Family Weekend

We had a long and busy weekend, and got to see a lot of family!  Friday was Alan's birthday dinner at his favorite Chinese food restaurant.  Then on Saturday I went out with Alison and her roommate to do some shopping.  I went to my first "diaper swap" at the Happybottomus cloth diaper store, where I bought my first cloth diaper!!!

Saturday night was a dance party at Brian and Jen's house.  There wasn't an overwhelming amount of dancing, but there was a ton of humorous conversations and some new dance moves were invented.  Namely, Eric's mad hip swing, haha!

Eric and I led our first Financial Peace University class.  Only one couple showed up, but there were two others who registered online and didn't show up.  So we'll see if they come to the next class.  Then we ran to Papa's house for his housewarming party.  Molly, Eric, Papa and I spent the afternoon cleaning and decorating and cooking at his place.  Then Mom brought baked beans and Sean and Deb brought desserts.  Everyone hung out and watched all of the little kids play.  Mom took portrait photos of the little ones, and we were all happy to see Molly.

The end to our weekend was an awesome Monday.  Eric and I went in for our first ultrasound, and got to see our little babe and his/her heart beating away.  Then we went to see "I Don't Know How She Does It" in the AMC Cinema Suites.  Screechy leather chairs, delicious food, and a crappy milkshake, haha!

Molly and the boys joined me at work for lunch.  This is Cash stuffing his face with broccoli!

Alan, Mom, and Papa - all thrilled to be at dinner!

Eric, Emma, Deb, and Sean - also super excited!

Cade, Matt, and Molly - interested in dinner!

Cash, Declan, Connor, Zayne, and Chase - the boys really enjoyed hanging out!

Me and Eric, yay!

My first cloth diaper!

Our setup at St. Thomas for Financial Peace University.

Declan trying to fall asleep in the bath with Cash.

Our little baby at 9 weeks 3 days.

Me and Molly after the movie.

Molly chatting with the babe!

Double Date Day

This afternoon I had a date with Mom and Papa to see Final Destination 5 in 3D.  We did the Fork and Screen and had some lunch with our movie.  We all thought it was really good - and they made awesome use of the 3D.  I ended up going on half.com and buying the first four movies (for less than $10) as soon as I got home.

Then in the evening, Eric and I had a date at the KC Improv Comedy Club.  I got an email for four free tickets and we brought Steven and Alison with us.  We saw Bert Kreischer - he ended up telling us a bunch of stuff of the top of his mind, none that he had done in stand-up before.  Afterward, we hung out in the parking lot for a few hours.  Many laughs were had!

Mom and I were purchasing our tickets to Final Destination 5... While standing in a puddle of water surrounding the electric ticket machine... 

I caught this awesome picture of the pups before we left for the comedy club.

Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows Part 2!

Yay!  Tonight, at midnight, is the release of Harry Potter 7.2!  Over the past week, Eric and I have taken the 17+ hours to watch the first 6 movies (Sorcerer's Stone, Chamber of Secrets, Prisoner of Azkaban, Goblet of Fire, Order of the Phoenix, and Half Blood Prince).  

Today we rushed over to the Olathe AMC Theater as soon as we got off of work...and ended up in a line at least 50 people deep...outside.  We've been under heat advisories the past few days, and the brick sidewalk had absorbed all of the heat thus making it impossible to sit on the ground.  The best part of the wait was a combination of Eric bringing a chicken pizza and full water bottles from Old Chicago (using his birthday Foamer Bucks), and happening to have a blanket to sit on and an umbrella for shade in my car.  We only had to wait outside for about 90 minutes before being seated in our theater.  Eric napped, Ashley and I played the ABC game, Mom read, Alan played Angry Birds...we were all occupied until the lights dimmed and we got to watch HP 7.1 around 9pm.  

Now I'm known to be a crier at TV shows, radio shows, movies, and etc. sorts of media.  So i decided to keep track of how many separate instances would make me cry for tonight.  Because this list includes the events, it is also a bit of a SPOILER!  So don't read the list if you don't want to know!

Deathly Hallows Part 1: 2 cries
*When Harry visited his parents grave.
*When Dobby dies.

Next we had an hour intermission to prepare for HP 7.2, which was upgraded to a 3D showing because of a mistake on AMC's part.  Woo! Now, brace yourself for the second crying SPOILER ALERT!  Don't read the list if you don't want to know! Argh, I got teary just typing this list!  The movie was SO GOOD!

Deathly Hallows Part 2: 8.5 cries
*When Fred dies/showing all of the casualties
*Snape's memory sequence
*When Harry, Ron, and Hermione find out that Harry is a horcrux
*When Harry uses the Resurrection Stone

*When Voldemort announces that Harry is dead

*Neville's speech

*almost when Molly kills Bellatrix

*Harry taking Albus into Platform 9 3/4

*When the train leaves for Hogwarts with the next generation

 The HP Fan club!  The guy directly in front of us had a maroon shirt that said "Chosen 1" on it, which Eric loved because it reminds him of a friend.

Mmmm, hot pizza! 

Mom and Alan waiting in their chairs. 

The HP line sign! 

 Eric and me before Part 1

Eric and me before Part 2! 

My AWESOME FourSquare badge for checking in at a theater and shouting out "Harry Potter!"

A New Beginning!

From now on - if you want to know how many days we've been married, you'll have to do the math yourself!  I'm done with "Day ###" posts, woo!

On to the main topic of this post, our anniversary!  Without the help of this blog, I would probably say that we've had a relatively uneventful year.  Ha!  Looking back through all of our blog posts, Eric and I have chosen our top ten moments of the past year.  Enjoy!

10. KU - We listened a lot of games on the radio, watched some on TV, went to two football games and two basketball games.

9. Cooking - We definitely don't cook regularly, but we have branched out this year.  Among other things, we've made smoothies, grilled, made birthday cakes, made use of our halogen oven, and made Oreo truffles, yum!

8. Stuff - Eric and I went a little crazy on new stuff this year... We got a new TV, I got a computer, Eric got an iPod, we transferred to our own cell phone plan (then moved to a new company and got new phones), we got the most glorious heating blankets (while Black Friday shopping), a new camera, bedside tables, a coffee table, and a smaller kitchen table and chairs!  Yikes, so much STUFF!  But we also got rid of TONS of junk - selling, donating, and trashing!

7. Motorcycle - After our August garage sale, Alan bought a motorcycle for Eric to use.  He's since become totally confident and a great rider.  He even got his own helmet this spring, and changed his oil in our parking lot this summer!

6. Travel - We made it to Michigan twice (for Cash's 2nd birthday and Declan's 1st birthday), and to Chicago and Mexico for our honeymoon!  Also, I made the drive to Hays with Ashley to visit her future college.

5. Church - I'm so happy that I/we've started going to church regularly.  Ashley and I were confirmed and Andrew was baptized at St. Thomas, and it's really nice to visit Grammy's tree every week.  

4. Jobs - Eric's new job was a huge success for us time wise, financially, and for Eric's happiness with his work.  My new job is exciting because it means I still HAVE a job, but less exciting becaus I am transferring from Prairie Park to Kennedy Elementary.

3.Spending more time with family and friends - We've done so much this year, including birthdays (Eric's Granny's 99th birthday), Friends of Friends parties, playing with babies, going to game nights, helping Papa move, drinking at Old Chicago, and we've been on 3 camping trips this summer (and already have at least one more planned).

2. Money - We have gotten our act together financially and started impacting others.  This year Mom, Alan, Paul, Deb, Molly, Nate, Papa, Ashley, and Alison all went through Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University.  Eric and I paid off both of our credit cards, my car, and camethiiiiiiisclose to paying off his car too.  We set up a debt thermometer in our living room to keep an eye on our progress.  We did a bunch of pet sitting to make extra money over the holidays, and submitted a video (and made it into the top ten finalists) for Dave's Great Giving Challenge.  Finally, we had VIP seats at Dave Ramsey's LIVE! Total Money Makeover event, and got to meet Dave!

1. Us!  In the past year, we have done so much for us!  The wedding and anniversary were our biggest moments.  But all the small pieces are part of the puzzle too - movies (Harry Potter and others), Netflix, going for walks, bike rides, and rollerblading, golfing, rearranging and decluttering the house, Tuesday & Thursday visits to Buffalo Wild Wings, and our green initiatives of line drying, recycling, no longer using plastic bottled water or soda, reading more books (such as the Hunger Games trilogy), and Eric graduated from JCCC!

Furthermore, we planned a fun little celebration for ourselves.  We both worked today, so the festivities didn't start until after 5pm.  We cleaned up and got ready at Mom & Alan's house, and then took off for the Legend's shopping center.  We started by buying tickets to Hangover 2, and grabbing a drink at Yardhouse until it was time for our movie.  The movie was hysterical - Eric actually had to ask me to stop hitting him because I kept slapping his arm at the funny parts.  After the movie, we retreated back to Yardhouse for dinner.  Our waiter, Justin, was awesome and took great care of us.

Toward the end of dinner, the sky opened up and we knew we would be walking to the car in the rain.  Eric offered to go pick up the car, but I knew I wouldn't melt and running to the car in the warm rain was so much more fun.  Once we got home, we cut into our year old wedding cake top tier...and it was delicious!  Still moist cake and creamy icing, and deliciously almond flavored!  Yum!

Here's to hoping that our future years continue to be as exciting and loving as our first!

Our drinks at the Yardhouse

I had the Belgian Shandy - Strongbow Cider and Leffe Blond, and Eric had a Youngberry Chocolate - Lideman's Framboise and Young's Double Chocolate.

There was a commercial before the movie featuring Cole Aldrich, yea!

There was a lot of cool art at the Yardhouse.

Eric's appetizer was a fancy egg roll.

I had A california roll - a single giant rice patty, topped with chopped cucumber, shredded crab, and orange ball things.  It had seaweed strips rolled around the outside, was topped with large pieces of avocado and crab, then surrounded by wasabi sauce.

Eric's bbq pizza.

My margherita pizza.

Us at dinner - poorly lit and low resolution, nothing could be done to salvage it!

The appetizers and dinners were on the happy menu and 1/2 off, and they took our drinks off the bill for our anniversary.  So our bill should have been around $60, and it was only $24!  We tipped our friend Justin $17 for his excellent service.

Damn, we are a good looking couple!

The beer room at Yardhouse.  Eric's new life goal is to have a keg room and a bar with taps in our future home!

We got soaked running to the car in the rain - but it was so fun to be out in the warm rain, laughing and splashing through puddles.

The cake looked perfect when we cut into it - only a little squished from being vacuum sealed and frozen for the past year!

NOM!  It tasted delicious!  Moist almond cake, and creamy buttercream icing!

So good that we even had seconds.

We also paid $2000 toward Eric's car today - we have climbed 22 inched (aka, paid off $22k in debt!) in the past year!  

AAAAAANNNNNDDDD we finally made it above the couch's armrest!  Hooray!  In one more month we will OWN both of our cars!

Day 336: A Day With Mom & Alan

Eric had work today - so I hung around with Mom & Alan all day.  At first I studied for my upcoming final, but then we went out to Bass Pro Shop, some BBQ place, and Crown Center.  Mom did most of the shopping, but Alan and I were stand up attendees!

After Eric got home from work, he went shopping with Mom so we could break in her new grill.  Everyone had wine, grilled chicken, baked potatoes, and we watched The Tourist.  The movie was pretty good, not great.  Then we ended the evening with a tornado warning...but the most that happened in Olathe was crazy strong wind and rain.

I used Ashley's hairbrush and found this on her door...

 I'm so proud!!!

Flintstones, meet the Flintstones!  This rib was so huge it made me think of a stegosaurus!

Day 324: Bottled Water

Tonight Eric and I wanted to watch a movie that neither of us were terribly interested in as background noise to our homework and regular playing on the computer.  We have a ton of documentaries lined up on Netflix, and decided to watch "Tapped" - a documentary about the bottled water industry.  I've got far too much to say about the movie, so instead of typing it all out, I'll post a review and hope you will all watch the movie as soon as you get a chance!

The rest of the night we took care of business at home - laundry and graduation announcements.

"Tapped, a new documentary about the bottled water industry from director Stephanie Soechtig and the producers of Who Killed the Electric Car?, is a pretty damning look at how consumers have been tricked into spending too much money on water packaged in plastic and quite often not as clean as what's available from the faucet.

I knew bottled water sucks, but I didn't know it sucks this much. Not only is it a clear waste of resources (only 20 percent of plastic water bottles used in the United States are recycled, and far too many of the rest probably end up in the Pacific Garbage Patch), it's an incredible waste of money for consumers, who pay more than the price of gasoline for water that's marketed as "pure," but in reality is largely unregulated, full of harmful toxins like BPA, and far less safe for drinking than free tap water. (In fact, 40 percent of the time, bottled water is nothing but municipal tap water, freed from the government oversight that keeps it safe.)

Tapped, which began a one-week run at the IFC Center in New York on Friday, traces the evolution of bottled water from its hoity-toity Perrier days to its present ubiquity, and succeeds at making the industry reps look like total jerks. A few too many mid-interview cutaways to Soechtig looking concerned came off as a little journalistically self-important, but Tapped does a solid job of covering every aspect of this damaging industry and inspiring more outrage than despair. It features interviews with the likes of Atlanta mayor Shirley Franklin and Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), not to mention some footage of Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) tearing into an FDA rep at a government hearing.

I will never look at bottled water with anything less than loathing from now on.

Watch the trailer:" ~ Claire Thompson, grist.org

Our collection of reuseable bottles and travel cups - we are definitely through with supporting the bottled water industry.

My second round of line dried clothes!

 Eric finishing up his graduation announcements.

It was a really hot day and we don't have our air conditioner turned on yet, so I cooled Mystic down with an ice pack.

As soon as Eric stepped on the chair to adjust the fan settings, Mystic was immediately laying on his feet.

Ta-Da!

Day 321: O'Reilly & Line Drying!

Oh, Friday!  You are so good to us!  I'll let the pictures do the talking today!

Eric's first day at O'Reilly went well.  He's a little overwhelmed at how much there is to remember, but confident that he'll catch on quickly.

I got to go see little miss Charlotte and Katie on Mass Street for some 3 Spoons Frozen Yogurt.  The guy working misunderstood my punch card and accidentally gave us both yogurts for free instead of "buy one, get the last one free".  Yea!

I spent $1 on nylon clothesline, and $1.50 on clothes pins.  Now I can save electricity and money by line drying our clothes!

My first time line drying!  Lesson learned?  Wear sandals, socks are a bitch and take too many clothes pins! 

We went on another walk/roller blade ride tonight.  Eric decided to take on this "sweet jump" behind the grocery store. 

I had to make him do it three times to come this close to an action shot, haha! 

We watched the movie "Into The Wild" tonight, which was a really good movie about a guy who gives up on our material life and goes to live wherever he pleases, ultimately ending up in Alaska.  We paused the movie halfway through to go on a walk, and landed on this hilarious still frame!