Mordacious Musings

Winter Arrived

2012-02-11T09:17:00.001-08:00

Last weekend we got our first significant snowfall. It's been cold and blustery all week so I guess Winter decided to finally show up. I was kinda hoping we could get by without Winter this year. It started snowing on Friday night and kept snowing until well into the afternoon on Saturday. It was hovering right around 32-33 degrees so the snow was really wet and heavy. It was also excellent snowman making snow--so we had to go out and play in it a little bit. I mean we just had to. ;) So we went out with the dog and made a snowman. Then we cleared the driveway and sidewalks. Here are some photos from our afternoon in the snow:

Happy New Year!

2012-01-04T13:44:00.002-08:00

We had great Christmas weather this year (no snow and temps mostly in the 40s) which made our trips across eastern South Dakota a lot more pleasant than usual. We visited Vera for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day and were in Estelline for a couple of days after that.

Here we are at Vera's apartment posing for our annual holiday photo.

We got together with my parents and Marie and Kris in Estelline right after Christmas. Here are a couple shots of opening presents.

You can see the rest of the Christmas pictures here.

Falls Park "Winter Wonderland"

2012-01-01T09:26:00.000-08:00

We spent the first part of our Christmas Vacation in Sioux Falls with Rob's Mom. On Christmas Day we went to Falls Park to take in the holiday decorations. The weather this Christmas was beautiful and the decorations at the park were lovely. It was a great night to be out and walking around among the lights. I've posted a couple of videos I took of the falls and of the lights. You can find the rest of our photos from the park here.

Macy's Parade 1939

2011-11-25T20:42:00.000-08:00

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving and is enjoying their weekend. Rob and I did go to Target at midnight, but we were in and out in about 35 minutes, so certainly not die hard Black Friday shoppers. We went home afterwards and went to bed.

If you watched the Macy's parade this year, here's a video of the parade from 1939 for comparison. No silly lip syncing artists, but you can tell where the inspiration for a lot of what they do now has come from.

Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade - New York, 1939 from standard on Vimeo.

(there is no audio on the video)

Happy Thanksgiving!

2011-11-23T20:42:00.000-08:00

Well, it’s Thanksgiving week, and I’ve started to see lists pop up online of everything that you’re thankful for. It’s a wonderful tradition, so I thought I’d do a list of my own. Of course I’m thankful for the traditional things: A great husband, a warm home and a roof over my head, a loving family, and an adorable dog, good friends, indoor plumbing etc… But in this list, I want to focus on some of the less common things that people really should be giving thanks for. After all, it's the little things in life that make the difference.

What I’m thankful for:

10) Staplers and paperclips. I’m a teacher, and these workhorses of the office often get overlooked. I even did a post just about paperclips. That’s how thankful I am.

9) Cheese. Though I’m certain cheese was probably invented on accident, boy am I thankful that someone let their milk spoil.

8) Digital Cooking thermometers. Never having to wonder if your burger is done. Priceless.

7) Breathright Strips. My husband is probably more thankful for these than I am.

6) Nonstick aluminum foil. This stuff is magic. Not even burnt cheese sticks to it.

5) Wireless Internet. We live in the future. I can check my email at McDonalds. I can use my laptop without cords. Woo!

4) Chocolate. No explanation necessary.

3) Board Games. No electricity or computer required. Just good clean fun.

2) 64 oz bottles of Gold Peak Unsweetened Iced Tea available at the grocery store. It’s like getting an expensive glass from a fancy restaurant every day.

1) Spandex in Jeans. Jeans were comfortable and casual before, but now whenever I wear a pair of old jeans without a little spandex in them, I’m reminded of just how much more comfortable they are now.

Have a great Turkey Day everyone! And be thankful!

Grandma's 90th!

2011-10-27T19:52:00.000-07:00

Yep, that's right...Grandma Esther turned 90 earlier this year and now it's Grandma Anetta's turn. The family got together to celebrate at 10 Mile Lake in Minnesota (near Fergus Falls) a couple of weekends ago. On Saturday the whole family wore Twins shirts to have our photo taken, and that evening we all ate dinner at the steak house at the resort. Games were played, lots of food was eaten, and good times were had by all. :)

My aunt Julie, Grandma Anetta, Tenley, and my Cousin Janee got together for a 4 generations photo. And below is a photo of Kris and Marie hanging out in the cabin.

You can find the rest of my photos from the weekend here.

Having a Bad Day?

2011-10-25T07:36:00.001-07:00

Nothing a little Captain Picard can't fix. :)

End of Summer Recap

2011-10-18T16:48:00.001-07:00

Well it's October, and I'm dreadfully behind on blogging...so even though it's chilly and the leaves are mostly turned, I'm going to blog about stuff that happened in August to catch up a bit and to remind us of warmer times.

In August we finally got our yard fenced in. We were on a waiting list for much of the summer...but it's been so nice to let Molly out without having to tie her up. She loves running all over and greeting the neighbor dogs and kids as they walk by. There was a bit of a fiasco the first day they were installing the fence posts though. They hit a gas line next to our neighbor's house. The lead of the fence crew excitedly told me that they would have to evacuate the neighborhood. So I stood outside with Molly on leash in case we would have to leave in a hurry. We waited for about 40 minutes until the gas company arrived (the police and fire departments were there within 10 minutes) and then were told we could go back in the house. It delayed our fence being installed by a couple of days, but nothing blew up.

More photos of our newly fenced yard (and our neighbor dogs) can be found here.

About a week later, we went to Farm Bureau's annual State Farm Day. Rob and I really enjoy getting the chance to go to the Iowa State Fair for free....but we always make up for our free admission by spending too much money on food. We may have to savor this years experience as Rob's company was sold off from Farm Bureau to an out of state company, so they may not have State Fair day next year.

Rob thoroughly enjoyed his smoked turkey leg as usual. The rest of our photos from the 2011 Iowa State Fair can be found here.

And to end off the summer recap...a photo of our dog Molly. You can find more of her here.

Fall updates to come...during fall hopefully :).

Fun With Science

2011-08-09T17:15:00.000-07:00

Want to know how that works...this next video explains the laws at work.

Des Moines to Sioux Falls

2011-08-03T08:27:00.001-07:00

We went up to Sioux Falls this last weekend to visit family and friends. It was a busy weekend of running around, but we had a nice time. We got to eat out at some great local restaurants: Grill 26 and Krav'n. We also ate at The Original Pancake House which is not local, but we don't have any in Iowa, so it was a really good weekend for food :).

On the way there and back home, we drove past the flooding that's occurring along the Missouri River. It really seems like it's been flooding there all summer--since the end of June. The river finally crested about 2 weeks ago, but the water is still very high. Parts of the interstate are still tunneled off with flood barriers and I-29 just North of Omaha is still closed completely. The photo above is from Sioux City, Iowa. The rest of my photos (taken from the car) can be found here.

Independence and all that Jazz....

2011-07-12T09:02:00.000-07:00

Sorry about the delay on this one...our internet has been intermittent and it was a miracle I was able to even upload these photos to flickr. Thankfully a tech was out today. He couldn't figure out what was causing our problems so he just replaced everything (new line to the box, new splitters, new modem). The internet seems to be working much better. I hope it stays that way. We had a pretty quiet 4th at home. Rob hasn't been able to take extended vacation yet this summer because of some back up issues at work--so we stayed home for the 4th and had a nice relaxing weekend. On Independence Day we went to see the new Transformers movie (which was better than the 2nd but not as good as the 1st) and went to see the Fireworks display in Urbandale (as Johnston doesn't have one). They moved the display this year to a different park--which was very handy because they posted a detailed map of where people were allowed and where parking was and exactly where the fireworks were going to be shot off from....which made things really easy. We left a bit early to avoid the parking hassle. Rob read a book and we took a break to play a couple of rounds of Fluxx. The fireworks show went a full half hour and was packed with large fireworks which lit up the sky directly over our heads. We were so close that our car was littered with cardboard debris. We'll definitely go back next year if we're in town.

Tree Clean Up

2011-07-04T21:42:00.000-07:00

Over the long weekend the weather finally got a bit cooler and we had time to finish cleaning up the part of our tree that fell. Rob tried out our new electric chainsaw. It worked like a charm. It made quick work of the thickest part of the tree. The small branches were the time consuming mess. Now we get to start working on the part of the tree that's still standing. Pictures as we go will be posted here.

Storm Damage

2011-06-30T10:20:00.000-07:00

Shortly after we moved into our house last summer, we had lots of rain and some strong storms. One of those storms played musical chairs with the trash cans and split off a large section of our willow tree. A few weeks later, another storm took another big branch. We thought the tree was doomed and we started doing research on the cost of tree removal and went back and forth about buying a chain saw etc.... Well the tree seemed to be doing ok; it survived the rest of the summer and came back all green in the spring. We thought we would just need to trim some branches to balance it out and call it good. Cue Sunday night and a storm with strong winds. Our trash cans got blown over again (but not rearranged throughout the neighborhood this time), and our tree lost another big chunk. There is just one lonely little section left. So, we bought a chain saw. Pictures of that will come later (the forecast for the next two days is 95 with heat indexes around 105...so the the chopping up part is on hold).

So, take a moment of silence for our tree. We hardly had a chance to get to know you whole. Rest in Pieces.

Camping!

2011-06-18T20:04:00.001-07:00

For Rob's 29th (for reals, not his second or third...his FIRST 29th birthday) we went camping out at Saylorville Lake with Kris and Marie. The weather was about as good as it gets...it rained lightly a little the first evening we were there, but it stopped in time to light a fire, and it stayed dry and in the 70s the rest of the weekend.

The weekend passed by quickly. We walked to the Saylorville Marina, visited the dam, grilled lots, and played a couple card games. The photo below is of Molly trying to find a cool spot after our walk on Saturday afternoon. It was a beautiful weekend, but the sun was warm--so warm that all of us got a bit burnt. I missed putting sun screen on my neck all together. :( You can find the rest of my photos of our weekend here.

The Bridges of Madison County

2011-06-01T19:28:00.000-07:00

My mother and sister came down for a visit last week, so we decided to go check out the covered bridges in Madison County Iowa (yep, the ones from the book and movie). It's about a 25 minute drive to Winterset, IA where we posed at the birthplace of John Wayne and explored their neat city park. After lunch at a local diner, we went to the rest of the covered bridges. It was a beautiful day and a fun little day trip.

I posted pictures which you can find here:
Bridges of Madison County Set

Saylorville

2011-05-14T19:14:00.001-07:00

We decided to get out of the house this weekend by driving out to the Dam at Saylorville and checking out some of the campgrounds around the lake. Of course it was cold and windy and a bit drizzly, so it wasn't quite the spring day that we'd all hope for on the weekend, but we hadn't really been out to the lake aside from driving past it and we had no other pressing plans...so on we went :).

We were both surprised by the intensity of the water flowing from the dam out into the Des Moines River. So I took a video:

I posted a few pictures of the dam on my Flickr Page.

The area below the dam has been turned into a campground. After our drive around that campground, we proceeded to check out the other two Army Corp of Engineer parks on Saylorville (there's a 4th, but it doesn't open for another week). There were lots of campers bundled up in sweatshirts....some huddled next to fires wearing stocking caps. I was happy that I was just out for a drive instead of actually camping this weekend. Brr. But we'll be back ;).

Mystery Trees

2011-05-05T16:09:00.000-07:00

In our front yard we have three trees alongside our driveway. When we moved in to the house they had dark brown--almost black--leaves. They were pretty and got a little redder before dropping their leaves in the fall. To my surprise, as they sprouted leaves this spring, they came in bright green, and soon after, pretty white cones of flowers began blooming. So now I'm really curious...what kind of trees are these? The previous owners of our house were adventurous with plant purchases to say the least (there are odd plants all over the yard--so this may become a regular installment on my blog :)), so I don't even know where to begin.

Are any of you out there familiar with this tree?

In the spring it looks like this:
And it looks like this in late summer/early fall:

The leaves were dark when we moved in to the house in June (but last year's spring came a bit earlier than this year's).

Grandma Esther Turns 90!

2011-05-04T19:22:00.000-07:00

(Grandma at her birthday party with her nursing school buddy Eris--Photo taken by Kris)

Over Easter weekend my Mom's family all got together in the twin cities and celebrated my Grandma's 90th Birthday. We had a great time chatting with out of state relatives that we don't get to see nearly often enough.

My brother took some really nice pictures from the weekend which can be found here.

The pretty lousy ones that I took that weekend can be found here.

...nearing the end

2011-04-21T09:46:00.000-07:00

Next week is the last week of regular classes at DMACC and the week after that is finals week. I have their last essays to grade and then their final portfolios to grade before I'm done with the semester. I feel a lot like the girl in the comic.

...I just spent the last 20 minutes dinking around looking for a comic to post....so clearly...I should be grading papers.

Molly's Tricks

2011-04-14T15:28:00.000-07:00

Here's a little video I took while working with Molly on some of her basic tricks. I had given her the "down" command as I started recording. It's hard to run the camera and shake her paw and give her treats at the same time, but you get the idea :).

She also knows how to roll over, turn in circles (but only going one direction--she has a hard time switching), jump up, beg, and stay. Her fetch is hit and miss. She doesn't like to give the ball back.

Spring has Sprung

2011-04-11T18:45:00.000-07:00

Downtown Des Moines recorded a high of 90 degrees yesterday. It was not a record high. Today was a much more seasonable 65 degrees. On Saturday they are forecasting a rain/snow mix. Even with the crazy yo-yo Iowa weather we're having, it is feeling much more spring-like. Daffodils are blooming, the trees are sprouting leaves, and our Lilies are starting to come back up. Spring is the best time of year in Iowa. Here's to more 70 degree days (but the 90s can wait until July)!

A Geeky Teaching Moment

2011-04-09T20:42:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago I had a special moment as a teacher. A moment when the stars aligned and created an instance of great geek-i-tude. I'll try to recreate it for you. But, like all amazing moments, it loses some of its brilliance in its retelling.

I'll set the scene. It happened during my Comp II class. We were discussing fallacies of reasoning. My lessons on reasoning are my favorite part of the semester in Comp II. There are always a few students who seem to really understand (or "grok" if you prefer) and relate to these lessons. At any rate, we had already gone over the basics and I was on to providing more elaborate examples.

And so it began.

Me: "Did anyone see last night's episode of the Big Bang Theory?" [two-thirds of the class raised their hands] Well on last night's episode...

Student in the Front Row: WAIT! I haven't seen it yet!

Me: Don't worry, this won't ruin it. ...In last night's episode, Sheldon used the Appeal to Tradition fallacy when he insisted that they eat supper at Sheldon and Leonard's apartment instead of at Raj's apartment because they "always eat supper at their apartment on Thursday nights." [Some nods and smiles of recognition spread across the class.]

Student #1: Hey, didn't they mention post hoc ergo propter hoc in an episode of the Big Bang Theory?

Student #2: I remember that. It was on the one where they all got back from Antarctica.

Student #3: The one where they all came back with beards?

Student #1: Except Sheldon, he just had a goatee.

Student #2: Yeah! He looked like evil Spock!

Student in the Front Row: Khaaaan!

I smiled and told them they were all awesome. A good half of the class had no idea what they were talking about, but it didn't matter. For that moment, I felt like I was in the company of a great group of geeks.

Continuing the Quest

2011-04-08T09:58:00.000-07:00

As I blogged months ago, back when I wasn't completely delinquent about blogging, Rob and I have been trying to visit the best locally owned restaurants in Des Moines. We've now been to 27 of the top 100 Restaurants in Central Iowa. So now that I have the Ipod with the camera, I've been taking pictures of our conquests. The photo above is from our trip to Mojos in Johnston. We also recently visited Fire Creek Grill. Both restaurants served delicious food and had friendly service. We'll definitely go back. One of our current favorites from the list is Skips. Skips has one of the best cheeseburgers I've ever eaten...and their fries are good to :).

Spring Restaurant Photos

Dog Pictures

2011-04-07T09:49:00.000-07:00

For Valentine's Day Rob gave me a new ipod touch with a camera built in. Which means I take a lot of silly little pictures for no good reason...but it's been fun. :) Usually the cutest thing in my general vicinity is our dog...so I take lots of pictures of her. Some of the better shots I've posted in a set on Flickr.

Eurogaming?

2011-04-06T21:15:00.000-07:00

Some of you may know that I like board games (which is a bit of an understatement really). But most think that means I play a lot of Monopoly. Some of the names for the types of boardgames I play are Eurogames (because they are mostly imported from Europe), Hobby Games (because they are bought at hobby type stores), or Designer Games (because they have the name of the game's designer on the box). Some folks have heard of Settlers of Catan or Ticket to Ride...but if you haven't, here's a nice little feature about these "new" board games that will hopefully make it all clear.

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7361550n

Happy Holidays!

2010-12-29T08:45:00.000-08:00

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

2010-11-02T20:20:00.001-07:00

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

2010-10-01T13:35:00.000-07:00

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

2010-08-28T21:34:00.000-07:00

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!

2010-08-23T20:47:00.000-07:00

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

2010-08-12T08:21:00.000-07:00

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

2010-05-31T08:43:00.000-07:00

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!

2010-04-15T12:26:00.000-07:00

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!

2010-04-01T11:57:00.000-07:00

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

2010-03-19T13:18:00.001-07:00

(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!

2010-02-03T18:08:00.000-08:00

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

2010-01-28T08:49:00.000-08:00

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).

2010-01-24T10:37:00.000-08:00

Happy Holidays!

2009-12-28T08:54:00.000-08:00

We had an unusual Christmas this year. We still managed to get to Miller and Estelline, but our stay in Miller was cut a bit short because of an impending storm of doom. So, we headed over to Estelline on Tuesday afternoon to avoid nasty driving. The storm stalled out a bit and didn't really hit until Christmas Eve, but it was foggy and drizzley on the 23rd so we were glad we were in Estelline and didn't have to worry about driving. Stephanie managed to get out of work on the 23rd so she could leave early to get to Estelline. Kristopher and Marie did not make it home because they wouldn't have been able to leave until Christmas Eve. Once the snow started...it snowed steadily for 3 days. They cancelled church on Christmas Eve and closed the interstates for 2 days. Needless to say, we spent quite a bit of time playing board games and we even managed to watch a couple of movies.

I am glad that we didn't have to try to get on the road until Sunday. I-29 in South Dakota was still quite slippery...but once we made it to Sioux City, the roads were much better and we arrived home safely last night.

Despite the nasty weather, we did have a lovely Christmas. I got some great gifts. Rob spoiled me a bit this year and got me both a new DS and an Ipod Touch (he did promise me that he got great deals on both of them though :). Rob also gave me a Royal Blue Snuggie. It was mostly for the laugh, but I tried it out last night and am a bit ashamed to admit that it's dang cozy.

Photos from this Christmas:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sarahjanesetnes/sets/72157623087276698/

Bacon!

2009-12-15T07:09:00.000-08:00

Snow!

2009-12-10T11:56:00.000-08:00

When all was said and done, we ended up with about 16 inches of snow. It fell steadily over a 36 hour time period and was accompanied by strong winds (regularly gusting around 40 mph). DMACC let out early on Tuesday, cancelled all classes on Wednesday, and started late on Thursday. Because of my end of the semester schedule, I ended up home for all three days.

Today I am doing laundry and wrapping Christmas presents. Yesterday I made some Christmas cookies. Rob ventured in to work and found himself one of 11 employees who managed to make it in. The numbers grew slightly as the day went on, but management decided to let everyone go at 1pm. They even went to the nearby HyVee and picked up lasagna for everyone who made it in. Rob said that the roads were the worst he’s seen in town since we’ve moved here.

Our entryway/parking lot/ roadway here at the apartments is still full of snow. They’ve carved out passage ways, but many of the cars are still buried in drifts which make it difficult to get in and out of parking spots.

Today we started out very cold. It got down to about -10 last night. But the sun is out so we have warmed up to about 10 above zero. I bundled up and took the trash out and took the Christmas cards (which have been sitting ready to go since it started snowing) out to the central mailbox. I couldn’t stop smiling. Perhaps it was all of the fluffy white snow, or the strange feeling of being comfortable—at home—in this cold snow-packed weather. I’m sure that will wear off as soon as I have to drive in it. But for now, my car is still entrenched in a large snow bank. I cleared off all of the windows of snow to let sun do its work, but I still have an awful lot of snow moving to do to get my car free tomorrow.

Photos of the snow:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sarahjanesetnes/sets/72157622845734983/

Blizzard

2009-12-08T10:46:00.000-08:00

It's snowing steadily and supposed to intensify this afternoon and evening--and then the wind is supposed to pick up. All told they are forecasting about a foot of snow here in the Des Moines Metro.

Fortunately I have a working day scheduled for my students today, so I didn't have to agonize over my commute. Which is good, because DMACC isn't closing until 2:30, and the roads are really nasty right now and only getting worse.

Because I am home today, I am taking the opportunity to get caught up on my gradebook and do laundry. I am even baking some pumpkin bread. Later I hope to get started on present wrapping.

We got a little bit of snow on Sunday night, here is a photo from our balcony on Monday (12/7) Morning:

Here are some photos from noon today (12/8):

Thanksgiving, Black Friday

2009-11-27T19:17:00.000-08:00

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! Rob and I had a quiet day at home. We cooked a turkey breast, green bean casserole, stuffing, mashed potatoes, some sweet corn that I froze from this summer, green jello salad, and jellied cranberry sauce. It was a delightful meal...and we'll be eating the leftovers the rest of the weekend :). After our afternoon dinner, we watched Angels and Demons...which was an entertaining movie.

This morning we woke up at 6am and pulled on some clothes and combed our hair and went to Target. We were actually surprised that everything we had noticed in the ad that we were interested in was still there (the store opened at 5 and we didn't get there until about 6:20). Rob got his XBox360 that he had been wanting. They had the bundle that the other stores had (with two free games), but it also came with a 50 dollar gift card. Not to mention that they were giving 10 dollar gift cards to anyone who spent over a hundred dollars this morning...AND I had a 10% off day card from my Target credit card....so it ended up being a very good deal. We got a few dvds and an Xbox game and a couple of Christmas gifts for family...so it was a good trip, until we got to the line to check out...which wrapped around the store. We were in line about 45 minutes. After Target, we were pretty spent, but we decided to check out Best Buy and Walmart. We made quick trips at both stores and were home with a couple of Egg McMuffins before 9am. The only painful part about the whole morning was the wait at Target...which wasn't all that bad since we were jazzed about finding the things that we wanted and there were two of us, so we would each take breaks by running to look at something while the other waited in line.

After our shopping today, Rob crossed the 50,000 word mark on his novel. He has officially become a NaNoWriMo "winner"! I'm very proud of what he's accomplished this month, and I look forward to reading his novel.

Once we go back to school on Monday, I'm down to just two weeks left. I have a giant stack of essays to grade this week...and then the final portfolios start coming in the next week. It's been a rollercoaster of a semester. I look forward to only teaching two classes this spring.

Restaurant Review: Smashburger

2009-11-06T17:43:00.001-08:00

Tonight Rob and I went to Smashburger which recently opened nearby. They have a selection of burgers and chicken sandwiches along with a few salads. This restaurant seems to be joining the growing numbers of cafeteria-style places where you pay as much (or nearly as much) as you would for the food a sit down restaurant but you don't get waiters or plates or real silverware (think Chipotle, Panera, etc...). The burgers were certainly above average. We both had the "smashfries" which are fries with herbs and garlic on them. They were pretty good--they only cost 30 cents more than their regular fries--so worth it for a change of pace.

Verdict: Good, but a bit expensive for what you get. We will probably go back to try more of their menu.

Update.

2009-11-05T17:42:00.000-08:00

Goodness, it's been too long since I've posted. October was dreary and cold. The leaves fell off the trees more quickly this year than any year since I've moved to Iowa. The trees are mostly bare, but the weather this first week of November has been warmer and sunnier...so things are looking up.

There's about 5 and a half weeks of the semester left. It has gone by VERY quickly. I am currently grading essay 3 (of 4). Next semester is going to be much less hectic. I am back to teaching my usual two courses and I will only be on campus on MWF.

Rob is participating in NaNoWriMo this year for the first time. He is trying to write an entire novel (50,000 words) in one month. Tonight he is at a "write-in" with other participants at the local mall. He has been on pace or slightly above pace all week, and he seems to be enjoying himself. It feels a little backwards for him to be going to creative writing meetings and not me. :)

They started remodeling our hallways last month and they finally finished painting (well mostly, they still need to come back and put the switch plates back on and what not). It took them about a month from start to finish, but we now have freshly painted tan walls and green doors. This week they added new stainless steel kick plates and new door numbers. Since they made no attempt to cover the carpet, I'm assuming that's in the works too.

Here's a photo photo that I took the day before they put on the new numbers and the kick plate.
More photos of the remodel can be found here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sarahjanesetnes/sets/72157622571469706/

visitors, seafood, board games, grading papers...

2009-09-30T20:32:00.000-07:00

This last weekend, Sarah Ann came to Des Moines. She stayed with us on Thursday night and then we hung out with her and her boyfriend Alan on Saturday. We went to a local seafood restaurant that I had been wanting to try for a while (Waterfront Seafood Market). It's close by, and for seafood, the prices are good. We went on a Saturday at lunchtime and had to wait for a table and the service was slow in general. There is a warning on their menu that the food takes a while to prepare as everything is made from scratch....but if we weren't there with two visitors that we hardly ever see...the wait would have gotten very long. The food was good though, and I'll probably go back during an "off time" to see if the service is better.

We also did a little shopping and went out for ice cream. I found a copy of Rumis at Tuesday Morning (which I had been tipped off to by a forum that I read on Board Game Geek). I was excited because I had been wanting to play that game. Sarah and Alan helped Rob and I test it out. It's an interesting game. I think I like Blokus better, but it was a nice change of pace.

This week I'm grading papers like crazy and trying to get their progress reports done (which are due during week 6 instead of week 8 because they figure it gives the students more time to get their grades up before the drop date--but it turns out to just be a more inaccurate grade).

I'm still enjoying my new car....yesterday I figured out that I have ~~at least 18~~ 30 radio presets. I don't like that many radio stations ;)--it's just nutty.

Car!

2009-09-24T13:48:00.000-07:00

Afte 12+ years of driving extremely USED vehicles, Rob and I purchased a brand new 2010 Chevy Malibu. It's a sweet ride I tell ya.

I was long over due for a car that didn't need a quart of oil every other week...and with the economy and the clunker program driving up the price on good used cars...and the tax deduction that's currently available on new cars, we decided to go with a new car. It's such a treat to have remote entry and a cd player and power windows. These are no small treats to someone who has been driving a car that was older than most of her college students.

ARRRR! Happy Talk Like a Pirate Day!

2009-09-19T09:30:00.000-07:00

http://www.savagechickens.com/2005/09/talk-like-pirate.html

School days...School days...

2009-09-07T15:39:00.000-07:00

We started school a week and a half ago. I am teaching 4 classes this semester, which is twice as many as usual and the most classes I've ever taught at once. Enrollment is way up at DMACC. I guess I can thank the economy for that, but it sure is making parking a pain.

http://www.kcci.com/money/20570436/detail.html

4 days into the new school year, I got a nasty cold. I've been coughing ever since. I am feeling better. I have a distinct feeling that the next 3 months are going to go by either very quickly or painfully slow.

For Mythbusters Fans

2009-08-20T12:03:00.000-07:00

http://fora.tv/2009/08/06/MythBusters_Just_the_Facts#fullprogram

Hour long (or you can watch it in chunks) interview of Adam and Jamie--I swear it's the most I've ever heard Jamie talk :).

The Great Lemon-Lime Taste Test

2009-08-13T10:35:00.001-07:00

We were in Target one afternoon picking up the usual supplies. I'm not even sure how the conversation started, but we got the idea that we should have a lemon-lime soda taste test. I was adament that my favorite was Sprite--Rob's favorite was Sierra Mist. "I bet you can't even tell the difference..." ...and the challenge was on.

I don't drink much lemon-lime soda....but it's Rob's favorite kind of soda. So we set out to test if we could tell the difference between the 3 top brands in a blind taste test. We also marked which of the three were our favorites.

Rob went first. He accurately distinguished all three and correctly chose his presumed favorite. I went second, and only got my favorite right. I confused Sierra Mist and 7up (I remembered 7up as having a stronger flavor).

The consensus: We both liked 7up the least. Rob was in favor of the stronger flavors of Sierra Mist, and I approved of the smoother flavor of Sprite.

Rob gets the bragging rights though--he won the Lemon-Lime taste test challenge. Cola next?

P.S. Like my new Hickory Park Pepsi Glasses? :)

Weekend

2009-08-03T09:01:00.000-07:00

This weekend Rob went pain(t)balling with co-workers (all of his welts went away after a day, so I don't have any fun bruise photos to post). I think he had a good time :).

While Rob was paintballing, his friend Beth from college came to town. Beth's family was having a reunion/anniversary party for her grandparents in Waukee (which is one suburb to the west of here). So we got to hang out at the family reunion and play some games and catch up. Was great to see Beth again since she currently lives in Arkansas.

Haring Reunion

2009-07-27T09:18:00.000-07:00

This weekend we traveled to the Minneapolis suburbs to attend a family reunion for my Mom's side of the family. All of my aunts and uncles and their kids were in attendance...it's been about 3 years since we were all in the same place at the same time. In addition to the imediate family, many of my mom's cousins and my great uncle Les came for the weekend. It was a great chance to see everyone and play some board games ;).

Things I learned this weekend:
*If Grandpa Dick were still alive, he would have turned 100 this June
*Uncle Les is 89 and still plays golf 5 days a week
*Bananagrams was a hit with my family...both young and old(ish)
*Hopkins, MN has some nice antique stores
*I don't know how to spell referee (is that right? I'm not sure.)
*There must be some trick to Pandemic that we don't know about...because we've failed to cure the world of Swine Flu all three times I've played it

Pictures from the weekend:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sarahjanesetnes/sets/72157621859980444/

Honey Creek

2009-07-22T17:20:00.000-07:00

We just got back from a few days at Honey Creek State Park Resort on Rathbun Lake. Which is a brand spanking new resort owned by the Iowa DNR. Rathbun Lake, like most of the lakes in Iowa, is a flood control reservoir. Most of the shoreline property is public land. The state has taken advantage of this by creating a state park resort (which apparently a handful of other states have also done). The south side of Rathbun lake has some Army Corp of Engineers controlled parks and camping...the DNR has a portion of the north side of the lake covered by both a regular state park and this new resort.

A couple of frustrating things about Rathbun lake: there are very few places you can actually access the water--there was only one swimming beach open while we were there and it was at one of the Army Corps parks. Honey Creek State Park's camping spots are entirely surrounded by trees and the only way you can see the lake or the park's namesake creek inlet is to hike out on various trails to the water's edge. It's kind of nice and rustic on one hand, and completely frustrating on the other. My idea of a nice day at the lake is to be in the water...and since we don't own a boat...that was pretty much impossible at Honey Creek. They are building a swimming beach at the resort...and a walking bridge to connect the resort to the state park (which are separated by water)....but that, along with a playground and picnic area and a whole lot of landscaping, have not been completed yet. Both Rob and I expect Honey Creek to be in extreme demand in a few years.

What Honey Creek Resort does have right now is a lovely hotel, a small water park (indoor waterslide and miniature lazy river), a large marina, a bunch of large cabins, a golf course, a restaurant, and access to a ton of rentals (boats, jet skis, kayaks, etc...). It would be an excellent location for a large family or business gathering.

We had a great time on our little getaway...even if beach time wasn't involved (at least I didn't get sunburned...and we did go swimming at the hotel to make up for it). We made a point to drive through and stop at several small Iowa towns. We did a little shopping in Centerville and I was reminded how much I enjoy small town Wal-marts...and antiques (I didn't make Rob do too much of this :). On our way home we went a few miles out of our way so that we could stop in Pella and pick up some pastries at the Jaarsma Bakery (well worth it, I might add).

A few pictures from our trip: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sarahjanesetnes/sets/72157621642620477/

Tomorrow we are on the road again, this time for a family reunion in Minneapolis.

HyVee's New Website

2009-07-08T11:11:00.001-07:00

I really like HyVee's new online list feature.
http://hy-vee.gsnrecipes.com/Shop/WeeklyAd.aspx

It allows you to click on the pictures from the weekly ads and automatically create a list. You can also add your own items and select online coupons from various vendors. You can even e-mail the list to someone if you'd like. Super handy.

Birthdays, Art, Summer....

2009-06-30T11:29:00.000-07:00

We've been busy the last couple of weeks. We celebrated both of our birthdays. The weather has gone from cool and rainy to disgustingly hot and humid to what could only be described as beautiful summer weather (78-85 with lower humidity...good stuff I tell ya!).

For our birthdays we went mini-golfing and to a couple of movies. We went shopping and out to eat. They were nice quiet celebrations at home.

A few photos from our B-days:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sarahjanesetnes/sets/72157620635733791/

This last weekend we went to the Des Moines summer arts festival...which seems to be this odd contradiction of sorts. It's a celebrated artsy community event...but it draws mostly upper class suburbanites--because the art is very expensive. I was used to the arts fest in Brookings, SD which is like a county fair without the rides but with lots of arts and crafts and antiques. It's a good time in the park--lots of people and music and fun...It's a fun family event...and the artists are very talented but charge considerably less. The Des Moines arts festival with its Jazz and Wine pavilion...is not really my style. Nevertheless, we had a good afternoon looking at art and I had a delicious gyro and came home with a couple of small prints and a bag of kettle corn. :)

A few pictures from the arts festival:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sarahjanesetnes/sets/72157620562406227/

Des Moines's Best Onion Rings

2009-06-18T21:53:00.000-07:00

Each year Cityview (a free local publication) puts together a list of the metro's best everything (from restaurants to minigolf). The readers vote, and an issue in February releases the results.

Cityview's Best of Issue:
http://www.dmcityview.com/best_of/index.shtml

We were interested in the restaurant results because we hadn't heard of most of them. Our favorite asian restaurant won "runner-up" for best Vietnamese, and that was pretty much the only one we had been to. A West Des Moines restaurant called Maxie's Lounge won best onion rings and runner-up in several categories including best hamburger and best overall restaurant. So, we thought we'd give Maxie's a try.

From the categories that Maxie's won in, I was expecting a diner. But it was a nice sit down restuarant with a full bar. The night that we went was all you can eat spaghetti night. Rob had the spaghetti that came with a salad and some bread for $5.99. I had a hamburger and the infamous onion rings which goes for 7.99. These were some of the least expensive things on the menu. They had a wide range of dishes including steak, ribs, and lobster. Overall the food was good, but not great. The service was friendly, though a bit slow (they were busy because of the spaghetti supper). We will definitely go back again to try more items from their menu.

But, on the matter of the onion rings, I must flat out disagree. The onion rings from Cheddars are far better. The onion rings at Maxie's are pretty good. They very thinly cut strips of battered onion. They were so thin, though, that they were difficult to eat and needed to be scooped up in handfulls.

Our next stop for onion rings--The Drake Diner (they were runner-up).

Friend Feed.

2009-06-17T10:52:00.000-07:00

I started an account on Friend Feed because Leo Laporte uses it and because I'm easily suggestable when it comes to trying new stuff on the internet, and because I trust Leo's opinions on computer and technology stuffs.

Friend Feed is a cool website that allows you to mash together all of your feeds...from everything: Twitter, Google Reader Shared Items, Facebook Updates/Links/Notes, pretty much any Blog, Bookmarking/Posting Websites like Delicious, Digg, Pandora, Netflix Ratings, Flickr Photo feeds etc....

You have one feed to show your friends and you can see all of their feeds in one place instead of hopping from site to site. There are really only two problems with this. One--your friends need to have accounts in order for it to be worthwhile. And two--it kind of makes me feel like I've slathered myself all over the internet...and not in a good way.

So the jury is still out....much like it is for Twitter--which I only have an account on because so many companies and celebrities are using it now--I think I am following 5 people that I actually know. Part of me just wants to delete every account I have except facebook and my blog...and email...and...damn, there's no way out is there? :)

2009-06-16T11:40:00.000-07:00

http://roflrazzi.com/2009/06/11/celebrity-pictures-ford-hamill-career-continue/

Apparently, We Didn't Know What We Were Doing

2009-06-09T07:42:00.000-07:00

This weekend we received a bunch of fun items in the mail. Starting on Friday with my shirt.woot t-shirt that I'd been waiting impatiently for. Followed by a box from Newegg with computer parts that Rob revealed I was getting as part of my birthday present....and then on Saturday more computer parts and a Roku Box (which was going to be a birthday present that I would have to wait until my birthday for, but it came in a box that said Roku all over it...so the cat was out of the bag).

So on Saturday we started by setting up the Roku Box--which was a piece of cake, mostly. It has a wireless internet receiver so that we don't have to run cords all over the living room (yay!). Unfortunately that meant we needed to know our WEP Key/Password thingy for the wireless router. Rob set that router up with his old computer and we couldn't find the password anywhere (even after trying to install the software for the router on both of our computers). So when Rob set out to upgrade my computer with the parts we received (1G graphics card, additional 2G RAM, and a new power supply to support them) we plugged his old computer into my moniter....and realized that the hard drive had crashed and we couldn't get into windows on his old box. Rob got my computer upgraded with only one little hitch (he had to open it back up because of a loose cable)....then he reconfigured the wireless router so that we could get a new WEP Key which we promptly got entered in to the Roku Box setup screen....and then we lost internet. So here we were with these two new toys that we couldn't even play with. We were without internet all Saturday evening and Sunday morning. Of course the story doesn't end there.

On Saturday evening we called Mediacom to see if it was an outage or if something had gone wrong when Rob was changing the wireless router. The message indicated to us that there was an outage in our area. So we occassional reset our cable modem to reboot the system to check if the internet was up and running. When we still didn't have internet access at lunch time on Sunday, Rob called again and found out that there were no more outages. So he had to go through a ten minute long automated program that asks if your modem is plugged in and if you've tried resetting it and all that fun stuff for people who have no idea what they are doing. After a good ten minutes, the automated program informed him that because he had called in on the digital phone (from Mediacom) that he would have to hang up and call in with another phone. So we called with the cell, and 15-20 minutes later, finally got to talk to someone, who told us that we had bumped our standby button on the front of our modem. Sure enough....we both felt like idiots. I wondered why that particular question wasn't part of the automated program for people who don't know what they are doing...cuz we sure felt like we didn't know what were doing after that.

On the plus side, everything is working now. My computer is awesome...and can now play games smoothly that were chuggy before. The Roku box is fantastic--if you're already paying for Netflix...I WHOLE HEARTEDLY recommend getting one. It's easy to use, the video and sound quality are as good as watching the show on cable, and it sure beats sitting at the computer to watch stuff.

Blank Park Zoo and Mini Golfing

2009-05-30T14:58:00.000-07:00

Another beautiful day in Iowa convinced Rob and I to check out the Blank Park Zoo. The zoo is small but well kept, and we had a good time watching the sea lions swimming and the giraffe chewing on leaves. I also had ample opportunity to mess around with my new camera.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sarahjanesetnes/sets/72157618931877819/

And for the first time ever....I took videos with the camera and posted them on youtube.

Fish:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRffyjcDLLQ&feature=channel_page

Giraffe:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ytMeLXo9EM&feature=channel_page

After the zoo, we went out for lunch at a local restaraunt and decided to check out the mini golf course that we saw on our way to the zoo. It was a nice course. Rob beat me yet again.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sarahjanesetnes/sets/72157618931949013/

Mom and Stephanie Visit

2009-05-27T13:52:00.000-07:00

Mom and Steph visited last Thur, Fri, and Saturday. We went on some adventures including shopping, the art center, the park, downtown, etc... I had an awful cold for most of their visit so I stayed home the day that Rob, Mom, and Steph went to Living History Farms.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sarahjanesetnes/sets/72157618683121584/

Carcassonne in Gingerbread

2009-05-27T13:48:00.000-07:00

To go along with the cupcake catan....is gingerbread carcassonne ;). Again, very cool...but I'd be tempted to eat the game:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/zendonut/tags/gingerbread/

Why not polka?

2009-05-26T11:08:00.000-07:00

A collection of Weird Al's Polka Medleys (20 years of music in about 15 minutes)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yugldxpRDMo&feature=response_watch
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCAt9WcCFbM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xY-oili63QQ&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Hdxt_wNpHo&feature=related

Weekend in the Twin Cities

2009-05-19T08:23:00.000-07:00

This weekeend Rob and I trekked up to Bloomington to spend the weekend at Kris and Marie's house. Marie planned a weekend get-together with a couple of our friends from college. The two ravishing beauties in this first picture are Claire (2 mo) and Shannon (28 y :). The girls went out shopping on Saturday (we had planned on going to a spring art and music festival--but it was unseasonably cold, so we went to Ikea instead). Before we headed out, Amy braided all of our hair in true girls' day fashion.

On Saturday evening, Rob and I played board games with Kris and Marie. We played Pandemic for the first time and failed to cure the world of viruses--but it was a fun game.

On Sunday we went to the Original Pancake House in Eden Prairie (which I highly recommend--it's next to the Eden Prarie Center Mall if you're in the area). And then spent a little time we visited with Grandma before we headed back home. It was great to see everyone!

This week I'm preparing for my Mom and Sister to come visit. It's more excitement than I've had in ages :).

"There's a popfly coming at me..."

2009-05-13T10:32:00.001-07:00

The small white sphere against the twilight blue sky was centered in my vision and falling in what seemed like a direct trajectory towards my head. I threw up my arms and watched through squinted eyes as the ball glanced off the arm of a man in the row in front of us and bounced with great force off of the back of a stadium seat a few yards away. My heart was pounding. I have never been hit in the head with a baseball. I had been hit twice with an aluminum baseball bat, but both times swung by a third grader and never at my head. I had been hit several times in the head with a basketball--one time it broke my glasses. I had no desire to find out what it felt like to be beaned in the head by a baseball. Fortunately no one was hurt. Earlier in the same game, a young woman sitting in the section in front of us was hit directly in the chest. I can only imagine what that felt like.

Last Saturday, Rob and I went to our first I-cubs (the minor league farm team for the Chicago Cubs) game. Neither of us are baseball fans but aside from the near close encounter of the baseball kind, we had a good time. We got free tickets (from Rob's work for JDRF) to their game against the Memphis Redbirds. The first half of the game was pretty uneventful. By the 6th inning the I-cubs were down 3-0, but the Redbirds' pitcher was getting tired. He walked 2 players and allowed a 3rd base hit to load the bases. With only one out in the inning, we were hoping for someone to score...but we were suprised by a home run into right field--a Grand Slam! Even though the I-cubs did eventually lose...they played a good second half of the game and went into an extra inning. Rob and I both decided it would be more fun to come back when the Sioux Falls or Fargo teams were in town.

I put a few pictures of our evening up on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sarahjanesetnes/sets/72157617877851027/

Pepsi Throwback: A Review

2009-05-11T10:22:00.001-07:00

Some of you may know that I am a big fan of Pepsi...so when I found out they were releasing a real sugar version of Pepsi for release this spring, I was excited. All I could think about was the deep smooth flavor of the all cane sugar Pepsi I drank when I was in Jamaica--ice cold and out of a glass bottle. When I tried Pepsi Throwback what I got was a more mild cola flavor with stronger hints of acidity. It tastes a bit like a weaker version of Pepsi...so as a big Pepsi fan, I was disappointed. My new fear is that folks will think it's the real sugar that makes it taste like this...it is clearly a different recipe all together. So, if you're not a big fan of strong cola flavor, you may like Pepsi Throwback, otherwise you may want to pass.

Yes!

2009-05-06T13:29:00.001-07:00

I'm dangerously close to being done with school. The portfolios are graded, and I just need to finish up my grade book and check for errors and post online!

In celebration, I have decided to post a comic about grammar :).

Cupcakes of Catan

2009-05-01T13:41:00.000-07:00

Someone decided it would be a good idea to recreate Settlers of Catan out of Cupcakes....I think an edible board game would be very dangerous :)

More photos including close-ups of the cupcakes: http://www.flickr.com/photos/quintanaroo/sets/72157594450089446/

Almost done...

2009-04-30T13:37:00.000-07:00

Well...I'm done grading my students' last papers and am bumming around until their final portfolios come in next week and will be graded at warp speed.

I'm enjoying how it's smelled like rain for the last few days...but I think we could use some sun now :).

I really should be grading papers...

2009-04-23T11:18:00.001-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2pAgldNkI8

Ok, ok...I'm going...going...back to homework. :(

Weekday Adventures

2009-04-18T10:29:00.000-07:00

This week Rob took some vacation days to chill at home. He hadn't taken any days off since Christmas, so he was in need of some relaxation days. This semester I don't teach on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so on Thursday Rob and I decided to go explore part of Des Moines that we hadn't been to yet. The weather forecast for this week has been very pleasant, so I suggested we have a picnic at a local park or go explore a local state park. Well we did both. We decided to check out Walnut Woods State Park (which happens to be on the southeast side of West Des Moines). The odd thing about Walnut Woods is that it's not all that far away distance wise, but requires you to take the long way around Racoon River to get there. So it took us a good 20-30 minutes to get there even though it's only about 5 or 6 miles away from our house.

When we finally arrived, the park was mostly deserted and clearly not ready for spring guests. The camping area was closed off with barricades. We found a table that overlooked the river and had our lunch, but the sun refused to come out. After a short walk where we got covered in gnats, we decided to cut our losses and head out. One cool thing at Walnut Woods was their grill attachments on their fire pits. Very cool...adjustable, mult-tiered, quite fancy.

After the park we headed to Southridge Mall. It was the one mall in town that we hadn't been to yet. There were quite a few empty spaces in the mall....but they have a Fashion Bug (which are hard to come by and as far as I know it's the only one in Des Moines).

We had a nice time. It was probably our last adventure until school is done...only 2 1/2 weeks left in the semester...off to grade stuff and record stuff and organize stuff...fun fun fun!

Happy Spring!

2009-04-13T18:07:00.000-07:00

Today we had a day long soaking of light rain. Just the kind of spring rain that brings green grass and budding flowers if it would ever warm up.

Rob and I had a lovely Easter weekend at home. We spent Saturday shopping and had a lovely relaxing Sunday at home with a festive Easter dinner.

The Easter bunny brought me a special treat--a Chocolaterie Stam Easter Bunny. It is over a foot tall and comprised of milk chocolate, dark chocolate, and white chocolate. He's almost too cute to eat...almost :). I broke off his ears last night...delightful. ;) I hope you all had a nice Easter weekend!

While you're down there...

2009-03-31T10:48:00.001-07:00

Lately I've been reading Talk to the Hand by Lynne Truss. Truss is the author of the critically acclaimed Eats, Shoots and Leaves which is an amusing book about the abuse of grammar and punctuation in modern society. I enjoyed Eats, Shoots and Leaves so when I saw Talk to the Hand at the local DollarTree, I picked it up. It's amusing...but not as interesting as Eats, Shoots and Leaves. Talk to the Hand is mainly a commentary on how rude we have become. Today I was reading and got a good laugh over her comments on this Ad campaign from UK's Keep Britain Tidy organization.

From Talk to the Hand: "I have to report that my reaction to 'While you're down there...' posters is, to say the least, mixed. I am actually revolted by their cynicism, disgusted by the explicitness, concerned that teenage promiscuity might be a high price to pay for less litter, but on the other hand relieved and pleased that, in a poster aimed at young people, the ellipsis has been used correctly and that there is an apostrophe in the 'you're.' In other words, it actually could have been worse."

Updates and Such

2009-03-26T08:00:00.000-07:00

I had to delete the article that I was in process of posting because I started having problems copying and pasting (my problems led to me accidentally posting it for a few minutes, even though it was incomplete--so I apologize if you ended up with it in your feeds). I'm wondering if it has something to do with downloading the newest version of internet explorer yesterday...I don't know that they have all the kinks worked out.

At any rate. I'm back at school after my break. We had a great time at the Ben Folds concert last Wednesday. I got about 10 feet away from Ben Folds and he sang all of my favorites. The crowd was a pretty good one too...mostly 20+ and not a whole lot of pushing.

This week I've been thinking a lot about my friends and family in the Fargo area.

They are making the national news again...just like in 1997. The flooding there is expected to surpass all old records.

I even found an article from a Canadian newspaper that refered to Argusville as a "new residential development." :) But kidding aside, I hope that everyone stays safe and that your houses are spared. Mother nature is one fickle woman.

Weekend Away in Iowa

2009-03-16T08:52:00.000-07:00

Rob and I took advantage of a weekend getaway package at the Royal Amsterdam Hotel in Pella, IA. As many of you know, we haven't lived in Iowa all that long, so we still have many places to explore. Pella touts itself as a touch of Holland in Iowa, so we thought we'd check it out :).

The downtown is full of old historical buildings and new buildings made to look historical. The whole town is filled with step-gable facades (even the McDonalds and Wal-mart take part in the local Dutch Flavor). There are windmills ALL over the town. Including a real windmill and one that houses a bank and another that houses the tourist information center. We had a delightful time going to the local food specialty shops. Rob came home with Beef Jerkey from the Ulrich Meat Market and we had lunch at In'tVeld's Specialty Meats. The Jaarsma Bakery was so wonderful that we went twice so that we could get more goodies (and breakfast danishes for Sunday morning)!

In addition to exploring downtown, we also went out to Lake Red Rock on Saturday afternoon.

On Sunday, we saw the Watchmen at the local movie theater (movie tickets were part of our package). It was great to get away! We look forward to visiting Pella again when they have their tulip festival some year (or at least to return when the tulips are actually blooming :).

Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sarahjanesetnes/sets/72157615271223953/

First Family gets a Rainbow Swing Set

2009-03-04T15:56:00.001-08:00

http://www.mcall.com/news/nationworld/politics/sns-ap-obama-swing-set,0,1199711.story

2009-03-03T20:02:00.000-08:00

Jimmy Fallon Sets Rachael Ray on Fire

2009-02-27T10:23:00.000-08:00

Rob really likes this promo...it makes me laugh too. :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRYU23Q8pGU

The Equitrust Penny Wars

2009-02-26T08:03:00.001-08:00

Rob's JDRF fundraising has now drawn to a close. On Tuesday, Rob brought home the coin jars that they had had up since the begining of their fundraising campaign. They had penny wars between the different sections/departments at Equitrust. Whichever department had the most money in their jar after the pennies were subtracted won a bagel breakfast. I offered to help Rob count out the change, since we had to seperate the dollars and silver change from the pennies and count them seperately (we probably would have just taken it to a coinstar if we didn't need to get seperate counts :) ). I volunteered to count IT's jar so that Rob wouldn't get as much trouble from folks at work about "fixing the count" if they won. The IT jar was the fullest.

Here we are counting out the change. Rob has ALL of the Marketing jar in front of him. I have all of the IT jar in front of me. It took us an hour and a half to count the jars. I only counted IT. It took me almost as long as it took him to count the other three jars.

IT won the penny war by a lanslide and earned the most amount of money overall (something like 63 dollars--most of it in change). I counted over 20 dollars in pennies. The whole fundraiser made just over $138. Last year they had a coin jar for donations that made 7 bucks.

Rob enjoyed heading the fundraisers, but is glad that the campaign is over. They made about $1,600 total after expenses were deducted. They beat last year's total by over a hundred dollars, so he's calling it a success (especially considering the economy).

...time has gotten away from me

2009-02-24T11:14:00.000-08:00

I'm starting to pull back on the reigns a bit. The last few weeks have been a blur.

Valentine's was a nice lazy weekend. I got my Dove truffles (which are divine really). I got some purple ear buds for my mp3 player and Rob bought me purple meeples (and he got me roses too :). We went out for lunch at our favorite asian restaurant. It was nice to avoid the crowd and to be able to just enjoy each other's company.

Midterm grades (which are done very early at DMACC) were completed and sent out. I have gotten through both classes' first essays, and I'm dreading the second set that will start coming in tomorrow. I have made it through 3 of the 4 Composition Portfolio reading and training Saturdays...this Saturday will be the last.

Other than that...not much to report. We picked up a recumbent exercise bike. Rob had been wanting one for a while, so we used some of his annual bonus to buy an inexpensive one. Oh, and I got my purple converse sneakers that I've been wanting for forever. :)

Back to school work...hope you are all well!

The Caf-Pow

2009-02-09T18:08:00.000-08:00

Last week we went to pick up some burgers and get some gas for Rob's car. Conveniently enough, there is a local Kum & Go that has a Burger King attached to it. So Rob started filling up his gas and I ran in to get the hamburgers. Well, the service was a bit slow and Rob came in to join me. I suggested that he run over to the Kum & Go side and get us some fountain pop (since it's way cheaper there than at Burger King). He asked me what size I wanted and I told him to surprise me. After I got the burgers, I walked over to meet Rob...and there he was filling the largest plastic glass I've ever seen.

"Dude! It's a Caf-Pow!" I said.

"That's what I thought!" he said.

Now, if you don't immediately know what that is, a Caf-Pow is what Abby drinks on NCIS. It's a running gag that she's always hyped up on caffeine and folks (especially Gibbs) bring her Caf-Pow's to keep her working and at her best. The 64 oz "kup" from Kum & Go is as big as a juice/koolaid pitcher--it's enormous. The really amusing part is that it only cost $1.18. That's a heck of a lot of soda for a little over a buck. I, of course, did not finish all of that pop....I only made it a little past half before I had to toss it out, but it was well worth it--just for the amusement. :)

Under Construction

2009-02-03T19:19:00.000-08:00

If you don't read my blog in an aggregator or on facebook, you may have noticed some changes lately. I've been trying out some new headings and color schemes. Feel free to weigh in with comments :).

We've been fighting some crappy health lately, so both Rob and I have been just wanting to chill out at home and go to bed early lately. We've been watching NCIS from Netflix. We are all the way up to the end of season 4 now. Today we started watching the second season of Dexter. I can't seem to get enough of the crime dramas :).

This morning, I had my root canal. My tooth is a bit sore, but otherwise everything seems to have gone smoothly. It certainly took less time than the bifurcated root tooth.

Blah

2009-01-27T18:44:00.001-08:00

I'm starting to get back into the swing of things with school....which is nice. So far things are rolling along as anticipated--which means that my attendance for my Comp I class is already lousy. It confuses me why so many of my students think it's ok to have missed 2 or 3 of the 6 class meetings that we've had so far... Other than that though, things are going well. I've been participating in the reader training for the course assessments. Which means that I get to go in to work on 4 Saturday mornings and read student letters. Exciting stuff I tell ya! :) But hey...I get paid extra, which is always good.

I've been really feeling the winter blahs lately...the weather here has been merely annoying, not bad...but that coupled with the short days and this weird stomach bug that keeps coming back...and I just want it to be springtime....

An update on the BBQ fundraiser: Rob's group raised almost $250! We did end up having to throw away some BBQ....which was painful, but at least everyone had enough and it didn't stain my tupperware orange :).

22 lbs of Hamburger

2009-01-22T08:17:00.000-08:00

Last night Rob and I diligently made 5-4lb plus batches of BBQs (using a slightly modified version of my Grandma's BBQ recipe). Approximately 22 lbs of hamburger leaves a lot of greese. There is a mixing bowl full on my counter that I'm trying to figure out how to dispose of (maybe a milk jug?). We used two of the largest containers of ketchup that they sell at our local HyVee plus some from our fridge because our math on the ketchup was apparently not that accurate. Anyway....I don't want to look at ground beef or BBQs for a good few weeks...at least....and there is ketchup splattered all over our kitchen. Rob carted two giant tupperware bowls full of BBQ to work late last night because we didn't have room in our fridge to store the giant quantities. Luckly they have a very large fridge at Equitrust. I'm expecting lots of leftovers...perhaps I should be more optimistic about this fundraiser...but I don't want to see the stuff ever again which means we'll be stuck with a good 5-10 lbs of leftovers. Murphy's law. So please...please...Rob's co-workers who do not read my blog...please eat lots of BBQs. :)

Oh and if you're curious, here's my Grandma's modified BBQ recipe (in normal quantities):

1 lb of hamburger
3/4 cup ketchup
1 Tbs Mustard
1 Tbs Vinnegar
1 Tbs Sugar (I usually split this half white sugar and half brown sugar)
salt to taste

Makes about 6-8 BBQs...depending on the size of the buns. :)

If you want to make them just like Grandma Anetta...use only one teaspoon of white sugar and add some grated onion...I have nothing against onions...just faster this way. :)

JDRF

2009-01-20T08:20:00.000-08:00

Rob is once again participating in Equitrust's fundraiser for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF). He has taken on the role of team leader. If you would like to help him in his fundraising, click on the link below.

http://walk.jdrf.org/walker.cfm?id=87292159

This week I get to help him make a giant batch of B-B-Qs for a lunch fundraiser at his office. :) It's a good thing I have a top knotch B-B-Q recipe.

Back to School

2009-01-16T15:40:00.000-08:00

Well I've completed my first week back at school. We had a half day on Monday due to a blizzard and we get Monday off for MLK day....It's nice to be able to ease into the semester a bit. So far the students are on their best behavior--so I have no idea what the semester will be like. My classes are both +1 (as in one over max) for enrollment. Which is a good thing--now I just hope I end up keeping 20 or so for the whole semester.

It's been very cold here this week...but not near as cold as it's been in ND and SD and MN. It is, however, the coldest winter that I can remember since we've lived in Iowa--which is confirmed by the local weather guy who insists that it hasn't been this cold since 1996. Really? -16 only happens once every 10 years or so here? -16 in Fargo is practically normal for January :). The elementaries and highschools in the Des Moines metro area were all closed on Thursday (the coldest day of the week). It makes me want to donate a bunch of children's mittens and scarves or something...because they are apparently not well enough equipped here. Oh well, we'll be back above freezing this weekend and the DOT will be back out spreading salt like crazy. Stay warm!

Where has my winter break gone!

2009-01-08T10:20:00.000-08:00

Well I start school on Monday. I'm almost done revising my syllabi (I have a new textbook for Comp II so I had to change some things). So I'm almost ready for school to start...but man am I not ready for school to start. I had all of these notions about what I wanted to accomplish in my glorious month off...but it's dwindled to a meer three days and I haven't even finished taking down the Christmas decorations (though I am a firm believer that most of the decor should stay up until Three Kings Day/Epiphany...which was only two days ago).

I've been fighting this lingering phlegm fest of a minor cold this last week...not really sick, just annoying. Today I spent nearly two hours at my dentist where he was initially sure I would not need a root canal...and then by the end of the visit, he was sure I needed a root canal (of which I have to go to a specialist for because I have weird teeth...which means I have to wait for another two weeks to fix my toothache). Well atleast my dentist and I had a nice lengthy chat about the state of the American health care system while my novacaine was kicking in (My dentist really likes to talk politics...it's kind of weird...but in a good way :).

So I'm trying to decide which of my long list of things that I wanted to do I will actually try to accomplish in the next few days...I'm leaning toward taking the Christmas decorations down and doing very little else...I am on vacation...right?

Alton Brown on Fried Chicken

2009-01-03T14:48:00.000-08:00

"It was like Colonel Sanders Pole Dancing..."

Happy New Year!

2008-12-31T18:50:00.000-08:00

I hope that everyone has a fantastic New Years celebration and enjoys kicking 2008 in its pants as you say goodbye...but don't forget to add that extra "leap second" to your New Year's countdown :).

http://uk.reuters.com/article/burningIssues/idUKTRE4BR1DC20081229

Home from the Holidays

2008-12-29T09:08:00.000-08:00

We're back in Iowa after a week in South Dakota with the families. We had a great time and got lots of fantastic presents. We lucked out and got two nice days to travel too, so I can't complain. Rob is back at work today and I'm off til Jan 12th when the new semester starts. We are looking forward to a quiet relaxing week at home (well aside from the whole Rob working and me cleaning and organizing thing :). Happy New Year!

Christmas photos:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sarahjanesetnes/sets/72157611788030209/

Happy Holidays!

2008-12-21T08:16:00.000-08:00

Happy Solstice Day! Today is the shortest day of the year...which means that starting tomorrow, the days get longer!

Tomorrow is the start of the eight days of Hanukkah. Christmas eve and Christmas day fall in the middle of the week and Kwanza the day after that. So whatever your faith, stay warm and enjoy all of the spirit of the season from Solstice to Epiphany (Jan 6th and the official last day of the 12 days of Christmas).

Here it's very windy and cold...I'm talking highs below zero. We're trying to decide when to make the long drive to South Dakota. Ground blizzard conditions are holding us up...but if we don't make it out of here today, we'll be heading out early tomorrow. So see you all after Christmas!

The Big Bang Theory

2008-12-17T11:03:00.001-08:00

What Penny gave to Sheldon for Christmas:

The Haring Family Pfeffernuesse Recipe

2008-12-16T12:55:00.000-08:00

Every year I make Pfeffernuesse for my family for Christmas. My grandma taught me how to make these cookies when I was in junior high, and I've been making them ever since. They are a little unusual and some people don't like them, but most people I've met who try them end up liking them.

Pfeffernuesse means Pepper Nuts in German (because they have pepper in them and are the size and shape of nuts....some say that the nuts part comes from actual nuts, but there aren't any of those in our recipe). Pepper Nuts are a holiday cookie from Europe and there are many different variations. What follows below is how my family makes them:

WARNING: This dough is very sticky, if you don't have a good mixer, expect to do some hard stirring.

Pfeffernuesse
(this is a half batch—makes about 8 dozen cookies)

¾ c shortening
½ c brewed coffee
½ c honey
1 ½ c brown sugar
½ t pepper
¾ t liquid anise flavoring
¼ t cloves

Stir together ingredients in a 1-2 quart pot and bring to a boil. Watch carefully as it will foam up when it starts boiling. Set hot liquid aside and let cool until it will not cook/curdle eggs (usually takes a couple of hours).

Poor the liquid mixture into a large mixer bowl. With mixer set at low, add the following ingredients:

1 large egg and 1 egg white (or two smaller eggs—the full batch calls for 3 large eggs)
1 ½ t soda
1 ½ t baking powder
4 ½ c flour

Mix until all of the flour is incorporated and place dough in the fridge overnight.

Roll cold dough into walnut sized (about 1”) balls and bake at 350 degrees for approximately 10 minutes (my oven runs a little hot and takes only 8 minutes so check them early the first time you make them—they will start to turn golden brown around the edges). Return the bowl of dough to the refrigerator while the cookies are baking to keep the dough from getting too sticky to work with.

Once the cookies have cooled completely, you can make the frosting.

Frosting

1 c sugar
½ c water

Boil the water and sugar mixture “to a thread.” (Thread stage is around 230 degrees F—and is achieved when the syrup turns into a thread when dropped into cold water. Be careful about blindly using a candy thermometer for this step though as the cheap ones are often inaccurate. I usually boil the syrup until a thread comes off the spoon when you try to pour a drop off of it--it just takes some practice.)

1 egg white

Pour the sugar syrup over one egg white that has been beaten to a froth (I usually do this while the sugar is boiling, but the first time you make the frosting you may want to froth the egg before starting the sugar and water). Mix the sugar syrup and egg white on high until the frosting turns to an opaque white or ivory color. Beating the mixture until it turns opaque and cools off a bit, helps the frosting come to the right consistency and gives you a little leeway if you didn’t boil the sugar syrup quite long enough.

Put all of the cookies into the largest bowl you own (if this bowl isn’t all that big, you may have to split the batch in half) and pour the frosting over the cookies. Stir gently until all of the cookies are covered and place them onto wax paper to dry. If the frosting is cooked perfectly, it will only take an hour or two for it to dry (this rarely happens :)). It usually takes an afternoon or overnight to dry. Once the cookies are dry, place them in an air tight container and separate any cookie layers with wax paper.

Feeling the Yule...or trying to

2008-12-16T10:25:00.000-08:00

Well, the grades are in, the Christmas cards are out, most of the presents are bought (just a few stragglers), and I'm starting in on some baking. I feel like I'm doing pretty well...we have to be all ready by the 20th though (so don't feel too bad if you're not as far along).

The weather here has been very odd. It was 50 degrees here on Saturday....on Sunday morning the temperature dropped 20 degrees in an hour and we were in the single digits by Sunday night. We are still in the single digits and it's snowing hard here...which makes it feel VERY festive. But I'm freezing my butt off.

Tomorrow night Rob and I are going to our very first Blenders Christmas Concert. Supposedly tomorrow is going to be one of the nicest days of the week weather wise...so I'm very much looking forward to going downtown and seeing all of the decorations on the way and enjoying some quality acapella Christmas tunes.

So with all of the crazy hub-bub and obligations of the holiday, be sure to take some time to enjoy the magic of the season. Wil Wheaton wrote a lovely article about just this sentiment: http://blogs.laweekly.com/ladaily/wil-wheaton/its-christmas-time-theres-no-n/

Happy Holidays!

Lindt Truffles totally do look like the Death Star!

2008-12-11T09:06:00.001-08:00

Odd Look-a-Like

2008-12-11T09:00:00.001-08:00

From two of my favorite movies: Lord of the Rings and the Goonies.

TotallyLooksLike.com

Last December...

2008-12-09T16:34:00.000-08:00

So I was looking through some photos and found my folder from LAST December....I'm feeling less cranky about the weather we've been having when I look back and remember the particularly nasty ice storm that we had about this time last year. Ahhhh...memories (here's hoping they stay that way).

P.S. $1.43 for Gas

2008-12-09T14:13:00.000-08:00

Gas in West Des Moines is selling for $1.43 a gallon. I filled up yesterday for 16 bucks.

Winter....and the end of the semester

2008-12-09T13:55:00.000-08:00

The winter came on kind of suddenly over Thanksgiving and it won't go away. I know it's the time of the year that we're supposed to get rain and ice and snow.....but can't it just wait until I'm done with the semester. I love snow...when I don't have to go anywhere. It's beautiful, but I hate driving in it. We had a little storm over night last night that left the side roads very slippery today....it could have been much worse, but if it had been much worse we could have all stayed home and drank hot chocolate (or made snowmen...whatever floats your snowday boat).

Ultimately I'm glad they didn't cancel classes today. One of my sections had their finals time slot today and had to have their final projects in by 1pm. If the college had cancelled class...they would have gotten until Monday (the make up day). So now I have the rest of the week to grade them instead of having to cram them into one or two days. This semester has been a blur...but it has felt like a blur of illness and grading...not a particularly fun blur. I hope that the spring semester goes a little more smoothly.

I'm glad that I'll be done with school on Friday (*crosses her fingers for good weather on Friday*)...because I have all sorts of holiday junk to take care of (like christmas presents and letters and baking). Don't get me wrong, I like doing most of this stuff...but it gets a bit stressful at times. So good luck with all of your end of the semester/holiday/end of the year demands!