Who did it?

Well despite it being 3 days instead of 2…this past weekend came and went pretty quickly.  To celebrate the 4th of July…we headed out of Greenville and over to St. Louis.  We spent the bulk of Friday utilizing our Six Flags season passes.  The weather was beautiful….and the park wasn’t packed at all.  Despite some icky feeling tummies at the beginning of the day…we were still able to ride all of our favorite coasters and thrill rides.  They’ve got a new coaster as well…the “Evil Kenievil”.  It’s a tight twisting wooden coaster…and was simply thrilling and fantastic.  It was warm enough to take in a few water rides as well…and not have to worry about being soaked for the rest of the day.  We stayed until the park closed…and watched fireworks there as well.  Definitely not a praise-worthy display…but still nice to be able to see a few. 

 From there we headed back to our hotel…but not until we stopped off for some late night Krispy Kreme to quench my sweet tooth.  So at the hotel we had a jacuzzi in our room…which I immediately went to fill when we got back.  After a day of walking all over the park…my feet and back were thrilled at the thought of sitting in a jacuzzi.  Well thanks to that decision…I’ve learned a major life lesson.  Don’t put any sort of a soap or bubbles in a jacuzzi…EVER!  I’m pretty sure I knew that…but still…I put a dime size worth of bubbles in the tub.  It was fine to start with…but then I turned on the jets…and the bubbles proceded to pretty much fill and take over the tub area (which was quite big).  They never actually flowed out of the tub…just kept rising up like there was some sort of clear glass surrounding the tub.  It was quite a site.  So the next hour was spent trying to “drain” the bubbles.  We transported some to the sink…which didn’t work.  Then we drained the water a bit…didnt’ work.  Then we pretty just turned on the shower head above and let cold water run until they were gone.  So after that whole process was done…we had to fill the stupid tub all over again.  Lesson learned.

After a good night’s sleep…we got up (after sleeping in) and headed over for lunch.   We got some bbq…of course…which gave us the energy necessary to continue on with another day.  From there we headed over to Grant’s Farm…which is one of our favorite St. Louis atractions.  We saw all of the animals…watched the animal show…fed the llama’s…and went on our way.  We shopped for a bit at a local mall.  I got a cute new dress and Jared got some running socks.  We ate a yummy pasta dinner and headed over to Ted Drew’s for some custard.  After seeing the mile long lines there….we just kept going.  I opted for a buster bar at DQ instead.  Not even close to being as good as Ted Drew’s…but it was still pretty tasty. 

 Sunday was church…and then napping.  After napping…an hours worth of weeding in the garden.  The tomoatoes and peppers are all growing quite well.  I’ve even been able to pull a few onions to use.  My favorite part is that the sunflowers we planted are starting to grow as well.  I’ve had this thing with sunflowers since I was younger…and I was so excited to have my own this year!  the rest of the yard is looking good, too.  The hollyhocks are finally starting to bud, the day lillies are in full bloom, the hydrangeas came back (they had a rough year last summer), and Jared’s finally got the grass to start growin the bald spots. 

 With that…I’m gonna get back to work!

After a great weekend…there’s always a Monday.  As a laid there in bed this morning…I quickly realized that I didn’t get nearly enough sleep this weekend.  Lack of sleep is totally worth it when it means you get to hang out with good friends…and watch silly movies with your hubby.  Today work just seemed to drag on and on…like 4:30 was never going to get here.  After some fun and exciting news though….it got here a little more quickly.  Jared surprised me today by letting me know that we were getting season tickets to this year’s Broadway series at the Fox Theatre.  We had some friends that asked if we were interested…and we decided not to…even though I really really wanted to.  Needless to say…Jared completely changed his mind and told them yes…and then let me know.  I’m so pumped!  We get to look foward to 6 great shows over the next year!  It makes me feel so fancy!  The Fox is probably my most favorite theatre that I’ve ever been to.  It’s so huge and beautiful…and just an amazing experience every time you go. This evening we made hobo dinners on the grill…and they were super yummy. We followed dinner up with some lawn games and cleaned the house up a bit. So even though it definitely started out as a Monday…it turned into a great day!

Yesterday we took the day off from work…to get away for the day.  To start with…I went to contest a speeding ticket that I got a few months ago.  Luckily I succeeded!  I’d never had a ticket before…and I certainly didn’t want to start now.  I was supposedly caught speeding in a school zone…however…school hours were over…so the ticket was easily dismissed.  Hooray!  After that we caught some lunch at Jimmy John’s (yummm!) and spent some time shopping.  Then we caught a matinee at the movie theatre…we went to see “The Happening” by M. N. Shayamalon (or however you spell his name!).  It was really good…but definitely not our favorite of his.  It will keep you on the edge of your seat though!  After that we headed over to Alton to spend some time with Steve and Nicole.  We hung out and got some supper.  Jared hung out with Steve while Nicole and I headed over to the Muny in St. Louis.  She was given tickets to go see “High School Musical” and invited me to go along.  It was really cute!  Cheese…but lots of fun!  The weather was perfect and it was a great night.  We made it back to Greenville around 1:45…and fortunately slept in quite a bit this morning.  It’s been a relaxing day filled with TV…S’mores cereal…and some cleaning.   Good times!

Last night we headed out for some BBQ with Steve and Nicole at 17th Street (our favorite…of course).  The food was delicious…and the company was even better.  After we ate we ran (well…drove quickly) over to Guitar Center to drop off Jared and Steve, while Nicole and I scanned the home decor section at Gordman’s.  I found a couple of cute things for the house…and a great pair of Nine West sunglasses.  Then we played an exciting game of mini-golf….which is always fun.  I definitely didn’t play my best…but oh well!  Then…to top of the evening we headed over to Lotawata Creek for desert.  Nicole had seen these “chocolate nachos” on the menu before…and they supposedly fed four…so went to give them a try.  They were…in a word…scrumtrulescent!  It was probably the biggest plate of yumminess that I’d ever seen…this thing was huge!  There was a layer of cinnamon suger tortilla chips…then like 4 or 5 enormous scoops of ice cream….then mounds of whipped cream…and then the whole thing was covered in hot fudge and caramel.  Oh…and a cherry on top.  The four of us couldn’t even make it through the whole thing.  It was amazing…I’ll definitely be giving that a try again.  And that leads us to today.  We’ve slept in and are being lazy….and it’s great.  We’ve got a wedding to go to at 4:00….so we’ll actually have to get off the couch at some point…but not until then!  Ah yes….yay for lazy Saturdays. 

So life seems to be speeding by as of late.  There always seems to be something going on…all the time.  This past weekend we were able to get back up to visit family for Father’s Day and our niece’s 1.5 birthday party.  As always…it was great to be back home and to just relax for a bit.  Mom and dad got Jared a bocce ball set for his birthday…so that took up a good chunk of Friday evening.  Sunday was a bit more chaotic…but still a great time.  We got my dad an ipod for Father’s Day…and it was a lot of fun seeing how excited he was about it.  We went to church with my rents and then headed to Monical’s for lunch…dad’s choice.  It’s probably one of my favorite pizza places…so I’m always eager to go there when we’re home.  We also got to spend some time with Jared’s mom and his dad…which was a nice treat.  Then we headed off to Geof and Lauri’s for Aubrey’s birthday bash.  Lots of people…lots of good food…and lots of fun.  It was a great evening!  Then we made the long trek back to Greenville.  This week has pretty much flown by.  One of my coworker’s resigned last Friday…so I’ve now got double the workload…but I’m ready for the challenge.  Needless to say…my phone hasn’t stopped ringing since Monday.  Yesterday was Jared’s 29th birthday.  He had praise band practice for church…so our celebration was a rented movie…dippin’ dots ice cream…funfetti cake…some cool presents…and camping out on the hide-a-bed for the night while we watched said movie.  It was relaxing…and I think he had a really good day.  So today is Friday…thank goodness!  We’re planning on getting out of town with some friends for the evening….which will be nice.  Until then…adios!

So yesterday was our 4 year wedding anniversary…and it was great!  It’s funny…because on days like that…most people ask if it seems like it’s been that long…etc.  It does seem like time has flown…but at the same time…I have a hard time thinking about life before I knew Jared.  He’s just been such a huge part of my life for so long…that it seems longer…but in a really good way!  Either way…since we’d just taken vacation a few weeks ago…we didn’t have a ton of cash to do something crazy fancy.  Sooo…we decided on the Amazing Pizza Company and a movie…both of which were AWESOME!  What’s better than spending 4 hours of all-you-can eat pizza and otherdelicious goodies…and lots of mini-bowling, mini-golf, ski-ball, go carts…with the bestest hubby ever?!  We also went to see “Baby Mamma”…which was hillarious and a great movie to just sit back and watch…without much thought.  It was great night away from Greenville!  Now it’s the weekend…which is great.  I have a lot of cleaning to get through in the house this weekend…and some homework too.  Hopefully it’ll be a nice low-key weekend at home!

So today I did something amazing…I ordered tickets to see The New Kids on the Bock’s reunion tour!  Ahhh!!!   Jared said that he absolutely didn’t want to go…so I invited my good buddy Nicole and one of her friends.  It’s not until November 10…but I’m still already pumped!  Maybe we’ll crimp our hair…and tightroll our jeans…who knows!?  Either way…aside from that…it’s been a pretty good week.  We started working on our basement…which will take some time…but it was great to at least get a little bit done.  Hopefully we’ll be motivated this week to get the ceiling totally painted…and all of the cracks filled.  We had a lot of rain this week…thus our yard turned into the amazon….again.  It finally dried up enough to mow and weed.  I weeded in the garden for about an hour…and it’s looking pretty good.  The plants are all looking really full….especially the potatoes.  (I need to get some stakes to keep them from falling over onto the peppers.)  I was excited to see the beans and sunflowers were both peeking through the soil this week as well.  Oh…last night I also had sushi for the very first time.  It was vegetarian sushi….which was good…because I don’t like fish.  I was pretty nervous about giving it a try…but to my surprise…it wasn’t half bad!  Definitely not something that I’d crave all the time…but definitely something fun and tasty to try.  Today we’re lounging around being lazy this morning…which is great!  This afternoon we’re heading to the first wedding of the summer for us…so we need to start getting ready pretty soon.  It looks pretty nice outside…so it should be a great day to get dressed up and have fun with friends at the wedding.  Later!

It’s been over a week since I really had time to sit down and give some updates….since then, life has been a whirlwind (to say the least).  To start with…last weekend we headed out for a few days of much needed vacation.  We took off on Sunday…and swung through Emden and Bloomington to visit with our mom’s on mother’s day.  It was nice to get to see our family…even though it was a quick visit in both places.  From there we traveled on to Chicago for a quick mini-vacation.  It was only 3 days/3 nights….but it was just what we needed to get out of town and re-charge.  Some highlights of the trip included (but certainly aren’t limited to):

-Staying downtown on Michigan Ave (even if it was a really old hotel).

-Chicago-style pizza at Giordano’s (our favorite!)

-Shopping the magnificent mile.

-Bowling downtown.

-The Field Museum (with a great new exhibit on mythical creatures)

-Passes for the “L”

-CUBS!

-Lots of walking around Grant Park and Millenium Park

-Walking along the lakeshore

-Flight of the Concords concert (which was AWESOME!)

There were a lot of other great things too, but those were the definite highlights.  From there we headed back to Emden to be with my family and my dad as he had surgery this past week.  For those who don’t know, we found out in January that my dad had cancer…and we’ve been through months of chemo/radiation and the surgery portion to remove the tumor took place this week.  He’s doing really well and we’ve been blessed as a family to see the great doctors and nurses he’s dealing with.  He’s been very positive and excited to get back on his feet…which is also a big blessing.  It was great to spend time with family and to stay with my mom for 4 days…and I certainly wasn’t ready to come back to Greenville.  We’ll be heading back up this weekend to visit dad and spend some extra time with family.  I probably won’t do much updating about all of that online, just because it’s pretty personal and I don’t know that my blog’s the best place to write all of that.  If you’ve got any questions or want to know how he’s doing…just let me know! 

Other than that…we’re back in Greenville and are slowly getting back into the swing of things.  The garden’s growing and looking tastier each day.  In fact, I’m going to pick some fresh lettuce for salad tonight…yummm!  We’ve got plans to start painting and sealing up our basement….so hopefully we’ll be done with that fairly soon.  And that’s about it…adios!

So it’s been nearly a month since I last posted…my apologies.  Life is just really busy right now!  Over the past few weeks we’ve had a variety of visitors and people staying over at the house.  (8 people to be exact.)  I’ve also been busy with my current graduate class that I’m taking.  (Financing…no fun!)  A few weekends ago we got season passes to Six Flags…something that I’ve wanted since I was little.  Maybe I’m too old to be excited about Six Flags season passes….but who cares!  We also have been doing some work in the yard….thanks to my parents.  Our garden is growing and looking more delicious each day.  My flowers are starting to come up as well…which is a reminder of how much I love spring.  I’m going to wrap things up with that…but do promise to be a better updater (is that even a word?!)!

So it’s Friday…and the end of the workday just can’t seem to get here soon enough!  It’s so pretty outside….and I’m finally over that beast of a cold…and I just want to be at home.  Only a few more hours to go I suppose.  My parents are coming to visit today and tomorrow…so I’m pumped about that as well.  They’re bringing some flowers to plan and a few things to put into our garden as well.  (Fingers crossed that our garden isn’t a swamp when they get here….it’s been quite rainy here lately.)  I’m just excited to have visitors, regardless.  The one thing that stinks about living where we do…is that all of our family is like 2 hours away.  Most people don’t want to take the time out to drive all the way down here…which I completely understand.  So it’s super great when we actually do get visitors!  Here’s to hoping the weather stays nice!