Week 40

This week sure has been interesting... On Tuesday (10.6) Kendra got into a car accident when a woman pulled out of a parking lot onto the street and somehow missed the fact that Kendra clearly was driving in the lane! But no real damage was done and everyone is okay. On a positive note, on Wednesday (10.7) Kendra got an email from one of her sweepstakes and found out she won a Wii and a Wii Fit!!! Sooooo excited!

On Friday (10.9) we went over to our friends Ember & Kris' house for game night with Kathleen and Dave. It was an entertaining evening to say the least. For instance, did you know the Boston Celtics home arena is Madison Square garden? ;-)



On Saturday (10.10) we awoke to snow! Lots and lots of snow! Ugh, I fear this is a preview of a very long winter.












10.4.09 - 10.10.09

Week 28 - Green Monster

For those who know me well, know I love to cook and especially try new recipes. I've been on a health kick lately (officially down 10lbs as of yesterday, thank you very much!) and I've heard a lot about Green Monster Smoothies lately. I did a Google search about them and found lots of recipes, but the great thing about these smoothies is that you can pretty much take any smoothie you usually drink and add a handful of spinach (or kale). I know, it sounds gross but I swear you cannot taste the spinach at all! So for lunch today (7/12) I made myself my first Green Monster with one cup of fresh (raw) spinach, one cup skim milk, one tbsp all natural peanut butter, one sugar-free fudgsicle, and one cup of crushed ice (from our ice maker). And below was my result! Sooooooo delicious!



After a pretty crappy Tuesday (not worth getting into), we got a good pick-me-up! We both won a 2nd place prize in one of my sweeps. We each won two sets of movie tickets! In today's economy and with current movie admissions, this is a great prize. Two free date nights! Now just gotta win some free dinner... ;-)

Thursday (7/16) my cousin Megan and I had an impromtu girl's night while Dean celebrated at a coworker's going away party. Megan and I ate our favorite fajita quesadilla's at LaMesa and were good girls and did a two-mile walk afterwards to burn some of it off! LOL



Friday night (7/17) we redeemed one set of the tickets to see 'Away We Go'. It ended up being an even better deal because the theatre was offering a $5 concession pass for $4 and when we handed them our voucher we asked for a concession pass, well the movie voucher is for $24 dollars and our movie total came to only $18, so they included the $4 in our voucher. So we ended up getting a movie and concessions for free! Anyway, the movie was soooooooo good. We highly recommend it.

Saturday Dean went golfing and I went running (4-miles, woot!). That evening we joined his mother Kathy and friends down at Lewis and Clark landing. We had dinner at Rick's Boatyard, walked the Pedistrian Bridge, and enjoyed the Playing with Fire concert series. Dean and I left a little early because it was such a beautiful night and our noisy neighbors are gone so we decided to enjoy a fire in our firepit and just have some us-time. :-) Very romantic, and very needed.




7.12.09 - 7.18.09

Week 27

The reason being this entry technically belongs in last week's post but since I just discovered this envelope a few minutes ago, I'm counting it as excitement for Week 27! Dean got the mail last Friday (7.2) and had it sitting on our kitchen table under some other stuff. I just looked through it and saw something from UPS addressed to me. Of course anything from UPS gets me excited b/c it's generally from a sweepstake... and this was no different! I won $50 to Regis Salons from Glamour! I love my current stylist so I doubt I'll go there for a styling but maybe some new products or hold onto it to regift--so friends start sucking up! ;-)



We finished reinstalling the shutters today and Dean got started on our new storm door (hopefully will be installed when he's back home in 10 days). Below is a picture of the final result of all our exterior updates this weekend. Ignore all the mud on the 'after' picture... that's how messy Dean gets in GI and what mess he brings home too!



The rest of the was fairly uneventful. On Tuesday as all the tv stations advertised, "the world said goodbye to the King of Pop" as a two-hour live telecast of Michael Jackson's memorial aired. A group of my coworkers and I watched a portion of the memorial over our lunch hour and one coworker even made everyone stickers. :-)


Also, my Aunt Peggy had emailed earlier this week informing us that at 4:56am on 7/8/09... the only time this would ever happen. Ironically I slept horribly this week and was awake around that time so figured I'd take a picture of the official US time documenting this.



7.5.09 - 7.11.09

Week 26 - Half Way There!

Wow, it's week 26 which means we're officially half-way through the year. How the heck did that happen?!

This is a cool week for it to be the half-way point! On Sunday (6.28) my work had it's Summer Outing at the zoo. Since Dean was out of town Stacy came with me and we went around with Ember, Kris & Parker. I got some great pictures! You can view all the photos here.













I'm hoping for better things this week. I just got a call from my dentist and they had a cancellation and got me in for tomorrow over lunch--now if I could just get in sooner for my filling!

Wednesday (7.1) has been going pretty good! I "get" to take a half-day and enjoy the gorgeous weather--although it's b/c I'm waiting for Service One to come fix our AC! I can't believe it has been a week since we've ran the AC in the house! Reminds me of living in the sorority. :-) While I was waiting for Service One, UPS dropped off an evelope for me and I found out that I won 2nd prize in a Teleflora sweepstake and won $50 to Macy's! And to make the day even better, Dean came back from his latest stint in GI today as well. Lucky him he came home to an air conditioned house!











On Thursday (7.2) We decided to do some more upgrades to the house over the long weekend. We painted our previous white shutters black and LOVE the new look! Here's a half-way progress photo (before we painted the upper windows.

On Friday (7.3) we drove down to Lincoln to have lunch with my brother (and family) from Mizzou, and my Dad and his wife. It was nice seeing them again. They're off to Walt Disney World in a few weeks and decided to make a quick trip up to Nebraska beforehand.

On Saturdays (7.4) we went over to Ember and Kris' house to watch the fireworks. Watching their lil' son Parker get so excited over fireworks (especially snaps) was so funny. We had a great time, enjoyed cocktails, smores, brownies, and chocolate fondue. Diet starts tomorrow!!

6.28.09 - 7.4.09

Week 20 - Walking to Iowa

On Sunday Dean, Kathy, and I journeyed back downtown to take a walk along the Riverfront. We walked across the newly built Bob Kerry Pedestrian Bridge that leads to a park in Council Bluffs and after walking back to Omaha we had lunch at The Old Mattress Factory. Once we returned home Kathy and Guy packed up their belongings and headed back to Lincoln. We had a wonderful time hosting them for the weekend and hope to have them over again soon. :-)



Woohoo! On Monday I finally won a prize in a sweepstakes. I won one of the daily prizes that T.Marzetti Dressings was giving away in the Backyard BBQ sweepstakes--one of 23 bocce ball sets! Too bad we already have one, but it's worth $100 so it'll be a good Craigslist item! :-) Funny thing is that I took about a week-and-a-half break from entering because I was burnt out on entering, so this is great motivation on my first day back!



On Friday and Saturday, Dean and I decided to try painting for the first time in our lives. I gotta say, we're pretty good at it! We painted our master bedroom a beautiful shade of blue. Before the walls were white and had a border--the border removal proved to be the hardest part.

5.17.09 - 5.23.09

Week 16 - Green Thumbs

This week we have had beautiful weather! We've done a lot of yard work and are definitely enjoying the season.



The major events this week have been Dean's friend Ben (who now lives in Vegas) was back this week and on Thursday, April 23rd him and Dean went golfing. Hoping to have some pictures to show for it... The other exciting part of this week was that a press release came out asking for male casting extras in an upcoming George Clooney movie called Up In The Air. We sent an email for Dean to be in it, so fingers crossed that he'll get selected and get a lil' screen time. ;-) Update: Unfortunately they had already filled all the extra positions by the time we applied, but hey---can't regret not trying!

Towards the end of the week things got good and bad. Good in that Dean won 2nd prize in another sweeps--funny thing is that it was a 2000 flushes toilet bowl cleaner (rather than the Grand Prize of a 50" tv and home theatre seats!) LOL, I told Dean that prize pretty much sums up our luck with winning grand prizes.



At the beginning of the week we bought a lilac bush to plant on the side of our backyard and we did a lot of yardwork towards the end of the week to prepare to plant it over the weekend. "Bad" is that somehow during all this I scratched my left eye and it got really irritated. Of course I don't have nice enough glasses to wear in public so I stayed home from work on Friday and missed out on a gorgeous day b/c I couldn't bare to be any light, including computers and tvs... so I pretty much rested all day. Dean got our lilac bush planted on Saturday though and it looks great. Can't wait for it to bloom and smell its fragrance.

4.19.09 - 4.25.09

Week 14 - Sweeps Galore

We have been rather blessed with winning prizes in our sweepstakes lately. Although these aren't big prizes, early Sunday (4/5) morning (12:45am) we won two sweeps in a row! Dean won a t-shirt from GTX and minutes later I won a $10 Visa gift card from Century 21. We're very good at winning these smaller prizes, so hopefully soon we'll be even more blessed and win a big sweepstake!

Later Sunday morning we awoke to lots of blowing snow and no power! The snow covered the grass but melted on the sidewalks since it's been so warm. Dean and I hung out for awhile w/o power but decided to get out and run some errands since we couldn't do anything at home. We had lunch at Chipotle, made a quick stop to Verizon to exchange some accessories, and then went to SuperTarget to buy Easter goodies for Dean's nephews. We're hosting Easter this coming Sunday and always plan an egg hunt for his nephews Kobe and Zack. Hopefully the weather will cooperate. The good news is that as of 7:30pm most of the snow has melted, so it's looking like it will hopefully be good a week out.



On Tuesday, April 7th I joined Stacy, Kathleen (+ Cole), and Ember for lunch at Valentino's. Kathleen is on maternity leave and Stacy is on Spring Break so it was a perfect week for us all to get together for lunch and catch up. I didn't want to bug the girls with yet another group picture so I snuck in a picture with lil' Cole!




When I arrived home today (4/7) there was a big box on our front porch and I knew it had to be our most recent 'big' sweep win, the year's supply of baby wipes and diaper rash cream. :) The sent it very nicely boxed up so I only took out a few for a picture. All together we got 24 packages for 70-count wipes and 12 diaper rash creams. Luckily none of this expires until 2011!



4.5.09 - 4.11.09

Week 13 - Crackberries

Hopefully I can remember all that happened last week since it flew by and I'm now (on Sunday the 5th) writing the entry for last week. (I am labeling this post for the 4th though to avoid confusion on the weeks).

The girls went home on Sunday so we spent the rest of that evening relaxing. On Monday we went to Verizon and got ourselves the new Blackberry Storms. This model has gotten some bad reviews (especially in comparison to the iPhone), but we love it so far. Verizon had a great 2-for-1 deal, plus with Dean's work discount and the portion they cover for work in general it's a great deal for us to switch our plans there. Plus Dean and I can talk free to each other, and they have this instant messenger just for Blackberry users, which Dean and I find ourselves using a lot.

On Tuesday, we won another small prize in our sweepstakes adventures. We won a year's subscription to Country Living Magazine. Nothing major, be we appreciate the prize for what it is. :-) These little wins help keep up the motivation.

The rest of the week consisted of playing with our phones, Dean had several fantasy baseball drafts, and overall busy times at work.

Saturday we had dinner with Dean's friend Keith and his wife Amy and then went over to their house for drinks. It was a great time and nice to catch up since we hadn't seen each other in a very long time. Right when we got to their house their kids were running around like crazy and we just had to have them pose for a picture after somehow one of the girl's hats ended up on Dean's head. :)




3.29.09 - 4.4.09

Week 12 - The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

It's only Wednesday and I've already dubbed this the week of 'The Good, The Bad & The Ugly'. Thus far it's gone in reverse so hopefully the end of the week will follow suite and will all be good stuff. :-)

The Ugly: Week 12 certainly started out with a bang! Quite literally! Three days into "Spring" Omaha had it's first tornado warning of the year (3/23). We had lots of hail, thunderstorms, high winds and tornadic activity around the area. Nothing as damaging as last June, but still eventful. Luckily it started after 5pm so I was home before it hit. I talked to Dean around 2pm and it had just hit GI at that point and he was sitting in his truck while it hailed and then it was over there. Anyway, here are photos from today. Ironically today was the anniversary of a fatal tornado back in 1913 that killed 150 people and injured 400!


View from our front porch


Our front yard.


Hail on our patio couches.

The Bad: Dean "accidentally" threw away my wallet with my credit cards and gift cards from by birthday and Christmas. On Monday after the bad weather I was doing some stuff online and needed my credit card for something, and so I went into our kitchen to find the bag I had my wallet in. A little backstory, I carry a large purse and since I had two gifts to distribute at the Legion on Friday I emptied the contents of my purse into a Target bag so I could fit the gifts in my purse. Luckily I took my license and main debit card out of my wallet to put into a wrislet for the night, however I put the rest of my wallet in the Target bag. Sunday evening Dean mistook the Target bag as trash and put in our trash can. Of course our trash day was Monday and I didn't discover this until Monday night. I spent the rest of that night calling my credit card companies. As sucky as this was, the silver lining is that I have been putting off closing my accounts at the bank I used before we got our joint accounts at Dean's bank and my original bank's debit card was still in my wallet so instead of calling to get a new card, I finally went in and closed all those accounts.

The Good: I got a funny text from Dean on Tuesday telling me to check his "sweeps" email address. Since I'm addicted to sweeps I created him a Yahoo address since you tend to get a lot of junk mail from certain sweeps. We, okay correction... HE won another sweepstake! First of all, I'm thrilled but I have to admit I'm getting jealous b/c I can't remember the last time I was the one who won stuff. ;-) The last win was a kick-ass baby monitor and now we have a year's supply of all-natural baby wipes and diaper cream. Dean mentioned in his text that it's "nuthin 2 big", however this is a highly rated brand and not too cheap--the average retail value of the year's supply is $350! So little by little we're getting closer to being prepared for a baby... just have to work on the obvious missing factor. LOL

Another Good: My nieces are in town!! I got an email on Sunday from Allison (almost 10-years old) and she said they're in town for Spring break (they live in Columbia, MO). We have arranged for Allison and Madison to come up to Omaha Thursday night and stay with us until Saturday... I cannot wait! Not sure at this point (Wed) when Dean will come home from Grand Island, so he might miss the girls. He was supposed to be done for the month on Tuesday but his coworker (who lives out there) his wife had their baby so now he's off the rest of the week. Dean ended up coming home on Thursday, the same day I picked up the girls. We had a great time between Thursday night and Sunday afternoon when they stayed with us. We played board games, the wii, went to Amazing Pizza Machine, BounceU, and lots of other things. :-) Here are a couple pictures from the time they were here:


Poor Maddy got cut off. :( We could see her in the refelction inside the booth but not on the print-outs.


The girls at Amazing Pizza Machine


The girls chose some fake moustaches as prizes at the AMP so we could take pictures with Dean since he obviously doesn't need a fake one. LOL

This really doesn't have to do with any of the 'Good, Bad, or Ugly' but I'm proud of my latest diaper cake so I wanted to include it. :-) This is for Dean's coworker in Grand Island who just had their baby.



3.22.09 - 3.29.09

Week 6 - New Life, New Snow & New Prize!!

This was an eventful week to say the least...

The purpose of this weekly picture project is to capture 2009 since 2008 flew by... This made me realize that we had barely seen our friends since NYE and how it would be nice to get together one last time before Kathleen and Dave have their baby (due Feb 12th) and to get to know our new friend Andy better. So on February 8th, we had brunch at The Farmhouse Cafe with Kathleen & Dave, Ember & Kris (and Parker), and Stacy & Andy. We had a great time and agreed to make it a regular occasion since Sunday mornings are generally open. Stacy and I joked how it takes months to agree on a weekend for our Game Nights, but only took a few days o organize this Sunday brunch. :-) So below the picture we chose to represent Week 6 is of us at brunch with everyone.


Now, introducing Cole Matthew Peterson... Cole was born on February 9th at 7:32pm to Kathleen & Dave. He weighed 8lbs, 7oz and was 22" long. On February 10th we headed to Bergen Mercy to congulate the new parents and meet lil' Cole. We were joined by Ember & Kris and Stacy and her family. Here are a few pictures from the hospital (click to enlarge).



We also had our biggest snowfall of the season on Friday, the 13th (how fitting). Here are some pictures from that. The first shows the depth of the snow, the second is the puppies watching Dean snow blow, and the third is the view from the peep hole on our front door. :)


And I supposed I shouldn't end this week's post without mentioning the most popular day of week... Valentine's Day. We kept it really low-key this year and ordered take-out from one of our favorite restaurants Hiro and watched Burn After Reading on On Demand. The day was actually most exciting in the afternoon though! As I was making us lunch the doorbell rang and Dean went to get it and found a box the mailman left on our doorstep. Dean had just received his diabetes supplies the day before so we knew it wasn't that, which meant it could only be one other thing.... a prize from one of the hundreds of sweepstakes I enter!!! I was right and it is sooooooo cool! Since we are eventually hoping to have a baby I periodically enter sweeptakes for baby products. I saw this particular prize being offered and thought it was perfect for our situation. We won a MobiCam, which is a wireless audio/video monitoring system that has a color camera on the receiver. The part that intrigued me most is that it also hooks up to the internet and feeds live video onto a website so when Dean is gone on his trips he can see our baby sleeping in the crib, or wherever we might have the camera placed. Plus so can all our out-of-town friends and relatives!! I was literally jumping up and down when we opened the box. I love the sweeps that don't tell you that you've won ahead of time and you're suprised with a something on your doorstep!

2.8.09 - 2.14.09