Thursday, July 22, 2010

Honeymoon Highlights - Part Dos

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth... [Genesis 1:1]
I was really blown away at scenery...the lake, the trees, the mountains, etc... we were able to see during our trip to California. Jed didn't travel much growing up and I'd never really seen mountains so we were both just in awe of God's creation! Several days, we spent time just driving and stopping to look and then driving some more and stopping to look around. The pictures surely don't do the scenery justice but enjoy!


Monday, July 19, 2010

Jed the Chef!


This little gem came in the mail today inside a card from Jed's mom, Mary. She said it dates back to when Jed was in about 1st grade. We had a good laugh and joked about having some "rost" for dinner!

Allow me to translate:
"Rost" = Roast
"What you need" = AKA Ingredients/Materials
"Gar likk prees" = Garlic Press
"Sharp knife" = self explanatory
"soy sawcs" = Soy Sauce
"Garlickk" = Garlic
"Thempcure 350 dg" = Temperature 350 degrees

What about the actual pot roast Jed? :)

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Happy birthday Emily!

Today is my little sister's 24th birthday! She is my little sister, but she's not very little in a few ways ...
1. She's taller than me.

2. She has a not-so-little belly because she's having a BABY!

I love my sister a lot. I found myself getting a little home sick today just thinking about Em and it being her birthday and the fact that she lives in FLORIDA so neither of us are even close to home... But we will be in Minnesota soon for her baby shower!

The final way in which Emily is not little but actually I would say HUGE is... her heart! Her big heart is the only way that I can explain how in the world the following picture happened... :) I have no idea when during the wedding reception this happened or why it happened, but it makes me smile and laugh.

Monday, July 12, 2010

Wedding Posts!

Our wedding day was so wonderful! A few of our friends did a great job taking pictures and writing fun blog posts about our day.
Here's Robin's post - she did a FABULOUS job handing out programs at our ceremony!
Here you'll find Heather and Seth's blog post. Heather was one of my personal attendants - wow! She did so much behind the scenes work and served her little heart out. I am so blessed by her friendship! And Seth was a trooper - even though he was sick! :(
Here is a short entry by my sister Emily, my matron of honor. She was SUCH a trooper the whole week - hanging around with all of my friends, sleeping on the couch, running around town AND being 20-some weeks pregnant... and I was so thankful that she was there all week long.
We can't wait to see the professional photos soon and order some prints to hang in our new, empty photo frames!

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Jed's First Entry (Please Read)

Over the past few weeks of the married life, I feel that I've had the opportunity to experience many new and exciting things, but lets start with our week in Lake Tahoe. There were many things you'd think that I'd take away from that, whether it be my first trip on a plane (yes, it IS possible to be twenty eight years old AND a plane rookie), my first almost trip to Alcatraz or my honeymoon in Lake Tahoe with my beautiful wife. You'd think that these would be the most memorable things that I would take away from the week. However, although this might not come as much of a shock to those who know me, one particular memory stands out from all the rest. Was it being chased by a bear? Run down by vicious elk? Intimately assaulted by an angry pant climbing chipmunk? Although all these things would have made for some great stories, this story involves what to bring (or not to bring) on your honeymoon.

One would assume that California would have radio stations that were readily accesible. However, in the mountains, the radio reception was poor at best, leaving us to ride in silence or static. Fortunately, our state of the art Nissan Rogue came with a CD player. Unfortunately, the only CD to insert in that state of the art machine was the latest from everyone's favorite teenagers (15 years later), the infamous Hanson brothers, who most of you remember as these awkward looking studs:


Although you may find it hard to believe, they're still around, and have used up all of that "MMM-Bop" cash to create their own record label, and, believe it or not have married and reproduced, bring us to these fine fellows:

Dashing, I know. But what's even more amazing is when your lovely wife produces "Shout it Out" from her burlap sack, which usually contains gum, candy and quarters for vending machines. This time, however, out came this little gem.



Right from the start, I knew this was going to be great. And by great, I mean I knew it was going to be a long drive to San Francisco. Really, really long. I was a little shocked that the music was not nearly as terrible as I thought it would be. In fact, some of the songs were kind of catchy. However, it was nearly impossible for me to get past the most generic lyrics that I've ever heard on anything other than a Michael W Smith CD. Whether it be the fact that I didn't need a Cadillac because they'd be waiting there with their bare back to "carry me there" or their generic inability to take on "these walls" as the sky falls around them, I, for one, am begging my wife to reach into that magical burlap bag and dig around for anything. I'll be honest, at this point I'd have been relieved if she'd pulled out SonSeed's greatest hits or if Michael W Smith had mystically teleported into the backseat and treated us to an acoustic performance of "Place in this World". I mean, it wouldn't have been so bad if I hadn't had the majority of the lyrics ingrained on my brain forever. And we hadn't even got to them kindly telling us that we were, in fact, "Just another Voice in the Chorus". I will say, that these generic lyrics and pretty average hooks, did, in fact, help me to further embrace my midwestern sense of generic mediocrity. So, I guess I kind of liked it after awhile. Which either means that A)it wasn't as bad as I thought at first, or B)I really love my wife and never grow tired of her belting out the beautiful rhythms of "Kiss Me When You Come Home."

Honeymoon Highlights Pt 1

Our honeymoon to South Lake Tahoe, California was GREAT. I thought I'd break it up into a few different entries so here's part one!
One of the best parts of the honeymoon was going out to eat! I had so much going on the 3 or 4 days before the wedding - I don't think I ate a full meal at all in those few days! Our hotel room was a suite that had a little kitchenette so we did make lots of breakfasts, lunches and a few dinners there but we found some really yummy restaurants that we enjoyed a lot.
Raley's - This was the grocery store that was just a short walk from our hotel. We came to really love Raley's. We even got wood here to build a fire in the fireplace in our room and got a lot of RedBox movies here too!
The Brewery - Jed enjoyed a HUGE portion of fish and chips here!
Baja Fresh - We had this for lunch one day. It was just a short walk from our hotel. It really was FRESH and delicious!
Dory's Oar - This was our favorite! We went here twice. The first time we did some tapas for appetizers and the variety was so fun. The second time we kind of splurged and Jed got this seared Ahi Tuna. He claimed it was delicious (and he definitely cleared his plate), but I just couldn't get myself to try it! I'm not a huge seafood fan. See the picture below! I don't even remember what I ordered but it was great (the bottom picture)!

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Adventures in Marriage Pt 1

The house we bought is fairly old. It was built in 1924. This definitely has it's perks - the sweet doors, the fireplace, the ancient cabinets :), etc. but we knew we'd probably have a few things that needed updating. We've ended up making a few (dozen) improvements and fixes so far and I'm sure there are more to come. About a week before the wedding it had been raining so much in Iowa and the ground was so saturated with water. The water had no where else to go... except our basement! The ground drain in the middle of the basement just couldn't take it and we found that water was getting in in a few other spots as well. We did what we could... but had a few other things on our mind in the upcoming weeks.
The DAY before the wedding, I was getting ready to leave the house to go decorate at the church and I noticed some water on the floor right by the front door. I looked up and couldn't visibly see anything coming from the ceiling but there was also some water on the fireplace mantle/ledge that wraps around the corner right by the front door. There was nothing I could really do about it at that point so I went on with my day.
The day of our wedding it STORMED. Like crazy. (Are you singing "Ironic" by Alanis Morissette in your head?) It rained so hard that the gals and I were at breakfast at Smokey Row and had to wait out the storm a bit before we could dash for our cars to head to the church to start getting ready. Thankfully, the skies ended up clearing up just enough for us to get some outdoor pictures - something I definitely prayed about!
The day after the wedding, we opened gifts with some family and noticed that there were some water spots on our ceiling in the living room. Awesome. Jed, his dad and his uncle did some investigating and made some guesses as to what the problem was (water leaking in around the very, very old chimney) and brainstormed some ideas to fix it (roof sealant/crack filler stuff). However, we weren't letting this keep us from our honeymoon so... off we went!
When we returned to Iowa, the water spots had spread and ther were 2 more a little farther away from the first 2. It was time to get down to business!
Home Depot has become our new "favorite" store! We headed there to get some roof tar crack sealer stuff (that's the technical brand name) and a tarp to lay in the attic around the chimney. We also bought some basement crack filler waterproofing stuff and Jed got to work while I worked on putting away and organizing all of our wedding gifts!
(Are you still reading? I'm just realizing this is incredibly long!)

Problem: We don't have a ladder.
Sarah's solution: Call up the Comforts and ask to borrow one of theirs!
Jed's solution:
I was sure that I was going to become a widower. Or at least have to take my new husband to the emergency room for some type of broken bone... especially after his first attempt included just 1 or 2 bags of mulch and he slipped on his way up and scraped his knee real bad on the edge of the roof. No worries.... there was more mulch in the garage.
He made it up (and amazingly back down again) and sealed around the chimney. Thanks Jed for being handy and hard-working - maybe next time though we can consider safety and your wife's sanity as a priority too! :)

Sunday, July 4, 2010

1st Wedding

This weekend we made the trip to Davenport for my friend from college, Allison and Rob's wedding. With 2 weeks of being newlyweds under our belt, we attended our first wedding as a married couple! We left late morning Saturday and I convinced Jed it'd be a good idea to hit up the outlets at Williamsburg. :) Of course, we found more items for Jed (he's the one in greater need, you know? :) and a fun grilling utensil for kabobs!
We made it to Davenport and met up with the Ganders, their little movie star in tow, and hit the wedding!
It was a really beautiful and elegant reception at The Outing Club in Davenport. Jed really loved the candy table! It was fun to sit with old friends from Central and catch up.
My handsome husband and I!
Pod-mates - Trichelle, Kyli, Al, Kate and I.
(Check out below - a picture from 2007 of the 5 of us! :)

Congrats to the newlyweds, Rob and Allison Adams!