State Fair Hijinks.

What a great Labor Day weekend! Why? Because 1) we had some pretty awesome visitors and 2) it included a trip to the Minnesota State Fair.

That's right, Brother Boo and Girlfriend-of-Brother Boo visited us for a final hurrah as autonomous human beings (i.e. before the tiny dictator makes his appearance in the next few weeks). Games were enjoyed, fetch was played (with Clyde), and lots of food was eaten. Especially at said Fair:

Sadly, I didn't make it to this trip to the Fair given the super-pregnant status. BUT, I did get to enjoy some Fair festivities earlier this week when Man Boo and I did a trial run one weekday evening so that I could see if I would be able to manage a hotter and more crowded trip with the whole crew. Ultimately, we learned that I couldn't -- it's really hard to strike an appropriate balance of hydrating enough not to trigger Braxton Hicks and not having to waddle to the bathroom constantly -- to make the trip enjoyable for all. Don't worry though, because I definitely got to satisfy some really strong cravings for Fair food -- one of which may have included chicken in a waffle cone. So good.

Besides, I also got to partake of cheese curds through the magic of Snapchat.

(This may have been my petulant response to all of the pictures of food being texted to me)

Clyde found two new best friends and was basically at "11" all weekend with the energy. Scott was a sucker when it came to caving in and playing fetch with him for much longer than Jamie and I could ever endure. And Ruth, was the Clyde whisperer...Jamie and I basically didn't exist for Clyde this weekend. Since they left, he has been a sad former shell of Weekend Clyde. Moping around listlessly and giving intense puppy dog eyes in the hopes that we will bring back his friends.

(Puppy dog eyes intensify)

We even had a surprise visit from our beloved friends, the Weitzes, who were in town and hijinks were had. I'm not sure I'm allowed to share video sample of that hijinks, but it was a great way to end our weekend.

And finally, we're almost to the finish line at 36 weeks and 4 days! Less than a month to go...which is pretty good news since this is starting to get pretty uncomfortable...

The Move (Part 1).

It has been an eventful week but we are emerging from the other end of it as Minnesotans.  It was a pretty bumpy ride though (literally and figuratively).

Through this move I learned quite a few things:

1) Always check your flight information as soon as you get to the airport.
Jamie attempted to fly to DC on Friday evening after work.  His flight was scheduled to make it in around 12:50am.  Sadly, that late hour turned out to be much earlier than he actually ended up making it into town.  Perhaps it was the fact that he wasn't traveling with me, but he took a much more laxed approach (I tend to be a bit of a worry-wart).  This meant that upon arriving to the airport early, he grabbed dinner before checking the gate information for his flight.  (Edited to add: Jamie wanted to make sure I let you all know that we had checked his flight status on the way to the airport and it was on-time -- lulling him into a false sense of security)  By the time he arrived at his gate, he learned that the flight was delayed an hour and a half and that they had been calling him to board an earlier flight direct to DC.

This turned out to be the first of many bumps in the road.

Jamie figured that with the delay he would miss his connection and would therefore be stuck in Chicago.  Instead, he booked a flight to Newark (the only other flight going to the East Coast) and I rented a car for him online.  This would get him to DC around 4am.

We later learned that the flight from Chicago was also delayed and he would have made his connection and gotten in a few hours earlier.  Sad times.

2) We are leaving behind some pretty generous people in DC.
Working off of only a few hours of sleep, we got started packing and loading our house bright and early Saturday morning.  Our friend, Leah, had been graciously holding a ton of our stuff in her extra bedroom and Scott agreed to meet us there.  We were joined for some seriously heavy lifting/packing by Dan, Garth and Andrea, Katie and Matt, and Dave and Tracy.  Needless to say, we could not have gotten it all done without all those extra hands and big hearts.

Scott actually was with us for a marathon-esque 16 hours.  (We got a little loopy around dinner time.)

That crazy amount of devotion and lifting/packing/organizing more than makes up for his part in the next bump in the road...

3) Never ever leave the key in the lock.
Around 1am we put the last items in the truck.  The sound of that door sliding down was music to our ears.  The latch closing was even sweeter.  We awaited the satisfying click of the padlock...but it never came.  Rewind several hours earlier when Scott told us casually that he left the key in the lock so that we wouldn't lose it in the chaos.  Strange, I thought, did he mean the house key?  Sadly, that question was answered when we didn't get the satisfying click.  In the time since that the key was left in the lock, the sliding door had been opened and closed a few times, breaking the key off in the lock in the process.

We were stuck, at 1am, with no way of locking our truck with all of our worldly possessions contained inside, in the middle of the District of Columbia, and no means of purchasing another lock that would fit our truck.

We hit the internet looking for solutions, we WD-40'd and banged that lock, we broke out the needle-nose pliers.  No luck.  Instead we just had to laugh at how ludicrous the situation was after so many hours of labor.  To me, it was the perfect way to end our time in DC with Scott.  Scott who -- let's be honest -- is the hardest part about leaving DC.

Jamie and I pushed our air mattress up against the open window so that we could hear if someone opened the truck and took turns getting out of bed to check on it throughout the night before our 7am departure.  In the end the truck was fine and the next day, Jamie and I hopped into our GIANT moving truck and set off for Minnesota.  We learned a few more lessons along the way...but I'll save them for the next post.

It's a weird perspective, but this is Jamie's last time walking down our steps...

And So It Goes.

This is old news, but I hadn't gotten a chance to put together a video until now.  The Potonacs (the a capella group that Man Boo started some years back with friends from Law School) performed a couple of weeks ago to benefit SMYAL.  In the end, they ended up raising around $2000 for them in their short concert.  It was good times.

Man Boo always sings this one for me...

Vignette.

Scott just stopped by to shower at our place after an Ultimate Frisbee game.  We keep clean towels in our guest bathroom in a basket next to the sink.  So, when he called out from the bathroom if he could use the towel on the floor I didn't think much of it and told him "of course".  Later, I noticed he was drying off his head with the bath mat.

You just gotta love the guy.

Yam Withdrawal.

I know Thanksgiving has come and gone. I know that I shouldn't even be talking about food at this point, but I have to blog about this. For many, many, many, years my family had Thanksgiving with our closest friends. Everyone would share the cooking, but one unfortunate family would have to host at their home. However, this was fair because the host family rotated between the three families.

While the family hosting the event would change, and the people present at our official Thanksgiving dinner would change, one thing would not change: the yams.


The sweet, delicious, yams topped with marshmallows. My favorite Thanksgiving item without contest. I know in my heart that the pilgrims found some way to manufacture marshmallows using a churning device and that they had their own platter of authentic yams topped with marshmallows at the first Thanksgiving dinner.


Sadly, Jamie declared that yams with marshmallows were airing on the side of (for lack of a better phrase) "white trash" and that they should not be part of our Thanksgiving dinner. Of course he is wrong. For two years an epic battle ensued, and I fought and fought for my yams. For two years I was victorious.

That is...until this year. Yams were absent from our bountiful Thanksgiving spread and some other fortunate family got to enjoy those yams pictured above. Jamie announced that instead of yams we would be making a "maple autumn blend" of veggies with butternut squash, acorn squash, and parsnips. Butternut squash is no yam, my friend, and parsnips are definitely not marshmallows.

Ultimately, I conceded because we discovered that marshmallows are not vegetarian and therefore, I would be the only person at Thanksgiving eating the yams since Scott would never lower himself to partake.

Candied Yams? This one's for you...

Thanksgiving Recap.

Happy Thanksgiving to all! I know it's actually not offically Thanksgiving anymore, I just figured I would check in anyway. I hope everyone had a lovely holiday spent with loved ones. I spent mine with two of my very favorite men -- an intimate Thanksgiving. Even though there were only three of us, we still managed to whip up a lot of food (in addition to the aforepictured turkey masterpiece):















It was yummy. On the menu was a simple roast turkey that I basted with a mixture of orange juice, garlic, and a littl soy sauce. Totally improvised, yet surprisingly good! Yummy mashed potatoes, stuffing, green beans and a roast with autumn vegetables. We had some crostini with roasted red pepper and goat cheese for our appetizer.

Scott approved of the food so that was good.

But now I am exhausted from cooking and cleaning dishes all day. And the bellyful of turkey probably doesn't help. I am thankful for the warm, soft bed that's awaiting me as soon as I finish this post.

The only casuality (aside from the turkey) was a wine glass that fell victim to Scott's fork-flinging antics. We are down to 3 sad little wine glasses thanks to the brothers Long. I think we should register for plastic wine tumblers instead of glasses.

Better Than Some Stupid Bond Movie.

So yesterday we celebrated my brother-to-be's birthday. Actually, it was one of my BTB's actual birthdays -- but he's far away so we couldn't really celebrate it with him. Scott had his birthday earlier this week so we took him out for some dinner, fed him some ice cream cake, and watched a movie.

The whole day I had been dreading seeing the new Bond movie. I knew that's what Scott would want to see and as it was his birthday and all, there was little that I could do to stop it. There's nothing I really hold against the Bond movies...except that they all suck and I have yet to see one that I enjoyed. But last night the movie gods were smiling upon me and sold out all the showings of Casino Royale and plopped Stranger Than Fiction in the only convenient time slot. That was awesome.

As I had been wanting to see this movie for quite some time now, I was setting it up to be a huge disappointment. It was not. I liked it -- which means you should all go see it. And while you're at the theater, glare at the Casino Royale poster.

And because I now can, here's the trailer:

Home Alone.

If you have been following this blog for a while, then you are familiar with Cody:


Cody is our [insert colorful adjective here] cat. We don't leave Cody home alone often -- we don't have the funds for that -- but we do manage to get away for a couple of weeks every year. Last year when we took time to go to Peru and Alaska, we left him in the care of benevolent friends. Over the holidays, we forked over serious dollars to a cat sitter.

This time? He's in the care of Jamie's brother. In a completely good-natured way, I'm a little nervous. Mind you, the last time that Scott was left home alone in our apartment he managed to slice open his hand (which required several stitches to close again). Also, upon returning from our trip, we found that the stove and floor was completely covered in a mysterious, waxy, yellow goo. This I am sure is not Scott's fault (I think our exhaust filter needed to be changed), but the point is: bad things happen when Scott is left alone in our apartment.

I'm just kidding. I am extremely grateful for Scott taking care of our precious Cody. I am also very appreciative of him getting up (or staying up) with us so that he could drive us to the airport at 2:30am (!). That, my friends, is true kindness.

And for all the ladies...he's single.