Golden Weekend

We had a great weekend in Chicago. So many factors made us look forward to it for a long time: it was Joe's birthday, his entire family (significant others included) would be there and we had an Iowa football game to attend. Let me break this down a bit more... it wasn't only Joe's birthday, it was Joe's golden birthday. Do you know what that is? He turned 27 on the 27th. This is the first time in a long time Joe's entire family was able to be together for a couple days. We had a blast with everyone. Oh and of course the football game. We haven't been to an Iowa football game in over a year. We didn't make it to any last year while we were living in San Francisco. Can you see how this trip was meant to be so special?

I don't have a lot of pictures to show, but some I do want to share. Before the football game we met up with some of my family. Here are my aunt and uncle who made the trip from Decorah to Chicago. We also spent some time with their son during the tailgate, but I didn't get any pictures of you Daniel! I blame the cold weather on the lack of pictures. It's hard with an iPhone... you have to take off your glove to snap a picture and my body was refusing quite often. Oh and don't you love Drew's tattoo?!

We watched the team warmup before the game. Here is a good glimpse of Kirk Ferentz speaking with the officials. We sat on the Iowa side and could see the coaches and players talking between plays and such. I wish I knew what they were saying!

A couple of us walked over to where the Iowa team swarmed the field. I did take a video too, but thanks to a couple certain Ellerbroek boys it's not appropriate for some ears.

This was our view during the game. Ok, these aren't our actual seats, but we got really lucky and found enough open seats in one area to fit nine people.

This was the whole group shot we got before the game. I love how this picture turned out! We all need to make sure and frame this. I already have it set as my wall paper on my laptop.

We might not have celebrated an Iowa victory, but we did celebrate Joe's birthday in style. Thanks to everyone for such a great weekend!

Pumpkin Update

I know I just blogged about this last week, but I wouldn't be back so soon if there wasn't a huge development in the story. Remember our pumpkins sitting outside our front door? Well over the weekend whatever was eating them got a feast. I kept waiting for the rodent to dig a hole all the way through. And look, now we have pumpkin guts and seeds on our front steps. How inviting!

First Complete Crochet Project

Put this one in the books. I have officially completed my very first crochet project. Granted, this took me probably about 2 years to finally get put together. In my defense we did move to San Francisco for six months and I did not bring any yarn with me. We had to pack light, all right?

Anyways, I promised Joe a Hawkeye blanket ever since I took that crochet class back in Des Moines. You can see below this blanket consists of 63 individually stitched granny squares which were then all stitched together. Can't say this will be my best work, but I think it's pretty darn good for a first try. Oh and I also told Joe I never plan on using black yarn again, that was a pain!

Thank you Joe for being my model.

I'm happy to say I've moved on to my next project and can't wait to share!

Mysterious Pumpkin Eater

Once again I've been gone on business travel for a couple days. Now we're getting packed for a long weekend trip. But I can't complain, I love it all!

Joe and I have never gotten too excited about Halloween. Since we've been married (and really even in college for both of us) we never dressed up in costumes or attended costume parties. Carving pumpkins has been one tradition we've tried to keep.

Here are our pumpkins in 2008. This was back in our North Liberty apartment shortly after getting married. Ohhh scary!

Here in 2009... our Des Moines apartment. Joe got excited with a chance for the Iowa football team to make the Rose Bowl. Needless to say, they didn't. And yes, my tiger hawk was carved free hand.

I guess we haven't carved pumpkins since 2009. So much for that tradition! We did decide to buy a few pumpkins a couple weeks ago when we picked up our groceries. We set them outside the house and planned on carving at least one of them at a later date.

We were driving home one day last week when I told Joe maybe I didn't want to carve either of the pumpkins (I was really the one that kept pushing for it) because I liked they way the two of them looked on our door step next to the columns. Plus if we didn't carve them we could keep them for Thanksgiving as some decorations for our visitors.

I kid you not... not more than 2 minutes later we walked up to the door and I noticed there were bites taken from the pumpkins! I have never seen this before from all the years or setting pumpkins outside (I'm including my childhood in this). 

Let's call this pumpkin #1.

Here is pumpkin #2

What kind of animal could do such a thing you ask? Your guess is as good as mine.

But wait, there's more... here is pumpkin #2 one day later.

Oh and once again pumpkin #2 one more day later. 

Whatever was eating the pumpkins was having a midnight snack or something! Now we're just waiting until we get some pumpkin guts all over our porch. I find this somewhat amusing so I'm not about to bring the pumpkins inside to avoid this possible mess. We figure whatever is eating the pumpkins will probably want to eat the guts too once they get a hole in it.

I'll keep you updated!

Hands Off Baking & Gearing Up For Thanksgiving

Brace yourself for a long, somewhat random, post. You have been warned.

I love when I can get credit for making something, but in reality a machine does all the work. We tested out a new recipe in the bread machine this weekend, Cinnamon Sugar Swirl Raisin Bread. Yum! This bread did take more manual labor than the others I've tried. Just like the others you throw all the ingredients in the machine and let it mix, rise, knead again and such. Then when it beeps you have to be available and ready to roll it out, dust the cinnamon, sugar and raisins on and then roll it up. You can tell this was our first attempt and the bread is a little lopsided. You live and you learn. We made a second batch for a co-worker of Joe's and that one was almost perfection.

Well I guess we tried out two new recipes. We've been toying with the idea of Strawberry Rhubarb Jam for a while, but the grocery store didn't have any rhubarb. I should have known the last time I saw it in the store it wouldn't be there a couple weeks later. Oh well, we improvised by adding extra strawberries and just calling it good ol' strawberry jam. It only made two small mason jars that weren't even completely full. Next time we'll learn and double the batch because this stuff will be gone quick.

We also were productive this weekend by picking out a large enough table to seat eight this Thanksgiving. We have been torn between buying a nice dining room table or something more temporary. After searching for deals at furniture stores we couldn't believe how expensive large tables run for! With Thanksgiving creeping closer we decided it was time to buy this folding table with folding chairs. I will point out the chairs are very plush and nice. Plus we'll add a table cloth and nice place settings to make it look nice.

Here's another angle, but the lighting is bad. Now all we need is the table to be set and lots of happy people around it!

Speaking of furniture stores, I bought a Groupon for Ashley Furniture Homestore a loooong time ago. Basically I spent $50 for the Groupon that was a coupon for $150 at the store. Yes, I'd like $100 for free since we knew we'd need to start buying furniture for the house (such as a dining room table?) Well, we held on to the Groupon for a while, browsed the store and still couldn't come up with something worth spending the money on. We were forced to take a trip to the store this last weekend since the Groupon expires today. Here's a look into what we came up with.

We bought these fun pillows to match our brown couch. When we bought this couch it came with two pillows and we were given the option to pick out the fabric for them. Figuring we'd just buy some later on once we settled on some we liked, we just got two pillows in the same fabric as the couch. Now these new pillows are much more comfortable and add a little pattern to the room.

We picked up this woven tray that will be nice to use as decoration or function around the house. Here I have it sitting on the table in our entryway with a candle and small pumpkin. I bought a bundle of the small pumpkins and have them scattered throughout the house. I love fall!

We also bought a large basket that matches the tray above. This will be great to store blankets or yarn (for when I crochet of course... more on my latest project next week). Here the basket is sitting next to the chair and fire place. Please cut me some slack on these pictures, it was dark already by the time I got around to taking them so they're a bit grainy. Oh and look, there's the two brown pillows we got when the couch!

And last but not least, this guy. I'm not quite sure what to call him. A clear glass vase with lid? That doesn't much matter, what matters is how cool he is. Can you just picture this filled with Christmas ornaments come December? I can't wait to start changing up the items I put inside.

Clemson vs Georgia Tech

Yes this post is late and yes is had been over a week since this football game took place. But hey, at least I'm still blogging about it!

Because it was a bye weekend for Iowa football we decided to take a road trip. We're lucky to have so many college towns within driving distance here in Charlotte. Let me back up a bit. When we first moved to Charlotte we decided it would be fun to pick a local team to follow in sports. I can't remember how, but we sort of settled on Clemson. Of course they're in a completely different conference than Iowa so we wouldn't have to worry about a conflict of interest.

We enjoyed the two hour drive to Clemson, SC and even spotted a few decked out cars on their way to the game. It was obvious that the trend is to stick a tiger tail out the back of your car. We so wish we had one to join in on the fun. I didn't get a very good picture here and I missed some way cooler cars.

We planned on getting there early so we could park and walk around the campus. First things first we walked by the stadium and snapped some quick pictures. It was a beautiful day, although pretty warm.

We were both very impressed with the tailgate scene in Clemson. It was a sea of orange and purple tents. Plus each tent seemed to be set up with a plethora of food, TV with a satellite dish and liquor, lots of liquor.

We searched high and low for some food. Keep in mind it's after 1:00 and we had hardly eaten that day. Come to find out there were no food vendors outside the stadium. We were expecting to find something just like Melrose in Iowa City. But no, nothing. All we could do is wait until the stadium opened up at 2:00. In the meantime we sat on a hill and watched the players walk up to the stadium.

The stadium was very cool. Our seats were up high, very high. Although we were expecting that, we didn't expect the stairs to be so incredibly steep! So steep I didn't much care to walk up and down at all for a bathroom break.

They released balloons near the student section while the team ran on to the field.

We didn't end up staying for the entire game, but it ended up being a close one. Clemson pulled out the win as we listened to the radio on our drive back. I can't forget to add this picture too we snapped as we walked away from the stadium. Notice his shirt? We bought some before the game to fit in. No really, we planned on buying some Clemson orange for our new "local" team.

Oh and here is the same picture as above using the moreBeaute2 app. I love the affect!

Photo Friday #34

Right away I want to say that no one was hurt in this accident. There, now that I've made my Grandma feel better, I want to share our poor car that is in the hospital. Joe was driving and another car pulled right in front of him. The other driver was found to be 100% at fault and everything will be covered. In the meantime we've enjoyed driving around in a Jeep. See you soon Nissan!

Bambi and Thumper

Saturday morning I woke up and for some odd reason wanted to open the blinds to look out into our backyard. I say this was odd because I've never done this before first thing in the morning. It was meant to be because when I peaked out I saw a deer chomping away at some food in our swing set area. I yelled at Joe and we sprinted down the stairs to get a better view. Then we spotted another one, we presume was the mother of the other deer. We probably watched and took pictures for about 10 minutes. They just ate, walked around our backyard and perked their ears every once in a while listening to something. We have heard from a neighbor that deer have been in the neighborhood before, but this was our first sighting. It was so cool!

Can you see the little bunny to the right of the deer? It was the funniest thing how this bunny seemed to want to play with the deer! I called him Thumper and seriously I wish I had a video of this little guy. He was almost teasing or daring the deer to chase him. Neither of the deer seemed interested at all, but I got a huge kick out of it.

Sorry mom, I'm not good at keeping plants alive...

Three Hours In NYC

My brother's fiance's sister lives in NYC. Did you catch all that? Let's just call her my friend. Better yet, we'll call her Emily.

After multiple days of training while in Newark I spent the last night of my trip visiting the Big Apple. It was really just a have dinner and leave kind of thing, but it was fun! Emily and I met at a cute little restaurant a couple blocks from Times Square. We talked, discussed the upcoming wedding of our siblings, spoke about our bridesmaids dress, etc.

It was a blast and I hope to be able to do it again! Thanks for the great night Emily!

MIA

Yes, you might think I have been MIA when in reality, life is a reality.

I have actually been traveling for about a week and a half for work. First to Myrtle Beach (rough, I know). You'd think we were laying on the beach while pretending to listen to our leader, guess again. I didn't even get to visit the beach, rather just get a glimpse in the distance. It was a great team meeting though, I met a lot of people from the Raleigh and South Carolina teams.

Second I spent a whole week in Newark, NJ. That was some intense sales training with Marriott Sales Managers from other regions. I met a lot of people from Miami, Boston, Philadelphia and New York. There were even a few that have the same position as me (mine is a bit of a unique position and there is only one per hotel). I loved being able to speak with them and learn about their hotel, but also exchanging best practices and great ideas.

Now I'm back home and was able to enjoy a great weekend with Joe. More on that this week!

And because no post is complete without at least one picture... here is one from the city I miss dearly.