Archive for August, 2009
Holy Ikea, Batman!
Aug 31st
Ryan and I put the truck to good use this weekend. On Saturday we helped our friend Sam haul a bunch of garbage and yard waste (4 trips in all) to the local waste disposal sites. It was fun to do “yard work” stuff, even though we were just picking up from all the work he had already done. And now we told Sam he’ll have to invite us over for a bonfire in his yard before winter comes! It was very smelly out at the composting site, and so we all smelled a little when we went for lunch afterwards (we had to make it to our favorite Chinese restaurant before their lunch special ended, so no time for showers). But it was a fun afternoon.
That evening we had a fantasy football live draft party at the casino in Hinckley. Last year I took second place in the league (the only other girl in it won the whole thing), but I have a feeling I won’t do as well this year. But, it’s fun to participate, and I like football anyway. After the party we went down to Ryan’s parents’ place for the night.
On Sunday we drove down to Ikea. And holy cow, did we get a lot of stuff. Ok, maybe not as much as the guy who bought like 5 pieces of furniture, but we did get a bookshelf, a dresser, 2 frames for photos for the livingroom to hang on the wall, some baskets for storage, and a bunch of other miscellaneous stuff. It was an expensive trip, but it’ll be nice to have the extra storage, and something for the baby’s room (that’s what the dresser is for). I’ve been itching to start putting stuff in there. Thankfully we had the truck, because that stuff would have never fit in the Echo we usually drive. LOL. Tonight’s project is to assemble furniture and move things around to get it all to fit where we want it.
So yah, we had a great weekend, but it was very busy. Not real relaxing. Luckily, we will have a nice long weekend here to make up for it. We’ll be dog sitting for Sam, but otherwise I think the plan is just to hang out around the house. Sounds fabulous to me!
Another catch up post
Aug 26th
We’ve been busy lately. First we went camping with my family down at a “park” (I use the term loosely) out in the country near my hometown. It was a lot of fun, even though it rained off and on all weekend.
My nephew kept making this face all weekend, any time we pointed a camera in his direction. He cracks me up.
I love my nieces and nephews. Here are a few of them. There are about 6 missing.
My dad won the fishing tournament's "rough" fish category (not Northern or Walleye). Nice trophy, huh?
We had a wedding to attend this past weekend. It was FABULOUS, as is the couple that got married. We didn’t take many pictures (too busy having fun!), but we had a great time.
The core group of friends I hung out with in High School - aka the Fab Five.
Holy cow! We remembered to get a photo of ourselves! Together, even!
And finally, after spending yesterday evening cleaning the kitchen and bathroom (they are about 99% better – we are just waiting for the ceiling to be fixed in the bathroom), we test drove and then bought a pickup today. We knew we were going to need a 2nd vehicle by the time the baby arrived, and since Ryan lost his company vehicle (since he doesn’t go out of the office much) having only one vehicle was going to get annoying pretty quickly. We’ve wanted a pickup for a while, just for the convenience of being able to haul stuff, and also because in case you didn’t know, Duluth is built on a huge hill. Have you seen pictures of San Francisco? Yeah, like that. But with Northern Minnesota winters. We live only 1 block up from the bottom of the hill, and yet there were still a few times last winter when I didn’t think my car was going to make it up the hill. And we had a couple mornings when I had to hike up to the bus station because I couldn’t get my car out of the lot. That’s ok when I’m not pregnant, but I do NOT want to be hiking up the hill to the bus stop when I’m 7, 8 or 9 months pregnant. No thanks. So we kept our eyes open and looked around on the internets and found this truck. It’s a 2001 Ford F150 extended cab with 4-wheel drive. We got a good deal on it, and it’s got lower miles and is in better shape than most of the other trucks we saw in our price range. It gets TERRIBLE gas milage (less than half of what I get with my car), but we won’t be using it to regularly commute, and we’ll take my car on trips whenever possible. So yah. We are very excited. And don’t worry, we already have a request for help hauling some stuff. But, like I told a friend on facebook – we have received help so many times from other people with pickups that we owe it to all of them to pass it along. At least for a while.
So, here it is! Our “new” truck!
The new truck!
We are already planning a trip down to the twin cities and Ikea to put this thing to good use. Of course, thinking about the gas costs of going even that far are kind of overwhelming, but it’ll be worth it!
Whew…I really need to get better at updating this stuff more often. It is DEFINITELY time for bed now. I’m wiped out.
Remember the time our apartment revolted against us and it ruined Monday?
Aug 25th
I have more pictures to upload of camping with my family and the awesome and beautiful and super-fun wedding we went to last weekend. But in the meantime…
Holy crap! Week 15 already. Apparently the baby is the size of an apple (are we talking big granny smith or little red delicious? Because there’s a difference, you know). And if we shine a flashlight on my belly, supposedly the baby will move away from it (which would seem like a mean thing to do, if the baby doesn’t like it, so we’ll probably skip that one). Our next appointment is next week, and should just be a basic one, but the one after that is the BIG REVEAL. Well, hopefully it will be the big reveal. Babies are known to be stubborn creatures, and we might have a shy one. Who knows? But it’s exciting to look forward to anyway. Unfortunately, I don’t think the appointment will be before we head up north for Oktoberfest, so we won’t be able to tell people that weekend. But shortly after that, hopefully!
“Morning sickness” has mostly gone away. I can eat food, and there are more and more things that sound appetizing, so that’s a plus. Of course that means that I’ve started to gain some weight too. That was a little frightening when I stepped on the scale (I only check every couple weeks or so), but acording to BabyCenter I’m about on track, so that made me feel better.
So, you are probably wondering about the blog post title, huh? We’ve had quite the interesting last couple days in regards to our apartment. First, let me say right out front that I like where we live, and these are the first real issues we’ve had there. So I’m not complaining about the building or anything – it just seemed to all pounce on us at once.
We got home on Sunday from a great weekend in Bemidji, and came into the kitchen to see that the stuff on the table was damp and a couple things sitting on it had standing water on them. And the floor had obviously been wet recently but was mostly dry in the open areas. “Hmm…this is odd,” we thought. So then I walked into the bathroom, and one of the ceiling tiles (we have a dropped ceiling in there) had fallen into the bathtub, and another one is buckling, but still up at the ceiling. And the rug is sopping wet. Um…great. So Ryan called the property manager (who is a friend of ours) and told him, and he told us that apparently the people upstairs from us had some water backup issues over the weekend. The water must have leaked in the floor and then gotten our apartment all wet. So we have that mess to clean up, although I guess it really isn’t that bad. I just whine a lot/am lazy.
So then we came home from work yesterday and the fridge door was open. And MAYBE Ryan didn’t push it closed enough when he grabbed his breakfast out of there, but we both think he did (although we weren’t watching that closely). But combined with the fact that a couple weeks ago we woke up and our freezer door was standing open and we KNOW it was closed when we went to bed it seems suspicious. We felt bad about bugging our friends again, though (did I mention they are due to have a baby TOMORROW? I’m so excited for them, and it definitely makes me feel even worse about saying anything about the apartment. LOL). So, we didn’t call then. I think Ryan’s going to talk to him today at work.
Anyway, after the water mess and then not knowing if we need to throw anything in the fridge out (it all LOOKS ok, but who knows – I told Ryan that’s his job, to go through and check things), I just did not feel up to tackling it all last night. So we went out for dinner instead. And then went home and went to bed. But it’s just waiting for us to tackle it tonight. Ugh.
On the plus side (???), I’m glad we didn’t scrub down the bathroom yet because then the toilet overflowed last night. Yuck. At least we already decided to toss the rug that had been in there, and that didn’t get all toilet watery.
So yah…it’s been a rough few days for our place. Hopefully it will be feeling better/in a better mood towards us after we take everything out of those two rooms and scrub them down. Anyone want to come for a cleaning party? ;-)
How long…
Aug 18th
Am I obligated to wait on hold for someone that called me and put me on hold before I was able to pick up the phone? And does it make a difference if I don’t like their hold music?
Also, why are people who are supposed to be professionals of some sort so webinar-stupid? When you call in to a webinar there are going to be a lot of people. Make sure you mute your phone if you don’t have a question. And if you can’t mute your phone make sure you are somewhere quiet (although EVERYONE should have been able to mute their phones – they even told you when you called in what key combination it was). Finally, if you aren’t able to get the website portion working, you need to call the help desk or something and not waste everyone else’s time asking the moderator to walk you through your computer issues (which are probably your own fault anyway).
Sorry. I’m a little pissy today at people. I’m otherwise in a good mood though. I started the 2nd trimester of pregnancy today, and the last week or so I’ve been feeling better (a little more energy, being able to actually eat food if I can find something that tastes good). I’m still in the “I look more fat than pregnant” stage, but that should *hopefully* be changing soon. And the Doctor and my pregnancy books all say that I should be able to feel the little baby kicking and moving around soon, so that’s exciting!
How are your respective weeks going? Any annoying coworkers (or people in general that you have to deal with)?
Catching Up
Aug 3rd
First I spent a weekend with my grandparents, and my mom, sister and niece came for the day to learn how to make Kuchen (German coffee cake).
It doesn't look like much now, but it tastes great when it's done!
My mom, sister and niece hanging out.
The finished product. Yum!
Aren't they adorable?
It was so much fun, and I’m so happy that I got a chance to get some first-hand learning experience in how to make these. We’ll see if my first try turns out as well as Grandma’s. I’m guessing this might be a learning experience.
Then, we had 4th of July at my parents’ place. It was fabulous. There was a ton of family in town, including all of my siblings and aunts and uncles that live on the other side of the country. I think there must have been about 40-50 people there all together. There were some wicked games of horseshoes, Norwegian golf (that game with the golf balls tied to strings and you throw them over piping), and Holey Board (a bean bag type game that my grandpa made). My sister brought her guitar and sang for a while, and we had a bonfire and burnt a couch (actually pretty tame for my family). Unfortunately I was so busy watching everything I didn’t take any photos.
Next was a day trip to a Twins game. We went with a coworker of mine and a bunch of people she and her friends knew. We forgot our camera for that trip (do you sense a pattern?), but it was fun. And the game looked like it was going to be terrible, but the Twins almost came back to win it right at the end. SO CLOSE! I’ll be the first to admit I’m not a huge baseball fan, but I do love live sporting events of all kinds, and I like keeping track of the stats on the sheets.
After a weekend off, we had my class reunion at home. And that was awesome! Both pictures of people are courtesy of my friend Adrienne, who is teh awesome. Ryan took the ones from the demolition derby at the fair.
The demo derby:
Here they are, all set to go.
You know you are jealous of that kid's camouflage hoodie.
One of the drivers ran someone up on one of the edges so he got hung up. That guy's friend decided to do some payback and tipped this truck on it's side. It was pretty awesome because everyone was fine.
And from the reunion:
The obligatory "couple photo" at the reunion.
Some of our high school group.
Finally, hanging out with my in-laws, tubing, dinner and a fire with the ladies.
This is another one where I didn’t get any photos. But it was a fabulous weekend. I got to hang out with the in-laws relaxing, and on Saturday I went tubing down the river at Welch Village for part of a bachelorette party. It was fabulous. We also went out to dinner and then had a bonfire at the bachelorette’s house. Her friends are pretty awesome, so it was a great time.
And that catches us up to now. *wipes brow* It’s been a busy summer, and there are still a few weekends to go. I’m glad we’ve been so busy, though, because I have a feeling that while we’ll still try to do visiting and stuff we’ll be spending more time at home next summer. I hear babies do that to your social life. ;-)
