excitedly said absolutely! So they're gone! And boy was it tough work. Those stumps and roots were a pain to dig out. We'll be sore tomorrow!

I have no idea what happened, but during one of our drink breaks, Jason dropped his can. It was the fastest I'd seen him move all day. I guess he didn't want to waste too much of his precious beer.

Landscaping...a back-breaking project

This morning we started a landscaping project that's going to be a lot more work and take a lot more time than I anticipated. I knew it'd be hard work, but geesh...this is rough! I think that when it's finished, it'll look really nice though. We're replacing all of the timbers with small boulders and all of the mulch/river rock with something else. We haven't decided what kind of rock we're going to put down, but we don't want mulch and the bigger rock isn't conducive to growing plants, so we thought it was time for something new.

Unfortunately, we don't have a truck. Jason's poor little car was loaded to the max (well maybe not, but we didn't want to test the max out). In our first trip, we hauled 506 pounds. Can you believe that just around that tree is a quarter of a ton of rock?? Crazy! Then we went back and hauled another 464 pounds of rock. We put the rock in the trunk and in the backseat to distribute the weight, so that we weren't dragging the ground.


Today, we just laid down the edging around one tree, so here's the before...

...during (Jason is obviously slacking off a little bit)...

...and here's the after!

Fun with Matt!

On Friday night, we went out with our friend Matt. We met for dinner at Kelleher's, an Irish pub on the riverfront, and then we went to a Peoria Chiefs baseball game. It was probably one of the best we'd been to...no we didn't win, but the entertainment was phenomenal.

Here's a really funny video of one of the ushers. During every break in the game, he would be doing this...I don't see how he wasn't exhausted or injured by the end of the game! The guy is wearing a blue shirt in the middle of the screen, so look past the heads of the two women in the forefront. Hilarious...



This was actually one of the "real" entertainers for the evening. His name was Myron Noodleman, and he had about three or four little routines, but this was was the best.



After the game, we went back to Matt's apartment for a little Guitar Hero!

They were definitely in concentration mode here.


So, we couldn't help but take a picture of our "band". Notice that my microphone is wireless, but the guitars aren't. Well actually...my microphone is a flashlight...but it looks pretty good, don't you think??

Halfway done with the summer/fall of weddings

We attended our 4th out of 8 wedding this weekend. One of my friends from high school got married in Chicago, so we set out around 9:00 on Saturday morning and got back around 1:00 AM. It was a long drive, and I offered to do it so that Jason could work on his homework. I know. I'm such a nice person, huh? Anyways, we had a good time.

Out with the old...in with the new!

Here are a couple pictures to remind you of the old yucky light with the hideous chain stretched across the ceiling.
You can't tell by this picture so much, but it also interfered with my desk. I had to physically move the light anytime I wanted in the left side of the desk. It just had to go! (We were even holding out on putting new light bulbs in it. There are two burnt out...Jason made me cheap!)

Ta-da! The new "more my style" kind of lights. This suits our personalities much better. Don't you think? And the electrician only had one kind of major hick-up. I heard him rooting around in the kitchen, so I went to investigate. He had taken all the outlets and switches apart in the downstairs bathroom and lifted up almost all the ceiling tiles, and come to find out none of them were "hot" in order to create a new switch for the light over my desk. (Side note to Tim: He fixed that outlet that you and Jason worked on while he had it all apart.) So to make a long story short, he ended up having to go from the outlet in the kitchen next to the table, fish the wire all the way across the bathroom ceiling, and down the wall. Whew! He told me that if that didn't work, we had two options: move the desk (uh..no) or cut a hole in our nicely remodeled bathroom that we'd have to patch ourselves (uh...double no). So anyway, I'm glad everything worked out.


See anything wrong with the lights below? When he opened up the second box, one of the glass globes was broken. :( Hopefully, they still have some in stock or I'm going to be pretty upset.

Speaking of out with the old...in with the new...I got my hair cut yesterday...short!

The backpack gave you away!

So let me set the tone here. It was around 7:30 this evening, and Jason and I were sitting on the couch upstairs. The light was on, but the blinds were still open. We were both working on our classes using our laptops. All of a sudden, I see two guys walk right past our window. Uh-oh. They were dressed in white shirts, black pants, black ties....and backpacks. Who else could they be? None other than Jehovah's Witnesses. When they knocked on the door, what did we do? Nothing. I sat on the couch and watched them in the reflection of the curio cabinet. They waited around a bit, and finally decided to move on. I was afraid they'd see my face, so I hid behind my laptop. What did Jason do? He stared right at one of the guys as he looked into the window. Who knows if he actually saw us, but he could have. And to make matters even worse, the garage door was open. How smart are we? You can't pretend to not be home with the blinds and the garage door open.

After it was all clear and the Jehovah's Witnesses were out of sight, we decided to go on a bike ride. We were on the home stretch, just a few blocks from home, and our neighbor Cody pulled off a side street right behind us. We figured that he'd turn with us, but he kept going straight. Jason was like "Kick it up a gear, he's going to try and beat us!" We didn't think we stood a chance, but I put it in the highest gear possible and pedaled my little heart out. Guess what? Cody got stuck waiting for a bunch of traffic, and we zoomed right past him. Unfortunately he was just a little too quick. He did beat us, but as we passed him getting out of his car Jason yells, "You got lucky this time!"

What's that bulge in your pocket?

So Jason and I went on a bike ride tonight around our normal loop. We were getting ready to go up a small hill next to one of the holes on the golf course when I spotted something out of the corner of my eye. I squealed my brakes, and Jason raced on by. He saw me drop back and turned a U-ey (How do you spell that??) to find out what was wrong . Anyways, he thought something had happened to me or my bicycle. Nope, nothing like that. I spotted a golf ball!! :) I, of course, had to stop and pick it up. Luckily I had pockets in my shorts, where I could keep the golf ball safe until we got home. So a little bit later, Jason turns to me and says, "Hey, what's that bulge in your pocket?"

Stormy weather

So our morning walk was canceled today. Not any fault of ours though. Around 5:35 AM the warning sirens went off. I had heard the thunder about five minutes prior and new that thunderstorms were forecasted for today. Not really knowing what the weather was doing outside, we heeded the warning sirens, took a blanket and a flashlight, and headed down to the basement. After about 10 minutes, we were tired of sitting on the floor and our curiosity about the conditions outside were mounting. We figured the storm had mostly passed, but when we turned on the radio, we heard there was a tornado warning for our county that was set to expire within the next 10 minutes. Luckily nothing happened. No hail, no tornados. Just a lot of thunder, lightening, strong winds, and heavy rain. This was a piece of cake compared to that storm I drove through a few weeks ago...I was inside this time instead of in a car by myself!

Damage report: One little tree branch and a bunch of trash from our neighbors bin. Today is unfortunately trash day, and he set his out last night. The lids flew open, and the trash blew out into our yard. Our neighbor is a piece of trash himself, so we figured that we'd have to pick it up ourselves. To our surprise and amazement, he picked it up (or made one of his kids do it) during a break in the storm.

No one saw...just keep walking...

So a few weeks ago, I mentioned to Jason that we should start taking walks in the morning before he goes to work. Usually I'm unmotivated in the evenings and it's still pretty hot and muggy. Well, he set the alarm for 5:45 for two mornings in a row. What happened? We went back to bed. It was way too early!

On Monday, we finally got serious. He drug me out of bed and we went for a walk. It was refreshing, but it was still way too early. So this morning, he was the one who didn't want to go for a walk, and I was the motivator. He was proud of me since I have almost zero self-motivation. It was even a productive walk. Monday is trash/recycling day so sometimes there are newspapers that have blown out of the bins. As we were walking, there were adds and coupons from the Sunday paper strewn about the sidewalk. What did I find you ask? A coupon for $4 off at Olive Garden! My favorite restaurant in the world! Jason was embarrassed because I torn the coupon off and put the remaining paper back on the ground, but it was an Olive Garden coupon! Come on...I can't pass those up. And besides...it was 6:00 AM...no one saw me do it.

Birdies...make a home!

Jason and I "planted" our birdhouse this morning. It rained pretty hard last night and Jason had just emptied a bucket of water right where I wanted to put it, so he had fun playing in the mud. I was the foreman on the job.