filling you in.

So much has been going on this week!  I thought I’d fill you in on a few things.

1.  This weekend begins my month-of-travels. Which means that I will either have charming travel stories to entertain you with, or (possibly more likely) the blog may fall silent.  A lot.  This weekend’s adventures bring JT and I to Philadelphia for some quality time with the Ross’ – and for a meeting of the ‘rents.  Yep, that’s right.  Our parents and families will be meeting this weekend.  Kind of a big deal, right?  And, Jason’s sweet Aunt is throwing us a wedding shower!  Should be lots of fun!  I will head to Boston for a conference next Wednesday through Sunday.  The subsequent 3 weekends will find me in Milwaukee, San Francisco, and back in Milwaukee again.

2.  My friend from college, Justin, was just featured on HGTV’s Curb Appeal. And I missed it.  (Mandy!  I’m so bummed that I missed it!)  But his episode will air again in September, and I hope to catch it at my parent’s house since they have cable.  Yay cable.

3.  I’ve begun seriously church hunting. And I even talked JT into going with me, even though I’m heading out to Lutheran churches.  The past 2 weeks, I attended Mt. Olivet Lutheran Church.  My friend and bridesmaid, Sarah, introduced me to this church a few years ago – her grandfather helped build the church, and she’s gone there forever.  It’s nice, and the people are nice.  The congregation must be huge – there are 4 services and the huge church was packed at the one we went to.  So the upside is that there are a lot of resources in the church (they even have a young married people group).  The downside?  Church lasted 35 minutes, which means we spent more time driving there and back than we did actually sitting in the church.  Maybe this would be a good deal if we had fidgety kids or something, but I can’t help but feel like it’s a bit rushed.  We (I?) plan to check out a church a few blocks away when the month-of-travels is over.

4.  Monday was my dad’s birthday. Happy Birthday, Dad!  I swear, I’m definitely not cutting your hair in this picture.  And even if I was, how would you know?

Up North!

I visited one of Minnesota’s 10,000 lakes over the weekend, and stayed at my aunt and uncle’s fabulous cabin.

They have delicious donuts here.

The food was delish! The entertainment was fascinating! The accommodations were luxurious! And the price was certainly right!

I hope they’ll invite me back!

Friday, my cousins, Barley, and I headed up to the lake house after work. We met my parents and brothers who had been camping up on the North Shore (of Lake Superior) last week, and my aunt and uncle who were already up at the cabin. We didn’t get to the cabin until late, and ended up sitting around a campfire for a while, roasting marshmallows and whatnot. Then, the kids (myself included) and Barley retired to the bunk house for some much-needed sleep (at least, I needed it… I can’t speak for anyone else).

Saturday was a bit cold and rainy in the morning, but cleared up enough for us to go tubing in the afternoon! Tubing wars were a blast (tubing wars means there’s 2 tubes dragged behind the boat and you have to knock the other person off of their tube)!! Even if I lost to cousin Catherine, she proved to be a fierce opponent!!

Look how tough Catherine is (she’s on the green tube)!

Robby takes on Catherine (this time she’s on the blue tube).

Saturday night, we went mini-golfing. I’m not that good, but I can talk a big game. And! I got a hole in one on the “secret hole” and won a free round of mini golf (guess I’ll have to visit again to claim it…).

Jennifer and Trevor get hungry on the mini-golf course.

Sunday morning was more of the same – rain and cold. A thunderstorm came through early in the morning, and wimp dog was freaking out. So he crawled under the bed (I still cannot figure out how such a big dog squeezed into such a tiny spot!).

Barley hides under the bed in the bunkhouse.

But it cleared up in time for us to go waterskiing. Jim and Uncle Doug barefooted, Trevor showed off his waterskiing (he is REALLY good), Jennifer wakeboarded, and I tried slalom (one ski) skiing. It was tricky! I think I’ve only been waterskiing once before, so I fell quite a few times…

Jim waterskiing sans skis.

Trevor shows off his waterskiing skillz. He was even zooming back and forth, in and out of the wake!

Jennifer is super-awesome at wakeboarding… much better than my unsuccessful attempt in Kentucky!

Check it out – don’t I look like I know what I’m doing!?! (ignore the ugly face I’m making… not sure what that’s all about…)

30 seconds later… crash!

Then, Sunday night, we had to head back to the city. But not before we talked the land dog into trying his hand at water. He’d only go in until his belly touched the water…

He’s a water dog now!

The rest of my pics from the weekend can be found here:

Woman Lake

our weekend in Milwaukee, featuring gratuitous dog pictures

Our trip to Milwaukee on Friday was reasonably fun. Or, at least as fun as a 5-hour drive that you’ve taken 50+ times can be. Jason thought he was hilarious, and has proclaimed himself the funniest person I have ever met. Which is interesting, because how does he know who I’ve met and how funny they are? Hmm.

So I suggested that he list the top 10 funniest things he’s ever done. He struggled to come up with 2 things, and I can’t even remember what they are.

Anyways, after this conversation, I decided that the dog should get a seatbelt since he sits up like a real boy in the car. Honestly. So. Ridiculous.

We made it to Milwaukee alright, and let the dogs play. Little dog (aka Comet) seemed pretty thrilled to see us and to have a doggy play buddy. He has so much energy. Big dog (aka Barley) was also thrilled to see another of his kind, and the two played like champs for about 45 min. Then, big dog got tired and started doing this defensive move where he spins in a circle and hip checks little dog and little dog goes flying across the room.

****WARNING: SKIP THIS SECTION IF YOU WANT TO AVOID COMPLETE BLOG INAPPROPRIATENESS****

But then, this happened:

(you can’t get mad – I TOTALLY warned you).

****NOW BACK TO OUR NORMAL, FAMILY-APPROPRIATE BLOGGING****

And we were amazed that the little dog, who is approximately 1/5 big dog’s size would try to dominate him. Crazy little dog. So we thought we should separate them for a minute.

Saturday was busy busy busy! We met with the pastor that will marry us in the morning to find out the results of our marriage test. It was a lovely scantron that we filled out about a month ago and sent to some (real) psychologists to score. We did so well that they suggested we may have cheated on the exam – we scored 90-100% in each category. We take this as evidence that we’re actually becoming the same person. Although, we were a little annoyed that we only scored a 90% in the personality category because I’m stubborn. But we both agreed that I am stubborn, so I really feel like we should get a few bonus points for at least being on the same page with regards to my stubborn-ness.

Anyways, we also appear to have “unrealistic” ideas about marriage (we scored only 30% in the marriage expectations category) – both of us answered “strongly disagree” to the statement, “I expect the romance to fade over time in our marriage” and the “correct” answer was “strongly agree”. Does anyone else find it strange that the church would take such a cynical view of marriage? I mean, shouldn’t they be all smiling-happy-marriage-is-great? Anyways, we get that romance and going out on dates might not occur as frequently now as they did when we were first dating, but we want to really put an effort into making sure that we go on dates and spend fun time together (not just work-on-the-house time). Jason’s parents are actually really good at this… they go to all sorts of charity events and movies and whatnot together. So we’re hoping that they can be our role models in this endeavor.

Another reason we scored so low in the marriage expectations category was that we haven’t talked about the traditional roles that a mother or father would have in raising children. Sitting down and outlining a mother’s vs a father’s obligations in raising a child seemed really silly to us at this point. I mean, moms and dads are mostly there to love, protect, and care for their kiddos, no? And I think that if that’s the bottom line, then it doesn’t matter who changes the diapers, feeds the kid, plays with it, or whatever. I fully expect Jason to participate in all of those things, and I know he expects me to do the same. Anyways, we’re not planning on having kids for a while, so it’s not even relevant. Strike this conversation from your memory.

After we aced premarital counseling and were told that we did not have to go back, we ran some wedding- and graduation-related errands and then met with someone at the grain exchange room (where our reception will take place). More on that tomorrow.

We then headed back to my parent’s house, where they held a graduation party for my brother, Robby, and my cousin, Jessica. The dogs also enjoyed the party – or, actually, they enjoyed destroying my mom’s hastas in front of a relatively large audience.  We got to visit with the fam for a bit (always fun) before getting glammed up for our engagement photos.  More on engagement photos when we get them back (hopefully in the next week or two).

We stopped at John Hawk’s Pub (where our rehearsal dinner will be held) so that Jason could taste and approve of their chicken sandwich. We, unfortunately, had horrible service (although everyone around us seemed to have *great* service, so I think it was our waitress). Jason still approved of the chicken sandwich. Phew.

Then, we walked over to the Milwaukee Residence Inn (and if you haven’t gotten your rooms reserved yet, DO IT NOW). We checked out one of the one-bedroom suites and I think our guests will be quite pleased. The entire hotel was remodeled in April and is AMAZING. Big rooms (or at least the one we saw was), marble countertops in the kitchen, great view of Milwaukee, and REALLY REALLY close to our rehearsal dinner and reception venues. The hotel is also connected to a mall via skyways, and is near a whole boatload of restaurants and bars.

Sunday, we woke up and participated in a walk for Epilepsy. My parent’s wonderful neighbors, the Bergrens, lost their daughter, Darcy, who had Epilepsy only a few years after they moved into our neighborhood. The Bergrens are just the sweetest family ever, so it was fun to go out and support them by walking with their team. They had organized the biggest team at the event, which I think is a testament to how absolutely nice and wonderful they are. So we stuck around after the walk to socialize with other neighbors and friends. And to get a picture of Jason with oversized sausages (the German and Italian Sausages, to be exact). Only in Milwaukee, friends. Only in Milwaukee.

After the walk, we decided some crucial wedding things with my parents, visited with a musician at church and also a musical family that my dad knows to pick out music for the ceremony. While they were playing, it really hit me that this whole wedding thing is real! Yikes! I’m really getting hitched! And then I started tearing up and getting sentimental, just sitting there in the living room of these people that I had met 5 minutes earlier. So there is NO CHANCE WHATSOEVER that I will NOT be crying the day of. There’s just something so sentimental about the music in the ceremony that totally gets me choked up. I am going to be a train wreck. Please pack extra kleenex in your purses. I will need it.

After we made some serious musical decisions, Jason headed to Qdoba, while my mom and I picked out bridal undergarments and had my first dress fitting. And I’m even more excited about my dress now that we’ve got that all done. Also, I ended up changing up my shoes – I will now be wearing these fabulous pointy silver shoes with little bows on them. They are so cute, but also look like I could kick someone’s butt in them. So, don’t make me go bridezilla on you. It might hurt.

We finally left MKE around 6, made it to MSP around 11, and passed out just absolutely exhausted.

Back from SJ

I am back from San Juan! Let the blogging resume!

As I was packing and preparing to leave last weekend, we had a pretty big storm, and the electric went out. Thank goodness we had unpacked all 4 candles that we own and had them sitting on the fireplace mantle. It was a bit tricky trying to pack, do laundry, and prepare my talk without any electricity. Packing went okay, but I had to fix a button on my white blouse, and ended up using bright yellow string to attach it. Oops! The talk and the laundry didn’t happen. Also, the dog was TERRIFIED. Kind of hillarious. See?

Yes, our 75 pound pitbull is cowering behind the sofa AND the side table.

Anyways, that was a fairly stressful way to start the trip (especially since I had NO clean clothes to pack), but somehow I managed to wake up at 3am, when the power came back on, and throw in a few more loads of laundry.

The rest of the trip went without a hitch, though, thank goodness. San Juan is very cool, my CPDD friends were all at the conference, my roommates were awesome, our room was fantastic. I couldn’t ask for much more.

I attended much of the conference, since Jason wasn’t there to distract me and make me hang out at the beach/pool like he usually does (okay, I confess: it didn’t take much coercion to get me interested in hanging out near a beach/pool).

One of the highlights of the week was Bill’s birthday dinner. Bill turned the big 3-0 on Sunday, and we all celebrated by hanging out poolside and consuming pina coladas. Later in the week, a smaller group of us went to an amazing tapas restaurant to celebrate Bill’s birthday again (Bill – what was the name of that place?). It was delish and the sangria was also fantastic. Best meal I had all week. I wish I could go to Bill’s birthday dinner every week.

Greg, Michelle, Emily, Bill, and I at Bill’s birthday dinner!  (Emily and Michelle were my fabulous roommates for the week!)

Mmm… Sangria!  And it tastes even better when it comes in an adorable pitcher.

Me and the birthday boy!

Other than that, lots of great talks, great chatting with people, and all that. My talk on Thursday was the LAST TALK OF THE CONFERENCE (save the best for last?), and most of my friends had left by then, but I think the talk went well. My public speaking skills have improved dramatically in the last year or two – I think because I gave quite a few talks at UK. As I proudly exclaimed to JT after my talk, “I didn’t even do anything funny like itch my neck repeatedly!” He suggested that I check myself in the mirror to make sure… in the past I have done funny things like itch my neck while talking, and he made sure to give me crap for it. Constructive criticism, right? Sigh.  I suppose that if JT doesn’t tell me these things, I will probably not know they happened.

Dr. DJ Stairs pours himself a glass of flavored water in the hotel lobby.

Thursday evening, Emily and I and others headed to Old San Juan for dinner.  We ate at a restaurant called Tantra that featured “Indo-Latino” Cuisine.  Basically, it was a Puerto Rican take on Indian food.  And it was delicious.  And so were the mojitos.

I spent much of Friday morning sunning myself at the pool.  It was fantastic.

Somehow, I managed to drag myself to the airport for the long trip home.  Flights were delayed, and I didn’t get home until after midnight, but JT and Barley came to the airport to greet me, and JT had even gotten a haircut!

Spring Break, part three

Wednesday, March 26

Today, we docked in St Lucia, and I think it was my favorite of all the islands we’ve visited. Ashley had to fly back to the real world today, so she’ll be missing out on the rest of the adventure. Again, we got a rental car, and drove around the island. St Lucia has much steeper, narrower, and windy roads than the rest of the islands, but my dad did a great job driving and only scared the rest of us a little bit.

The town of Soufriere… so cute!

We drove by several cute little seaside towns on our way to see the Pitons (two very steep and strangely-shaped hills). We also drove into a volcano. Okay, it used to be a volcano. A long, long time ago. Then it sunk back into the earth. So now it is really just a little area with lots of tourists and some very hot and very stinky sulfur gases releasing into the air. If we wanted, we could have swam in the local mud and sulfur baths… we did not want.

We then stopped at an estate – the oldest one in St Lucia – for a tour. The coolest part of the tour was undoubtedly the demonstrations and food-tasting. The tour guide, with some help from an old man with very stubbly fingers, showed us how they open a coconut, and then we all tasted the unprocessed liquid inside the coconut and the coconut itself. Neither tasted like much. Next, they opened a pod from a cocoa plant, and we all tasted some of the goodies inside. The inside of the cocoa pod contains some surprisingly slimy seeds that taste citrusy. The actual cocoa bean is inside the slimy stuff, and requires fermentation, drying in the sun, and an old man dancing on the beans to mix oil into them before they’re ready for use. And even then, they are really bitter. I prefer my cocoa beans mixed with a lot of sugar. A lot.

Mom and I sip coconut juice.

At the end of the tour, we got lemonade. Then, we headed back to the ship, and on the way back, we stopped to buy fresh bananas from a banana farm. Yummy!

Dad and I enjoying lemonade.

Thursday, March 27th

Trevor’s 10th birthday! For his birthday, Trevor decided he wanted to go on a sea spi tour. We docked in Barbados and gathered with others from the ship that had reserved spots on the sea spi tour. Sea spies are little glass-bottomed boats – driving them is basically like snorkeling without going in the water. Trevor even got to drive his own sea spi, which was his favorite part of the entire vacation (his second favorite part? the delicious sourdough rolls available on the cruise ship). We drove over a few different shipwrecks and saw TONS of fishies. It was very cool.

Robby, Trevor, and I at the Mount Gay Rum plant.

After our morning on the sea spies, we had lunch and went to the Mount Gay Rum plant for a tour. The tour was pretty interesting, especially since there seem to be a lot of similarities between rum-making, beer-making (which I’ve learned about from Jason), and wine-making (which Mandy taught us about when we visited her in California). The worst part? The tasting at the end. Yep. I am just not really a hard liquor drinker (unless it’s mixed into a yummy concoction). And no matter how “smooth” the rum is, it still burns the throat a little.

Mom and I then stopped and did some shopping before heading back to the ship… the boys opted to go straight to the ship for a nap and some soft serve ice cream. Later that evening, Trev and I went climbed the ship’s climbing wall. We raced… but I’ll be a good sport and not tell you who won.

Trevor’s birthday dinner… doesn’t he look spiffy?!?

Friday, March 28th

Today was our day at sea, and we spent the entire day relaxing and improving our tans. Ahh. Relaxation.

Saturday, March 29th

Our cruise ended in San Juan this morning, and we grabbed a rental car and headed to the jungle villa where we’ll be staying for the remainder of our trip. My mom usually does a *fantastic* job picking out places to stay, so our expectations of the jungle villa were pretty high. Unfortunately, our room did not quite live up to our expectations (although, others that we peeked in on were quite cute, suggesting that we may have just gotten a bad room). The towels were thin, with holes in places, the hot water knob fell off the shower, and I don’t think any of the doors actually locked. The pool was alright, though, and the location was fantastic!

After checking in, we gathered our swimsuits and headed to the beach for a bit. At night, we kayaked on the Bioluminescent Bay. Micro-organisms in the bay’s water release energy in the form of photons when disturbed. When these organisms light up in groups, they emit enough light for the human eye to see. It was amazing! The kayak trip was pretty good (my mom and I make a great team), though scary at times since we were kayaking down a narrow river surrounded by trees and it was pitch black except for the glow sticks on either end of each kayak on our tour. Occasionally, we could hear iguanas and jumping fish nearby… a little creepy, since we never actually saw these animals.

Once we got to the biobay, all we had to do was put our hand or paddle or whatever in the water and stir it up. Then, ta-da, glowing water. Fantastic!

After biobay, we ate a very long dinner (it took almost 90 minutes to get our BBQ’d ribs and burgers in a nearly-empty restaurant… we were very confused). When we made it back to our jungle villa, we heard the Coqui frogs… cooing? chirping? They make a very interesting and distinct noise.

Sunday, March 30th

We were all awoken early today by the roosters cock-a-doodle-dooing right outside our window. I honestly had not heard a rooster before our carribean trip, and I hope not to hear one for a while. They are a bit annoying. And by “a bit”, I mean “extremely” – and the annoyance factor can be multiplied by 10 if it’s before 9 am and you’re on vacation.

Wish we had a BB gun.  Is that mean?

Trevor, mom, and I were unable to sleep in (somehow Robby and my dad managed to stay asleep… or at least fake it), so we headed down to explore the jungle near our hotel. There was a small stream with a few little waterfalls, so we walked along the stream for a while. We saw some big spiders. I think one landed on me, and I freaked out, so we decided to head back to the villas.

Trev and I exploring the jungle behind our villa.

Trevor spent a bit trying to find and play with Oscar, the villa owner’s cat. Oscar was a bit unpredictable, though, so Trevor’s “playing” usually went as follows: 1. Trevor walks around saying, “here Oscar”, 2. Trevor finds Oscar, 3. Trevor walks reasonably close to Oscar, 4. Oscar swats at Trevor, 5. Trevor runs away and/or hides behind Jen.

Mom and Dad in El Junque.

Once we got the boys moving, we all headed to El Junque for a hike in the rainforest. We found a path that lead to a waterfall, and decided to check it out. Trevor and mom actually went swimming, the rest of us declined. Then, we began the uphill hike back to the car and drove around El Junque to check out some other waterfalls and admire the plant life.

Mom and Trevor swim under a waterfall in El Junque.

For dinner, we picked up Pizza Hut, and headed back to the villa for an evening of Pizza-eating, book-reading, and Discovery Channel-watching.

Monday, March 31st

At some point last night, I think Oscar the cat got in a fight with something (possibly a rooster?) outside my window. Rrrraaarrrr! Cat fight. Scary. Today we were once again prematurely awoken by roosters outside our villa windows.

We packed and showered and headed to the airport. Goodbye, warm, sunny, beautiful weather. Hello, snow and cold. I wasn’t really looking forward to the change in weather. I was looking forward to seeing my boys at home, though!