Leaf shredder...

For Valentine's Day I got J a remote helicopter, who knew that it would end up being a leaf shredder or can J not fly?

Grandma A's birthday present

This year for Grandma's birthday, I decided to be really creative. Since she likes roosters and we couldn't be there for the celebration, I thought we would send her a special birthday wish. Here's how it turned out.

Snow Snow

Could we get anymore snow? It just keeps coming, when will it end?

First Posts of the Year...finally!

I know I know I'm slow with the posts. I have to do some back-posting (is that a word?). See below.

To DM we go again!

We went to DM to celebrate N and M's birthdays. We had cake and opened presents at R&M's house and then had dinner at Michael's. Check out the special birthday singing that is tradition.



After that we had homemade ice cream that the boys made. It was great!! Apparently Jar Jar really likes it.
We played Mario & Sonic at the Olympic games all Saturday night at J&N's. I beat the boys in the Dream Racing a few times. We were all a bit sore at church the next morning. We also went to Michael's for breakfast. Can you tell Michael's is the favorite?

The other exciting thing that happened was R&M finally got a new PC!! No more rebooting 5 times before it will work! Yay!!

J and I had Monday off so we had lunch with K&B and then left for home. It took us 6 hours when it should have taken only 5. We had to detour cause part of the highway was closed and it was snowing so we were only going 50-60mph! Thank goodness for the portable DVD player!

Check out other pictures from the weekend.

DM - Jan. 18, 2008

Classes again.

Classes have started again. This semester is all about Quark and Photoshop.

M's Promotion!

Today was a great day, I got a promotion! I am now Manager of Electronic Services! I will be taking care of the external website, mass emails, email promotions, reporting, other marketing projects and whatever else a manager does. Whoo hoo! This means more money, regular hours and NO MORE LOGOWEAR! Although I will miss being able to wear the same thing everyday it will be so nice to wear what I want! Well, still no jeans. :( I will have my own office with a door and a view. I start on 2/19. Yippee! I'll let you know how it goes. It will be interesting as the marketing department is all women!

Happy 30th Birthday Jen!

For Jen's 30th, we surprised her at Meson Sabika, it was YUM-O.

Happy New Year - a little early.

Since I had to work on New Years eve, we went to our friends C&C's house on 12/30 and toasted at midnight and played Wii and board games.

That's me, the floating glass.

Check out this video, we were playing Cranium WOW and the boys got a Star Performer question where one person can only use the other person to act out the clue. Can you guess what the answer is?

Answer: Milking a Cow

Xmas2007

Christmas is over, at least for now. Soon it'll start all over again! There were too many pictures to put on the blog so I've posted them in a web album. There's captions. :D

Xmas2007

We were in DM and had a lot of fun. We stayed at K&B's house and shared our room with a little house guest. Just for taking up the bed, we had to do a little torturing.

Uncle B even tried out dancing!! He's dancing to Disco Inferno. Burn baby burn.



Jess also had a 14th birthday. As tradition goes, we had to sing Happy Birthday...waaaaay off key!

Hot Pot & Wii - Round 2

Since N & A were not able to make it last time, we had another evening of hot pot and Wii-ing. Pretty much the same food as last time.

N & A brought their little cutey pie, K. Isn't he the cutest?!!?



A made this great peppermint ice cream cake. It was two layers of chocolate cake with peppermint ice cream in the middle and covered cool whip and sprinkled with Ghiradelli peppermint chocolates. I'm not a peppermint fan but this was super yummy. We have plenty leftover, thanks A! Hey Justin guess what we're having for dinner?



JS was a bit worn out from all the Wii-ing and eating so he took a brief nap.

Check out the dancing...

Introducing Mr. & Mrs. J!!

Here they are! The reception was in Phoenix at a beautiful location with mountains as the backdrop. It was pretty cool out that night but totally worth it. There was great food, plenty alcohol and awesome friends. Check out more cool photos here: http://www.jeffersontodd.com/slideshows/allisonryan/






Here is the gift I made them. Its a frame to put one of their many wedding photos. The other picture is the wrapping.



The next day we didn't fly out early so we had the day to spend in AZ. We drove up north a bit to Cave Creek and had lunch at the Satisfied Frog and had Chili Beer. There is actually a seranno pepper in that beer J is drinking. He thought it was great.

Too funny!

The other day Squeaky and I were watching TV and there were guys with 6 packs (washboard abs) and I said, Squeaky why can't you have one of those and he says I have something better, I have a keg!

I thought it was so clever and funny. I still laugh about it and wanted to share before I forget.

Thanksgiving 2007 - asian style

This year Thanksgiving was at my friend M's house. I made the turkey, which was 19lbs. Here's me after rubbing mayo on it.

Here I am putting it into the roasting pan after stuffing it into a oven bag. :)

Here are the dishes we had. There was eggplant, shrimp, spicy pork, salmon and of course turkey! YUM-O!!

We were so stuffed! But yet afterwards we still had room for persimmons, pistchachios and chinese red bean pastries. Super good, there was no stopping! Here's to another great Thanksgiving. This is M and I. :)

Will the post office take these?

Classes for this semester are almost over, there's only 3 more weeks. Whoo hoo! The classes that I'm taking are Digital Illustration, which is actual designing of projects and Production Illustration which is more about learning techniques for prepress. Both use Illustrator and have been fun and stressful at times.


My latest project has been to design postage stamps with themes related to America. The two below used only Illustrator (drawing with the computer). I decided to do favorite past times. I love the popcorn but the bowling definitely needs work. That was my last one and I was tired of working on them. :)




These two I used Photoshop and Illustrator. These I really like, especially the Alaska one.


I'll be posting some of my other projects as well which included a clock face, amusement park map and a month of a calendar (I picked April of course).

Someone's a Rock Star!

We got Guitar Hero III for the Wii back in October and we've finally opened it. Look who's already a star! Anyone need a coffe table, I don't think it is ever going to go back to its normal spot. It has been reassigned as the Wii space.

A new baby!

Our friends M&J had an adorable little boy. Isn't he cute? Can't wait to meet him in person at Xmas.

Landen
Born 11/19/07 9:58am
18 3/4 inches
6 pounds 13 ounces

Bistro Campagne ... YUM-O!

Every so often the couples from Iowa, get together for dinner. This time we went to a French place called Bistro Campagne. It was great food and wine and perfect company.

Some entrees we had were:

Blanquette de Limande - sautéed lemon sole, clams, roasted potatoes & tarragon cream sauce

Poulet Rôti Forestière - roasted chicken, wild mushroom ragoût, onion frites

Boeuf Bourguignon - red wine-braised Tallgrass™ beef, roasted potatoes & aromatic vegetables

Cassoulet - Pinn-Oak Ridge lamb, pork sausage, duck confit, pork belly, beans & herbed bread crumbs

The boys and N also had a tawny for desert, go N!

The leaves are falling!

This is what I see when I drive into work, isn't it beautiful? Its the only good thing about working in the forest!

Finally a Deck!!!

After 4 years in the house, we've finally gotten around to getting a deck built. Squeaky was being squeaky as usual, but its actually done!! Squeaky's co-worker has done an excellent job. With my design and J.O.'s muscle, its beautiful!

10/5/07

10/19/07

10/26/07

11/5/07

When you come and visit next summer we'll be able to eat outside instead of being cooped up inside!! Now I just have to convince squeaky to let me get patio furniture...

Iowa 28 - Northwestern 17

J&N, A&N and Squeaky and I went to the Iowa game at Northwestern. It was a perfect day out and amoung a sea of purple we won!! Go Hawks!