In other news....

Since I am waiting on the laundry to finish before heading to bed, I thought I would add some of the pics from Shelby Anne's baptism on Sunday... Unfortunately, our camera doesn't have a great zoom so you can't see much from the service...

Shelby getting dunked and not liking it!!!

Babies, babies, everywhere!!

Not too much else going on, I guess... Matt got his "walking papers" on Monday stating that July 3rd will be his last day at LSI. (I would imagine that most of you know already that the company he works for lost the Chrysler contract and got the boot, but just in case.) But they couldn't even keep them on to give them the paid holiday on the 4th! I'm hopeful that this forced transition will be a good thing for Matt's career as well as our family, but I guess we'll just have to wait and see. Worse case scenario, he stays til the bitter end and gets 2 weeks severance and 1 week of remaining vacation time cashed out. That will at least buy us some time! As for me, I've started weight-lifting at the gym so hopefully I can convince my metabolism to start burning off the all the ice cream I consume. Oh, and most exciting!! I am about to make the last Bob (the landlord) payment!! Well, I guess I should go and pay bills... Yuck... See you all soon!

Curb Appeal: Phase 2

So, here is the final hardscaping project!! About 100 stones and a week's worth of labor was involved in the terracing project and Matt and I couldn't be more pleased with how it turned out. The next step is filling it with prettys. So, hopefully this weekend's weather will be nice and we can complete phase 3! I think we are planning on planning annuals for the most part for now and maybe some ground covers, then we will add some hostas and bulbs come fall. We are sticking with a purple and orange (of course) color scheme which should contrast the house well.

I am also accepting decor suggestions for the area to the left of the steps where the concrete pad meets the porch. A bench seems to be the most sensible idea, but I just don't see it serving any purpose... Any other ideas?? Also, if any of you have recommendations for the front door color, I would love to hear them! The storm door definitely has to stay for now for insulative purposes (there is an enormous gap under the current door that you can stick your hand through), but we hope to replace it with a glass inset door in the future. I just think that a color behind the brown storm door would brighten up the dark red brick. The only catch is convincing Matt!!

Inspiration

With all of Kim's bargain hunting, I have been quite excited to try it myself. So, last night, coupons in hand, Matt and I went to Shop N Save to capitalize on no coupon needed Thursday. For those of you not from the area, Shop N Save offers $10 any purchase greater than $50 on most Thursdays. Combined with my entertainment book coupons for $5 off the purchase of a $50 gift card, already saved me $15! There were some other good deals, like $4 off when you buy lettuce, ground beef, tortillas, and shredded cheese... All items we needed. We also got free bread with the purchase of lunch meat. I didn't get away with spending $6, but we did get $95 worth of groceries for $70. My favorite deal was the new Bush's Grillin Beans... They were on sale for 2 for $3, then I had 2 $1 coupons, so I got them each for $.50!

Curb Appeal: Phase 1

Anticipating the georgeous weather yesterday, Matt and I planned on spending the weekend giving our little house a make over. First step was to get rid of the ugly wooden tie wall. Still needing a structure there for water drainage, we opted for grey landscaping stones. We still need to back fill it tonight, but I think it's going to look pretty sharp! Next step is terracing that whole side of the yard with the same stones and getting some colorful flowers planted...

Before

(and Matt's frustration with the wall's reluctance to come down)

After

We still have some tweeking to do along the edge as part of Phase 2

A good day's work despite all the cuts, bruises, and sunburns!

Back to Reality

So, I'm back at work today, while Matt's at home enjoying the rest of his week off. We had a great time doing a whole lotta nothin! Well, that's not entirely true. Friday night we invited Katie to join us for dinner at Nacho Mammas, then Saturday we went for massages and Outback for dinner. Sunday we cleaned out the storage room and stayed up late to eat our cake at midnight. Matt took great pleasure smashing cake in my face while I wasn't paying attention. (I will say that it tasted pretty good for year old cake!) We also couldn't wait to give each other our gifts. Ironically, we had the same idea! We both gave each other picture frames. My craft project was a giant collage frame with lots of pictures of family and friends, while Matt's gift was some beautiful silver frames for wedding pics.

On Monday, we decided to be tourists and went up in the Arch. I had never been before and it had been years for Matt. From there, we went to watch a movie at the Chase and then to our fancy dinner at the Eau Bistro. We walked down Maryland Ave to get back to the car, and with all the lights and the fountain, it was almost ethereal. Then finally yesterday, we made a valiant effort to be productive in between episodes of Law & Order and such. The coolest part is that I don't think we really did much that we didn't have a coupon or gift certificate for! You guys really have to check out restaurants.com. I bought a $25 GC for $6. It didn't put much of a dent on our $80 tab, but $19 off, is still $19! We didn't take too many pictures, but here are some I took of the Arch grounds...

Check out the water level!!

A Raving Review

For those of you that have not experienced the Blue Man Group... You need to!!! It was the most amazing show, thing for that matter, that I think I have ever seen! (Aside from Europe, that is.) I won't give away too much, but it involves lots of fantastic music, great special effects, and lots of audience participation... All in all- worth every penny.

Then on Saturday, we had the pleasure of hosting a dinner party. Lot's of good food, good conversation, and good times. P.S. Denver limp appears to be doing better after a day of doting.

That's all for now. Matt's on vacation all next week (I'm taking Monday and Tuesday off for our anniversary). So, if anyone has any suggestions for an anniversary dinner, please pass them along!

Feel the Burn!

Earlier this week I was convinced by my co-worker, Janelle, to join her for a kick boxing class at the gym. I had thought, I did Taebo in college, piece of cake, right? Well, it turned out when we got there last night that the schedule was changed and the time slot was filled by a weight training class. So, we thought, what the hell... We're already here! Shortly after the class started, I began questioning what I was doing there! I was really proud of myself for sticking it through the entire hour, but man, am I sore today!

I am also really excited for this evening because for my Valentine's gift to Matt, we are going to see the Blue Man Group tonight! Maybe we will leave super early, so that we can get good parking... I don't know how far I will be able to walk!!

Last Weekend

Better late than never, eh? So, besides cleaning my carpet on Saturday, we went out with Julie and some other friends to celebrate her belated birthday. We started out at Schlafly Bottleworks in Maplewood (yum-o) and afterwards headed down to the Landing to check out the Big Bang Piano Bar. Unfortunately, we missed the main attraction (one of the performers doing a Justin Timberlake montage), however, we did have a great time. It draws a pretty good crowd, so we were very lucky to get a table. They are known as the home of dueling pianos and they performed a lot of classics tunes, which was really fun to sing along to. I will add that it gets a little randy at times... Lots of bachelorette parties...

On Sunday, I baked my 3rd batch of Amish Friendship bread, trying a pretty different variation. Chocolate chocolate chip muffins. Unfortunately, I overestimated the amount of time that it would take them to bake, so some weren't really salvagable. However, the flavor is pretty good (minus the charring). I don't know how much more bread we can eat, but I'm excited to try the sourdough recipe as well as a bundt cake... maybe raspberry chip?

So, with all this bread we have to eat, I've been trying to keep the momentum going at the gym. I took last week off due to the stomach flu, so I hit the eliptical hard on Monday. My personal best of 30 minutes! Of course, last night I was really tired, so I only could do 15 minutes. But I've been noticing that my endurance is improving as well as some of the aches and pains that I used to get on a regular basis.