Sunday, August 10th, 2014

Elizabeth and I just got back from our trip to Las Vegas, and we are pretty exhausted right now.  Becky was nice enough to watch Nolan for us during our "Mommy, Daddy, Vegas trip!". It sounded like he was a good boy for grandma over the weekend... we definitely missed him a lot on our trip though!

We flew out from Des Moines on Thursday for Las Vegas.  There was quite a large group of people that we met up with out there (about 20) including Erick Ude, Sara & Mike Kazlauskas, Jen Schumacher, Lucy & Vishal Patel, and others.  We all stayed at the Flamingo, and most of the time Elizabeth & I spent time with Sara and Mike who we were sharing a hotel room with.

To cover the highlights of each day... Thursday night we went out on the old strip on Fremont Street.  We saw a street performer that was a pretty good magician there, and we hung out at the Golden Nugget.

Friday morning we went out for breakfast with Mike, Sara, and Erick at Hash House a go go.  Oh my goodness, the portions of breakfast food there were huge.  Now, this is one of the famous places that Man vs Food host, Adam Richman, ate at on his TV show.  On TV he ordered the fried chicken eggs benedict, but none of us wanted to attempt that.  I had the corned beef hash with poached eggs, and it was possibly the best corned beef hash I've ever had.  Mike ordered the Fried Chicken and Waffles, and it would have been plenty for two people to eat...

Mike trying to decide how to attack his breakfast.

My breakfast... and Erick being silly in the background.

Friday afternoon we spent laying around the pool at the Flamingo... and playing some video poker.  I enjoyed quite a bit of video poker over the weekend :)

Yes, they do have live flamingos at "The Flamingo".

Friday night I took Elizabeth up to one of my old favorite casinos, Slots-a-Fun.  It's a small, hole-in-the-wall casino by Circus Circus. That is where I won about $750 back in 2008... most of it on a table game called Let-It-Ride.  Unfortunately, the casino had changed quite a bit since I was last there.  It no longer had any kind of table games... only slot machines or other automated games :(  So, we stopped by Circus Circus instead to gamble.  After that, we went up to the Stratosphere.  We went up to the top and had an amazing view of the city.  We also bought passes to go on unlimited rides, the best of which was the "Big Shot". 

On Saturday Elizabeth and I went with Mike and Sara to In-N-Out Burger for lunch.  I have heard a lot about this fast food chain before, but this was the first time that I had ever been to it.  I must say that the "Double Double" animal style was a delicious burger... maybe the best "fast food" burger that I have had. 

After lunch we headed over to the Luxor to see the "Bodies" exhibit.  It was pretty cool to see how well different systems of the body were preserved and on display, and it really gave us an appreciation for how amazing the human body is.

That night we went out for a fancy supper with the entire group of people, we went for a ride in a stretch limo, and then most people went to a dance club afterwards.  Mike and I went gambling instead after the limo ride.  We played some blackjack at a $10 table at Treasure Island, and then played craps at Caesar's Palace.  Mike had to basically teach me how to play craps again since it had been so long since I last played it... but that was probably the most fun I had gambling during our trip.

As far as gambling went for me during the trip, I believe I ended up somewhere between breaking even or winning around $20.  That's pretty good considering everything that I played.  I made 4 sports bets, played hours of video poker, craps, let-it-ride, and blackjack.

Mike and myself sitting down for a little video poker.

I had good luck hitting "Four of a Kind" hands...

...of course I was only betting 25 cents at a time, so each of these hands I only won $6.25.

Monday, July 14th, 2014

HAPPY FIRST BIRTHDAY NOLAN!

Yesterday we had quite the birthday party for our little guy.  Around 25 to 30 people were able to stop by and wish him a happy birthday.  We had Hickory Park cater most of the food (Saucy Southerners, mashed potatoes and gravy, pasta salad, and cinnamon apple sauce.  I also made a pot of BBQ baked beans, and Amy made cupcakes and a smash cake for Nolan.  We also had a lot of soda and beer for refreshments.  There were lawn games set up (bags, ladder golf, croquet) for entertainment along with the bubble fogger machine. 

Let's see if I can remember who was at the party: all four cousins (Seth, Sullivan, Paige, Evan), aunt Rachael, aunt & uncle Amy & Brandon Shostak, grandma Becky, grandpa & grandma Eben & Lynn, my cousin David Langner, Erick Ude, Dan & Ann Becker along with their baby Sebastian, Patrick & Shantelle Owens and their kids Emmet and Peyton, Jamie & Mike O'Donnell and their daughter Maddie, Tara Fisher, Lydia Metzger & Tim Nevins, and Caleb & Kristina Carroll.  If you count Elizabeth, myself, and Nolan that makes 30 people! 

The party mainly lasted from 11:00 until 2:00 in the afternoon.  Most of the people were leaving around then when it started to rain really hard.  It was a good thing the rain didn't come down an hour earlier!

Amy & Brandon advertising his birthday with chalk in the driveway.

Nolan and daddy!

All of the food: bottom row pasta salad, pulled pork, mashed potatoes, gravy, and apple sauce.  On the top of the table BBQ beans.  Upper right you can see soda in the red wagon and coolers with beer.

Nolan with Elizabeth and Erick.  He is trying to get Erick's beer!

Nolan looked like he was going to destroy the smash cake... but really he just poked at it a little and then tried to crawl away and get a balloon.

Nolan & aunt Rachael

All 5 cousins together and looking at the camera!

Nolan & Amy

Another thing that is too cute to leave out of his birthday blog... on Saturday Nolan spent a long time blowing raspberries on my stomach! 

Friday, July 11th, 2014

It's hard to believe that in just 3 days Nolan will be ONE YEAR OLD!!
Three days also happens to be how close to your birthday you need to be to have a free birthday ice cream at Hickory Park... and that is exactly what Nolan had today :)  Check out this video to watch the crew at Hickory Park sing "Happy Birthday".  For his birthday ice cream we ordered a brownie sundae which is a fudge brownie topped with two scoops of vanilla ice cream, whipped cream, hot fudge, nuts, and a cherry. 

This coming Sunday we are planning to throw a big birthday party for Nolan.  We actually will be having Hickory Park cater the food.  Amy is making him a smash cake, and I am really looking forward to watching how big of a mess our little guy makes with that! 

I might as well recap the baseball game we saw between the Seattle Mariners and the Minnesota Twins this past Monday.  It was beautiful weather for a game, but unfortunately the Twins did not play well at all and lost by a score of 2-0.  The Mariners pitcher Hisashi Iwakuma was excellent and struck out 10 batters.  The Twins only managed 4 hits all day. Oh well.  The Twins did manage to win the other three games of the four game series.

Our view from right field.

Saturday, July 5th, 2014

Greetings from Seattle!!

Elizabeth and I are enjoying ourselves quite a bit this weekend as we are visiting Christian and Emily out in Seattle!  We flew in yesterday and enjoyed a fun 4th of July at Christian's place.  He grilled some delicious cheeseburgers along with some really thick cut bacon... this seems like foreshadowing for a weekend that involves way too much good food!  Then we were able to enjoy a few drinks at his place before walking down and watching the fireworks from a boat (we stayed in the dock because it would have been too hectic to take it out on the water).

This morning we met up with Christian and Emily for a Mexican-themed breakfast at Peso's.  I had a chorizo and sweet potato hash with two poached eggs.  It was very filling, and actually we were all so full from breakfast that we didn't feel like having lunch until around 2:00.

After breakfast, we made our way over to the Pike Place Market.

Of course we had to check out the gum wall as long as we were over by the market...

Elizabeth blowing a bubble at the gum wall

I know... I'm gross!

After the market, we swung by Kerry Park to enjoy a scenic overlook of the city.    Here we have a good view of the Seattle skyline and the space needle, but it was too hazy in the distance to have a good view of Mount Rainier. 

This is the viewing room of the fish ladder at the Hiram M. Chittenden Locks.  You can see all of the salmon as they make their way up the ladder   

After our time at the locks, we finally got hungry for lunch.  We headed over to Paseo which is a delicious Caribbean sandwich restaurant.  Here I am posing with their most popular sandwich, the Caribbean Roast.  It is shredded pork shoulder in their special marinade on a homemade baguette with aioli, fresh cilantro, pickled jalapenos, romaine lettuce, and large slices of caramelized onions.  We had to stand in line outside of Paseo for over a half hour during a light rain, but it was such a good sandwich that it was totally worth it!

Friday, June 6th, 2014

So something interesting happened tonight probably around 6:45 or so...

If you look closely at the end of the video, Nolan stands up and takes a few steps! I say they count as steps anyways!  He may have done similar things a couple of times before this within the last day or two, but this was his first recorded steps!  He is getting to be so big! 

Elizabeth and I shared a Lou Malnati's frozen pizza tonight that she had brought back from Chicago recently along with a bottle of wine to celebrate our little guy's first steps :)

Saturday, May 24th, 2014

Well, it's Memorial Day weekend, and Elizabeth is out in Chicago with a few friends to run the Soldier Field 10 mile race.  They actually get to run onto the field where the Chicago Bears play to finish the race which is pretty cool.  This is the second time that she has done the 10 miler... that's farther than I've ever ran at one time for sure :) 

Anyways, since she is out in Chicago, that leaves Nolan and myself to have a fun guys weekend.

I treated Nolan to a few cookies :)

Let's go for a ride.  I can drive!

After a lengthy debate, I was able to talk Nolan into letting me drive instead.  We headed over to the Iowa State campus to play...

Nolan with the Campanile in the background.

Nolan at the Memorial Union.

I'm such a big boy!  I can even hold onto the railing at the MU fountain.

 

After getting back from campus, Nolan had a little energy left to play basketball.  He would put the basketball into the black basket and then clap :)  Check out this YouTube video. 

This evening he was a good boy and ate a jar of apple & cinnamon with oatmeal baby food.    Then after more play time with dad, he finally passed out after drinking too much... formula that is. 

Wednesday, May 14th, 2014

HAPPY 10 MONTH BIRTHDAY NOLAN :)

I can't believe that it's been 10 months already since our little guy joined us on July 14th, 2013. 

He's been growing so much!  Recently he has learned to clap, which he does often when he is happy.  He has been crawling like a champion for quite some time now.  He can pull himself up to standing, and he can cruise around as long as he has an object to hold on.  He can even stand in place independently without holding on... I've seen him do that for probably 30 seconds at a time.  He still hasn't taken a step without holding on to something yet, but it probably won't be long before he is walking!

Today I picked him up from daycare since Elizabeth has to work late for a conference.  I fed him some "Broccoli, carrots, and cheese" baby food.  It sounded good when I bought it, but it really seemed pretty gross when I warmed it up.  Nolan seemed ok with it, and he probably ate 5 oz of the 6 oz jar.  I'm telling you, a lot of the babyfood you get at the store does not seem appetizing! 

After a messy dinner, I decided to give Nolan a bath.  The picture above is from his bath yesterday.  A bath two days in a row?  What mean parents! He seems to enjoy splashing around in the water though. 

After his bath we played downstairs for a while until he started to get cranky around 7:15ish.  It was pretty obvious that he was getting tired.  Besides squawking, he was crawling around dragging his forehead on the floor... even when he is grumpy he is cute :)  So after a 7 oz bottle, he was passed out in his crib by 7:40.  Hopefully he sleeps through the night (he hasn't been very good at that the last couple of weeks).