Blaine and I enjoyed a nice weekend with family.

Friday:

Sylvia's big debut - we love the pretty little peanut!

Crazy Kautzman's

(sadly had to climb through the window to access the deck - new door should be here anyday I hope)

Saturday:

BBQ and Blues Fest - downtown

(Nice weather and good music!)

Alexis' Open House

More Kautzman fun!

Sunday:
No pictures, but it was a successful day of Ikea, Dick's, grilling, and National Treasure 2.

We hope to have more visitors again soon - always a good time!!

Breaking Stuff..

Ok so today I am working from home/taking a half day of vacation.


So the lawn desperately needs to be mowed. I attempted on Wednesday (Blaine was at the Twins game) to try it out myself. After struggling to get it out from the shed under the deck, I couldn't even get it to start. So I gave up. Well, then Thursday we got a nice storm, giving no chance to mow again. I might try to tackle it again today, but its kinda raining off and on.


Also, by the way things have gone so far today, I am a little scared to do anything else. First of all, part of our fence in the back yard fell down. Nice.




Secondly, while vacuuming a rug (I should have just shook it) the vacuum just quit. Great. At least I was able to get the upstairs completely vacuumed. Our poor guests.

I also sucked up part of my shirt ribbon and totally ruined it. hahaha.

Hopefully, the rest of the cleaning will be more successful!


Here are some pics of our recent updates:

The Upstairs Bathroom - We painted a taupe color (huge improvement over the spotted pee yellow)





Blaine took out the old nasty plastic light cover and put in a new one. It surprisingly looks really good, and adds a little modern flair. It will work until we can afford to put in new flooring and get rid of the mauve counter tops and tiling in the tub!



We painted the front door purple (eggplantish)!!! I am also surprised at how much I LOVE it! Blaine also painted the storm door trimming silver (the gold wasn't going with our nice door handle)
We ran out of time to finish everything we planned. But as soon as we get another free weekend we plan on painting the shutters. Right now they are the same color as the house, which makes no sense. Why even have shutter then? There are lots of little projects to do around the house this summer - can't wait!!

Have a great weekend!

Oh Monday...

Monday was......interesting.

I am still not feeling all that well, but when to work anyway. So here's the fun part: after blowing my nose, I all of sudden felt it running. I thought to myself "wow, where did that come from". So I look down, blood everywhere - GROSS. On my new shirt, on my workpapers, on the table. YIKES. Fortunately, the bathroom wasn't too far, and I only passed by one person on the way. I was able to get it to stop, and get it out of my shirt. However, my workpaper doesn't look so pretty. Whoever has to review that is going to know how much blood, sweat and tears I put into it - literally. hahaha. I just felt bad for the girl I was working with in the conference room - she witnessed it all. FUN.

So I made it through the workday. When I got home Blaine was frantically cleaning the house. Also interesting. Turns out he found out through Matt, a guy at work who is looking for a temporary place to live. So we thought we'd let him check out, meet the guy, scope out the situation.

Well, I had to run Deja to her vet appointment. What a GOOD little girl. I was very impressed. So many other dogs, it was super busy, and she was quiet and good. She said hi to everyone sitting in the waiting area, sniffed everything, and then hung out quietly by me as we waited forever. She was good with the vet too. They had the darndest time finding her butt to take her temp. Had to call in reinforcements - too much hair. She didn't like that so much, and I felt bad as I witnessed the whole debacle. They took her out of the room to take her blood, but I still heard the big squeal. Poor thing. She did not want to be away from me at all after that. Everything looks good though! Just need to bring in a stool sample. They offered to pull it out of her, but gave Deja a break, and said we would wait for it to naturally come out. I hope Blaine will handle that part. haha. They suggested teeth cleaning, which we knew she needed. I just didn't know how much it would cost - YIKES again.

When I got home S. was checking the place out. Seemed like a decent guy. Apparently he spends most of his weekends at his cabin, and is active in softball and volleyball. Clean, doesn't party, looking for a house, check, check, check.

I was not really apt to the idea of letting a stranger move in below us and share the comfort of our home, which we have enjoyed by ourselves for quite a few months. But who can resist the extra income? I guess not us.

So that was our Monday in a nutshell!

This is my attempt at using my new camera to record. Only Deja wouldn't do her trick. oh well, watch it anyway.

The end of May

Thanks everyone for all the birthday wishes (via emails, texts, facebook, phone-calls..)!



Blaine and I had a great long memorial weekend in Bismarck and Jamestown. It was great just spending time with family. (and much needed after a crazy busy, stressful week of work in SD). I am so glad to be back home and back to working in the office!



My birthday was great. I told Blaine I did not want to go out to eat. Shocking I know. But spend a couple of weeks out of town, and you will understand the feeling. Instead I requested some yummy steaks from the grill, and Blaine definitely provided. I think they were the best he has ever grilled before. Rachel and Matt joined us, and afterwards we all went to ColdStone for a little dessert.



I volunteered to be a mentor for my firm's Summer Leadership Program. This program is for college students who are too young to intern, but want to get a feel for the choices out three. All the big four do a similar program. Its a pretty sweet deal. The students interview to get into the program, and once in, at the end usually they all get offers for a full time position when they are done with school or an internship. So the event for SLP on Friday was a high ropes course at a camp out west of the cities. It was awesome!! We were challenge to encourage each other to push our selves to do something we normally wouldn't. I made it to the top of the 40 foot rock climbing wall and rang the bell! What an exhilarating feeling. The second part of the day for our group was spent up 30 feet in the year, walking across ropes and beams from tree to tree - crazy!! At the end we all got to zip-line down - so much fun!



Today I am sore from my Friday experience. I also seem to have caught a cold at about 8pm last night. Weird. I don't know where it came from, but it sucks. I had a lot I wanted to get done around the house today, but I just feel like total crap. Blaine had something similar earlier in the week, so I guess that is where it came from.



Tonight the plan is to head downtown to watch the Twins kick some Yankee butt!! Right now I would much rather stay home, but I don't want to be the party pooper. I do feel a little better so that's good.



Keep your eyes open for some pics to come - Blaine got me a new camera!!!!!!!

Stuck in SD

Not much to say this week - I am in SD for a year-end audit. We work, go out for lunch, work, go out for dinner, go back to our hotel rooms, and get do it all over again. FUN! We have even been so lame, that both last night and tonight we just went to Applebees since it is across from our hotel. Not that there is anything much more appealing than that, sadly. I managed to run 5k this morning, but I squashed the benefits by getting an oreo shake at dinner tonight...boooo...

Blaine is back home keeping track of the dog and the house. Apparently we need a new deck door, the baseboard was rotting out pretty badly. He found one for a good deal on Craigslist, but I'm not sure if I will like the way it looks. We'll see. His excitement for the night, as unfortunately he shared the details with me, was watching birds mating in our backyard. SICK. I guess it looked like the guy stole the girl from another guy, what drama! hahaha

We had a great weekend! Pat and Janelle joined us for a nice relaxing weekend, with a good ol' Twins' game in the mix! Go Twins!

3 more days : )

Night!

Updates about nothing...

Friday: Dinner and Drinks at "the Office" (Matt and Blaine's name for their favorite local American Legion). That place is hopping every night of the week, so I had to finally check it out. I give it a 3 out 5. The guys find it humorous to call Rachel and I the secretaries. FUNNY. Afterwards more drinks and a movie - 27 Dresses. Pretty much a big disappointment. I give it a 2 out of 5. Thank goodness for all the drinks! I am pretty sure Blaine talked through 75% of the movie, but that's nothing new : )

Saturday: Blaine had drill. I went for a run and organized the house up. I also did a little shopping. In the evening we hit up the Twins game with some of my coworkers. Awesome weather, so it was very fun hanging out in the plaza for a pregrame drink and corndog! Twins Win - makes for a great night! We played old married couple and went home after the game, while everyone else went out....

Sunday: More drill for Blaine. I continued to clean the house, took the dog for a walk, ran a few errands....Another gorgeous day! We attempted to give Deja her "shocking" lesson. She is too smart. She just will not go across the flags, which is good because she is not suppose to, but she doesn't know yet that if she does she will get shocked. I just don't trust that a beep will stop her if she says a bunny run across the yard.

Yesterday: Work, bleh. Another nice weather day! Blaine and I took the bikes out for a near 10 mile ride. We biked to the EP community center to see if I should switch from Lifetime. It was nice, but I am just going to keep my Lifetime membership for now. Every day I am more aware of the fact that I am my mother's daughter. Mom, this is not a bad thing, but its true. Last night I cut my pinky slicing a banana. Such a mom move (you know what I'm talking about!).

Today: Work, still bleh (and its only 9:30am). I am not a fan of being unassigned, which I am all week. So I signed up for Employee Benefit Plan training tomorrow and volunteered for Junior Achievement Biz Town on Friday. Better than doing nothing....

On a side note, in the Sunday paper a couple of weekends ago, there was a featured article on a former MN couple. The young couple had their first baby, and less than 27 hours later, the wife died from an unknown blood clot on her way to hold her daughter for the first time. It is an unbelievably sad story. The husband maintains a blog of his own to share his daily struggle with the world and to help him cope with the situation. I highly recommend you check out the blog and read for yourself. He also has awesome pictures of his baby girl. The writing and pictures make you appreciate the small miracles in life.

Happy Tuesday!

Sunny AZ

Stace and I had THE best time in Arizona. We did so much, and time flew by way too fast. I am already ready to go back!

The trip started a little shaky. Of course the day we were suppose to leave for sunny AZ, MN/ND had a nice winter weather advisory – aka a blizzard. FUN. Stace made it to the cities, against a nasty wind and a little rain on Thursday night. We went to check into our flight, only to find out it had been cancelled. I quickly called the airline, and thank God we were able to get on the next flight leaving at 11am (ours was supposed to leave at 8am). However, the 11am flight was already delayed to 12pm. I was hoping for the best, but expecting the worst. Luckily, the flight was not delayed further or cancelled, and we made it to AZ with time to spare!

Our first night there consisted of experiencing Pam’s crazy driving – mostly gas station incidents that involved doing a few loops around : ) But we stopped in Tempe, where ASU is located and strolled down Mill Ave, similar to Uptown in the cities. After that we headed to Pam’s crib – very nice apartment by the way, and got ready for a night out. We joined some of Pam’s fellow dental students for dinner at place called Cadalac Ranch. Afterwords we drifted over to a bar across the way. The area we were in was all open to the outdoors and even had a band playing outside – pretty sweet.

Mill Ave.

Cadallac Ranch

Saturday we enjoyed some quality time by Pam’s ice-cold pool, eventually forcing ourselves to jump in once we couldn’t stand the heat. It took us awhile to figure out where we wanted to go for dinner, but Pam is lucky to have a patient bf. We drove to Old Town and walked around a bit before dinner. It is in Scottsdale and has all these little western/Mexican shops. Pretty fun. Dinner was at the Roaring Fork, and was yummy : ) I love being able to enjoy dinner outside, and they even had a fireplace out there.

Poolside

Old Town

Roaring Fork



Afterwards we headed to the Scottsdale mall, which has unbelievable shopping. Every store you can imagine pretty much. To end the night we went to a club called Suede and had the BEST drink ever – Strawberry Cheesecake martini. I will have to try to recreate that one sometime. The club had great music, and it was a good time, but we didn’t get too crazy since we were heading to the mountains the next morning.

Suede

Sunday we hiked Superstition Mountain – well at least half of it. It was AWESOME, my favorite of the entire weekend. It was not easy, but the sights were amazing. I guess we came at a good time b/c everything was in bloom. Next time I will come back in climb to the top!

Hiking wiped us out pretty good. That night we enjoyed dinner at BJ’s brewery in Mesa. It was yummy, and the dessert was the best part – oreo cookie pazookie!!!!! Later we checked out Dana Park in Mesa, its basically a shopping strip mall with lots of fun stores. We had to stop at the Ra for an after dinner drink, and ended up having some sushi as well. We were so full it wasn’t funny, but it was still SO good!!
RA

Monday Stace and I were on our own while Pam had class. We ventured back to Dana Park for some coffee and some more shopping. After meeting Pam and Scott for lunch at Paradise Bakery, we drove ourselves back to Tempe for some more Mill Ave shopping! We were sooo proud of ourselves for our navigating skills (of course it helps that they are on a nice grid system). We relaxed a little by the pool, until Pam got done with class. Then we did a little TJ Maxx shopping - Pam somehow managed to by 5 purses – yikes! To end the night we did a late but OH SO delicious dinner at Kona, and Asian Fusion restaurant. We also headed back to Ra to get the dessert we wanted the other night, but were to full for – fried cinnamon tempura ice cream. YUM. We almost went back to BJ’s for another Pazookie, but just couldn’t do it!

RA, again

On Tuesday before we left, Stace and I got a quick game (volley) of tennis in! We made it back to the cities no problem. Only now its back to reality. At least it is gorgeous outside today in the cities!!

My Baby

Well parents are always showing everyone pictures of their adorable babies, so I figured I would share pictures of our adorable baby : )

We heart Deja!

Deja and her friend Tiny doing tricks for treats.

Deja and Tiny taking a car ride to the park. Such good little puppies : )

Last night: Bathtime. It was much needed, and boy did she have the zoomies afterwards!

B-I-N-G-O

Last night Blaine and I joined some friends in Brooklyn Park for a serious night of BINGO! Blaine had gone with them last week, and I kept hearing how much fun it was, so I had to see for myself. It was definitely cheap entertainment - $5 for like 10 games, which lasted about 3 hours. There were some pretty interesting people there, but I have to admit that I did enjoy myself. None of us won anything, so it looks like we might have to go back next week : )

One more day after today and I am off to Sunny Arizona! Pam has provided us with an itinerary, which includes hiking, a baseball game, clubbing, shopping, relaxing by the pool, as well as trying lots of unique restaurants!!!! There is also room to through in an art museum or whatever else we feel like. I feel guilty leaving Blaine out, but he told me he is going to work on finishing a desk and possibly starting another project. That should keep him pretty busy...

Happy Hump Day!

New Investment

I have wanted a bike ever since I began cycling a couple of years ago. Moving to MN made me want a bike even more. I think there are as many miles of trails in the cities as highways. MN also has the scenery to go along with the trails, as most of them wind around the lakes. Well a couple of weekends ago, when my sister and her friend came to visit to do a triathlon, we did a cycle shopping. I did not know the first thing about bikes, and had no idea what I wanted.

Nothing really came from our brief shopping, except an even large desire to buy a bike. A few days later, Blaine broke down and spilled the beans (he can never keep a secret). Before I started all this talk about getting a bike, he was actually doing a little research of his own for a b-day gift me : ) But he figured that it was best I actually try out the bikes first to get an idea of what I want. Pretty soon he had the bike itch too, and we were both 10-ft deep in bike info. We went to a few bike shops and the cities and gained more knowledge. I really liked the feel of the road bikes, but I wanted to have a more functional bike that I could go trail-riding on if we go camping or anything like that.

Well last night we took a drive to Bloomington, and test rode some more bikes. Both of us ended up liking the Trek 7.5. It is a fitness hybrid, which means it is not as aggressive and fast as a road bike, but it is faster and lighter than a comfort bike. The guy at Penn Cycle was great. He ended up giving us a discount on everything we bought. Of course little did we realize how much extra things we were going to invest in – including helmets, padded shorts, gloves, pedometers, car bike rack, etc. We are going to look SOO fast - hahaha. We both switched our tires for ones with more tread so we would be able go on gravel, and I switched out my seat to a women’s specific. It wasn’t cheap, and it could have been a lot more expense, but we had already decided it would be our anniversary gift to each other. Happy early anniversary! Now I am just itching for another nice day like last Saturday to get out there and cycle! We plan on keeping these bikes for years, so I think the cost will be well worth it!

Steph's Bike

Blaine's Bike