Surprise!!!

This week has been filled with little surprises here and there. On Monday I was asked to help the recruiter in our office with interviews at the University of Chicago. The surprise was that the plane was leaving that day at 2. Since our social life is slow to take flight we had the week open. I helped to give the presentation to the college students and then sat down with six of them the following day for interviews into our merchandiser training program. I love Chicago. It's a town that I would move to in a heartbeat.

We had Camille's Halloween party for her school on Thursday night. It was really cute. The staff did a great job of putting it together. The kids especially loved the face painting.

On Friday we packed up and headed back to Minneapolis for my Godson, Trentin's birthday party. It took us less than 6 hours to get to Lakeville, so that was a nice surprise in and of itself. The kids were so excited to see each other when they woke up Saturday morning. After Trentin's party we headed to the north side of town.

We decided to crash our friends' Halloween party on Saturday night for a couple of hours. Every year Dave and Jenne (friends from dance) throw a huge party for the kids. Some parents stay, some parents drop their kids off. The parents that stay hang out in their porch and drink beer. We had told Connie, Chris, Tiffany and Jeremy that we'd stop by, but we asked them not to tell anyone else. Aren't we sneaky? People we were so surprised to see us and it was nice to see a number of people we didn't really get a chance to say good-bye to.

One of my favorite moments of the night is when Polly and Brent arrived. Polly was so excited to see me that she actually screamed a little bit. It was a moment that made my heart smile. It was really sweet to see their daughter, Gwyneth in Sydney's Dorothy costume from last year.

We rounded the night out at my mom and dad's house. Dad was off hunting so we didn't get a chance to see him, but at this time of year, it wasn't a surprise.

Whirlwind Weekend

This weekend has been in the works since about the time we said we were moving to KC last winter. We confirmed our relocation to a few of the people at the dance studio we had gotten to know really well and Jeremy says "We're coming down MMEA weekend". At the time, we hadn't decided on a house yet, so that comment was inspiration to get serious about looking.

Jeremy, Tiffany and their girls were the first to arrive on Wednesday night...or rather, Thursday morning. I had to work for awhile on Thursday, so our guests laid low around the house and were able to get some nap time in.

Connie, Chris and their two kids arrived around dinner time on Thursday. Connie had told me months ago that she would teach me how to make ricotta, and of course, me being me, I held her to it. I don't think the engine had even cooled down on their truck before I had her at the stove showing me the ins and outs. Not that I doubted her, but she had told me that it was easy, and she was right. Now I can make homemade ricotta for anyone who wants it! It is all part of my plan to eventually become the best non-Italian, Italian cook. You laugh, but I'm serious.

Chloe and Camille helping cut mushrooms for my spaghetti sauce.

On Friday morning I took Tiffany and Connie to my new Mecca, better known as the Plaza. We spent over an hour alone in Anthropologie. It is quickly making its way into my top 5 favorite stores. I found a beautiful cashmere sweater for $50, on sale from $250. It was damn near free.

We had the boys meet us on the Plaza with the kids for dinner (KC BBQ style). We told the kids that if they all ate well, and behaved even better, we'd take them on a the horse drawn Cinderella pumpkin carriage ride. Sydney and Abbie were determined to get in that pumpkin because they were the first ones done with dinner, completely eating the meat portions of their entrees. Camille needed a little cajoling to eat her BBQ chicken, but mentioning the pumpkin carriage 800 times was finally enough to inspire her. Of course, it helped that a lit up one rolled by halfway through dinner and the kids just about lost their minds at the sight of it.

Getting ready to ride on the Pumpkin Carriage

The guys went golfing on Saturday morning and we took the kids to the Kansas City Zoo. What a zoo (on both accounts)! They have so many animals at this zoo that we don't have at either zoo in Minneapolis. The set-up of the zoo is really cool as well. One side is Australia, with all of the kangaroos, wallabies etc. and the other side is Africa with all of the chimps, hippos, zebras etc.


While at the zoo, I was able to show my friends some of Missouri's finest. We were crossing the bridge from Zaire to Botswana when we happened across this interesting family. The boy (aged 10) had a switch blade that he was randomly stabbing everything in site with. That in and of itself made us drop back about 15 paces. The rest of the kids were all over the place (not to say ours weren't) and would randomly stop walking which just pissed the parental-type members of the party off. We finally get across the bridge (10 or 15 minutes have gone by) when a lady with a small child walks up to this clan and asks if the small child belongs to them. What I assume was the mom from the family in front of us says "Yeah" and takes the little girl by the hand. That's it. Not, "Oh my God child where have you been" or "THANK YOU we've been desperately searching for her". But I guess looking back at it, if she was concerned about the child's whereabouts, she wouldn't have been leisurely crossing the bridge.

After the zoo we came home, put Halloween costumes on the kids and got them ready to go to the Children's Farm Halloween Party. It was complete with trick-or-treating, non-scary hayrides and a dance! The kids had a blast, and who wouldn't with a trick-or-treating opportunity on the 18th of October?


Sadly, our friends left around 10:30 this morning. The weekend went so fast, and I had so much fun. It wasn't one of our drinking nights (I still laugh about our antics the first night we went out for sushi and a "couple" drinks) but it was still a great weekend. Thank you guys for making the trip down here and for cleaning your bathrooms before you left (which you didn't have to do!).
I'd gladly have them all back down anytime, they were perfect house guests!!

Pepe Le Pew

Every now and again I hit a brick wall with my weight. I have this proverbial 15 lbs that I have been trying to lose since I had Camille...which sadly was over three years ago. So here I am again at my wall. In lieu of parking myself in front of the computer to pay bills, manage checking accounts, work or catch up on emails (and who am I kidding, FACEBOOK) I've decided to start working out.

It is nice in the evenings so I've been going for walks after the girls go to bed. I was out on Sunday night after getting home from a wine/beer weekend with the McComas' trying to reverse the weekend damage. I am trucking along to my iPod with one eye over my shoulder since it is dark when I head out (you never know who is lurking in Suburbia). I am rounding the corner when out of a shrub jumps a skunk. Yes, a mutha effing skunk. I felt that panic that I imagine the people "feel" in horror movies when they are faced with certain death.

My mind immediately races back to living with my college roommate Anna, who had that stupid dog. Emily, Jenna, Angie and I were getting ready to go to a study group (aka keg party) when we let Monster (dumb dog with a well suited name) out. Anna was of course MIA as usual. Wouldn't it just figure, that in the middle of Duluth that stupid dog found a skunk. Monster was sprayed and I drew the short straw as the person that had to stay home and deal with it.

Back to present day. Pepe and I are locked in a stare...he sees me and takes a defensive stance. I am unarmed. I have only my iPod and my cell phone...neither of which I risk smelling like skunk so I take off running in the other direction...running people. It wasn't pretty. If any of my neighbors saw me, it probably just confirmed to them that the lady from Minneapolis with the stay-at-home-husband and all of the Halloween decorations really is crazy.

I pass a neighborhood cat on my way and hear it meet the skunk. I don't think things went well for the cat. I wonder if the skunk tried to seduce the cat like Pepe did in the cartoons.

Needless to say, I'm changing my walking route and filling my pockets with rocks before I leave.

I have to share this link with you: http://cakewrecks.blogspot.com/ It is one of my favorite computer passtimes lately. Mike and I just giggle everytime we check this lady's blog.

Friday Night Lights

Sydney cheered at the homecoming game for our high school with the cheerleaders. It was quite an experience for all of us. The information sheet told us to be to the high school by 6 pm (7 pm kick off). We were there and the bleachers were about a third full. After about 10 minutes in our original seats we realized we were in the student section. We high tailed it out of there and into the parents section.


It was in our new seats that Mike noticed that the field wasn't grass. It was AstroTurf! These people take their high school football seriously. The marching band was there in full uniform too. The cheerleaders spend an entire week making the banner the football team breaks as they run out on the field, the fans stand the entire game. I was so amazed at the AstroTurf that I texted Jane. She told me that we had nothing on Texas high school football. By a quarter to 7 the stands were packed.


We left right before half time when Sydney was done....I don't think either kid had it in them to watch the whole game.

In an hour or so, Ron and Marilyn will be arriving for the weekend. They are going to take the girls to a hotel tonight and Mike and I are going to head to the Plaza with our friends, Pedro and Susan. I think we are going to try and get a table at re-Verse.

This past week I attended my first big BBQ function at Kemper Arena with my colleagues. We were there the Thursday night before the American Royal kick-off. I'm told it's the largest BBQ competition in the nation, but Pedro said that's only because they let anyone with a Weber enter. We had beef tenderloin and enough wine to sink a ship. The tenderloin was indescribable it was so good.

It's going to be 80 today so we are most likely going to take Ron and Marilyn to the Steamboat museum and then on a small driving tour of the area (steering clear of a road named Prospect since that seems to be the scene of murders every morning on the news).