We made it to Exile...

One of my goals for 2013 was for Matt and I to go out and try new restaurants together. Well I FINALLY have one to report back on. (Well actually we've been to 2 in the last couple weeks but one of them PepperJax Grill shouldn't really count. It's like Pancheros but they serve Philly sandwiches instead.) So where did we FINALLY go??? Exile Brewing Co.

Matt had to take his car into the shop on Thursday so he ended up driving to work and then came back to pick me up. Exile is right downtown so it was easy to head there after work. It was much fancier than I expected a brewery to be but given the clientele it made sense. Lots of business people eating there and I know it's used for lots of networking/social events too. And while it was a little more upscale than I originally expected, those dressed in jeans still looked like they belonged.

My biggest disappointment was that the didn't have a house rootbeer, nor are they supporting other Iowa breweries by having one of theirs on tap. (However if I could drink, I would have been happy choosing a cocktail off their drink menu.) Matt decided to get a flight of their 4 staples... His favorite of the night was the Hannah.

We got the sweet potato fries for an appetizer. They were delish (and they still tasted great as leftover snacks)! For our main meals Matt got the Italian Stallion and I had the Mac & Cheese. We both liked our selections but I don't think they will make ou list of favorites. Good enough to go back but not so amazing that I won't want to try something else. We (and I really mean I) ordered a dessert to go. It was a chocolate mess of Oreo crust, rocky road ice cream, marshmallows, drizzled in chocolate and caramel. Very chocolately - which I've been all about lately :)

Another emergency trip to the vet

Gable hurt himself again this spring. Apparently he missed hanging out at the emergency vet hospital in Ames. Matt and Gable were out walking in the woods (the story starts the same) when Gable came running back to Matt with a bit of limp and a little bit of blood on his paw. Matt checked it out and it looked like he stepped on a rock or stick or something and it punctured his paw pad.  (Just like if a human stepped on a tack with bare feet.) Understandable it was sore but when Gable started acting weird a few hours later, Matt got concerned.

He took him up to the hospital to have him checked out. The doctors on call didn't see anything wrong -- just a puncture wound. They cleaned it out and gave him some antibiotics so that it wouldn't get infected.

Well a day and half later and Gable wasn't getting any better. Actually we noticed that when he woke up in the morning, his "wrist" was swollen. Back to the emergency room. They put Gable under and went in for surgery. They found a half inch thorn that had worked it's way up from his foot into his "wrist". They extracted it and bandaged him up. Doctors orders were to get him rest, keep him off his foot for awhile, and not to get his bandage wet. (Seriously someone needs to come up with a waterproof cast/bandage for dogs. Putting a sack over his paw everytime he goes outside to pee is sooo annoying.)

Thankfully Gable is all better now... and thankfully we have dog insurance on him. There were a couple rough days in there where Matt was freaking out about Gable's health (which then caused me to freak out) but this time he didn't have to be bandaged up as long as last years' incident.



swollen wrist/paw
(his left paw is the one he hurt - you can see that where his dewclaws were removed is where the swelling is noticeable)



all wrapped up
(Yes, Matt was thrilled that they wrapped Gable in camo tape each time)




all better
(just need the hair to grow in from where they shaved him for his iv)



love you Gable!

Baby Mack

Kelly & Joey had their baby back in December. He came a week early during a snow storm but was perfectly healthy. It also worked out well that he was early because Kelly wanted to spend as much time with him as she could before starting back at nursing school in January. Visiting Mack was so fun - he has the silliest expressions. And when is holding such a cute, adorable baby not fun. But this time, knowing that there's a baby growing inside of me, it's different holding a newborn. Still fun and exciting, but it caused my brain to start running a mile a minute with all sorts of questions and daydreaming.

Here is a week old ...

And here he is almost 3 months old...



I am so thankful that we're having Baby B around the same time as so many of our friends. Matt and I were ready so regardless that "all the cool kids were doing it" we would have been trying for Baby B anyway. But it is so much more fun that our friends are having babies too. While we won't be in the same school district -- Mack and Baby B will be in the same grade at school, just like Kelly and I. It's so fun thinking about them being friends! (Plus there are SOOO many other babies being born plus or minus a year of Baby B -- it's incredible!)   

Matt turns the big three oh! (And we get new floors!)

I had wanted to throw a party for Matt but he was against celebrating him turning 30. Not so much he doesn't want to turn 30... but rather he thinks it's not that big of a deal and definitely doesn't want to draw attention to himself. (oh, how differently we feel about birthdays!) So following his wishes I didn't plan anything. Looking back now, I'm so glad we didn't -- Matt's birthday weekend ended up being a bit of a mess. First neither of us were feeling well -- Matt was sick last week and then I was sick over the weekend. It was a headache / sinus pressure / congestion type of sick and we pretty much both just felt miserable.

But the other reason why it was a mess is because my birthday present was finally set to be installed on Matt's birthday. That's right - the year long hunt for new floors is finally over! I had been slowly working on clearing out the office to make way for the nursery, but last weekend (9th-10th) we really focused on emptying it out. Then during the week and throughout the weekend, we cleared EVERYTHING out of the main floor and moved it to the lower level or garage. Saturday night we had almost everything moved and went out to Flying Mango to celebrate Matt's bday with his parents, my parents and the siblings. (Just thinking about Flying Mango now makes my mouth water - so good!)

  

Happy 30th Birthday Matt!



On Sunday my parents came over and helped. Matt and my dad ripped up all the carpet (family room, hallway, 2 bedrooms) and pulled up 2 layers of linoleum in the kitchen. Apparently best practice says that you should pull up linoleum before placing down a new layer, but the last homeowners bucked the trend. So unfortunately for the boys they had an extra layer to scrap off, but fortunately for me, it was fun to see what the original floors looked like!



Original floors

I tried to capture a few pictures of all the craziness that was going on, but the pictures don't really seem to caputre how chaotic or messy it really felt. Maybe being 7 months pregnant just made it feel more chaotic and messy in the moment.


Garage -- plywood to go under the new floors, the pile of old carpet, temporary storage for our furniture



 

our "master" bedroom



empty nursery



A glimpse at the chaos in the basement



Oh - I forgot to mention... we decided to paint all the doors and door frames white. Matt took all the doors off their frames and applied 2 coats of primer to them and to the door frames. Then when my dad was there on Sunday he helped apply the glossy white top coat. In case you're curious, in the hallway we have 2 closet doors, a bathroom door and 2 bedroom doors and then there is an accordian door in each bedroom --- so 7 doors in total.



Dad applying the glossy white coat

Despite the craziness, we were able to get everything done prior to Matt's 30th birthday when the installation guys showed up! Matt spent his birthday supervising the crew, putting his feet up and keeping Gable calm. We found out from the install crew that the bedrooms aren't level and would either require a contractor to come in and level them before they could put in the pergo floors, or we could put in carpet instead. So when I got home from work, we went out to dinner in Ames at Old Main Brewery and then picked out new carpet. It's amazing to me what a deadline can do - It took us a LOOOONG time to pick laminate flooring that we liked, but because we HAD to make a decision right away about the carpet, we were able to pick one in an hour. haha!

Here's what we selected -- Very curious as to how it will look when we see more than 3 inches

It's still feels chaotic in the house since the bedrooms are awaiting carpet and we're sleeping in the basement. It's also super dusty because the bedrooms just have floor boards and every morning I track dirt/dust from that room (need to get to the closet) into the hallway which spreads throughout. Plus they made some of the flooring cuts in the house so there's pergo sawdust still lingering. Matt still needs to install the base boards but without futher ado... here are the new floors!!!  

Siblings

A couple weeks a go we finally had a warm(er) day and Gable got to meet his half-sister Emma! Gable and Emma are from the same breeder and share the same dad but they are about 18 months apart in age. We met Emma back in December, a couple weeks after Cody and Ashley brought Emma home, but it was after Julie and Mike's ugly sweater party, so Gable hadn't met her yet.

It was so fun to see them interact together. Can't wait for the next family get-together!

Valentine's Day

The words 'romantic' and 'husband' will never be paired together when describing Matt. There are times that I think it would be nice to have Matt 'sweep me off my feet', but when he knows me so well, I really can't complain.

Oh Gable...

Such a silly dog!