Road trippin'

Friday night we hit up Gary Allan's concert at the Surf Ballroom with our favorite couple from Clear Lake. It was definitely a fun time! A few weeks ago I bought Gary's newest album (released last fall) and have been prepping for the sing along. I'm glad I did too because while Gary played all his greatest hits like Watching Airplanes and Songs About Rain, he also played some of his new ones such as No Regrets. That one's definitely going to be one of my new favorites.

Since we we're already half way to the Twin Cities, we decided to make it a road trip weekend and headed further up north on Saturday morning. We started our shopping excursion off with a stop at Cabela's on the way up. Then we hit up Ikea! It was Matt's first time and we definitely made it a good one. I'm not sure if Matt was more impressed with their 50cent hotdogs or the new tv console that we found, but either way it was a successful shopping spree. I'll have more about our purchases in upcoming posts-- we need to accessorize first.

Keeping with the shopping theme... we couldn't NOT go to the Mall of America. It had been years since I'd been there and Matt was a virgin for this too. We didn't really buy much but we had a great time people watching and checking things out.

This was the view from our dinner table. Pretty awesome ambiance. Did you know that Camp Snoopy is now called Nickelodeon Universe? I wonder when that happened? The only character I recognized was Dora the Explorer... I guess I'm getting old. Correction - we are getting old. I tried to convince Matt that we should go on a ride but he was feeling to old for that. :) All in all it was a fun weekend getaway! Just what we needed!

Puppy Love

I'm pretty sure it's safe to say that I'm in love. :) On Sunday we took a road trip over to the breeder to finally see our little guy. The puppies will be 4 weeks old tomorrow and Saturday was their first day out of their whelping box. The breeder removes the whelping box when the pups start becoming mobile and try to crawl out of the box. We didn't really realize that they were just learning how to explore but it was so cute to see them move around. It was like a little toddler waddling... and sometimes falling down :) It'll be fun to take our puppy home and watch him learn and explore even more. 

We will go back in 3 weeks to get him. The breeder says in the next 3 weeks that they'll double in size and will weigh around 9lbs. I'm kinda relieved that he'll still be pretty small because by age one he'll be full grown. His parents, Mia and Chase, are of average size so ours will probably be around 55lbs full grown. We got to meet Mia and Chase too so that was fun seeing how high-energy but gentle-mannered they are. They were excited to meet us but didn't jump up on us which is typical of the breed (with good training) and will be a relief for my mom. :)       

So cuddly!

But a little feisty :)

Mia the mommy

Time for some milk

chillaxin'

i just wanna scoop them all up and take them home

Look how tiny that one in the middle one is!

play time!

a little muddy from playing in the dirt before fresh the fresh bedding went in

wrinkles!

finding their nap spot

tucker'ed out

right now they're still sleeping 20hrs a day - i had no idea

This isn't even all the pics I took -- haha! I can't even imagine what it'll be like once we bring ours home! (Or what it will be like once we have kids some day!) I'm sure that I'll go overboard so don't worry - in only 3 short weeks, more pictures (and videos) of our little guy will be rolling in!

Green Shenanigans

St. Patrick's Day has always been one of my favorites! You'll never catch me without my green :) However, I'll admit that I am not as hardcore about the celebrations though. I don't take the day off work, I don't drink all day and I don't come in late the following day either. Nothing against those that do, it just hasn't been one of my traditions yet. However, some year I would like to take the day off - but I want to go to the Irish Mass at the cathedral downtown, then head out and watch the parade and then do some celebrating with friends...someday. This year we met up with some friends at Mickey's Irish Pub out in Waukee after work. It was a good time but we probably would have lasted out a little longer had the 80's cover band been not quite so loud! My ears were ringing for so long after we left - lol!

Julie, Liz & I - pic from Liz's camera

Thanks to Liz for this pic too :)

Page, Page's friend from work & Matt

Julie, Jenny & I

Jenny 1st introduced us to Mickey's Waukee

Foroomies! (former roomies)

Look how Matt's wearing green x2

The Wicked Witch of Ireland was there too!



Celebrating his bday a day early!

Happy Birthday Matt!

Today it's my wonderful husband's birthday. He hates to be put in the spotlight so I know he'll especially hate that I'm posting about him. But 'oh well', can't miss my first opportunity to blog about his bday! Here's some of my favorite pics of fun times I've had with him! 

Happy Birthday Matt! Love you!

No Sweets

Today is Ash Wednesday. This year it's kinda weird since it's so late. But maybe that means by Easter this year it'll actually be warm enough to wear an Easter dress :)

As a good Catholic girl, I'll be giving up something for Lent. It has become somewhat of a tradition among my sisters, mom and I to give up sweets. I have not always done the greatest job at this. Take last year for example... I think I may have lasted 4 days and then I kinda gave up. I'm gonna blame it on school and Matt (but really it was a lack of effort and commitment.) This year I'm going to try much harder to stick to it and not make excuses. Luckily, Lent is only 40 days which is actually only 6 days each week. This technicality works out well for me because that means I am able to pick one day each week to eat a sweet. So for Matt's birthday, I'll be able to join him in eating a slice of his b-day cake!

I know it may sound like I'm cheating the system a bit... but the Catholic rules around Lent have evolved over time anyway. Plus sacrifice is only one part of Lent - it's a "special time of prayer, penance, sacrifice and good works in preparation of the celebration of Easter."  So remembering to pray each night and making it to church every Sunday will be included in my Lenten activities. But I think the hardest part will be no sweets!

Brunette

Sometimes you just need to make a drastic change... but a safe one too. So I colored my hair. Well, actually Jessica Timmons at the Aveda Institute 515-224-5244, colored my hair for me. :) Call her. She's great! I thought I actually was making a really bold choice - this is the darkest my hair has ever been - but looking at pictures it doesn't actually look quite as dramatic as I thought it would be. I pretty much still look like me.



HERE ARE SOME BEFORE PICS

The Blondest I've ever Been - on our honeymoon

Taken in December 2010 at Julie's Ugly Sweater Party



Taken 3 days before going brunette...with my friend Mary's adorable baby







AND HERE'S THE AFTER PIC...





Matt seeing the dark hair for the first time



Dad and I at lunch on Sunday

As you can see it's not really all that drastic. But definitely something a little different for me, which was what I was looking for. There's a pretty good chance that I'll go back to blonde -- my hair does pretty well getting naturally highlighted from the sun and I think Matt likes me better as a blonde. haha. But I'm going to enjoy my brunette locks while I've got them! Thanks Jess for doing such a great job!

Alice in Wonderland Ballet

The email I received on the morning of Friday Feb 18th...

In the past CCC has made some generous contributions to Ballet of Des Moines which have been much appreciated.  The Ballet’s spring show is this Saturday Feb 19th at the Civic Center and they ended up having some extra unsold tickets.  Due to this, and our connection to Ballet of Des Moines, they have offered us 8 tickets to the 6:30 PM production of Alice in Wonderland for free! 

I ended up getting the last 2 tickets for the performance and luckily Liz was available to go to the show with me the next day! I have never been to a professional ballet and was very much looking forward to seeing the show. My expectations were a little off but maybe I should have read this quote from the Des Moines Register...

It's the company's first time at the Civic Center and they're making the most of it, with more than 60 student dancers and four guest soloists from across the country. The costumes and sets are from Chicago, and for the first time in the show's history, the music will be performed by a live orchestra.

There weren't as many crazy, cool, over-the-top ballet moves that I kinda had been hoping for but it was still a great show nonetheless. The costumes were really fantastic and the kids made the show fun. Plus having a girls night with Liz was super fabulous. The only thing I would have done differently would be that I would have tried to see the new Alice in Wonderland movie before going to the show. There were definitely some parts where Liz and I were lost because we didn't really know the plot. Luckily, all the little girls around us knew EXACTLY what was happening in the story and weren't quiet about telling it to their moms. :)  

Matt's Painting Masterpiece

When we bought out furniture at the end of January, we knew we'd have to paint our family room. The fabric we chose was too similar to the color of our walls and carpet. Plus we were ready for something different in that room. The previous owners painted the entire upstairs in beige. It was good for them because the neutral decor attracted us to the house but living in a world of beige gets kinda boring.

Here's what the house looked like before we moved in (previous owner's furniture)...

And here's the fabric swatches for our new furniture...

The main color is linen which is on the right. The patterned piece, on the left, is for the pillows.

We decided we wanted to go with a something in the green family for the walls. 

We started with 2 colors on the wall. Verdigris & Sliced Cucumber... 

And then we added a third, much darker green to compare. Frosted Pine...

But we still couldn't make a decision. More options???

Sliced Cucumber, Environmental, Zen, Frosted Jade, Verdigris, Frosted Pine

We decided to try out Zen on the wall (3rd from left) but forgot to take a pic. But you can still see it, because that's what we decided to put on the wall! Matt did ALL the work and I am soooo impressed! He did most of it while I was at work but I know it was lots of hard work. Just look at how how the ceiling is! Painting on a ladder couldn't have been fun.

The color changes a lot depending on the lighting. Trying to take pics that really capture the color is difficult with my point and shoot (and novice skills) but here are a few...

See what I mean?!?! It's pretty pale when all the natural light pours in but at night it's much more saturated. I'm excited to see how the furniture looks with it. They will be delivered soon though, so more pics to come!