Birthday Shout Outs

Since so many of my faithful blog readers have a Birthday in the past/coming week I thought I needed to give a few shout outs. So Happy Birthday to...

Kristen - last Friday hope it was great and you enjoyed all of those yummy sounding meals!

Francina - also last Friday I don't think you read this but in case you do Happy Bday!

Angie - today. Saints game was a lot of fun. Hope you are doing some celebrating tonight too!

Abbie - also today. I'm going to guess you are out partying it up right now. Waaaahooooo. haha!

Lori - this Wed, the big 40!! Your party seems like it was a lot of fun. Glad we got to stop by at least for the end.

And done!!

After months of planning our party is over and it was a great success! For those of you who don't know, Cari and I planned a 60th Birthday/20th Anniversary party for our parents at my house. Since they had given both of us such wonderful weddings, we felt we needed to repay them in some way and help celebrate such an exciting year. After a long day of cleaning and cooking, 30 some of their friends and family came over last night and enjoyed a lot of food, alcohol, laughs, and a video we made of them throughout the years. Cari and & I were steathly one weekend and snuck into their house to scan a whole bunch of old photos. It turned out perfect and was a great surprise for everyone.

I have to say I could have done without watching them open a few of their presents including a pilates for better sex video. :P Some things you just don't want to know about. The night ended just in time for us to crash Lori's 40th Bday bash next door right before the rest of her guests left. Such a fun night. I'm so glad it went so well and also that I can relax and quit party planning for awhile.

Ron, Mom, Cari, Me, Justin (Greg left before we could get his picture!)

Mom cutting the cake.

Opening presents

Saints Game

Last night we went to the Saints game for Angie's birthday. Since most of us have a tendency to not pay attention to the game we though we'd needed a little incentive. We played this game where everyone puts a quarter in a cup and you take turns holding the cup. When you have the cup you have to watch what the player up to bat is doing. If he gets on base you get to take a quarter if he gets out you have to put a quarter in. Once the next batter is up you pass the cup. I think the game work! I've never actually watched that much baseball. :)

The bonus of the game is when the batter gets a home run you get everything in the pot. We were waiting all game for a home run. It's the bottom of the 9th, Saints are behind 1-4 and we'd pretty much given up hope for a big play. It was my turn for the cup, my [now] favorite player Brent Krause gets up to bat. I start waving the rally flag. The pitch is thrown and crack, it's a hit! A long high pop up and it goes over the fence. Woo hooo! I won a whopping $4.25!! Saint still ended up losing but at least we had some excitement.

Us with our Rally Flags

Matt refused to be in a picture so I had to get the back of his head.

Karma

Saturday night was Jill & Lance's wedding. I can tell we had a great time after downloading the pictures today and couldn't stop laughing. Too many to post on here...

The best part of the night was right as we were finding our tables. Each table had an individual cake as the center piece with a little card stating the flavor. Our table had marble with fudge - delicious! Cari's table was not as fortunate and had poppy seed. Still sounded good, but how can you resist the fudge? Since there wasn't anyone else up on the balcony yet she decided to switch her cake. Running down to the next table, she grabs one without a label and puts it on her table. Still not satisfied, she keeps trying until she seems a marble with fudge cake a couple tables down. At this point other people are trickling upstairs, so she hurries to get the marble cake and exchange the labels. Success!!!

Or not! Karma strikes again. Come time for dessert, they cut their cake and see a green center! Doh! Apparently someone else messed up the labels and they ended up with pistachio. All was not lost, the cake was still good but definitely not filled with fudge!!

The deck

What a weekend! It's going to take 2 posts just to cover it all. Justin and I had really good intentions Friday night of relaxing around the house, going to bed early, and getting up early to work on projects. Just as we're getting into comfies we get a call from our neighbor to come over and have a few drinks. We decide we'll just go for a little bit. Well between Steve being a great host and never letting my wine glass get empty and Lori's bad influences (you know what you did!) next thing I know it's after 1 am. Oops! So much for getting up early. We still had a productive day on sat. It was just a little more painful. And finally after 2 weekends of working on staining my deck it's done!! Such a relief. It looks great and was worth the pain. Here's a few pics.

End of the week

Amanda sent me some more pics of baby Izzy so I had to share a couple of my favorites. I love the cat looking in the bassinet trying to figure out what is going on! So cute and so tiny. I wish we could go down and meet her now.

Since the Eids have made their announcement to everyone, I can finally say my official Congrats!!! I can't even tell you how happy and relieved I am that you guys are staying in MN. Great job Brent! Now you need to come back to the SW side of town. :)

Also congrats to Kelly & Alisha on having their baby boy yesterday!! I don't know any details other than that. Can't wait to meet him. Lots of exciting news this week.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Taking one for the team.

We had a kickball game last night. Feels like it had been awhile since our game last week was canceled. I think I was a little rusty on catching. This guy was up to kick (uniforms were similar to the guy pictured left) and he had a really high pop up coming right towards me. I'm horrible at judging high pop ups. I always come too far forward, so of course I did this time too. I put my arms out, closed my eyes (yeah I know I shouldn't do that) and bam! It bounced off my neck, onto my face and then behind me. oops. Saw stars for a couple seconds but shook it off. Yeah, I'm tough. I had a monster headache this morning though. Not sure if it was related. Later in the game Paul must've liked my catching style because he performed the same move but used a little more shoulder. Maybe it'll be our new team thing.

And the best multi-tasker award goes to...

I saw the funniest thing at the rec today. I was on my mat stretching and about to do some abs when I looked over at this girl on a mat nearby. She was doing super fast turbo sit-ups and apparently that wasn't enough of a workout. She had to get her fingers moving too, so she was texting someone! I had to stare for a minute in awe. I can hardly text while riding a bumpy bus, let alone doing mile a minute crunches with my head bobbing all over. Students never cease to amaze me.

Baby Izabell

I'm an aunt!!! I've never been an aunt before so I'm really excited! Big congrats to Amanda and Trav on their new baby girl - Izabell Kay Gorsuch. She was born around 2 am this morning ~ 8 lbs 21 inches I think. Mandy was so nice to give us a call at 4:15 am and scare the crap out of me. I was sure someone had died but just the opposite! Sounds like it was a rough and scary labor and after hearing the story I've decided that I'm going to adopt. :) Or have KT be my surrogate mom since she already volunteered. All is well with mom and baby now. Can't wait to get to meet her!! We've only got camera phone pictures so far. More to come soon!

Proud Grandpa Rick

Roomies

I got together with 2 of my old college roommates a couple nights ago. KT was in town from Milwaukee for a conference. We haven't seen each other probably in 2 years. It was soo great to catch up and reminisce of the old days. Made me really miss how close we all used to be and the fun/crazy times we had. KT come back and visit us again soon!!!

I forgot my camera that night (as usual) so here's an old pic of 4 of the 5 of us that lived together. I miss you girls!

Missy, KT, K, Rach

The Biggest Loser

Congrats to my hubby for winning the biggest loser contest at work!!!! He lost 18% body weight. The 2nd place girl lost 17%, so it was a real close race. Doesn't he look great?! I'm so proud of you babes! Hopefully he'll be seeing that winning money soon...

Stimulating The Economy

Due to Justin's recent weight loss he's been in dire need of a new wardrobe for awhile. His contest ends on Tuesday, so we figured it was bout time to get him some new clothes. We brought out the Mustang, put the top down and headed on a road trip to Albertville. Many, many great deals later - including some women's stuff, nice! - we headed back on home. I had to lay everything out to see all that we really got. If this economy is going into a recession, no one can say we didn't do our part to stop it!

Last night we had Justin's darts team and ladies over. We got to have our first bonfire of the year and I finally got to use the great bday present Nat and Ang gave me. They are these super cool wine glass holders that stake into the ground. We even used them for beer bottles too! Love them!!!

Those are weekend highlights. Fun and too short as always.

Organization

The weekend is off to a great start. Had a K cubed night last night - that's me, Kristie, and Kristen. We went out for pedicures and then to Tejas for dinner. I love girls nights! So fun to catch up with both of them. You'll have to go to the Eid blog for the pictures because Cran took them and has a good story about her feet!

Have you ever had one of those moments were you go into a closet to look for something and the next thing you know, you've pulled everything out and are reorganizing it? I had one of those this afternoon but it was with my kitchen. I was making taco dip for some friends that are coming over later and next thing I know I'm pulling out everything from 5 of the drawers, washing it, wiping the drawers out, throwing stuff away and finding it all new homes. I mean who really needs 16 rubber spatulas, 12 wooden spoons and 8 liquid measuring cups?!? Sadly I only got rid of a few of each but at least it's a start. Now the challenge is will I be able to remember where I put everything? I have 3 and a half years of drawer placement ingrained in my head. I think it's going to take some time. The best part is Justin was gone when I did this so we'll see if he can find anything!

Blast from the past

Yeah, that's me a few years ago...

Last night I went to my old dance studio - Woodbury Dance Center - recital. It was so fun to see my old line do their routines and amazing to watch the dancers. They are incredibly good! Of course it brought back tons of memories especially seeing the middle schoolers in their awkward years. There was one girl who was so skinny that seriously my arms were bigger than her legs. She looked pretty tall, so I'm guessing (hoping!) that she just hit a growth spurt and will start to fill out soon. I couldn't stop staring at her though and not because she was that great of a dancer. It was a little scary looking. And of course the whole show made me really miss dancing and being involved in that whole scene. Such good times. Maybe I really will start taking classes again in the fall?!?

Weekend Update

The weekend started out great with our SATC girls day. The movie was FABULOUS!! I was so excited when it started and so sad when it was over. I laughed, I cried, and laughed so hard that I cried. I highly recommend to any girl even for those who aren't fans. And if anyone needs someone to see it with I'd go again!!!

Sat night was my one of my oldest friends bachelorette party. (Not that she's old I've just known her since elementary school.) We went downtown for the night. I don't know if I'm getting old or what, but I couldn't believe the outfits that the girls are wearing. Talk about short skirts! I saw more cheek than I wanted too. We finished the night at the Shout House. Lots of fun. My favorite was when 2 guys reenacted Dirty Dancing "I had the time of my life" scene...

Yeah they even held if for awhile. The one guy was pretty skinny at least. I was impressed.

Sunday had a very productive day in the yard. It was so nice to finally have some time at home to get stuff done. I planted a bunch of shrubs and got my flower gardens filled! Here's one of the flower beds.

Now I just need Justin to work on the fence so I can put my veggie garden behind it. He says it should be ready by the end of the month. I'm not going to hold my breath. He also had a productive day and finally put up the second railing on our deck. The deck has been done for over a year now, so it was time. Can you see how faded the other rails our? Staining is next weekend if the weather allows.

To complete the weekend, I even got a hug from my favorite neighbor girl, Elise. She's such a cutie, especially when she comes running over crying for no apparent reason. That's all I got. Time to go beat Justin at Mario Kart. Why can't weekends be longer??