Saturday, August 18th, 2012

TWO WEEKS UNTIL FOOTBALL!!  Iowa State vs Tulsa! 

I love looking forward to sporting events so much.  I was just talking with Lyndon on facebook IM, and it makes me want to plan a trip next year to go watch the Twins or Cubs play.  The good thing is that a lot of family members do live in cities with MLB teams, so I just need to coordinate a trip around a ball game and it will be perfect. 

Lyndon & Missy live out by Washington, D.C. => Washington Nationals game?
Christian lives in Seattle => Seattle Mariners game?
Forrest & Marla live by Denver => Colorado Rockies game?
The Gleasons live in St. Louis => St. Louis Cardinals game?

So many options!  I'm sure I could find a way to watch either the Twins or Cubs at one of these locations.  Of course 3 of those are in the National League, so it would be easier to see the Cubs play (I would rather see the Twins though).  Maybe an inter-league game would be possible though.  Last year the Twins played teams in the NL West, this year they played the Central (we saw them play the Cubs), so I'm sure next year they will play the NL East.  That means that there will be a fair chance that they will play one series out in Washington.  I'll have to remember to keep my eyes open for this! 

Enough about my constant obsession with sports for the moment.  Today Elizabeth was down in St. Louis for a zombie infested 5K race called "Run for your Lives".  I'm still waiting for her to get back to hear all of the details, but I'm sure that she had a blast.  She did tell me that her flags were taken while she was running, so she did "turn into a zombie".  I better be careful when she gets home :)

One other notable thing about today... it was the first time that I mowed the yard since we moved into our new house!

BRAINS!!

Thursday, August 9th, 2012

Today was a good day... my wallet was returned which was awesome!!  The cash that was in it served as a reward to the finder.  

Becky came down to donate a couple of items to our new house (an outdoor table, a 1800's family heirloom wooden chest).  After I came home from work she went with Elizabeth, myself, and David (he's like our family pet now), and we went out to eat.  Every time we go out to eat with Becky she insists that we go somewhere that we've never been before.  That is getting hard to do in Ames, but apparently there are still places that we haven't been.  Elizabeth heard of a fun burger place via some coworkers called Oddfellow's Burger Kitchen, and it turned out to be a perfect place to try.  The decor of the restaurant is all things odd and obscure.  There were guitars hanging from the ceiling that had wings attached to them as if they were ducks.  The menu was filled with interesting combinations.  Peanut butter pene pasta, all kinds of weird burgers, etc.  Elizabeth ordered a burger with peanut butter, I forget what kind of burger Becky had but there were caralized onions on it so I'm sure it was good, David had a Bleu cheese & cajun seasoned "Black & Bleu" burger, and I had the monstrosity below.  Two bacon cheeseburgers with grilled cheese sandwhiches as the bread.  OMG.  I actuall ate it all.  Options for side dishes were fries, tater tots, or mac & cheese. 

I will have to come back to this place!

Other fun news about today: the Iowa State 2012-2013 men's basketball schedule has been released!  I've been waiting for this for most of the summer.  It goes to show how obsessed I am with the Cyclones, when I just want to know what games there are to look forward to months in advance. 

Iowa State opens the season at home against Southern University on November 9th.  I think that a fun game to go to would be their road game in Kansas City on December 19th when they play UMKC.  I'll have to see if I can talk anyone into taking a day off from wok to go down there with me!  Of course there are lots of other home games which look exciting to me (BYU, Yale, Texas, West Virginia, TCU, many more). 

One more thing: 23 more days until Cyclone football!!

Sunday, August 5th, 2012

Well it hasn't been a very fun weekend for myself... lost my wallet on Friday and had to cancel my credit card & debit card :(  I'm an idiot. 

In other news, we've had cousin David as a house guest for a week now, and he will be staying for one more.  Since we have plenty of space in our big house we were able to offer him a place to stay before he can move back into his frat at the start of classes. 

Classes at Iowa State start on the 20th of this month... which means that football season is just around the corner!!  ISU vs Tulsa on September 1st is less than 4 weeks away!!  For some crazy reason we are an underdog to them. 

In other sports news, the 2012 London Olympics have been on for the past week.  I'm very happy that Michael Phelps has set the all time olympic medal record... by winning 4 golds and 2 silver medals in these olympics he now has 22 medals (18 gold, 2 silver, 2 bronze). 

Sunday, July 15th, 2012

This was a weekend to remember for sure.  WE NOW HAVE A NEW ADDRESS!!!

5312 Norris Street, Ames, IA 50014

Really there was so much NEW about this weekend.  It's a new life for Elizabeth and myself.  We have our new house complete with 4 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms (1 full, 1 3/4, and 2 half bathrooms), a two-car garage, a (mostly) finished basement, and a nice back yard.  Of course with moving into a new home there are lots of things we need to buy to furnish our home.  So besides unpacking & organizing our things this weekend we had to go out and buy a few items. 

Here is the view of the front of our home from Norris Street.

View of the back yard.

The back side of the house from our yard.

This weekend we bought a new grill, a Weber Q 320.  We actually had this set up before we even had a washer & dryer.

Today our brand new Whirlpool washer & dryer was delivered!

We also picked out some new dishes today!  We had been saving our dishes from our wedding last year for when we got a house, but once we got here the plates were just too wide for our cabinets :(  Since they were never used we were able to return them to Bed, Bath & Beyond and pick out new dishes (which fit just fine in our cabinets). 

I was due for a new pair of dress shoes for work, so here are my brand new Ecco shoes.  Yet another new thing this weekend :)

Elizabeth & I enjoyed a bottle of champagne today which was a wedding present to us (in the unbreakable champagne glasses that was a wedding present from Amy & Brandon).

It's also fun to think that exactly one year ago today (July 15th, 2011) we were in Cancun on our honeymoon.  It was on that day that we went to see the Mayan ruins at Chichen Itza.

Monday, July 9th, 2012

HAPPY FIRST ANNIVERSARY TO ELIZABETH AND MYSELF!!!

It's hard to believe that we've already spent a year together as husband & wife.  It really only seems like it's been a couple of months. 

So for our first anniversary I designed a shutterfly photo album made up of only memories from our first year together as a present for Elizabeth.  We really have had a fun-filled year including our awesome wedding (best ever in the history of weddings), our honeymoon to Cancun, moving back from Illinois to IOWA, going to lots of Cyclone sporting events, our trip to Seattle to visit Christian, Cy's house of trivia, our trip to Minneapolis, making trips to see our family all the time (watching Seth act in two different plays in St. Louis or watching Brandon play the mayor of Whoville).  It really has been a great year!

Tonight for supper we went out to eat at Fuji Japanese Steakhouse in Ames.  It's always fun to have Hibachi where the chef cooks right in front of you and entertains you with tricks.  Elizabeth ordered Filet Mignon Hibachi while I had the Filet with scallops.  Then we split a Philadelphia roll as an appetizer. Yummy!!  There was also a special where you could buy one mixed drink and get a second for free, so we each had a couple good drinks to wash it all down with. 

Four mixed drinks for the price of two?  OK!

Our hibachi chef "cooks with love" when he makes his fried rice :)

Happy Anniversary!!

Thursday, June 28th, 2012

I'm very proud today that my favorite Cyclone over the past year, Royce White, was drafted #16 overall in the first round by the Houston Rockets!  I'll miss seeing him play here in Ames, but I'm glad that he will have a chance at a great NBA career. 

Here's a link to a highlight reel of him as a Cyclone.

Another word on the NBA... I should update my previous predictions as to how the 2012 NBA playoffs finished.  Basically, it turned out as my worst nightmare. The team I hate (Miami Heat) won the NBA championship, while my Chicago Bulls lost in the opening round as the #1 seed.  Horrible.  A large reason for all of this was the devistating injury to Derrick Rose as he tore his ACL. 

Here were the actual results (and my predictions):

First round:
76ers over Bulls in 6 (Bulls in 5)
Heat over Knicks in 5 (Heat in 6)
Pacers over Magic in 5 (Pacers in 4)
Celtics over Atlanta in 6 (Celtics in 5)
Spurs over Jazz in 4 (Spurs in 5)
Thunder over Dallas in 4 (Thunder in 6)
Lakers over Denver in 7 (Lakers in 7)
Clippers over Grizzlies in 7 (Clippers in 6)

Second Round:
Celtics over 76ers in 7 (Bulls over Celtics in 6)
Heat over Pacers in 6 (Heat over Pacers in 6)
Spurs over Clippers in 4 (Spurs over Clippers in 5)
Thunder over Lakers in 5 (Thunder over Lakers in 6)

Conference Finals:
Heat over Celtics in 7 (Bulls over Heat in 7)
Thunder over Spurs in 6 (Spurs over Thunder in 6)

Finals:
Heat over Thunder in 5 (Bulls over Spurs in 6)

Ok, so if you overlook the fact that the team I picked to win lost in the first round (blame Rose's torn ACL) I actually didn't make too bad of picks.  I picked the winners in 7 of the 8 first round match-ups and 3 of the 4 second round match-ups.  In two of those I even picked the number of games correctly (just a lucky guess there).  That Derrick Rose injury was just heart-breaking.

Also worth noting... we will be proud home owners in just over a couple of weeks!!!

Sunday, June 24th, 2012

Today Elizabeth and I just back home to Ames after a fun weekend down in St. Louis where we were able to watch our nephew Seth perform in the play High School Musical Junior.  He did a very fine job playing his part as "Mongo", especially considering that they put on the performance after only 1 week of practice!  We enjoyed going down to support him, and it's pretty neat that he is enjoying acting at such a young age. 

Saturday before his play I went with Sarah and Elizabeth to the Montelle winery where we enjoyed some cheese and a few samples of wine before buying a few bottles to bring home.  My favorite was the Chambourcin. 

It's also pretty crazy to think that in just a few weeks we will be MOVING INTO OUR NEW HOME!!!!