Happy Holidays!

We spent the week before Christmas in South Dakota and came back to Iowa on the 26th. We were in Miller for the first part of the week and had an early Christmas with Vera. We received many lovely gifts and went to Alco several times (For those of you not familiar with Alco--it's a very small town K-mart-type store. I've never seen an Alco in a town with a population over 5,000.). The first time we went to Alco they were having a special one-day sale on Wiis. We had wanted a Wii for a while but were waiting for the price to drop or some other good excuse. Well they had them on sale for $179.00 bundled with two games which is the best price we'd seen for them all holiday season. They also had a promotion that day if you spent so much money you got a $20 gift card. So we purchased a Wii in Miller, SD at Alco. It was pretty surprising to us to be quite honest. We've played several games of Wii bowling since :).

On the 22nd, we moved on to Estelline--we planned on traveling on the 23rd, but there was an impending snow event that was supposed to start early on the 23rd...it stalled out and didn't get to Estelline until around 4pm...but at least we were safely there without having to drive through snow. Kris and Marie opted to come early to avoid the snow too. When we arrived in Estelline we spent much of the evening helping Mom and Dad get ready for new carpet that was being laid in the living room and guest room upstairs. We moved furniture and helped dispose of the old carpet etc... On the 23rd the carpet layer came and was done by around lunch time. We then had to move all of the furniture back in. Marie and I took the opportunity to get our hair cut for cheap in downtown Estelline, and then met up with some high school friends at the local bar for supper. On Christmas Eve Stephanie made it down from Fargo. We put of the Christmas tree (one of the casualties of the new carpet was no Holiday decorations), went to church, ate Sweedish meatballs, and opened presents. After a lazy Christmas day (partially due to a touch of the flu) we headed home on the 26th. All in all a busy but nice Christmas. I hope everyone else had a lovely Christmas!

More holiday photos.

Molly

Two weeks ago, Rob and I took a trip (one of many in the last couple months) to one of the local rescue shelters to check out the dogs. We had met a dog at the pet expo the weekend before that we liked and thought it would be nice to see her again and whatever other dogs they had. Well, after a walk, we decided that we just had to bring home Molly. She's about one year old. She's a beagle mix. We're not sure what she's mixed with--my current theory is boston terrier (which would make her a boggle :)). We've been busy trying to get her everything that she needs (since she's our first dog) and changing our schedule a bit to accommodate her. She's still not fully house trained since she's spent the last 4 or 5 months at different shelters. But she knows how to sit and lie down and is picking up on many of our house rules pretty quickly. She is super friendly and loves people and other dogs. She was very well behaved on Beggars Night (that's trick-or-treater night in Des Moines). She wanted to see all of the kids, but she didn't bark, and as long as someone was sitting with her, she wouldn't rush the door. We feel very lucky to have found such a friendly dog from a shelter.

You can find more pictures of Molly here.

In Appreciation of The Paper Clip

As a teacher, one of the most useful tools in my office supply arsenal is the paper clip. I use clips to bind together handouts, quizzes, worksheets, etc. Paper clips keep me from losing student work and help to keep me organized. What's really fascinating about he paper clips is just how simple it is. It has survived virtually unaltered since the late 1800s. There is some confusion over who invented the traditional paper clip as it has no official patent on record. A machine used to create the Gem or Double Loop paper clip was patented in the 1890s and several other types of paper clips were patented later, but none of them as simple and effective as the Gem paper clip. Before paper clips were used, people bound papers together with string or ribbon. For a short while, after the mass production of stick pins came about, folks would pin their papers together, but this was only effective for small stacks of paper. Paper clips are extremely inexpensive, very effective at binding papers together, and can be reused over and over again. How many items do you use every day that were invented more than a hundred years ago?

Top 100 Restaurants in Central Iowa: Speed Reviews

As I mentioned in my summary of the summer, I stumbled upon a big list that the Des Moines Register made of the top 100 local restaurants (after surveying thousands of readers). As I am a big fan of eating local and most of the restaurants on the list are locally owned or local chains, it seemed like a great idea to start checking some of these places out.

Restaurants on the list that we had been to before I saw the list:

• Waterfront Seafood Market** (excellent fish and shrimp—service can be slow)
• Hickory Park* (cheap, good food—a real institution in Ames)
• Maid-Rite (never quite got the appeal of this—it’s a dry sloppy joe)
• Okoboji Grill (pretty good food—the one near us has lots of big TVs in the lounge/bar area)
• Great Plains Sauce and Dough Company* (great thick crust pizza with tons of cheese—definitely a notch above most pizza places)
• Iowa Machine Shed* (cute theme, good home cooking)
• Ohana Steakhouse (fun with large groups…a bit expensive for what you get)
• Tavern Pizza and Pasta Grill (this seemed like a very ordinary mediocre pizza place when we went)
• Granite City* (good the few times we’ve been there—great waffle fries)
• Maxie’s* (good food, really nice service)
• Chips* (the chips are good :)--they have a pretty good chicken salad sandwich too)
• B-Bops* (the best fast food burgers in Des Moines…hands down)
• Café Su (Americanized Chinese food in a shiny package…meh)

Restaurants that we’ve visited because they were on the list (have visited all of these places just once):

• Tasty Taco (great fried soft shells, good if you’re hankering for decent cheap tacos)
• The Radish* (good homemade chips—my chicken strips were delicious and unique—we’ll definitely go back to try more off their menu)
• Drake Diner* (overall tasty— their onion rings are always voted best in city view—pretty good, but I’m not a big fan of onion strings)
• The Urban Grill (ok—Rob enjoyed his pasta, my burger was overdone and Sarah Ann’s meal was just odd)
• Legends *(I had been to the one in Ames—but it’s more like a bar and grill than restaurant. The local Legends has little TVs at every booth. The food was very good)
• Smitty’s Tenderloin Shop (very fast and friendly service, food was just ok—might go back to try something other than the tenderloin sandwich)
• Ted’s Coney Island* (I had a very good gyro and Rob enjoyed his Chicago dog. The baskets come with fries and rings, but neither are very stellar.)

*Would recommend. **Would recommend if you're in no hurry.

Two restaurants that I would recommend that are not on the big list:
Brickhouse Grill (formerly Cheddars)
and Saigon Cafe

Farm Bureau Day at the Fair!

After the recession eliminated our annual pilgrimage last year, it was good to be back at the fair. Farm Bureau reinstated it's fair day--free admission tickets and half days of work for everyone! Sadly, though, the food vouchers were not brought back...so we had to pay for our smoked turkey legs from the Iowa Turkey Federation booth. It was a cool rainy day this year. Which I much prefer to the hot and steamy that we usually end up with. We got a bit wet from the steady rain, but were still able to do everything we wanted to do.

You can see more photos of our trip to the fair here.

Summer Catch-Up

I've been really bad about blogging lately. So in an effort to catch everyone up on what's been happening in my life, I present the following:

Shortly after our trip to the Wisconsin Dells, Rob and I closed on our first house! The picture to the left is of me entering right after we got our keys. Moving was painful, as moving always is, but it ended up going relatively smoothly. We had a lot of help from my Mom who came back to Iowa with us after the Dells trip. She packed and cleaned away. I on the other hand was not at full capacity as I got a cold on our Dells trip that ended up giving me Bronchitis, so I had to suffer through a bit. While mom was here we also went furniture shopping since we had a whole extra room that we didn't have any furniture for.Pictures of our new furniture etc...can be found here. I'll be adding more photos to this set as we"finish" each room.


This summer has had some nutty weather. We've had tons of rain all summer. Every time it storms it seems to dump at least an inch of rain. About a month ago we had a particularly nasty storm that in addition to the torrential rains also had 70-80mph winds. The tree on the corner of our property lost two of it's 5 major trunks and we spent the whole Sunday cleaning up after it. Recently we've had more storms (in the neighborhood of 9 inches of rain in 3 days) and that tree lost another large branch. It's just one of the "fun" parts about being a home owner I guess. But we're fairly certain this tree will need to be cut down now. :( More photos of the tree can be found here.

Next up on our recap, Rob and I celebrated our 4th anniversary at a very sold out I-cubs game. The company that takes care of the building Rob works in was giving away free tickets that just happened to be on our Anniversary. We didn't have any plans...and rarely turn down free stuff, so we went. It turns out that this was the game that Carlos Zambrano from the regular Cubs was going to start "rehabbing" for his return to the majors (after an embarrassing blow up in the dugout that got him suspended). At any rate, the buzz that Zambrano was going to pitch was enough to sell out tickets on this VERY sticky night. We had to park over the bridge about 4 blocks away near Graziano's (local company that makes sausage). On the up side, we didn't have to pay to park there :). In the end, Zambrano pitched one inning, after which, a good portion of the crowd left. The I-cubs ended up losing. They never win when we go. More pictures of the evening can be found here.

One week after the I-cubs game, we had tickets to see the Barenaked Ladies in concert. They were part of the Nightfall on the River concert series that they do every summer downtown. I was so excited when I heard that they were coming and that the tickets were only $12. I ordered the tickets immediately and kept them in my wallet through our move so they wouldn't get lost. The doors opened for the concert at 6pm and all of the tickets were general admission (since it was outside). Rob's summer hours have him working until 5pm Mon-Thurs. So he doesn't get home until around 5:25. Then we had to have a snack, get out the door and get downtown and get parked. I had received an email the night before that indicated that it was sold out and not to bring your chairs because there would be limited room for sitting. We were both worried we wouldn't get a good spot. We got downtown and got parked in the ramp closest to the bridge the concert was on without any problems. There was a line to get in when we arrived at around 6:15. After we got through the line there were tons of people getting beers and milling about and setting up several rows of chairs in middle of the bridge. once we got past the rows of chairs, We were pleasantly surprised that security was keeping anyone from placing chairs in front of the sound/light booth. There were people gathering all over, but the area in front of the stage only had 20 or 30 people waiting for the concert to start. Rob turns to me and asks "So, are we going to rush the stage?" I look at the crowd and back at him and say, "Heck yeah!" So we found a spot right next to the railings immediately in front of the stage and stayed there all night. It was awesome. When Ed (the lead singer) stood on one of the speakers and held his guitar out over the crowd and asked audience members to strum the guitar...Rob and I were right there ready to do it :). It was a very memorable night. More pictures from the concert can be found here. The local radio station that sponsored the concert even posted pictures that they took from the stage. Here's the one with Rob and I right in front.

The weekend after the BNL concert, we went to the twin cities to visit Kris and Marie and to go to our friend Shannon and her sister Sheila's 30th birthday party. The picture on the left is of Rob and Marie playing ladder ball at Shannon's party. It was so good to get to the cities for a more relaxing weekend. Usually we have all sorts of stuff going on and can't really enjoy ourselves. We got a nice long visit with Grandma on Friday evening while Kris and Marie got to go to their first Twins game in the new stadium and on Saturday we spent most of the day and Shannon's party. It was great to get caught up with her and see her daughter who is getting so big now! More pictures from the weekend can be seen here.

Our last stop on my summer re-cap was last weekend. Our friend Sarah came to visit for the weekend. She works longer hours during the week so that she has Fridays off, so she flew in late on Thursday night. On Friday morning we went to my first ever (and definitely to be repeated) Highway 141 garage sales. Each summer all of the towns along Highway 141 in central Iowa have garage sales on the same weekend. In Grimes and Granger alone there were about 90 sales listed. We, by accident, started our adventure in the neighborhoods on the north side of Grimes...good lord those are some huge houses. This was probably the most palatial neighborhood I've ever seen. So we went to garage sales at these very expensive houses--it was awesome. :) Then we went to the Radish in Grimes, which was on my list of the top 100 restaurants in Central Iowa. Afterward we continued going to sales until we were worn out and they were starting to close up (so around 4pm). We headed home and got a little rested up, and then headed out to the Indianola National Balloon Classic. This is our second time at the balloon classic, it was just as fun as I remembered and totally worth the 3 dollar admission. On Saturday we went to another restaurant on the list, the Urban Grill, and went shopping at the big mall--which was packed because of the tax free holiday for back to school shopping (clothes and shoes under $100 are tax free for two days each August). Then we came back and grilled and watched Whip It. On Sunday we slept in and watched Hot Tub Time Machine and played a game of Pandemic before Sarah had to meet her plane. It was so nice to spend the weekend having little local adventures. :). More pictures of the balloon festival are here.

Ok, so now you're all caught up and I can get back to my semi-regular blogging :).

Wisconsin Dells

Last week my family (Mom, Dad, Steph, Kris, Marie, Rob, and I) went to the Wisconsin Dells to celebrate my parents' 40th wedding anniversary. We all met in Minneapolis on Saturday and had a barbecue with family. On Sunday we headed towards the Dells and stopped in Osseo at the Norske Nook (a Norwegian themed Diner that has national award winning pies and lots of things wrapped in lefse) for lunch. It was delicious. We drove through some very slow road construction and made it to the Dells. After getting checked in to the hotel and making a trip to Walmart for groceries--the day was pretty much spent.

Day 2 in the Dells started with an Upper Dells Boat Tour. It last 2 and a half hours and included two shore landings. It was well worth the money. I'd recommend that Upper Dells tour to anyone going to Wisconsin Dells. After our lengthy tour on a hot day, Kris, Marie, Rob, and I decided to head over to the Hotel's Water parks. We all enjoyed "America's largest indoor wave pool" and the more adventurous (i.e. not me) enjoyed all of the water slides.

Day 3 began with a rain storm. Afterwards we went on a Duck Boat tour. These are military ambhibious vehicles from WWII and the Korean War that have been refurbished to run tours of the woods and the waters of the Dells. Dad really enjoyed this tour--but it wasn't nearly as interesting as the Upper Dells Boat Tour. That afternoon we went to Devil's Lake State Park (which is South of the Dells) and hiked Parfrey's Glen. All of my research online said this would be well worth the short hike, but they failed to mention that many of the paths towards the end of the glen had been washed out in the floods of 2008 and the glen had been closed down for a whole year, etc...It was still worth the hike, but we couldn't make it to the end where the waterfall was at (Rob did, and was a bit of a muddy mess for it). After Parfrey's Glen we went to the State Park and debated whether we wanted to make one of the hikes to a rock formation in the park. It was warm and the closest hike involved steep inclines (really really steep inclines), so we decided to just sit and enjoy the lake scenery a bit before heading back to the Dells. On our way back we stopped at the Outlet Mall.

Day 4 was our last full day in the Dells. Kris, Marie, and Dad went to the House on the Rock (which is about an hour and a half away). Mom, Stephanie, Rob, and I stayed in the Dells and started our day off with the Lost Canyon tour. The tour through the Lost Canyon is a wagon ride pulled by draft horses. The wagons were specially designed to fit through the canyon. There were several places where we were ducking or leaning to avoid the canyon walls as we went through. It was a very picturesque tour--but you do smell the horses :). After the Lost Canyon Tour, we went back to the Outlet Mall (as we had only stopped to check it out the night before). After returning from the Outlet Mall, Rob and I went to a few shops downtown to find my magnet (my souvenir collection). After supper, Dad, Marie, Kris, Rob, and I went miniature golfing--Dad said it had probably been 40 years since he had been mini golfing. We were glad to take him. :).

Our 5th day was filled with driving--we headed back to Minneapolis. In the afternoon, Stephanie, Rob, and I made the pilgrimage to Ikea. It was a great trip! :)

Photos can be found here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sarahjanesetnes/sets/

House!

Well, it happened so quickly it still hasn't quite sunk in. On April 1st we met with a banker about getting preapproved for a home loan. We asked him if he thought it was reasonable for us to try to get into contract on a house by the end of the month (to receive the tax credit). He replied, "Oh, defintely." We thought that it might be a stretch. We had been researching prices and procedures for months...and we were finally ready to start looking. One week later we met with our Realtors (who our banker recommended and have been just fantastic) and started looking at houses. Three days and about 30 houses later, we made an offer on a home. Today we had our inspection (which went well--no major problems). We are slated to close on June 1st. I'm so excited to get into our house and have a garage and room to put everything away and our very own laundry!

What the crap, Ed!

Back in February when we were being forecasted to get yet another dumping of snow....the local sports guy sat in stunned amazement and uttered these words to the local weather guy: "What the crap, Ed!" Of course, I about died of laughter...because it was just what we were all thinking.

Today, I sit typing wearing a tank top and wondering how lame it would be if I turned on the air conditioning on the first of April. The weather channel's website puts our current temperature at 87, though the big two local news stations say it's 84 degrees. There has been no talk of breaking record highs. Yesterday our official high temp was 82 degrees. I thought, this must be a record high for March...has to be. Little did this Northern girl know...that nope, this is not all that weird for spring time in Iowa...seriously.

So lets look at some of these numbers.

• The earliest (in the year) record high of 70 degrees is on February 12th. The record low on that day is -21 degrees. (Just for a bit of reference--the record high in Fargo, ND on February 12th is 43 degrees.)
• The earliest record high of 80 degrees is on March 3rd. The record low that day is a slightly less impressive -6.
• The earliest record high of 90 degrees in on March 29th.
• The highest record temperature in West Des Moines is 110 degrees. Lowest record temperature is -30.

So apparently this little heat wave we're having, is not all that impressive. Though...if the weather channel's current temperature is deemed accurate, we've just tied our record high for the day. Less than two weeks ago--it snowed 6 inches.

...the one where we buy a TV

(title inspired by Friends...all of the episodes are named "the one where...")

After we got my car this fall, we tossed around the idea of getting a flat screen tv. Our newest tv is about 8 years old. We had decided that it would be our next big purchase...but then after watching the prices in the ads and learning all about what to look for in a new tv, we decided it might be better to wait until after we moved to pick out a new tv. Then a couple of weeks ago I saw a tv in the Best Buy ad that looked like a good deal. I checked it against the reviews in Consumer reports and found out it was their "CR best buy" pick for its size range....and that the MSRP that they listed was almost 300 dollars more than what it was on sale for at Best Buy. So we quick (on Sunday morning) went to the Best Buy that is 2 blocks from our appartment and found out that they didn't have the tv (it was listed as "clearance--warehouse quantities only"). They were nice enough to call around and found that they still had a display model at the South Ridge Best Buy (which is a good 15+ miles away). We made a quick stop at home to compare prices online and check shipping costs etc. Neither of us felt comfortable ordering a tv online that we had never seen in person, especially since LCDs are notorious for having problems with their viewing angles. So we treked across town to see the tv and find out what kind of deal they were giving for it (since it was the display). The tv looked great in person--at every angle, but they were only knocking off about 5% of the price. So we drove home and ordered it from newegg. I was glad that we could get a good deal from someone other than Best Buy--the whole idea of putting a tv in the ad that none of the stores had in stock seemed a bit dishonest to me. We had our tv less than a week after we ordered it. It's been amazing. Did you know that there's a shadow under Brian Williams's chin while he reads the news? :)

So, when Rob found out that he was getting 70 dollars in target gift cards from working on the JDRF fundraising at work, it made sense to combine that with a 10% off card and a few of the 5 and 10 dollar gift cards I had lying around from their promotions and buy a Blu Ray player. We haven't tried it out with a Blu Ray movie yet (we just bought one that was on sale when we got the player), but it looks great so far playing regular dvds.

Vikings Cakes Make Cake Wrecks!

Cake Wrecks is a blog that I follow regularly that shares professionally made cakes that look particularly unprofessional. This week they featured two Minnesota Vikings Cakes that were certainly wrecks.

JDRF

Well, that time of the year has come around again. It's time to help Rob with his role as leader of their JDRF fundraising team at work.

Last week we kicked off with a simple "guess how many" game. We filled up two giant containers with M&Ms and Strawberry Whoppers (because apparently they are very popular at Equitrust).

We really lucked out and managed to guess exactly how much candy to buy to fill our containers--two of the biggest bags of M&Ms that Costco sells and 8 cartons of Strawberry Whoppers. We decided on such large quantities because one of the reasons that folks claimed that they wouldn't buy guesses in past years is because they weren't winning enough candy (the guesses cost a dollar). Not a complaint this year :). The containers held 3,715 M&Ms and 704 Whoppers. Of course the real fun of this fundraiser was counting them all...wearing gloves (M&Ms are slippery little suckers). Apparently the fellow that won the M&Ms went so far as figuring out which container we bought and weighing it and filling it with water to measure volume, etc... It's fun that he was getting so involved in it. Rob said he was also more than happy to share his winnings :).

Rob has had a really good group working with him this year. They are all more than willing to make calls and try to get good prices on their supplies etc... One of his group members learned that Krispy Kreme will sell donuts to them at a discounted price since they are selling them for a charity. So...this week they had a donut morning where they sold donuts for a dollar a piece and made more than twice what they spent on the donuts!

Last night we made barbecues again. Last year we cooked up 22 pounds of barbecues. We had quite a bit leftover and there were fewer pre-orders this year for lunch tickets, so we only made 12 pounds of barbecues. It took us about an hour and a half and 3 batches to get a big bowl (42 cup capacity) full. It took almost an entire 7 lb container of ketchup to make these barbecues. All in all the experience was much more pleasant than last year--partly because we knew what we were doing and partly because we were only making about half as much.

Rob tells me that people at work were very excited to hear that we were making homemade barbecues again. So I hope they enjoy their lunch and that they make a good bit of money off of it (the hamburger was all donated this year so that should help).