Week 11 - Spring is Officially Here!

[knock on wood] I believe Spring weather is here--and hopefully it's here to stay! This Friday the 20th is the first official day of Spring, so hopefully I'm right! Today (3/16) it's suppose to be in the low-to-mid 70s so I cannot wait to get out and run. I spent a good amount of yesterday compliling my running playlist into one long MP3 with audio intervals telling when to run and walk in accordance to my Couch-2-5K program... I'm excited to get out and try it today! It was a lot of work but it will really help out--and I won't have to run w/ a stop watch! My cousin Megan joined me for my 'run' today and I must say the program really worked well. On the way back Megan and I took a breather and chatted a bit--it's nice to have someone to run with but I'm not sure how well our chattiness does for our exercise. If only we could figure out telepathy. ;)

On Friday the 20th, the legion in Ashland had a special catfish fry that my family attended. It was fun spending some more time together. The pictures of this week (below) are from the fish fry. Dean was hoping to make it but got behind at work and since he's still in Grand Island he wouldn't have gotten there in time.



On Saturday I had to run some errands, and of course while out had to buy Twilight since it came out on DVD. As I was walking away I passed the magazines and noticed that they had a copy of The Knot (the magazine I work on) on newstands so of course I had to take a picture (see below). Later that day Dean and I went to see 'I Love You, Man', which was great--I thought at least. And then we settled into our routine--Dean watched March Madness and I watched Twilight. :-)


Dean heads off to Grand Island again tomorrow but this week should be a short one--fingers crossed! However his co-worker that lives in Grand Island is expecting his first child at the end of this month so it looks like Dean will be going back for a bit after that happens. Oh well, it's good overtime. Gotta love silver linings. ;-)

3.15.09 - 3.21.09

Week 10 - Happy Hours = Happy Week

I'm a little late in adding last week's details and it went by so fast that I'm having difficulty remembering what happened! We had chillier weather so I didn't get out to run at all last week, but I was in a major spring cleaning mode, which I'm sure Dean appreciated! The time changed on Sunday the 8th so I was a bit groggy all week but I feel adjusted now.

On Thursday (3/12) I met Ember, Kathleen & Stacy for happy hour at Kona--oh how I've missed their calamari and sushi!!! And the best part is that overall I'd say we ordered about 8 drinks, 4 sushi rolls, a pizza, Maui tacos, and calamari--for a grand total of $12 a person! You can't beat all that for only $12! It was great catching up with Kathleen about Cole and Stacy about Andy. Sounds like some great things are in everyone's future!! ;-)

And since apparently I go out when I can't go running, it seems fitting that on Friday the 13th I went out for happy hour at Genji w/ coworkers for Adrian's birthday and Toni's last day at work. The pictures for this week are from this day. On Saturday Dean and I went out to do some shopping and I ended up with some new running shoes (from him for my bday) so of course I hit the trails on a beautiful 60-degree day!


Adrian, Jennie, Autumn, Toni, Janel, Alexis, Me, Emily & Sheryl


The March Bday Girls: Me (3/1), Adrian (3/13) & Jennie (3/24)


Adrian in Mai Tai Heaven

3.8.09 - 3.14.09

Week 9 - Happy Birthday to Kendra

Week nine consisted of my birthday on March 1st, beautiful (running) weather all week, and a busy busy schedule. On March 2nd, my grandfather went to St. Ez's in Lincoln because he was having trouble breathing and stayed there all week to figure out what was going on. On Saturday the 7th Dean, Megan, Hannah, and I went down to see him since they were still keeping him there for awhile. He was very happy to see us and seems to be doing much better, but will still be there for a lil' bit longer. After seeing him we went to Yia Yia's Pizza for lunch and afterwards stopped by my favorite used bookstore in Lincoln, A Novel Idea. So anyway, the pictures for this week are from Yia Yia's (man I need a tan again!) :-)



3.1.09 - 3.07.09

Week 8 - Beautiful Weather

Nothing terribly exciting happened this week, however the weather has been gorgeous! I went jogging on Tuesday the 24th, walked with Ember over our lunch hour on the 25th, and my cousin Megan joined me at Standing Bear Lake for another jaunt around the lake that afternoon.



Dean left for the beginning of his Grand Island project on Wednesday as well. He should be home this Friday and hopefully the project will stay on track so that he's able to come home on weekends. The project usually goes through the end of March.

2.22.09 - 2.28.09

Week 7 - Happy Birthday to Dean!

I'm amazed how we are already in Week 7! I thought this project would help us hold onto time better, yet it's making me realize even more how fast it's going!



This week's picture commerate's Dean's 36th birthday (2/18). We enjoyed a nice dinner at home and Dean even had a cute birthday cake. :-) The rest of our week was fairly uneventful. On Saturday we did some shopping for his birthday, ate lunch at one of our favorite places, Feta's, and went to see Slumdog Millionaire... definitely worth all the Oscar nom's (and wins)!

2.15.09 - 2.21.09

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

Week 5 - Sixth-Month Wedding Anniversary

Today was a day of many great things. First, Dean came home from New Mexico! We hadn't seen each other in 23 days... much too long! Second, today was the 6-month anniversary of our wedding in Hawai'i and Dean surprised me with a gorgeous calla lily and rose bouquet at work. He was on his way home when I received the flowers so we communicated via text message--which turned out pretty funny. So alas, here is a collage from 2/4 for our Week 5 picture. :-) (Click on the picture to enlarge in order to read the text).

2.1.09 - 2.7.09