I love my job!

Last week my co-worker Autumn set up a field trip to the Minnesota Office of the State Archaeologist.  We didn't meet the state archaeologist, but we met the other employee of the program- Bruce. Yup, there's only two employees for the entire program for the entire state.
We trekked out to Historic Fort Snelling to gather some information information on Native American earthworks and artifacts in our park system.  Bruce quickly set to work sharing information and showing us how to use their system. It's a paper and pencil system... it was a little scary that nothing was backed up digitally.
After we gathered the information we were looking for Bruce asked if we'd like a tour of the facility and our afternoon went from good to AWESOME!
We toured their lab where artifacts are brought back, sorted and cataloged. (Nothing like CSI.) We walked through Indiana Jones-style vaults with artifacts that date back 9000 years and fingered beautiful rocks and stones from all over the world.
And finally, as Bruce was telling us what he loves most about our job. I learned about this:

 

It's an omar! You can't see the second hole in it, but there are two round depressions in this chunk of basalt that Chris and I found a couple of summers ago. We kept it because we thought it was cool and thought perhaps it was a cool Native American artifact, but it's not.  However it does have a cool geologic story!

While this chunk of basalt were cooling years and years and years ago it collected, attracted, or received a mineral deposited that wasn't as structurally sound as the basalt.  Over the years that deposit wore away leaving a very round depression.  

That's way overly simplified, but you get the idea!  And that's why I love my job. I get to meet people with all sorts of cool backgrounds and will learn new things when I least expect it!

Halloween

Each year our friends Katie and Carmen host a Halloween costume party.  Usually it's your typical random assortment of costumes.  This year they acted on an idea they've been holding onto for a very long time... X Men comic book superheroes.

Chris's first marathon

Chris ran his first marathon earlier this month and he did amazing!  A great group of friends and family cheered the runners on at near mile 15 (and near our house).

After a quick post-race massage, lots of water, a shower, more water, a nap, more water and a quick snack of noodles we met friends for a all-you-can-eat bonanza of meat at Fogo de Chao!  YUM.

Fun at work...

My co-worker has been asking me to order these Program Check-In signs for weeks. I finally had a chance work on that yesterday, and the company was SUPER easy to work with. I ordered them on Monday they were in our hands by 3:15 pm Tuesday.  I wish all of my orders went that easy.

She's out of the office today, today. So she'll have a little help finding her desk tomorrow morning!

5 years!

 

Switcheroo

While I was gone on our annual Girls' Weekend Camping trip Chris kept himself very busy. He took all of our furniture and moved it around. Our bedroom was upstairs but now it's down stairs (again).

The guest bedroom furniture moved to the old computer room:

The computer room moved upstairs (except for the green chair):

The TV and couch also moved upstairs:

That leaves our main level open and sunny:

We are really enjoying this new set up. It makes our whole house feel much bigger!

Too much cheesecake

Seriously, is there such a thing?
A couple of weeks ago we had a TON of left over graham crackers at work. (We host monthly family events that end with s’mores.) After a summer of stale graham crackers piling up in the bottom of our bin, we decided to be thrifty and make cheese cake! So, three of us made cheese cake. Here’s a sampler shot:

Autumn made cheese cake with a homemade blueberry topping:

Katie made cheesecake with a homemade strawberry topping:

And I made cheesecake with a cherry pie filling topping (it was no-sugar added though!):

None of us had made cheesecake before, so we all had our own equally hilarious disaster stories, as well as completely different recipes!  
 We did not eat all of the cheesecake ourselves, we shared with our coworkers and they judged our desserts!  Autumn’s cheesecake was judged Best Topping, Katie’s was judged Best Crust, and mine was judged Best Cheesecake Consistency.

Canada! Honeymoon part 1

We're still alive!  We're currently just outside of Vancouver and will be heading into Washington later this morning.  It's been a crazy week, we left last Saturday and headed north along the north shore.  Crossing into Canada at Grand Portage.  One picture before we hit the road again...

Chris and I on Lake Superior.  Well, back to the land of miles, gallons and cell phones...

Just hanging around...

It's been a busy week!  I've been training new staff at work and preparing for my sister's bachelorette party tomorrow night.

I've also been enjoying finding fun places for all of our wonderful wedding gifts.  The wind chimes in the picture on the right was one of my favorite gifts!  They sound so pretty.  It's a very nice sound to hear early in the morning as I'm sipping some coffee and reading the newspaper.

The cat and dog have been spending a lot of time together lately- a lot of time alone too.  They've been funny to watch interact because Bella is totally the instigator.  She get's McClane all riled up and steals his spot!  She's also turning in to quite the climber.  Here's a few shots of her on the the book shelf.

Chris will be home soon and then it's off for our honeymoon!  Wahoo!

Our wedding day

It's been a long few weeks!  I can't believe that Chris and I have already been married for a week.  How times flies!  Here is a collection of pictures that friends and family took of our wedding.  Our official pictures won't be back for another few weeks and I'm REALLY excited to see them!
Until then, enjoy this short slideshow:

The next day

It's official, I'm now a married woman!
Here' we're goofing around the next day after leaving the hotel. 

River Bend 5K

Last weekend was River Bend Nature Center's 5K fun run.  A group of us have been running in it for the past few years- this year Chris joined us!  Here's the crew finishing the run and right before we headed over to the shelter for a pancake breakfast!

Spring break in Chicago- Day 4

Before our 8 hour trip home, we spent the morning at the Shedd Aquarium.  We took one last walk through Grant Park on the way to Museum Campus. The weather was awesome this whole week!  (Coming home to 30's was brutal!)
We got home around 11 pm on Friday night and I was greeted by Bella and McClane!  Chris's mom had dropped the "kids" off earlier in the day for us.  Bella has been sweetest lap cat ever since...

Spring break in Chicago- day 3

So much to do, so little time!  Chris and I had each bought a Chicago City Pass which covered admission to The Field Museum, Adler Planetarium, Shedd Aquarium, Museum of Science and Industry and either the Sears Tower or John Hancock Observatory.
On Thursday we got up bright and early with the intent of having a quick breakfast and checking out the Planetarium.  We wanted to try and squeeze the Aquarium in too.  But quickly realized that that wouldn't be happening.  Instead we chose to enjoy a leisurely day at the Planetarium, a quiet stroll back to the hotel and a have a nice meal somewhere.
The Planetarium was super fun.  We racked our brains and realized that we had both been to a planetarium at home during our school days- but wondered what happened to it.  (They had the same machine in the center of the room as we had experienced once before.)  I didn't mean to, but I did fall asleep during one of the shows!
We returned to the hotel to watch some TV and to eat a quick bite to tide us over until our 8 pm dinner reservation at l2O.  That dinner was the best meal I've EVER eaten.  The pictures I took on my phone didn't save- which is such a shame.  We will be talking about this meal for the rest of our lives.  All I'll say, is that my second course was served under a "cloud" of cotton candy sprinkled with peppercorn and bee pollen.  Seriously.
Pictures from day 3:

Spring break in Chicago- day 2

On day 2 we donned our green (it was St. Patrick's Day) only to learn that Chi-Town celebrated the lucky leprechaun the previous Saturday night. Booo!  We were kind of bummed about that- St. Paul celebrates St. Patty's day on March 17th- no matter the day it lands!
Anyway, on Wednesday we took a cab to the Museum of Science and Industry where we explored a German submarine among hours of exhibits and walked to Millennium Park before dinner to marvel at "the Bean".
We put some serious miles on our feet this week, we only drove (or took a cab) twice. 
The night before Chris had woken up to the sound of a little girl laughing and it bugged him all day.  After returning from dinner Chris picked the brains of the bartender, bellhop and head of security. He quickly discovered we were staying in haunted hotel!  The barkeep sent us to talk to the bellhop, the bellhop shared us a few of his experience and then sent us to the head security guard.  The security guard sized us up and kept his cards close to his chest at first.  But Chris's experience and sincere interest must have won him over.
He nodded his head to our laughing little girl, she had been noted in their files thousands of times.  (Thousands!)  They keep track of all of the things guests report, but they don't get concerned about things until they get in the 100s or so. 
The security guard, who was missing two fingers!, shared several stories, but my favorite is about the the time he assisted ghost hunters in analyzing that room.  The first few rounds of setting up tapes, securing the room and the area resulted in all of the recorders being turned off. Finally, one tape caught foot steps approaching the recorder and a low raspy voice asking "what are you looking for?"  Chills. 
Pictures from day 2:

Spring break Chicago- day 1

This past week was Chris's spring break.  With the wedding around the corner we knew we couldn't do anything too extravagant, but we thought Chicago would be a fun trip.  So Monday morning we packed up my car, dropped off the "kids" at Grandma's and headed (south)east.  About 8 hours later we arrived in Chicago. 

We walked just about everywhere and had the best weather.  Our hotel was on Michigan Ave and had a great view of the lake, Navy Pier, Museum Campus and Buckingham Fountain.

Later, we found out that that the hotel is haunted, but more to come on that later.  Here's a slideshow for day 1.

Chris's sliver

I pulled this from Chris's foot with his Leatherman.  The tweezers didn't work, my fingers didn't work... Only a Leatherman could do the job.

Christmas pictures

Weekend projects

With Chris gone for a couple more weeks I have a few things left on my to-do list. I need to do some touch ups upstairs and I'd like- wait I think that's all that's left on my to-do list! Wahoo! This first week has been busy- intentionally so.
Yesterday the carpet was installed. Chris has my camera- which has a picture of the upstairs pre-carpet but post-trim. So we're a little out of order, but I'm sure you get the idea:

Yesterday I my mom and dad came over to help me work on a landscape project. I forgot to take a before picture. But I have a picture of the area from last year's fence project. My dad pulled out all of the hosta-like plants and repositioned them, planted a hydrangea, added a few items from around the yard, and helped me estimate how much mulch I needed. Today I added the mulch and the plant in the front triangle.

Before:

After:

A couple more pictures of landscape projects:

I added the mini-fence edging to this area. I'm hoping it'll keep the woodchips from running away when it rains- I kinda think they look like tombstones!

I added edging, mulch and a couple hostas by the garage:

Chris if you're reading this, I mulched and edged all the way to the fence. And pulled out the dead ferns. =( But they look good in the compost. =P
So, with that said I'm exhausted. I'm thinking a popsicle, the couch and a good book might be the way to spend the rest of my day!

Attic progress

Chris and I have been working remodeling the attic for quite awhile now. We got as far as we could this winter and then hit a dead end. We had stripped out the old paneling, ripped out the old drywall (whoever installed did a horrendous job), discovered loads of bat guano, framed in two closets and upgraded the insulation.

From earlier this winter before we started putting up the drywall.

Okay, when I say "we" I mean Chris. =) But WE hit a dead end earlier this spring after we had got most of the sheet rock up. We hired a contractor to finish this up before Chris leaves for Italy next month. Here's an updated shot from roughly the same spot.

And finally, a few more shots from different spots upstairs. It's almost time to pick paint and carpet!

See mom- we'll now have a wall over the stairs (and soon a railing!)