Archive for the ‘Family and Friends’ Category

Time Warp: College Roomies

Wednesday, January 11th, 2012

I recently attended the wedding of the first of my 3 college roommates to get married.

For those of you who don’t know, I lived with boys. And one of my long-time girlfriends. She informed me that I need to get on that engagement thing because my other male former-roommate is now engaged. Just us two single ladies left.

Anywho … FLASHBACK to 2005

[clockwise starting on the left: Danielle, me, Joe and Nick]

This was from Nick’s 22nd birthday party — the first party we had in our new apartment as roomies. He and Joe were at the ISU game earlier that day and Nick got SUPER burnt. I’d like to point out that I have pink hair in this photo. And I apologize for the mesh cutoff sleeve shirt I have on — I was in a band at that point and was seriously into finding my own “metal” style. AND I have no clue whot he girl behind Joe is but she seriously looks like Robin Scherbatsky.

Moving on

So this is 2007, the year we all graduated college. This is one of my favorite roomie pix! Thanks, Danielle for digging this up.

[Danielle, me, Nick and Joe]

Yeah. This was at the Bali Satay House, which, sadly, no longer exists. We used to go see our friends’ bands play there. And my boss informs me that they apparently had incredible food.

Fast forward 4.5 years: 2011

[photo by McClanahan Studio — from left to right — Joe, me, Nick and Danielle]

This was November and Nick got married. Joe was his best man. Danielle and I were the queens of the dance floor. I’m amazed at how much we’ve changed in four years.

 

a toast

Saturday, December 31st, 2011

To the end of 2011 and the beginning of 2012.

Have a safe and fun evening. I’ll be at the bash Mark’s brother’s friends throw annually.

Here’s a shot by Justin who took a shot of us doing shots (I hope it wasn’t Scotche) and ringing in 2011. It might have been because if you notice, I’m not drinking any … and Mark’s sister has a terribly disgusted look on her face.

Apron in Action!

Friday, December 30th, 2011

Last week I posted about the apron I made Emee for Christmas.

Here is the apron in action. Mom and Em were making French toast and Emee asked to wear her new apron.

So cute! I’m glad she liked it. She was so blinded by Legos (which, for the record, weren’t blind after she was done with them — click the link and you’ll understand) and all the other cool stuff she got that she barely noticed the apron that she had wanted. Looks like she’s got a year or more left to wear it since I made it intentionally a bit big.

 

I bet that was some good french toast!

FO Friday: Reversible Toddler Apron

Friday, December 23rd, 2011

My mom requested that I make an apron for my niece. I found this really basic tutorial and adjusted it to make it reversible and to fit my niece.

I like how it turned out, especially now that I walked away from it for a while. There are a few mistakes, but she’s 3, so she won’t notice.

I especially love the fabric that I used for the top part. It’s perfect for an apron! I’m glad she’s little so I could stash a scrap of the fat quarter back for later.

huh huh, you said butt

Thursday, October 27th, 2011

New Beavis and Butthead episodes start tonight. It’s sad, but at nearly-30-years-of-age my 13-year-old inner-self is clamoring with excitement.

So much so that I organized a pre-new-episodes Beavis and Butthead Nacho Marathon a while back. And I mean a WHILE back. :) My friend Aaron (who just got married last weekend btw) and his friend Skyler and I had been talking about doing this for a while and finally got together to do it. Beavis and Butthead plus nachos.

[enough chips for an army of beavis fans + a metric button of homemade salsa]

 

 

[more chips and a giant vat of processed cheese product (gross)]

 

[grossssss]

 

[aaron mans the giant vat o' cheese]

 

[giant plate o' nachos — i was told there was REAL cheese after I reluctantly dumped processed nacho cheese on my chips. but seriously, it wouldn't have been right without it.]

 

[it's go time]

I can’t bring you actual nachos, but I can share part of one of my favorite episodes with you. This is from “Garage Band”, the episode in which Beavis and Butthead start a band (aka say “we’re in a band now”) and tell a local venue their band name is Metallica: featuring Beavis and Butthead. A rather raucous crowd shows up expecting Metallica but obviously they never show. Beavis and Butthead break up the “band” due to discrepancies over their name (“no Beavis and Butthead sounds stupid. It should be Butthead and Beavis”). Here’s Beavis shredding on guitar

 

It’s a milestone day!

Wednesday, October 26th, 2011

Today is my last day at Drake.

But it’s also my little sister’s birthday! Happy birthday, Coree! She turns 23.

[23 years ago I became a big sister — and my dad was apparently rocking a mustache]

[coree rocked a barney sweathsirt while showing papa and gram how to headbang like beavis and butthead]

 

[watch out kiddos, coree's 14 — hitting the road — check out the awesome cell phone]

 

[this is one of the last photos i've got with just the two of us ... which is kind of sad because this had to have been 2004 judging by my hair and weight]


Fight for your right to PARTY

Sunday, October 23rd, 2011

A belated happy birthday to me: Margarita time. I had my birthday party last night since I’ve been over-scheduled all month (and into next month too … ugh). What better way to celebrate than cheap [awesome] Mexican food and MARGARITAS.

I didn’t realize it was ISU’s homecoming yesterday until the game let out and everybody got stuck in traffic. Mark, Matt and Katie (front 3 in the photo below) got stuck holding a table for 10 at La Fuente — fending off mostly drunk or hungover college kids who didn’t believe they were SERIOUSLY using all 10 chairs (yes, we are sure we’re using them!).

 

[me and katie]

 

[mark and matt]

 

 

[coree (my sister) and her friend ayla]

 

[steph and nathan]

 

[kelly and danielle]

MARGARITAS! Matt doesn’t believe me that the regular margaritas have more booze in them. They’re kind of gross, but they’re full of tequila, which I guess is probably why they are kind of gross.

 

After La Fuente we all came back to our place and played Apples to Apples and had some awesome flourless chocolate chipotle cake (recipe coming soon!).


 

 

 

 

3 years

Friday, October 14th, 2011

Three years ago my beautiful and bossy* niece, Emee, was born. Man how time flies. Now she’s art directing my coloring and has hair halfway down to her butt.

*side note … I don’t know where she gets these things …

 

How I spent my summer vacation … part 3: Kansas City

Sunday, October 9th, 2011

Wow. Summer has been over for a while and I’m just getting to blogging about the end of summer: Labor Day weekend.

This year I randomly decided that it would be fun to trek down to Kansas City and head to a Ke$ha concert with Mark’s former roommate’s wife, who I barely have spent time with, and a friend of hers that I’ve never even met.

That doesn’t sound like something the anti-social heavy metal pixie would do.

But I did it anyway.  And it was so much fun!

Here I am at the stoplight before getting onto 30 from Ames.  This is my “party hair” and the moment where I begin to miss the long hair.

 

On the way down to KC I had to drive through Missouri.  I will spare you the gory truckstop bathroom details and share a photo of a large fireworks shop in MO.

 

 

When I arrived at Megan and Malachi’s place (thanks to Shelly’s GPS, Berniece, and a 2nd set of directions later), I was greeted by this:


[giant pile of glitter] I was going to go shopping with them earlier in the day, but didn’t manage to get on the road early enough.  They picked up some this large pile of sequined and glittery stuff at Deb’s.

It took a while for everybody to get ready.  I was pretty much ready — I just had to throw on some clothes.  Which actually was challenging because I brought a backless shirt which required a special stick-on bra. I’m not going into details, but this product shouldn’t be sold in sizes above an A-cup — unless you’re using super glue, that puppy is not staying stuck to larger-chested women.  There’s this thing called GRAVITY.

Anywho, since I was basically ready to go, I helped the other girls get ready.  Which was a LOT of fun.  It reminded me of high school when we would get ready for prom or you know, in our twenties, when we still get ready for prom, but the theme might be “Night of the Living Prom” instead of “Time of Our Lives”.

This was where I really started missing my long hair.  I attempted to put Megan’s in a mohawk-type updo, but it was almost too clean for this charade. So we back-combed the crap out of it and ended up with this:

 

Then I helped her friend Jaime pin her hair all to the side.  AND watched both of them attempt to put fake eyelashes on. I didn’t bother — I failed so many times at fake eyelashes for Halloweens past … didn’t bother.  But it was kind of awesome to see somebody actually get these on.  I convinced Jaime to wear one instead of two because her hair was asymmetrical, and her eyelashes would even it out.  Which for this event, totally worked.

So after dumping a pound of glitter on to finish off our looks, we downed a few drinks and headed out.  Malachi dropped us off at the concert and we were looking pretty sleazy.  Sad to say (or proud to say?) we weren’t even close to the sleaziest there.

The concert was awesome — aside from the $9 beers. Which, for the record, the girl next to me stole my beer when I  was in the bathroom.  Then I think she felt bad so she was feeding me shots of vodka for the rest of the concert.

Also, most of the concert looked like this.  GLITTERFEST. At the end, Ke$ha said she hopes we all wake up with glitter in places shouldn’t be the next morning. 

 

After the show Malachi picked us up, I changed in the backseat of the car and we went to the Power and Light District for some bar hopping. First stop was the Raglan Road Irish Pub where we quickly noticed that the waitresses were dancing on the tables.

 

So I said to Jaime, “How many drinks will it take to get us dancing on the tables?”  For me? Not one drink. What else would do it?  What do you think?  MICHAEL JACKSON of course.  It wasn’t even one of the super-dancy-awesome songs — just P.Y.T.  And eventually when I was drunk, Thriller.  To which I said, “I KNOW THIS DANCE.” (umm … yeah. it’s been a while since I attempted to do it — from memory of the video, not actually learning it).

 

… and pretty soon this happened.

 

 

 

After we tired of dancing on tables, we decided to head over to the PBR Big Sky bar, where there was a mechanical bull. Megan and I promptly got in line to ride the bull. Jaime couldn’t due to a roller derby injury (which sadly, made me remember how much I fricking want to do roller derby).

Here we go.  I realized halfway through the short time we were on the bull that I was WEARING A DRESS.  So, um, I somewhat gracefully (as gracefully as possible I suppose) fell off the bull.  Megan hung on for dear life. And at one point was side-saddle giving the devil horns. If only somebody took a picture of that.

 

Somewhere after the bull-riding Megan got really into drawing on herself and others with a sharpie. We were getting drinks and some guys gave us their autographs.  I’m pretty sure they were just random dudes, but Megan was convinced the one guy was from LMFAO, so we let them sharpie us.

 

So after Glittersleazefest 2011, I headed back to Iowa.  But I noticed there was a Whole Foods just down the road from Megan and Malachi’s place.  So I stopped in and picked up some goodies. I brought the gummy pandas home to Mark but everything else may have been consumed on the way home (the sushi BEFORE I left in case you were wondering).

Side note, I recently read a blog post in which some of my friends were trying Kombucha. If you’re interested in drinking old, fermented tea, the citrus is by far the best flavor.

How I spent my summer vacation … part 2: Chicago

Sunday, October 2nd, 2011

For Mark’s birthday, July 17th, we took a few days off to hang out with his Aunt Donna and his mom at Donna’s house around the Chicago area.  We spent most of the time in and around her pool in her backyard. There are most definitely not going to be photos of that in this post (which I’m sure all will thank me for).  I ran a few miles, played with Donna’s adorable dog, Guinness, and we watched a few movies.

Did I mention that I drove the whole way?  Not trying to make Mark feel guilty — just pointing out that my leg injury from the marathon (3 years ago!) is finally at the point that I can DRIVE for a few hours at a time (namely, six).

 

 

Beautiful.  The only time we actually went into the city was to go to The Needle Shop — which is NOT a tattoo shop.  It’s actually a really amazing fabric store around Damon Ave..

 

 

[Mark drove there. I suck at real city driving.]

[my amazing finds — mostly Habitat]

 

On Mark’s birthday we trekked over to his favorite pizza place. We were going to see Harry Potter, but since it was the first weekend it was out the show was sold out for the rest of the foreseeable future.

 

Um … odd sign in Elk Grove Heights.

 

LOU’S.  aka the promised land of Chicago Style pizza.

 

Mark is pleased. It’s the first piece he’s had (besides the frozen pies his dad occasionally gets) in over a year.

I had a slice too.  And by a slice, I mean a few slices. The epic stomachache I had afterwards was so worth it.  I had the Lou’s — spinach  + tomato.  YUM.