Hello Again

Hi Everyone,

I'm back!  I got back to Minnesota yesterday around 4:30 pm.  I have lots of catching up to do...emails, Facebook, reading your blogs, updating my blog, etc.  I hope to have some new posts with pictures from the trip soon!  Hope you all had a nice Thanksgiving!

Goodbye for now

This is going to be my last post for awhile.  Our flight leaves for Florida at 7 am Saturday morning and will return early evening the day after Thanksgiving.  It will be very different to spend Thanksgiving in Florida and not be with my family but we will be with Michael's parents, and a mix of his family and friends. We will be traveling all over the state and have a lot of fun things planned so I will blog all about it when I get back.  Have a Happy Thanksgiving everyone. Give thanks for everything you have and eat good!  It's my favorite holiday!  

Sunset on Fort Myers Beach, February 2008

Happy 100!

This is my 100th post!  It seems like I got to 100 pretty quickly.  I'm surprised I have that much to talk about.  Tell me how you like the blog so far!  I LOVE comments and I feel like I don't get enough and I never get sick of reading them.  Thank you to all of you who continue to read my blog. I first started off with blogging for my intentions only but I definitely blog for an audience now.  I wish more of my real life friends would read my blog on a more consistent basis but I am happy to have my small core group of consistent readers, which hopefully includes you!

 

Another New Banner

With Florida only days away, I thought I would change my banner again.  Simple, I know.  I'm still getting used to playing with Photoshop.  Thanks to those who gave me tips!

Weekend Recap

Friday: I was a deer hunter's widow for part of the weekend.  I wish I could say the first half of my weekend was exciting, but it really wasn't.  I ended up having to stay at work until almost 7 pm on Friday, which made me not be able to meet Michael's sister, Kim and cousin Lorrie for happy hour. I got home, ate, watched a Grey's Anatomy marathon online (I haven't watched a single episode this season) and went to bed at 1 am.  

Saturday: Woke up too early, before 8 am, only to have a really bad headache.  I dropped off car to get my oil changed and windshield wipers replaced.  My sister came and picked me up and we went to Toys 'R Us and I bought my nephews Christmas gifts.  Yes, I am pretty much done with my Christmas shopping.  We ate at TGI Friday's and then went to the mall.  Came back here later in the day, went grocery shopping and came home to find Michael back from hunting.  He had to come back early because of the Vikings game on Sunday.  I don't think Michael would consider himself a real hunter, but he has started to go hunting again in the last couple of years.  (I think it might be a reason to get away from us girls and drink)  Last year, all the guys he went with each got a deer on Sunday.  Michael didn't get one because he had to leave early again for the Vikings game.  But that was last year.  This year, Michael was the first to get a deer....a buck! Michael had said that he will not shoot at a deer unless it was a buck.  He's had deer before but never a buck.  Congrats to Michael for getting a 6 point buck!  Lots of venison for us.  Here's a couple of pictures of my honey from last year.  I'm sure he looked the same out there this year. :)

Sunday: Today is the most important Vikings game of the year....Vikings vs. Packers.  Part of the big day is the tailgating for this game.  There are so many Packers fans everywhere, including in our group.  We had 3 Packer's fans with us today... If it makes you feel any better, they were all born in Wisconsin.  That makes me feel a little better.  My friend Money (her real name is Manilath, pronounced-Money-lut) and her husband Chad and their friends, Ang and her husband Chris. Chris is a Vikings fan so we had 3 people rooting for each of their teams.  It was sooooooo cold out there!  Our paws and tootsies were freezing!  I ran into a couple of guys I went to high school with and in their group was a guy that Michael graduated with.  And then Chris from our group also knew a friend in their group.  So despite the fact that Michael and I never knew each other growing up and we didn't even meet Chris until today, we all ended up having friends in the same group.  I love discovering stuff like that.  

Our tailgating group: Chris, Ang, Money, Chad, Me, Michael

Proud Roseville Class of 1992 graduates, Todd and Michael

Proud WBL class of 1995 graduates, Scott Leth, me and Chris Price

On to the game...we have not beat the Packers in the last 5 games and today was our day.  I prayed to the footballs gods for a win and it happened.  The Vikings won 28-27.   Thanks to the 2 safety's (and no thanks to the missed field goal), we squeaked out a win.  Skol Vikings, Let's Go! 

Thought I would take a picture of the score when it was tied with 2:22 left.  I wasn't sure we would win with that little time left (If you're a Vikings fan, you know what I mean) so I took a picture while we weren't losing. 

   

My First Real Banner

I made my first real banner today!  I know it's simple and basic and elementary, but I like it!  I downloaded a trial of Photoshop Elements 7 to try for 30 days and man, I need help learning how to navigate through it.  It's fun to play around but can be frustrating too when you want something to work and you're not quite sure how to do it.  Does anyone who uses Photoshop have any tips for using it?  How did you learn how to use it?

Thoughts for Thursday-Vacations

With an upcoming vacation for Michael and I, I thought that will be my topic for today. Michael and I take at least one vacation a year, where we get on an airplane and go somewhere. We started this in January 2005, when we went to Philadelphia to see the Vikings play the Eagles in a playoff game. It was my idea to take the trip to see the Vikings. We have now planned a vacation each year around the Vikings, which has included trips to Seattle, San Francisco and Dallas. We have also been to Florida a couple of times together, which is also the destination of our upcoming trip. We will see the Vikings play Tampa Bay on November 16th and drive across the state to see them play Jacksonville the following week. We also have taken a road trip to the Black Hills in South Dakota and numerous trips up to the North Shore. I have been to 17 states and have been to Canada a few times. I would love to take a vacation to a tropical location, outside of the United States. I've always wanted to go to Mexico and I can't believe that I still haven't been there. I really want to go to Turks and Caicos after seeing pictures from Michael's friends' vacation but I from what I understand the islands suffered major damage from one of the hurricanes this year. I would also like to go to Tahiti, again after seeing pictures from another person's vacation.

Do you go on vacation? How often? Where do you go? By car or plane? Do you travel outside of the United States? Who do you go with? Where is your dream destination?

I will link other TFT's as they get posted.

Kristi- Online shopping

1 Year ago

Today is my one year anniversary at my job.  I unfortunately work in the mortgage industry so you know how volatile it has been the past couple of years.  I was laid off from my past job on October 19, 2007.  I was on vacation in Dallas when I got the call from my supervisor.   I was let go, along with at least 1,900 others and it was effective immediately.  I never really got the chance to have an actual goodbye with my coworkers.  I was compensated very well for my departure at least.  So that's the story of why I am where I'm at now.  I have since had to switch from residential mortgage to commercial mortgage.  My company is a commercial real estate banking firm.  It is one of the largest commercial banking firms in the world, with 30 offices around the country.  I work solely with one lender, Freddie Mac, to assure that the insurance on all multifamily housing is compliant according to Freddie Mac's requirements for loan closing and subsequently each year after.  I also handle insurance losses, which today I was informed of a fire at an apartment building that killed two cats.  I wish the borrower hadn't told me that!  It made me sad and I keep thinking about it.  It is kind of interesting though to see what kind of damage takes place.  I am currently working on a loss that is well into the millions from Hurricane Ike.  The commercial mortgage business has taken some what of a hit due to the economy but not like residential.  I'm going to cross my fingers that I can keep this job for awhile.  

The Country Has Spoken

Today's the Day!

Not that you need any reminders, get out and... 

Weekend Recap

Friday: Michael and I went over to my sister's house for Halloween.  We just hung out, passed out candy to the kids and ate some of her food, which included bloody body bits (meatballs and cocktail weiners in BBQ sauce), halloween themed jello shapes, eyeballs (deviled eggs) and spider sandwiches (ham and cheese spider shaped sandwiches with poppyseeds all over them).  My nephew, Keith was very cute dressed as the Joker from Batman.  He got lots of candy from the neighborhood.  Michael and I then left to meet at a bar in St. Paul for his birthday, which is on Halloween.  We had a drink and went home to watch Children of the Corn.  I hadn't seen it in so many years and I was actually scared at a couple of parts.  I have been so densenitized to horror movies because I started watching them at a young age and watched them often.  Now it's been so many years since I've seen one that it affected me again.  It's fun to be scared sometimes.

The entryway of my sister's house

Keith and Jamie

Candy!

Saturday: We woke up Saturday and went to Denny's for breakfast.  It was Michael and I's 4 year anniversary.  We didn't have much planned as we are still updating the kitchen.  I ran a couple of errands in the morning and we painted the majority of the day.  I was kind of upset about this as I told Michael that today was supposed to be about us, not the kitchen.  Then I started crying.  Hey, I can't help it.  I cry too much.  He then pulled out a card and a vase of flowers that included 4 roses, one for each year we have been together.  That helped my attitude a lot and then I felt like a jerk afterwards.  We cleaned ourselves up shortly after and went out to dinner at one of our favorite places, Pepitos.   We ended the night watching Saturday Night Live. Happy Anniversary, Michael.  I enjoyed every minute of the day with you.

Sunday: We got up early for the Vikings game.  We went tailgating with a handful of Michael's family members including his sister Kim, brother in law, Greg, niece Kayla and her boyfriend, Brandon, cousins Jim and Lorrie and their friends Andrea and Brian along with their whole crew. It was a blast tailgating.  Michael and I haven't done too much of the REAL tailgating this year because the majority of the time it's been just us and we haven't feel the want to spend an arm and a leg for parking in a Vikings tailgating designated lot.  I started off drinking Mimosa's and I ended up drinking Mimosa's for the whole time.  With the exception of a drink or two from others, I drank the whole bottle of champagne.  Can you say headache?  I'm too old for this stuff but every great once in awhile, it happens.  I spent the rest of the day (and Monday) nursing myself back to health.  You just don't recover like you used to.  The game itself was fun too. Again, I don't like to drink too much when tailgating because I can't concentrate on the game, and I actually like to concentrate on the game.  I am just glad the Vikings won.  It always makes the 2nd half of the day good.  Good company, great weather and a Vikings win makes for a good Sunday!  Lots of pictures to share! 

The Girls

The Guys

Michael wants You!

This would be the empty bottle

The elk burgers we ate.  Jimmy shot an elk in Colorado last week

Our famous cook, Jimmy

The girls with Victor

Ta Da!

Skol Vikings!

The Skol Line

Tailgating on a beautiful day

The happy couple

Where's Dana?