Early birthday Presents

So on the cold cold Saturday, we did a little shopping, got some things that we needed, a present for Jerry and Renee's wedding reception, and then stopped by Joseph's.

Shannon wants a tiara, necklace and earrings for the wedding. Now it doesn't make much sense to buy a realish type tiara that she's really only gonna wear once, but as far as the earrings and necklace, she can wear those with more frequency, so why not buy quality?

We started looking at necklace pendants and what not, there we a lot of really pretty things there. When she pulled out a heart shaped pendant encrusted with diamonds and I saw the price tag, I about lost control and crapped myself. It was pretty, but I was in no way looking to spend my entire tax return plus $1000 more, for just that, and not a necklace to hold it.

After a few smaller shocks (prices decreasing), we got into things that were very pretty, yet still sensibly priced.

We got a white gold necklace, with a small heart pendant with a diamond in it (picture later).

Then we looked at earrings. There were several pretty ones, but neither of us liked how they looked on. We ended up ordering a size between those are too small and those are a healthy size in diamond studs. They'll look pretty on her, adding a bit of attention getting sparkle without being too gaudy.

Then we went over and looked at pens for the wedding book (and then for me afterwards). Between a few choices, we ended up with this one. I like the way it writes, although our sales lady did let us know that it may smear more for those of us in our families and friends that are left handed...but...it's for me afterwards, so they can deal :-P Since they didnt' have the pen in stock, they ordered it for us.

Shannon should have her earrings in time for her birthday, so she'll probably debut them at Jerry and Renee's reception.

Visiting Ames, The Birdman, and the rest of the week...

Wednesday night, we headed over to Chris and Pat's to watch the Grapes of Wrath, for the AFI top 100 film watching thing. It was a good movie. I brought over the bottle of white that I had chilled for valentine's day. The wine was ok, not great. The movie was pretty good. Certainly gives a few into how the whole depression worked. Good times...

As soon as I had gotten home from work, on Thursday, (Shannon had taken the day off), we headed up to Ames. We wanted to get there early enough to eat and maybe make it to the book store (I was going to buy an ISU diploma frame or two so I could put up my diplomas on the wall).

So the weather was supposed all nasty and awful, as was predicted, but it really wasn't that bad, or so I thought. The Interstate was fine, and until we turned off I35 on to Highway 30...Suddenly it was very windy. Apprenty the wind was blowing south.

I gave Seth and Briana a call and they agreed to meet us for dinner. I had been craving Great Plains Pizza for a while. It's one of the two resturants in Ames that I actually miss (The other being Battle's BBQ). So we went there. We had pizza and some soda and it was great. We caught up with Seth and Bri, which was great. I got to do my favorite part of the pizza, taking the end of the thick wheat crust and covering it in honey to finish it off. Their pizza is probably my favorite that I've had.

So being that we still had lots of time to the concert, we headed next door to the Corner Pocket. Seth, Bri and I had a Guiness and Shannon had a Bacardi Raz and Seth and I played a game of pool (which he let me win). Afterwards we said our goodbyes and Shannon and I headed to the M-Shop.

We parked, headed in, checked to see if the book store was open (it wasn't, it had closed 15 minutes before), and then, since we were still running early, headed in to the reading library (which during my 6 years at ISU I had never actually gone in), and hung out for a little while and read.

So we headed down to get into the show, and apprently because of some sort of delay, the show wasn't going to open it's doors until 8:30 (instead of 8). So we stood around and waited and waited...

and waited...

At around 8:50 they finally opened the doors. We had been near the doors, until we both started feeling a little crowded and moved more to the back of the line and less of a crowd.

It took us a while to get in and were a bit disappointed when we found out that they didn't have chairs setup...

So we took a spot to the side of the stage where it wasn't so crowded and then moved back a bit to get out of direct line of the speakers.

The first person up was Haley Bonar. She had a very breathy voice and she sang folksy songs about various things, including her cat. We both liked her, enough so we tried to buy her album, after her set...and...well...couldn't. The Andrew Bird people were not selling her stuff, and she was no where to be found...But after the entire show, we picked up both Lure the Fox and The Size of Planets. I'll let you know how much I like her albums when I get a chance to sit down and listen to them both...

Next up was Martin Dosh. Shannon really didn't like how much bass there was. But after it listened to it for a while, I kinda liked it, not enough to buy...yet...but certainly enough to see him with someone else I liked. A good example of his music and how he does it is in this video.

Then the headliner, Andrew Bird. Now this is the same guy where after I saw him in October in 2004 I went out and bought all the albums that he had. He played with Martin Dosh and Haley Bonar over his set, and he had quite the mix of the old and current (redone in the way that his music grows and changes) and the new as well. With the new really making me crave his next album, which his site says should be recorded this year. Sometimes when he was talking between songs, I wanted to whack some people on the head and tell them to stop talking and pay attention to the show. But I was impressed. By the end of the show, Shannon was getting very tired, so we prepared to go.

He did do an encore, and for that he also had everyone that had played over the night help him out on the last few songs. It really was a good time. Here's a good video from his website on how he does his shows., not the best audio quality... Over here they have an entire show, audio quality much better.

I bought Haley's CDs and then we headed home. It was really cold, but the roads were fine. We got home at around 1 AM. I had to print out maps and make sure Shannon's phone got charged up so I didn't get into bed until 1:30 or 1:45, which made getting up at 6:AM to shovel the light fluffy snow all the tougher, espically since it was windy and cold.

I was a bit grumpy until Brandon and I took a trip to La Mie and I got myself a mocha and a cinnamon roll, then my day started to look up.

Shannon's Mom was coming up to take a peek at the wedding venues, and spend some time with shannon to get a better idea of decorations, colors, and what not. So they headed over to the wedding chapel and met the caterer (Winstons/Chef's Kitchen) at the nature lodge. I met up with them and we had lunch at Palmer's over in West Des Moines.

So with discussions with the Nature Lodge and Winston's/Chef's Kitchen, we are going to have a Cash bar. The contract that I got from the nature lodge pretty much said we'd have to pay for everything, but when I emailed and asked, it turns out as long as our caterer has the license and the insurance, then it's fine to actually sell beer/wine. Of course I've now asked for a new contract, cuase the way this one is written doesn't make any damn sense, for what we want to do.

So to clarify and ask a few questions, Shannon and I went to Chef's Kitchen for dinner (through the very cold weather). They let us sample a bottle of Champagne to use for the wedding, which, for Shannon, got a "It's not to bad", which, from her, concerning booze, is more like a this is pretty damn good! from other people. It was not very strong and more fruity then dry, so I think it'll work out great for us. Dinner was good too...yes...we had champagne and french fries :) I had the muffeletta sandwhich and Shannon had the chicken alfredo sandwhich.

Aftewards we rented The Producers and Must Love Dogs, and went home to watch them. We watched The Producers, during which, since I had around 4 hours of sleep, I fell asleep once or twice, I'll probably watch it again today though. For me, around 9:PM I headed up to go to bed. When Shannon came up, I got up and brushed my teeth and actually got ready for bed rather then sleep in my clothes.

Busy at home, busy at work, it gets tiring.

Waterfront, Movie Night, Breakfast and Cleaning

So Friday night we went to the Waterfront Seafood Market and Restaurant with Josh and Lindsay.

Waterfront specializes in fish and fish things. There was a large and diverse selection, but Josh, Lindsay and I stuck with the Sushi and Shannon with with a variety plate, with a little shrip and a few mussels. I also had a bowl of clam chowder. The Chowder was pretty good and once I figured out how to mix the wasabi with soy sauce, it was a very enjoyable experience. The various kinds (spider and waterfront) that I had were quite tasty, but done in such a fashion where they were actually cooked. The presentation was better then I thought it would be. It was an enjoyable, experience.

The next day we went out to look for invitations and response cards and napkins and a cake. We went to Target, then the Bake Shop (in Windsor Heights), and the pastery samples (buttermilk brownies, carrot cake) were quite good, which left me in a good mood. We both had a full one of our own. I had a lemon bar and Shannon had a creme de menthe brownie. All creamy and minty on the outside and nummy on the inside. We went through some picture books of caokes and came down to what we wanted with a few modifications (like including the claddagh) and came upon a price. It'll alternate layers of chocolate and white cake and serve around 130 or 140. In talking with the baker, he's probably done 4000 wedding cakes over his life and he used to work for the largest wedding cake place in Des Moines (which is now closed). I left there thinking that we would get a lot more then what we wanted (even if it will cost more then what we got at Hy-vee).

We then went to Pure Paper, to try to find napkins, however they don't really do that, but we did get a few ideas as far as party favors and inivtations.

We headed to Hy-vee to get a few things and then went home, put them away, and went to Pink Fine Stationery, where we got information about napkins and she'll get us more. She asked about our invitation, but mentioning that we had a graphic designer (Adam) as a friend, kinda put the kilbosh on that real quick (which is nice cause we didn't really wanna say that we didn't wanna do it cause it was probably too expensive).

We went to Micheal's and looked for do it yourself cards, but only found one box of 50 of what we wanted, so we decided to go to the card maker's website and see if we could have any luck. Their website was pointless...no recommendatations on where to buy online or other nonsense, so by using the power of google, we were able to find something if not the same, very simliar to what we wanted online at target. Yay! So we bought plenty and called doing weddign stuff for the day.

We headed over to Josh's and met up with Josh and Lindsay, and Adam and Tif and we ordered pizza (fron Northern Lights) and watched some movies. First up was The Brothers Grimm, which I had wanted to wach in the theater, but I thought that Shannon might not like it. It was strange...very Strange, but Gilliam is like that. there were two things in the movie that tipped it over the edge of not liking for Shannon, both involving cruelty to animals... Even with that though, I think I liked it...maybe I'll have to see it again (but I don't think that Shannon could take it).

The second movie was one we had all seen before. Last Action Hero...Yes...really....it was actually a lot funnier then I remember.

Afterwards we headed home.

This morning I made breakfast, for myself, Shannon, Josh and Lindsay. French Toast, Pancakes, bacon and sausage, with toast too. It turned out ok...I wasn't happy with it. The bacon and the sausage were good, but the pancakes were inconsistantly done as well as the french toast. They still tasted good, but I just didn't think it was good enough.

Josh and Lindsay were still in their PJ's but it was nice to have guests over for breakfast...

After they left we got to work and cleaned up this place...it looks very nice now.

Catching up on things...

Last Thursday, we watched Sunset Boulevard (#12 of the AFI top 100 Movies) at Chris and Pat's Movie night. It was a pretty good movie and it was full of memorable quotes that people have probably heard before, but don't really know where they are from. There were a few parts where I thought it was a little long, but over all it was a really good movie. Some of the visual affects were pretty amazing (even for now), and watching some of the behind the scene stuff it made it even more impressive.

Saturday, day, we met with the Little's of Chef's Kitchen and Winston's and discussed what we'd need for catering and they also gave us ideas on napkins and cake (if we want to switch from hy-vee). We got most of the meal plan hammered out.

Saturday evening was a little get together at the Crib hosted by Jen (since Ryan's moved out, I think, and Dusty was out of town). Shannon wasn't feeling so well, so I went alone. It was slow to start, considering I got there late and was still the 2nd guest, but it was enjoyable over all. I played a lot of spades (even though i resisted for a long time) and eventually my partner and I won.

Sunday, Shannon and I did a lot of straigtening around the house and printed out our "Save the date" cards and cut them up. The printer was new (but Shannon wants it for printing out pictures), but the paper we used, I already have so excluding the printer, it'll cost us whatever the envelopes are and the 20$ paper cutter...so not to bad over all...The envelopes I originally bought for them were just a bit too small...so I'll probably take a trip to some office store or paper store to get envelopes that'll fit well. I hung the mirror too (which I already posted about).

After a break of not doing much for the wedding (which I kinda needed) we are working again at it...

Wow...that's cool

So a lot has changed since I played with color ink jet printers a long time ago. Since Shannon wanted to print off some of our digital pictures (we don't even have a film camera in this house). So after a little bit of research, and a little bit of product line reccomendation we ended up with a Canon Pixma IP 5200 Photo Printer.

Initially I was skeptical, but if it's what she wants, I have trouble saying no to her, but at the very least I figured we could print of the "save the date cards" and some pictures.

But I have to say I have been quite surprised, first with a picture of Shannon's niece and nephew (from Christmas) and another of a close up of Taylor. I was amazed at the details of the hair, the eyes, it was just really cool.

So I was actually surprised at the variatey of paper that I have, from Matte to glossy to ones with cotton in it, and they all turned out really well. We even test printed the "save the date" cards and those turned out great (Thanks Adam!).

Anyhoo, I'm not disappointed with my purchase.

Wedding show, ticket, Matt's Apt

So Sunday Morning, we're heading out, a little early, we head down 42nd street, I get some cash, then stop at La Mie for a Mocha, and head to the interstate, things going smootly, we heading through downtown Des moines, My cell phone alarm goes off, reminding me it's time to take my pills. After beating myself up for a bit, we head back towards home. I run in, take my pills and make the decision that I'm going to move my pill taking time up from 10:AM to when I wake up...

So we make the 42nd street run again, get on the interstate, I look over, and some lady is just hiding in my blind spot, so I accelerate to get past her, and when I'm slowing down, Shannon mentions that there is a cop on the on ramp over there, so I check my speedometer and I'm going 65, so I'm thinking no biggie, only an extra jerk of a cop would pull me over for 10 over or less.

Apprently he clocked me at higher. Cause I see the flashing lights in my rear view mirror and he pulls me over. Now of the experiences with cops that I've had, this was probably one of the better ones, it's all bussiness, no baloney, I was done in 15 minutes, no wasting my time.

So the crime? Apprently I was going 74 in a 55, so 19 over...I remember these things being much more dramatic, but I guess it just didnt' affect me that much, but it did give me something to talk about that day. I'm not gonna say that I'm guilty, but I do have somewhat of a lead foot and I probably deserve it...

Oh well.

The rest of the drive, I complained about how slow I felt we were going, so I eventually went from doing the limit, to 5 over to 7 over, to 9 over like I would normally do. Oh well...I guess I learned nothing from it :) I'm curious as to what this'll do to my insurance rates. I think my old ticket (which was for 10 over almost 5 years ago, that cop (from Clive) was a huge ass).

We went to Shannon's parent's (Bob and Linda) and I looked through a scrap book with pictures of her childhood and that was nice. She has funny pictures of her (that she's embarressed of), just like I have funny pictures of me.

Afterwards, I called Matt and left a message and then called Nathan and headed over to the Matta's. I got there just in time to get Taylor all excited before she took her nap (probably not a good thing). I got a call back from Matt and he said he'd give me a call when he was done with the errends he had to run that day. 20 minutes after Taylor went down for her nap, Jenny (who is still pregnant, which I guess it's not still since her due date is actually next week, but she's been having practice contractions for a while now) headed upstairs for her nap. Nathan and I headed downstairs to play some video games. We settled on a sort of Diablo/Gautlet style game, which we made it through a few parts of the first mission, before Taylor had waken up and was stirring in her crib.

So up we got and then a little while later jenny woke up and we all played with Taylor.

I got a call back from Matt, he told me to check with Shannon, I did, she was happily watching the bridal fashion show with her mom and sister, so I headed over to Matt's new apartment.

It was pretty spacious (2 bedrooms) for only $550 he's paying in rent. Which is quite a bit smaller then what he was paying before. So his friend Stacy and her child Devon were also there and I got the tour and we chatted about things and stuff and drank down a Guiness (Which I'm thinking he bought just cause I was coming over).

I got a call from Shannon and they were headed back to her parent's, so I told her to get a ride over to the Matta's (since they had offered to feed us, if we wanted to join them for dinner) and I'd be over in a bit. Also Taylor wanted to see her (Shannon! Shannon! Purple! Purple! (She was wearing a purple sweater when Taylor associated the color with her)), so after a bit, I bid my farewell and drove back across town.

We had pasta from a CR pasta place, and it was good, it was nice. We thanked them for putting up with us for a 3rd weekend in a row and headed out of town.

The drive back to Des Moines went pretty smooth, and we got home and I'm glad that next weekend we don't have to travel.

Oh, Shannon got a good idea of what she wants to do for her bouquet, so that's good.

Ha ha! We fooled Santa!

So the car was full, even before we put ourselves in it. And after Shannon got home from work, we finished the preperation and headed out. After a short stop to top off the tank and pick up some drinks, we headed towards Cedar Rapids on Christmas Eve Day.

Traffic was bad in spots, but not so bad that it slowed me down too much. There was a SUV that loved to tailgate that followed me for 20 minutes or so.

We stopped by my parents, dropped off our presents for that house, said hi to all the people there and then headed over to the Matta's to drop off our luggage. They weren't home but the door was unlocked and so we took our things right up to the spare bedroom and then headed back towards the Blocklinger's.

We got there and join Shannon's parents were watching a Duke marathon on the TV and we joined them until Shannon's sister's family got there. Sheighleigh was dress in a very cute Christmas, and Sean was very handsome in his outfit.

For me, I was thinking more people were going to come over, cause there were piles of presents, but I was mistaken. Which amazed me.

We had a nice dinner of soups (chili (pretty good) and chicken noodle (very good)). Some rolls and some bread that my younger brother Jed had me take along, along with cheese, pickle wraps, wraps, cinnamon chips with a fruit salsa, along with Lefse covered in cinnamon and sugar and baked.

It was a good meal. Shawn was very excited to get to the opening of the presents. We got to it, and it was quite a diffrent experience for what I was used too. They passed out the Christmas stockings (first one of the weekend) and I got a couple of cookbooks and other things and I was flipping through the cookbooks before I realized that people were kind of waiting for me.

We went on to the presents. Shawn and Sheighleigh got many toys and outfits, I gave Shannon a Lalique Crystal Cat and Shannon got me the wine bottle opener that I wanted (like the one that Chris has). It basically makes the wine bottle super easy to open and hard to mess up. We also got a stained glass claddagh that Shannon's mother made for us (it's huge), so that'll soon be hanging in the large window in the living room. Shannon's parents seemed to like the presents we got them, which is cool :) We also got the majority of our christmas lists bought for use...which was kinda shocking to me...I suppose it's easier to do when you have two kids and their familys rather then 9 kids and their family. But yeah it was tough to get used to. Kim got Shannon a bunch of soaps and things that she made. That was cool too.

We talked for a while afterwards, and the kids started to play and we (Mike, Kim, Shannon and I), ended up playing the TV version of Scene It. Mike led through most of the game, with me trailing behind everyone, until I finally found what I was good at (Jingles, slogans, and music). It came down to the wire, and due to a hard question, and then one that Shannon knew right off, Shannon came in first and I came in second.

Somewhere in there we had pie, and I had a small piece of three pies, all of which were good (rasberry, pumpkin and a chocolate cheesecake, I think).

A little while later I helped make load up the present's in their min-van, and then we loaded up our things and headed back to the Matta's.

Buy the time that we got there, Taylor was down for the night and Nathan and Jenny were painting Taylor's new room (her current room will be the baby's room). It had bright colors and Taylor's favorite thing, Butterflys. It was pretty neat. So we chatted for a while and after they were done painting for the night, moved downstairs and continued chatting. Eventually we headed to bed.

I woke up in the morning to the sounds of Christmas morning at the Matta's. I headed downstairs and took pictures of Taylor opening up presents and playing. She went very slowly and would open something and play with it for quite a while. Jenny's mom showed up with more present's for Taylor. And then Shannon joined us. To our surprise, when they passed out Christmas stockings, we had one too (2nd one of the weekend). It was very nice had some chocolate, candy and a loofah and a couple of other things. It was really nice of Santa to also visit us at the Matta's. Nathan then make a great breakfast of french toast (made of challah from La Mie), and bacon, and sausage, with peach and strawberry reductions as syrup. Quite yummy. We got ready for the day and then looked at the clock and saw that my parents were about to leave for Church, so we stayed around for another hour and then headed over to my parents.

We got there before my family had gotten back from church, so we looked at a few things, took some pictures, I tried to show Shannon the Santa face with the beard made out of wintergreen lifesavers, but I found out later that since mom doesn't really have anyone around that is really interested in doing that anymore. It kinda made me sad. We had the gift exchange of what was left over (my family does most of the present opening on Christmas eve) so we missed out on most of the gifts opened. But we did get to see my parents open our gifts and see Brent and Emily's internal family open their gifts. And then we got our final gift exchange between Shannon and I, where I got her a big bottle of the purfume that she likes (and I do too, yes it is a little self serving) and she got me Kill Bill vol 1 and 2 (which she had remembered from a long time ago that I wanted them). We also got, in Shannon's Stocking another copy of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, so we re-gifted it it to Emily's family, since that's what Santa would've wanted.

We got called for dinner. Turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravey, fruit salad, lefse (prepare your own...mmm...an excuse to eat sugar and butter), bread made by my brother Jed. Shannon got a bit confused (which at a Kurth dinner is easy to do) since things can get quite confusing, reaching not passing in a uniform manner and the fact that there is 14 or so of us. Dinner was good and it just kinda shows how much I miss mom's cooking. After dinner, I wanted to take a nap, but Shannon wouldn't let me, so eventually we played a game of Settler's of Cataan with My brother in law Brent (the physics one), my sister in law Stephanie and my little brother Isaac. It was a good time. Shannon built little buildings out of the pieces to the game. It was fun. Stephanie eventually won. A little while after that we headed back to the Matta's.

We ended up chatting with the Matta's pretty late into the night, so late that Shannon went to bed before Jenny, Nathan and I were finished.

On Monday, we woke up and got ready for the day, and around 11 we headed out to get some lunch and then headed over to Shannon's grandmother's house over in Marion. It was an interesting experience and there were a lot of neat glassworks/salt n pepper shakers that I would like to look at closer one day (kinda hard to do when kids are running around). We chatted, Kim and Mike's family showed up. Opened more present's. Shannon's Grandma seemed to be pretty happy with the glass manger scene that we got her. We took a bunch of pictures and chatted some more and eventually we headed off.

We then met up with Richard, Wade, Nathan, Jenny, Taylor, and eventually Dan at applebees and just hung out, ate a little and chatted and around 4:30 or so, we headed out to our cars. Shannon then noticed that there was another blue RSX Type S right across the parking lot from mine and so we commented on it, and it turns out it was dan's...but two model years earlier. I just found that funny. So then Shannon and I headed home and then plopped on the couch.

Oh...and to those of you whom I told I'd put pictures up online so you could download 'em all...yeah...that won't so much work since they won't compress at all, so I'll take a CD or three of them back to Cedar Rapids, so you can get them....

Anways good christmas, lotta fun, lotta new traditions, lotta loot, and Maybe the last time we'll see Jenny pregnant (she may give birth this week). Oh yeah...we also gave Jenny a Chocolate baby carridge :-) She had a huge chocolate haul (from us, from nathan and from her mom). 3 Stockings, lots of presents, lots of fun, and lots of family.

Long Busy Weekend, Part 3: Sunday

So we wake up, I got ready first so Shannon could sleep a bit longer. Then Shannon got ready.

After Nathan, Jenny and Taylor were ready, we headed over to my Parents house. Terry couldn't go 'cause he was helping Zeke put in GFI outlets into the house he was selling and help him move to the apartment.

So we headed over, and were greeted by Mom and Dad, Emily and Brent, and their three kids (Mary, Jared and Julia), Hyrum and Diane (Spencer and Dallin). So quite the crowded house. At first I think that Nathan was a bit worried about Taylor fitting in, but she fit right in and started playing with the crowd. We unpacked our new coffee table and put it in my parents basement.

Breakfast, late as it was, consisted of pancakes, muffin bread, apple bread (I think), fried ham, and apple syrup. It was all very good. My mom (and the assitants) are all very good cooks.

A bit later Jed and Stephanie show up with a pan of cinnamon rolls and a pan of raisin cinnamon rolls. The raisin ones were pretty good (I assume the others were too, but I didn't try them).

After a bit more chatting and stuff, we had to head back to Nathan and Jenny's cause I forgot my pills and then we headed to Chucky Cheese's to celebrate Taylor's 18 month birthday.

Eventually we found Terry, Zeke and a girl that Zeke is seeing (I never caught her name).

We played a lot of silly games, and won Taylor a lot of tickets. They had this moving line game, where I wont the jackpot on (36 tickets) and won a bunch of other tickets on this circle game thing, but I kept missing the jackpot. it was very frustrating.

All this was fun.

They got pizza, but it was...well...greasey and not the best. I guess I can remember why I don't eat there :)

Taylor had fun, she watched this bee game lots and slid on the slide.

After exchanging her tickets (and a bunch of money for the tokens to get the tickets) Taylor went away with a stress ball (looked like a koosh), a slinkey, and some stickers.

We headed to Nathan and Jenny's and got ready to go to the wedding.

So Richard and Elana's wedding was held in this nice lutheran church. It was a nice service and Elana was very striking in her wedding dress. There were 4 attendants on each side, which was quite a lot. But the red dresses that the ladys were wearing and the tuxes the guys were wearing were all vey nice.

We headed out through the line, where we heard Richard introuduce us to Elana's mom (in russian).

We chatted for a while with various people (including Kelly, who I hadn't seen in a long time), while we were waiting for them to take pictures. Got some bubbles and entertained Taylor with them (BUBBLES!).

Eventually they headed out through a highlight of bubbles and headed out in Richard's dad's car (a clasic car...but I can't remember what it is now). And they headed over to the reception.

We also headed over, following Nathan, since we left our map on our fridge in Des Moines. We made one wrong turn and we got to the reception.

We headed in, and dropped off our bag 'o gifts and steaked out a table. At the table we had Dan's fiance, Shannon and I, Nate Jenny and Taylor and Bret and his wife, and Kelly. Surrounding our table was Clif and wade. It was a good time.

Beer, wine and soda was free so I had a couple of beers. There was a nice booklet that explained the ins and outs of a Russian wedding. I kinda wish I would've taken one with me, but I didn't. One of the thing that I remember though was in a Russian wedding, at least once during the night, the friends of the groom are supposed to steal the bride and ransom her back to the groom. Also, it is expect for people to drink at the wedding. In fact, I believe it said that a good wedding is no one can remember what happend ie, people are encouraged to overindulge.

So we had settled in and when the newly married couple arrived, they were greeted by Richard's parents and Elana's mom with a specially made loaf of special wedding bread. So the idea is that whomever tears off the biggest piece of bread will end up being the head of the household. Elana, though given the chance, let Richard tear the biggest piece off.

Then there was a speech. Richard's dad spoke and spoke and spoke and talked about many things. In part he was waiting for one of the groomsmen to arrive, cause they were late. Although what Richard's dad said was very nice. And after a LONG time, he finally showed up (who know's what he was doing).

Then came the food. The food was better then I expected, given the rusted out van in the parking lot. The potatoes were actually very good. It was probably one of the better wedding meals I had had. It's too bad I didn't catch who the catering company was, otherwise I'd plug 'em here.

After a while, it was starting to get late (cause things were running so far behind), so it was about time to go home.

So we made our goodbyes (we forgot to say good bye to the bride and groom, but I think that had more to do that they were doing thier first dance then anything). While doing so, Dan asked me to be a Groomsman at his wedding. I was very moved by this. So I guess some time in February, we'll be heading to Texas to go to that wedding.

We then got in our car, and headed back to Des Moines. We got home a little before 11:PM and we pretty much immediately went to bed.

Long Busy Weekend, Part 2: Saturday

So I wake up aroudn 5:00 in the morning, I was tired of wearing the mask so I took it off. I then shortly figured out that it was only 5 in the morning, so I put the mask back on, and went back to sleep (yes I woke Shannon up). I slept for another 2 hours and got up and took a shower. Shannon took a shower after me.

That morning, Nathan made breakfast for Jenny, Taylor, Terry, Shannon and I. We had pancakes, eggs, and sausage. It was good :)

After a bit, we got all (Nathan, Jenny, Taylor, Shannon, myself, and Jenny's Mom) gussied up and headed down to Oktoberfest at the Amanas. So we loaded up in the mini-van (after a little struggle of getting the seats back into the mini-van). The drive wasn't to long and we parked by the side of the rode. and walked into the fest. We were greeted by sounds of polka and smells of Kettle corn. I am not sure if I have actually been to the Amana's before, but it pretty much looks like I expected it too. Old houses, a few people in lederhosen. lots of familys and etc wandering around.

I saw no beer tents, per se, I did see a tent, but it didn't look like it was full of those who are drinking of the beer.

We stopped in some shops and looked and some things. We stopped at the Christmas shop, cause Shannon wanted that we should buy christmas ornaments together. So we got two. One of a Santa w/ some kitties, and one that was glass squares that spells out snow. We looked around some more and we found a cake topper, or at least what we will use as a cake topper. It is bears getting married in front of a big heart with flowers. It is a Boyd's Bear item. Very cute and Shannon really seemed to love it, so I was sold.

We continued on down the road. We ocassionally lost Jenny, or her mom or Nathan. But we eventually made our way down to Millstream Brewing Company. There was some polka playing and lots of people drinking. They had choices of Root Beers and what looks to be their entire selection of Millstream beers...or at least the ones that are in season.

I tried the Dopplebock, which apprently is their 20th Anniversery brew. It was pretty good. Nathan tried it too, and it got a good review. And because Dopplebocks ripen with age (unlike other brews), Nathan thought they'd end up being very, very good after a year or two. So we'll see. Nathan ended up buying 5 bottles (bigger bottles 1 pint 6 ounces) and I bought 3 bottles. I'll be putting 'em down in my basement to keep them cool and dry.

Afterwards we headed up to the Brick Haus. It is a family style restaurant. We had to wait for a little bit, which looked a little wierd, since we had a carridge full of beer and a little Taylor running all over the place. Taylor and Nathan and I formed a little swing, which she enjoyed a whole lot.

Our number was 3, the count was at 45, but they said it'd take like 15 minutes. And it wrapped around at 50, so it really didn't take that long.

Lunch was pretty good. The table was covered with food, from fried chicken (yummy), bratwurst (which was OK, but the mustard was...well...disappointing), to corn, and kraut, and sweet kraut salad. Everything was pretty good...except the mustard, which was...just weaker then yellow mustard. And it was completed off with a dessert. I had apple pie (it was very good) and Shannon had cheesecake.

We were all full and walked our way up the street back to the car, stopping at a toy place near the top of the street.

The drive home was pleasant.

Then Nathan and Jenny prepared for the night's events. They were holding a get together for their Family. So his older sister (who used to babysit me) and her husband and kids came over, and his younger brother Zeke. Zeke again offered me his coffee table and it now sits at my parents (Thanks Zeke!). The BBQ beef was good and the surrounding stuff was nice too.

The night wore on and Terry took Zeke home and brought back the coffee table. The rest that were left sat around and talked for a while, Nathan gave me a try of the Ron del Barrilito rum that he had been raving about. It was very good, espically considering that it was $12 a bottle.

After a while, we hit the sack and went to bed. I slept pretty well.

Long Busy Weekend, Part 1: Friday

We both took Friday off, so Friday morning I headed over to the Blood Center of Iowa, West Des Moines location, and gave blood. Being in a very mellow mood, I was easily convinced to give a double red donation (They take out twice as many red blood cells, but put your plasma back in, it takes a bit longer, but apprenlty 60% of blood need is red blood cells). I found (and remember this time) that my blood type is O+ (like 38% of other people). So I did so it wasn't too bad. I ate some cookies, got double t-shirts (apprently it was t-shirt day) and went home.

Then we packed. We remembered almost everything. We headed north to hit I80 and head east, but when we stopped for gas and water, I remembered that we forgot my CPAP and forgot to go to La Mie to pick up bread like we had talked about, for our friends and family. So we went back to the house, I got my machine, and then we went to La Mie.

We got 2 loaves of Raisin challah, a loaf of Plain challah and a loaf of wheat bread. We also got some snack food for the road, I got an oatmeal rasin cookie (it was good), and Shannon had a Scone...chocolate cinnamon something. And well...she let me try some of that. It was a big wow. That was very very good, and I was jealous that I just got the cookie :-) (side note, there was a nice article in Cityview about La Mie.)

So then we headed east on I235 and then on I80 and drove to CR. We stopped by my parents house, and dropped off a loaf of the Raisin challah (nobody was home). We headed over to Shannon's parents and I dropped Shannon off. Shannon's plans including shopping (for wedding dress material) and spending time with her sister and mom (since they haven't done that in a while).

I gave Nathan a call, and he was headed over to Taco Bell to pick up lunch for his family, so I decided to meet him there and pick up lunch for myself.

I hadn't been to Taco Bell in a while, but the place looked kinda neat. After we got lunch to go, we headed toward's Nathan and Jenny's house.

We ate and the food was ok, certainly filling and not that dredfully expensive. Kinda what you expect from mexican fast food. Afterwards we made a Sam's Club run, to pick up some pillows and assorted other items (they didn't think that between Shannon and I staying in the guest room and Nathan's dad staying in the basement, that they had enough pillows to go around).

We came back, and played with Taylor (their 18 month old girl) and chated about stuff. Taylor loves the outside, and with thier huge yard, there's lots of places to go. Around 6, Jenny made herself and Taylor dinner, and about 6:45 Nathan and I headed out to Richard's Bachelor party.

Dinner was at Gringo's. We were on time, and still were beaten there by a couple of Richards friends that we didn't know. We sat down drank some (I had a couple of Boulevard Wheats) and chated. About 20 minutes later, Richard showed up with a couple of Russians, Scott P., and a few others, and we got down to the business of eating and drinking.

I ordered what I thought would be the spicy thing on the menu. It was name five alarm something or another and came in flavors of chicken, pork or steak. I chose steak. We had 15 or so people at the table. So we orderd a bunch of margaritas, and they came out in pitchers and we dug right in. They were ok at first, you could tell that they were made with not the best tequila, but what can you expect?

So the food came out. And...well...I don't know about other peoples food, but mine certainly wasn't what I expected. My food had slices (yes slices like across the vegetable) of carrots and zucchini, and wasn't spicy in the slightest. I mean not in the slightest. Like I've had plain ketchup that was spicier. And it's not that the food was bad, but it just really wasn't I was expecting. But it's not like it was good either.

As the night wore on, I swear they stopped putting tequila into the margaritas because they started tasting more like the margarita mixer and less like margaritas. So they got worse and worse.

We finally left down there, and we headed over to Fat Wally's. I've been to Fat Wally's a few times and when it comes down to it, it's not a bad place to go. The one thing that I've discovered that I don't really like about Fat Wally's is that they don't realize that some beer expires. The first beer of the night that I had, which was one that I had never heard of, was, of my opinion, and Nathan's too, spoiled. Too old. So I switched to more common things (bass, boddington's) and wasn't surprised by the taste anymore. We played pool, and darts, and it was fun. Eventually we headed out.

We drove over to Wade's Parent's house (at least the DD's drove over). We built a fire and sat around and shot the breeze. There were some snacks, Scott had made some layered cookie/brownie things and Clif had made some dipping chili. It was supposed to be hot, but it wasn't, but he thought that he had made it a bit wrong (to much tomato paste). So the people kinda parted up in discussion groups. The fire was hot, the weather was cool, it was pretty nice.

At around 2:AM we convinced a few people to move thier cars, so that Nathan could get his car out, and we headed back to Nathan and Jenny's House.

I got home and woke Shannon up when I came in. I wasn't hardly drunk at all, though, it's just I had to turn on the over head light and turn her around so that my head was closer to the table in the room (so that my mask could reach me).

And then sleep came.