Yay! It's the weekend!

I love having three day weekends, because today seems only like Thursday to me, but it's actually Friday! Yes! (Dan actually didn't believe me last night when I said it was Thursday; he said, no, it's Wednesday. We went round and round about it until finally he got it. He finally believed me when we went to Pedro's for dinner, since they have half-price margaritas on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and as soon as we walked in we saw the sign saying, "1/2 price margaritas." I'm like, see?? I know what I'm talking about ;) But I digress.)

Anyway, tonight we are going to go see Tracy in her play, The Full Monty. It should be HILARIOUS. I love seeing musicals, and it's even better when you know someone in it! We were originally thinking about going out to dinner first, but Dan H. is working late, so I don't know how that will all work out. We'll see. There's this wonderful little restaurant called Cafe Montmartre right next door, and we often go there before shows. But I don't think we'll be able to do that tonight. Oh well.

I worked out again during my lunch hour. I just have one question. How long does it take to get in shape, for crying out loud?!? Man, oh, man. When I was working out hard core, I rode the stationary bike for 45 minutes on level 5. Then I took a 4-month break from working out..... Oops. So now I can only do level 2 for 22 minutes. What's up with that? I get so frustrated; I just keep thinking that I want to be in the shape I used to be in. Oh well; 22 minutes is better than nothing, right? Right? Gaaahhh.

Well I hope everyone (all 4 readers of my blog, LOL) has a great weekend! I'll let you know how the play was :)

Rori's First Day!

I can't believe it; our "baby" Rori started kindergarten today! I remember the first time I held her; she was 46 hours old, and now she's a 5 1/2 year old in kindergarten? Where does time go?

We went to the Hines' house (luckily they live only 4 minutes away!) to see her get on the bus for the first time. She looked so cute, and she was so excited. She showed Dan and me all her folders and notebooks (puppies and Disney princesses seemed to be the common theme there!) and she was so excited. Although, when she got on the bus, she did kind of look back at us, like, "Wait; I'm supposed to get on here by myself?" But she was a little trooper, got on the bus and sat down in the front seat, and we waved to her until the bus drove off.

Then Tracy, Kirsti, Dan and I (Dan H. had to go to work, so he couldn't come with us, but Kirsti doesn't start school until tomorrow so she came along, which was nice) went to the open house that the school had, and we got to see her classroom and teacher. It was cool; the governor was even there, and he spoke to us and shook our hands. I was like, whoa, that's crazy that the governor is here! He chatted with us for a bit, then went off to visit some other schools.

Anyway, Rori's classroom was really cool, and her teacher seems great. She sat down right away and started coloring the pictures they had laid out on the table. She looked really happy, and she was talking to some of the other kids at the table, so she seemed to feel pretty comfortable. Here are some pictures of her (Sorry some of them are sideways; blogger won't let me turn them around. If you click on them, though, you can see them in a larger size).

Getting on the bus:


At home before the bus comes:


With Kirsti at home


Coloring at school:

Labor Day Weekend

Well, I hope everyone had a great Labor Day weekend! Dan and I sure did. We went up to the cabin in Turtle Lake, and it was absolutely gorgeous. Warm, sunny weather, the water temperature was like bath water; in short, it was perfect. We mainly just lounged around relaxing; Dan got a lot of fishing in, and I read two books that I'd been wanting to read for awhile.

We went boating once on Monday (in my uncle and aunt' s boat--they were up there too, so we got to spend time with them, which was a lot of fun) and that was great. I absolutely love spending time on the water, and I think boating is one of the best ways to do it! I went tubing on Sunday, and while it was really fun, the water was so choppy that I really had to strain my arms just to hang on. Yeah, I'm still sore, and it's Tuesday. I feel like I went through a really tough workout ;) But it was still fun. The rest of Sunday was just spent lounging in the water on a raft, reading, so it was very relaxing.

Sunday night we went to the Five O'Clock Club, which is this excellent restaurant about 20 minutes from the cabin. It's very high-end food, but you don't have to get all dressed up to go there, which is nice. Dan had the salmon, like he always does, and then I had this delicious dinner called the Dynamic Duo; it was filet mignon topped with lobster stirfry and bernaise sauce. It was de-freaking-licious. The only problem is, they give you so much food (we had clam chowder and homemade bread before the main course came) that it was impossible to eat our whole dinner. Oh well, it made for good leftovers the next day!

Monday morning I actually got up early with Dan to go fishing. Yeah, that's something I *never* do, and he's been begging me to come with him, so I thought I might as well, since it was our last day there. It was actually quite peaceful, and I really enjoyed it. (I didn't fish though; I just sat in the boat with him and read). I would do it more often, I just wish you didn't have to get up at 6 am in order to get the good fishing in. Can't someone talk to the fish and have them change their schedules to, I don't know, 10 am-12 pm? That would be the perfect fishing time for me, in my opinion. ;)

We ended up leaving at 3 pm on Monday and got back to Madison by 7, which is pretty standard. I was surprised that we didn't run into more traffic what with it being the holiday weekend and all. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera, so I can't post pictures, but it was absolutely gorgeous. We're hoping to go up again some time in September, so I'll get the pictures of the leaves changing then!

Weekend Recap :)

We had a pretty fun weekend; just enough to do so that we didn't feel it was wasted, but not so much that we felt we never got time to relax. Friday night we just hung out at home, and Saturday we did a major cleaning extravaganza; our apartment was terrible (at least I think it was!). After getting that cleaned up, we took Kirsti, Rori and Kirsti's friend Caitlin to the Sun Prairie Corn Festival. It had all these fair-like rides, which the girls like, and the sweet corn was delicious! Kirsti and Caitlin went off on their own and went on the "grown up" rides, so Dan and I took Rori on the little kids ones. She went on the carousel, the bumper cars (I went with her for that), the tilt a whirl (she went on that with Caitlin), the "balloon" ride (which was just like any other little kid ride; she sat in this cool hot air balloon type seat and just went round and round) and then the Orient Express, which was this roller coaster shaped like a dragon. Since she's obsessed with Mulan, she LOVED this ride, since she likes anything Asian.

Then we came home, and since Tracy and Dan were out, we watched Rori at home while Kirsti played with Caitlin. Rori is so smart; she got this princess flash cards for addition and subtraction, and we went through them with her. After just a couple tries, she had it down pat! Sure, she still used her fingers to count out some of the answers, but for a little girl who hasn't even gone into kindergarten yet, she did amazingly!

Sunday, we just hung out at home and ran errands. After we had dinner, we watched the Murder She Wrote marathon (yes, we're nerds; we're 26 and we love Murder She Wrote) and then decided, on the spur of the moment, to go see a 9:30 showing of Mirrors. Yeah, it was scary. I was kind of scared to go to sleep, and I was even more scared to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night and look in the mirror! Ah, well. It was fun to do something spontaneous on a Sunday night, instead of just hanging out at home like we normally do.

Ipods and water do not mix

Especially when that water is actually melted ice mixed with the remainder of a Hi-C orange drink from McDonalds. Dan set the ipod on our end table as we left for the lake. Someone had set a McDonalds cup there (I honestly don't know who it was; it could have been me) and over the course of a couple days, it leaked out and destroyed my ipod. Yep, I got to use my beloved ipod for a total of 30 minutes before we left for the lake, and when we came back, it was destroyed. *Sigh*.

Luckily, my AWESOME sister-in-law, Nancy, has an ipod nano that she got for opening up a bank account, and she said she never uses it, so she sent it to me. It should be here any day; thanks, Nancy!!!

I did work out today, using my cell phone for music instead of my beautiful blue ipod, but somehow, it just wasn't the same.......

Lesson we've all learned? Do NOT set any electronic equipment anywhere near liquid, even if you think said liquid is safely contained in a cup. Bad things ensue.

Dan's finally finished with school!

Yep! I know he walked in May, but he still had two summer classes to take, and on Wednesday, he turned in the last lab report, and he is officially done! Now he *really* feels like a college grad! (Well, he says he won't completely feel like one til he gets his diploma in the mail, but that's coming).

We're still having fun with my mom here; on Tuesday night, we actually went and saw Mamma Mia again. This time, it was my mom, Dan and me. I'm not too sure Dan liked it.... he was sitting there with a rather bored look on his face. It also didn't help that, as he put it, he was "the only straight guy in the theater." But I loved it; I actually want to see it again, and then buy it when it comes out on DVD.

Oh, and my grandparents are out of rehab and back in their own home! We're so happy for them; finally, 10 weeks after the car accident, they are back under their own roof. We went over there last night for dinner; my mom was staying there to help them, and my aunt Chris and cousin Karissa came up too. We didn't get there until around 8, because I had this work event I had to go to at the Overture Center, but that's ok. It was a lot of fun to hang out with my family, and it's so nice knowing that my grandparents made it through this terrible ordeal ok, and they're back home. :)

Our weekend at the lake

We had a great time up at our cabin in Turtle Lake! We didn't get up there until around midnight on Friday night, but that's ok. We weren't that tired, so Dan, Austin and I actually hit up the casino for a couple hours, which was fun. I didn't win anything (well, I may have gotten a few quarters from the slot machine, but nothing too substantial), but it was still fun. Oh, and we tried a game of blackjack. I was completely lost; I know *in theory* how to play it, but it was kind of nerve wracking being at the table with the dealer, who's shuffling all fast and whatnot. But it was still fun. I have no idea how people count cards, though; there's no way I could remember all that!

Saturday we got up and lounged around, which was really fun. We also had fun setting up our "room" at the cabin. The cabin has three bedrooms, and since there's three owners (my parents, my Uncle Fred [my dad's brother] and Aunt Kathryn, and my Aunt Missy [my dad's sister]) it works out that each one has their own space. Since my mom only gets up there a couple times a year, she hadn't decorated our room yet, but we did this weekend. She ordered these gorgeous beds, and since the carpet down there is a gold/orange (from the 70s), she decided to go with that color scheme (since my grandma Eleanore loved those colors). So we got these really cool bedspreads that are red, orange and yellow, with just a hint of pink/violet. It looks really good down there; very 70s.

That evening, we had Austin get my dad to walk the dogs with him, since we needed to set up for my dad's surprise birthday party. He turns 60 on the 25th of this month, but since we were all up there (my Aunt Kathryn, Uncle Fred and Aunt Missy were up there too) we decided to do the party now. We decorated with some cute 60 decorations, and I got a cake, which my mom then decorated with all the candies from their childhood; you know, wax bottles, chuckles (whatever those are), smarties, etc. Uncle Fred had some Beatles music on his ipod, so that kind of set the 60s mood, so to speak. Some of our neighbors also came over to help celebrate, so that was fun. We had to laugh, though; my dad came in, we all shouted "Surprise!" and he just looked around like, "What is going on?? Anyway, I have to go to the bathroom" and then he just went in the bathroom and shut the door. We were all laughing, like, did he even hear us?

But it was a fun party; my mom made this delicious brandy slush, and we had really tasty salads and bratwurst. I'm glad we were able to do that, since I won't be able to actually spend his birthday with him.

Sunday was spent relaxing yet again, and then we went to the Five O'Clock Club for dinner. It's this delicious supper club featuring steaks, seafood, pasta, etc. It is SO GOOD, but we honestly almost felt sick by the time we left, we were so stuffed. I had steak and shrimp with fettuccine alfredo; delicious. Their clam chowder was excellent, as was their bread. It was so yummy, and my dad treated us, so that was nice.

We stayed up there all day Monday, too, since I took off work, and we didn't end up leaving until 8 o'clock, which meant we got home at midnight, so I'm exhausted today. Oh well; it was worth it. It was a great weekend!