One Year Ago...

...I married my best friend.

So, this weekend marks one year since our wedding. And man, has it really flown by! We kicked off the weekend with shopping and dinner out on Friday night. We both picked out new slippers because coincidentally, we were both missing one slipper from our pairs of slippers. I found these awesome super pillowy, super fluffy, super pink (duh!) ones and Greg found some sensible black fleecy manly ones. Saturday, we went to Fogo De Chao for dinner. We enjoyed the Brazilian tradition of gauchos, their signature drink (similar to a mojito), and endless grilled meat including filet mignon, top sirloin, ribeye, beef and pork ribs, sausage, wings, bacon wrapped chicken, parmesan pork....this list goes on! You also get to help yourself to the salad bar (the best salad bar I've ever seen) and traditional Brazilian sides (plantains, fried polenta, and garlic mashed potatoes) which were all good. We topped it off with a papaya cream dessert...very cold, soothing treat that supposedly has enzymes to help digest the protein we'd just eaten. I would highly recommend this restaurant to someone looking for a spot to celebrate something special, or just to have a new experience and excellent food!

After that we walked over to the Shout House where we enjoyed Dualing Pianos and a few adult beverages. Two really cool coincidences...an orchid topped our dessert at Fogo, which was a flower in my wedding bouquet and the pianists played our wedding song "A Beautiful Day" by U2...we didn't request it, and we've never heard them play it in the half-dozen or so times we've been there. So, it was a really cool coincidence to be there when they played it.

Sunday we just hung out around the house and that evening we went to see the Disney musical "The Lion King" playing now through most of November at the Orpheum in downtown Minneapolis. What a fantastic show! I would highly recommend it to anyone. Like in the movie, there are some "scary" parts so I would think twice before taking small ones who don't like that sort of thing, but otherwise it was a great family show. True to Disney form, there were a few adult jokes in there. Beyond that, the costumes and set were enough to mesmerize an audience of any age. Truly fabulous, truly over-the-top...the best I've seen in musical theatre. The singing was outstanding (we bought the Broadway soundtrack and we think our crew did even better than that recording) and we loved that there were some new songs in the score that weren't in the animated movie! If you go, try to get seats on the main floor, and if possible near the inner aisles. I won't ruin the surprise, but it's definitely worth it! I promise.

So all in all it was a wonderful weekend of trying some new things, and well, out right spoiling ourselves!

wedding photo courtesy of Emmerlee Sherman

Happy Halloween!

Greg and I had fun carving last night. I did Jack Sparrow, he did Batman! Have a fun, safe Halloween everyone!

In the spirit of Halloween...

...here's the Skull cupcakes I made for a halloween gathering we went to last night...they were super easy to make, looked great and tasted yummy too!

Happy Halloween (early)!!! ~~

No bones about it, partygoers will get a scream out of this playful treat.
RECIPE INGREDIENTS:
12 marshmallows
Confectioners' sugar
24 unfrosted cupcakes (white or yellow works best)
White frosting
Junior Mints, chocolate chips, and slivered almonds
1. Cut the marshmallows in half widthwise using kitchen shears dipped in confectioners' sugar (this keeps them from sticking). 2. Carefully pull each cupcake liner partially away from the cake and tuck half a marshmallow between the paper and the cupcake to create the skull's jaw. 3. Frost each cupcake and marshmallow, then add Junior Mints with white frosting dots for eyes, a chocolate chip nose, and slivered almond teeth.

Recipe from Family Fun

This is for you Suzy!

So, I went to a crop last night at Scrapbooks Too with a group of friends last night, and my friend Suzy commented that my blog was, well, lame because I hadn't posted in awhile. I thought that was real rich coming from a woman whose own blog hasn't been updated in several years (yes, years!). But in any case, I'm back, and this post if for you Suzy Q! So what I have been up to?

Well, I've been reading, hanging out with family and friends, enjoying the fall weather, getting acclimated to my new job and doing some deep down fall cleaning and reorganization.

The first book I finished was the Third Summer of the Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants. Yes, it is a book for teenagers, but I have been following this series for a few years now. They are really quick reads and you can't help but just feel like one of the gang when you read these books. Definitely not high on the literary value but fun to read nonetheless.

The second book I finished, definitely more age appropriate, was The Queen's Fool by Phillippa Gregory. Earlier this year I had read The Other Boleyn Girl by the same author and couldn't put the book down. So I had to save this one for when I would have the time to read it, and could afford a few late nights. This one, I daresay, might even have been better than The Other Boleyn Girl. While this book was still an artfully woven mix of historical fact and pure imaginative fiction, court romances, and juicy "gossip" like the first book, it had an even more compelling theme. It covered the era of Mary Tudor's reign which was marked by religious inquisitions and all the ugliness that came with it including torturous means to find heretics and then the burning of heretics at the stake.

It was told from the point of view of Hannah Green, a young Jewish girl who had fled the Spanish Inquisition with her father after the rest of her family had been burned at the stake. In this novel, she struggles to deal with that trauma.

In addition she is being torn between serving Queen Mary (strictly Catholic monarch, who represents Hannah's nightmarish past) and Mary's sister Princess Elizabeth (known as the Protestant Princess, who represents the enlightened Hannah's hope for the future) who both won her loyalty and fondness. She also searched to find a balance of her own unorthodox independnce while still trying to honor her family's customs, including a rocky arranged marriage to a fellow undercover Jew.

In the end, you are proud of the person she becomes, and of course, anxious to know what happens next. But don't worry...Phillippa has solved that with The Virgin's Lover, which I'm reading now! :)

We have also been enjoying the fall weather. We went with some friends out to Emma Krumbee's with some friends and their son. We bought some squash and pumpkins to add some fall flair to our table top and porch steps. We also bought some squash to eat and picked plenty of apples to make apple crisp. Yum!

We've also travelled to see family. My cousin Melissa and I drove home to see our family and celebrate her sister's birthday. We had fun driving the six hours jamming to Hannah Montana, Eminem, and Journey, among other things.

The next weekend Greg and I drove down to see his family and celebrate his dad's birthday with good food and bonfire. It rained, but we didn't care: Greg brought the patio umbrella out the fire to cover us.

I also started my new job which I love. I went to our headquarters this week for some training, and have been getting to know everyone. It's been a great start at a great company.

And that, my friends, is what we've been up to.

A new chapter starts right here...

After a long summer of layoffs, potential buyouts, and hauling 50 years of an office down to four 20 cu. yd. dumpsters and 30+ shredding/recycling carts, I'm done!!! I finished yesterday and topped out the night with some champagne. A new chapter begins today!

I am very sad to say goodbye to my friends and colleagues. We have all bonded so well over the past year. I was also very sad to realize that I won't be working with my current boss on a daily basis anymore. But, I also know this industry is small and all of our paths will cross again, and I look forward to that day.

I do have my next position lined up and for that I'm grateful, and also very excited. I will be joining a firm close to home, with great leadership, 3 people I already know really well (two of whom are former colleagues, the other was a groomsman in our wedding). In the few times I've met this firm prior to my interview I've always perceived them as a fun, hardworking group that's excited about what they do, and they do it well. How can I not be excited about that.

Until then, I have the week off and I plan to:

• Sleep in
• Work out daily
• Take a card-making class
• Participate in a Euchre tournament
• Do lunch with some friends
• Read
• Shop
• Scrapbook

And I start it all off today with a massage with my sweetie.

:)

The Office and Scrapbooking

Did anyone else notice on the second episode of Season 3 of the office (when they're at the office supply convention) there is a booth for "Glue Dots"? So cool...

9/11

Six years ago today, I was sleeping in at my apartment in Ames, IA. I didn't have classes until late morning that day, so took full advantage of that, as most college students do. Greg (my now husband, then fiance) had gone to work that morning and called me on my cell phone. He said, very seriously, "Get up and go turn on the TV. A plane has hit the World Trade Center in NYC."

"What?" I questioned, Surely he couldn't be right. Then I said, "How could an accident like that happen?" By this time I had fumbled around and got the TV on. It was all live shots of NYC with scrolling words at the bottom. He responded, "They don't know if it's an accident or something else." Not long after my old TV had finally warmed up to reveal the footage, the second plane hit the tower. It was then that my heart sank and my stomach dropped. It my heart of hearts, I knew that this couldn't be an accident. But I still kept hoping that it was...that perhaps something had gone wonky at the control tower, or something wasn't right on the navigation system. But deep inside, I knew. I sat glued to the TV most of the morning, breaking only to jump online and see if classes had been cancelled.

They never did get cancelled, and so I went. The one class I had that day had a very strict no-skip policy, and when I got there we only spent the first 10 minutes or so discussing the attacks. By the time I had left the apartment for that class, very little was yet known, so most of our discussion was based on speculation. None of us yet realized the enormity of the situation. How else could we have sat there and discussed the finer points of fluid mechanics if we did know? Once class was over, I headed home and stayed glued to my TV the rest of day. As the day went on, more details and images became available.

My mom called me to let me know that her work (in Omaha) had let them out early and she was at home safe. She also told me that my grandma, who was on a tourbus on the East Coast got stuck in Canada. They were scheduled to cross back into the US that day to go to NY. Needless to say that didn't happen. She was fine, but shook up. My mom called again later that day to check in again, and we talked about President Bush coming to Omaha because that's where SAC (Strategic Air Command) is. Greg watched from work for awhile then came home early. I greeted him at the door with a huge hug.

I think I remained glued to the tube most of the next three days, breaking only for class. I know I didn't cry those first few days, I know I didn't believe it those first few days. How could someone intentionally do that to innocent people?

Nearly 2 years ago, Greg and I had the honor of visiting both the WTC site and the WTC Memorial in Battery Park. I still get goosebumps when I think of those experiences: the relatively unscathed, salvaged sculpture; the eternal flame symbolizing the thoughts of all of those old enough to remember, "We will not forget!"; the surrounding buildings still missing glass nearly four years later; the still huge hole in the ground and the still huge holes in our hearts. It was during this visit, that it finally hit home to me. I cried. Hard. The reality of the situation, the braveness of those fallen heros, the sadness for the victims families, the thankfulness for those who fight to defend our every freedom...it all finally hit, harder than it ever had.

So this September 11, I salute those who keep us safe each and everyday, I send prayers and hugs to the families of the victims, I send up prayers for the victims, and I thank each and every person in my life for bringing light to my life. Life is to short to not appreciate what we have each been given.