the melting pot

Lincoln's department did really well this past year so to reward them, his boss took his coworkers and their significant others to dinner at the Melting Pot on the Plaza.

It was goooooooooood.  I think I'd be fine with just going back for the cheese course and the dessert course. 

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed it all, but the cheese and the dessert were my favorite!

Umm...so Lincoln's boss and I did pretty well on finishing off the dessert...

After dinner we walked off our food coma around the plaza to take in the lights.



warrior dash champion!

Ok, ok, maybe in my own head I was a champion...

But I finished at least!  And I finished in under an hour.

Earlier this summer I participated the Warrior Dash in KC.

You might be thinking that finishing a 5K in under an hour is easy peasy, but try running with 5 lbs of mud caked to your feet, being soaking wet, and doing an obstacle course along with all of the running.  No big deal, right?

I mean it was kind of a big deal. 

There were really tall rope things we had to climb over, a really scary tall wall that we had to climb over, mud that we had to swim through, fire that we had to jump over, among all of the running (which I despise).

Luckily my gym, (PUNCH, if you couldn't tell from my muddy t-shirt and bright orange hat-we all wore similar outfits so that we could find each other!) got into the first wave of participants at 9am.

Otherwise, the race would have sucked.

It rained a little the morning before the event, so it was a little cooler in the morning, but the afternoon became quite steamy...also we were some of the first people to run the course and run throgh the mud...otherwise I think it would have been nearly impossible!

The weather this summer in Kansas and Missouri was unreal.

Because of the hot, hot days, sadly, this race proved to be deadly for three of the participants.  Many more had to be taken to the hospital during the event as well.

While the event was fun, I think one time is good enough for me!  It was tough!  But if you know me, I don't really care to be muddy...and there was a lot of mud.  And sweat.  And port-a-potties that I had to change my clothes in. (SO SICK, BTW-I forgot to lock the door and someone walked in on me changing.  Gah.)

ornament exchange!

Annahita at Forever 88 recently hosted an ornament exchange. 

I just have to admit that I am HORRIBLE at picking out cute ornaments for other people's trees.  I mean your tree is personal, amiright?  Hopefully I picked well for Anna at My Aiken Heart!

She picked out the cutest little penguin for my tree!

As it turns out, Anna and I are both getting married in March--she's a week before me!  So we're both going through the last few months of planning together!

Sadly, this year, because I'm slowly packing up my house to move into Lincoln's house, I don't have a tree up :(.  We have a tree at Lincoln's house, but that's about 2 hours away...so little penguin will have to wait a couple of weeks to make it's home on our tree.

wedding pictures

No, not mine yet!

One of my good friends and co-workers, Ashley got married a few weeks ago.  It was the first Jewish wedding that I helped with and that I'd been to and it was a treat!

I was a little said that Lincoln and I didn't take any pictures...however a few days later, Lincoln found some pictures that we took at the end of the night.  Take a look:

We were...um, special to say the least.

Also, I attempted to make a new best friend on the dance floor. He was teaching me dance moves. Notice about half way in he pats me on the shoulder like" you poor, poor white girl, your dancing is terrible."  Again...I should preface this video with the fact that I was special that night (I worked hard that day! And I drank too much wine...but who's asking)(also, I had NO idea Lincoln was videoing this from his phone...):

friendsgiving

For the past, oh...nine or so years, my group of friends and I have hosted Friendsgiving before the actual Thanksgiving holiday. 

This year was no different, however, we were missing some of our core group!

We go all out, someone (usually me) makes a turkey and everyone else brings all of the side dishes.  We always have waaaaaaaaay too much food and for some dumb reason, we all go home with whatever we brought.  You'd think we'd split up the leftovers so that someone doesn't go home with half of a pan of stuffing or a huge bowl of mashed potatoes...

Nope, we just put a lid on what we brought this year and left! 

We started this tradition in college, mostly because we loved to eat and thought it would be fun to see what kind of food we'd end up with.  One year in particular, the guys that lived across the street from us brought over approximately 20 lbs of mashed potatoes to share with a group of fifteen people.  20 lbs of mashed potatoes is A LOT of mashed potatoes.

Even after college, we've continued this tradition.  While we all see each other throughout the year, friendsgiving is a time when we all get together to eat, drink wine, and relax for an evening.  Usually we end up playing board games, this year, our beloved Wildcats were busy beating Texas so we had to tune in to the big football game!

I hosted the event this year and Lincoln and I made the turkey so I had a decent amount of turkey left from the weekend.  With Thanksgiving being just a day away, I knew I had to get to work on the leftovers....

Lincoln carving the big bird!

Last night I reached out to my favorite lady, Ree Drummond over at The Pioneer Woman for some guidance.

She sent me an email earlier this week with a recipe for this turkey tetrazzini and it turned out to be fabulous.  Seriously.  I wanted to eat the entire pan.


via

 She has some other tasty recipes on her blog for what to do with turkey leftovers and she shares pictures of every step along the way.

What do you do with all of your leftovers?  Can you stand eating the Thanksgiving meal for more than just the day of Thanksgiving? Or do you have to change up how you get rid of all of the leftover food?

Hope you all have a fabulous Thanksgiving!

HEY YOU! do you live in the KC area?

Oh, you do? 

Then you should probably mosey on over to my other blog, Flights and Kites to check out the awesome event that I'm planning!

Do you love wine?  Do you love food?  If so, we're having both!  And, the money we raise goes to a great cause.

Or, if you don't live in the KC area, we're happy to accept donations...just sayin' :).

Purchase your tickets here!

4 months

In approximately four months, I'm going to be a married lady. 

Crazy! 

The first four months after we got engaged flew by, I can't imagine how quickly these last four months will go!

Because I'm getting married I have increased my workouts and have been harder on myself about getting to the gym every morning.  I've been pretty good except for one day last week when it was raining....I got up and out of bed, turned on the news, let Laila out, changed my clothes, and then decided that it was probably in my best interest to get back into bed for an hour. 

WTH?  

I was up! My clothes were changed!  That's half of the battle at getting up at 4:45 am!

Anyway, since the weather is changing and it's getting colder I'm sure it's going to be even more of a challenge to get up and out of bed every morning, but I'm committed to doing it. 

Now if only I could avoid tempting foods like french fries and pizza on occasion. For the most part I eat well, but some days it's a challenge for me.  Pizza and chinese food call my name when it's so darn cold outside...

Also, we had a vendor in at work today and he brought in this 20 pound bag of candy:

He also took us out for lunch to Jack Stack barbecue and in addition to ordering our meals tried to make us order appetizers and desserts!  Some of my coworkers got some dessert to go, look at this carrot cake!

I resisted the dessert but I had to bust into the bag of gummy bears...this has to be THE worst time of year to try to be careful about eating well and working out...I really enjoy Thanksgiving and holiday baking and all of the crap that gets brought in from vendors at this time of year.  Ugh.

engagement pictures

A few weeks ago Lincoln and I had our engagement pictures taken by the lovely and talented Amanda Eaton.  I loved her use of natural light and found her originally on another blog that I follow, Lemon and Lavender. 

After our initial meeting I knew that we'd hit it off because we shared a love of pretty paper, folders and pinterest. :)

After the first few awkward photos, Lincoln and I started to get the hang of things and we had quite a few (207 to be exact) pictures to choose from!  Here are a few of our faves:

ch-ch-ch changes.

I think that's a song right? Who knows...I try to make everything a song.

I've been seriously slacking on blogging lately.  People have asked if something was wrong with their browser...that maybe things weren't updating like they should or something. Nope...it's just me...not writing over here.

I'd like to partially blame Lincoln for my writing hiatus.  You see, before I met him, I had all of these awful dating stories to write about or weird random things happening to me when I'd go out in public places, but since we've been together, I obviously don't have the awful dating stories, and my weird things happening in public seems to be on the decline as well.  Sure, there are still weird/funny things that happen that I should probably be writing about, but I've had a few other things on the 'ol brain lately. 

For example:

• OUR WEDDING.  Heller, it's five months from Monday.  Luckily it's pretty much done, we're just playing the waiting game now until probably a few weeks before the wedding.  I should write a post about all of our fun wedding stuff, huh?   
• Flights and Kites; I'm planning a fundraiser in February, one month almost to the date, before our wedding.  Things haven't quite gone as planned with this event...  First, we booked a venue only to have the venue go out of business a few months after booking it.  Along with the business going out, we lost our deposit.  [WE'RE A NON-PROFIT!  We don't have money to lose!!]   OY.  So because the space was booked far enough in advance we were able to look at other options.  Everything is so expensive though.  We got a steal with our original space....damn.  Also, because we had to find a new space, we've had to deal with a lot of insurance issues, rental drama, and now we're trying to figure out how to decorate our new space.  It will all work out, but it has been a little stressful lately!
• I'm moving.  There's the big one that's been causing me some anxiety lately!  Not because I'm not excited to move, but because with moving, that meant that I had to tell my current employer that I was moving and that I'll eventually have to put my house on the market.... 
• I'm doing some updates to my house.  Nothing major.  Luckily my house is cute :).  I just needed to replace the nasty linoleum in my bathrooms.  Ew.  I'll take some before and afters, don't you worry!
• We're doing some updates to Lincoln's house.  Lincoln's house is very cute.  It's also on the older side.  He replaced the orange carpeting in his house prior to me coming into the picture (THANK GOD), but his bathroom is a little (and by a little, I mean a lot) outdated.  So, at the beginning of next year, we're doing a complete remodel in the bathroom.  If anyone tries to tell you that bathroom updates are cheap, they're lying.
• My nephew.  Duh, he's new and cute and cuddly and I just want to hang out with him and stuff. And also, he's growing like a weed!

• All of my friends are either getting married or are knocked up.  It's true.  It's that time of year when everyone and their dog decided to either get hitched or to have a baby!  Next year is going to be VERY busy.  In the last month or so, I've had 4 friends get engaged!

So, that's about it from me!

fritos.

My dad has had a strange obsession with fritos lately.  Yes, fritos, like the corn chip thingys.

He also has taken a liking to posting "recipes" on twitter and facebook.

Here are some of his recent posts:

"Here's a ham sandwich idea for a little variety.  Get a small bag of frito's and put on top of the sandwich.  Like a soft taco with a hard shell"

"I've had requests for more quick sandwiches.  Soft tortilla shell, 2 slices smoked turkey, 1 slice pepperjack cheese, 2 oz salsa, add fritos, wrap, enjoy"

(*Don't you like how specific he is with the 2oz of salsa...he later found out that 2oz was probably a little too much)

I suggested that he should send some of these delicious recipes to Frito lay or at the very least start a collection of the recipes to showcase different ways to eat fritos.

Currently, he's brainstorming a dessert with fritos...something resembling fried ice cream.

Sadly, me posting this blog post will probably just encourage him to come up with new ideas.  Oddly enough, he "says" he hasn't tried any of his creations...I don't know if I believe him. 

Because it's harvest season, my dad has some spare time to commit to creating these new recipes in between hauling loads of corn and soybeans to the bins.  He also has time to take pictures of himself to post onto twitter and facebook.

This was taken when he was unloading a truck.  Yes, he has on sunglasses and goggles.  It's to keep dust an stuff out of his eyes, duh.

Isn't he a gem...

i just kept running.

So last night I was out for a run and as I was running past this house that I normally run by, this girl yells out to me:

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!"

I looked around to see if she might have been talking to someone else, but no.  No one else around.

My only conclusions are that:

A) She thought I looked like someone else.

B) She saw me talking to their dog that is always tied to a tree.

or, most likely this one

C) She saw me running and could tell by the way that I run that I am NOT a runner.

via

my old job

So I haven't much talked about my old job. 


The one that I hated and the one that made me cry most days. 


I hated that place.  Hated. I don't use the word "hate" very often, but this place deserves it.

Luckily my current job is great and the people that I work with are awesome, especially compared to most of the nutjobs at my last place of employment.


Recently, this random guy found out about my previous employment at my last job on Linked In and was considering taking a position with the company.  He wanted my take on the place.


I was brutally honest with him and told him that it was quite possibly the worst place that I had ever worked at and to not take the job.  I told him that I didn't think there was an amount of money worth it to move to Kansas from California to make this place worth the move.  Not only were (most of) the people I worked straight up crazy, but my boss was the most rediculous man I have ever encountered. (he didn't take the job, btw)


The old boss, we'll call him Doug, for kicks (oh wait, that's his real name...), would always be on the phone, most commonly screaming at the person on the other end.  He would also take the person on the phone on field trips to the bathroom while on the phone. 


As luck would have it my desk was within earshot of the bathroom.  So not only would I get to hear Doug moaning while taking a poo, but I could also get caught up on the latest happenings of the business because of his habit of talking on the phone while in the shitter.


Even though Doug is in his late 50's I would guess...he would attempt to dress like a 20-something, most likely to pick up the ladies' in the 20-something age range.  Because, ya know, girls that age want to date someone who could be their dad, right? (And for some reason they actually did date him...he would give them an expensive car to drive and take them shopping often, but who's asking?)


Tight button-up shirts that showed off his nipples were common along with expensive denim and these pointy-elf like shoes that made his feet look ginormous.  Because the shirts were often a smudge too tight, he would often pop open a button thus exposing his belly button.  Such a treat.


Doug would also come back from lunch, sit in my office and pick his teeth or his fingernails with my scissors or a post-it note that he'd find on my desk.


For Christmas one year I gave him a manicure set and some dental floss and he didn't understand why.


I should have known from my very first interview that this place was going to be a train-wreck waiting to happen.


First of all the "HR" manager was wearing skin tight denim jump suit with Louis Vuitton  logos all over it.  Now, I'm not sure, but I don't think that was an original Louis Vuitton garment...


Second of all, while in my interview Doug was asking about how I handled working with different people.  I, of course said that working with different people was no problem for me.  To which he replied: "Good.  Because you'll be working with Grace and she's a F-ING B*TCH." 


Tell me, why didn't I just get up and leave right then? 


Instead, I stuck it out for a little over a year at that place.


The few of us that did get along made the place as fun as we could and came up with a lot of stories and activities to keep us busy.

...And, a lot of Family Fued on the internets.

Or we'd take an extra long lunch break downtown during March Madness to watch Basketball games.

Now, it may sound like we were a bunch of slackers, but we rarely could take lunch breaks away from our desks, let alone together, just in case the whole world were falling apart, and we needed to be by the phone.  We also worked longer hours, so our slacking off evened itself out. 

Would I do this stuff in a normal work-setting? Hell no.  But this was not a normal work setting.


One of my old coworkers somehow managed to stick it out at this place longer than most of us...so she would send me stories occasionally, just to keep me entertained, here are a couple:

• I just walked into Doug’s office, and he turns around and looks at me, with an enormous wad of toilet paper band-aided onto his face. He stepped out, presumably to use the toilet, and I asked Shaun what happened, to which he replied: He said that he was driving to work, and his face just started bleeding.  Riggghhhtt…I have a horrible time w my spontaneous face hemorrhaging as well. Can totally relate.

• Johanna. OH Johanna. I cannot put my bagel in the toaster in the morning, or my lean cuisine in the microwave at lunch, without her 6 course Julia Childs meal spread out all over kingdom come. This morning, she was busy splaying out a collection of jelly, butter and cream cheese for her English muffin, as well as a collection of juices, a 6 pack of eggs…I was like, what the sh*t? Eat at home. It’s so obnoxious. Lunch, she has an effing double-decker sandwich obviously planned, as she busts out enough sandwich material on the table to rival Subway.  I want to get into the silverware drawer, but there she stands, blocking it while she struggles with removing the lid to her rootbeer bottle. Drink coke, out of a can, like the rest of America.

• Doug just sent me an email, asking me to “find a typewriter, and type it up.” Find a typewriter? What is this, 1915?

 Oh, how I miss that place for the good stories...

meet the cutest little dude ever

I became an aunt for the first time late Tuesday night!

My sister (and her husband) went into labor almost two weeks early.

Meet Mason Wade!

He was born at 1050pm on September 13th weighing in at a whopping

6 lbs 14oz and was 19 1/2" long

My poor sister had to push for around 4 hours :(.  The little stinker didn't want to make an appearance quite yet I guess!

He is the cutest baby ever.  I swear. No bias here!

oh, hello

I'm here!

I've just been neglecting this blog lately....

I've been busy planning my wedding, planning another event, and trying to keep my crazy dog out of trouble.

Just so you don't feel like you're completely out of the loop, here's what's been going on:

1. My sister is having a baby in a month; he will be my first nephew!
2. My dog turned two last week and I swear to God she's going through the terrible two's.  I think she's had more accidents and has been crazier than ever this past weekend.
3. I pretty much planned our entire wedding in just over 1 week.
4. I ran into a rolling rack of clothes at work over a week ago and came away with a nasty bruise (that's still here) and a knot on my ankle the size of a ping-pong ball.
5. My dad has twitter and this weekend he figured out how to tweet from his iphone.  It's been interesting....and he doesn't quite have all of the kinks worked out.
6. In addition to planning my wedding, I'm planning a big fundraiser exactly one month before my wedding.  I have a feeling I'll be drinking a lot during those two months.
7. I really suck at words with friends, but I keep playing even though I always lose. :( (hint, hint, friends, you could let me win every once in awhile)
8. I am so excited for football season and cooler weather (and to be done mowing my yard for the year even though Lincoln has done it the last two times...)
9. I have gone to sooo many concerts this summer, one was outside on a very hot day and I'm fairly certain that I could've rung sweat out of my dress.
10. That's it.  I'll hopefully post more soon! :)

the rest of the story...

So Kristin has given you the story of how the proposal went down. But, as with most chronicles, there’s a little more to it. Here’s the rest of the story…

The ring search began with a trip to KC during the work week. I wanted to start looking at different options; plus, it gave me a good excuse to go down and see my boo; but I couldn’t let her know my intentions...so like any good boyfriend would do, I had to lie.

I told Kristin my dad bought a gift in Overland Park for my mom’s birthday and it needed to be picked up. She bought my story because my mom’s birthday was actually coming up the next week, so it worked out pretty well. But as Kristin continued to question me about where I was going and what I was picking up, the fibs grew larger and larger.

The “gift” was some nice kind of coffee maker. Kristin thought it sounded pretty cool so she almost asked to check it out. Luckily I was able to change the subject and let the topic die. The first bullet was dodged.

After visiting another store a week later, I was pretty sure I had found the “one.” The following Friday I was heading to KC, so I took off from work an hour earlier than I had told her so I could get the deal done. I got everything completed and now it was just a matter of picking up the ring.

In the meantime, I almost screwed up my entire plan.

That Sunday, we went to church and decided to grab some Salty Iguana afterwards (their menus smell terrible, btw). On the drive, we started talking about something that reminded me of a conversation I had had at the jewelry store. But, at the time, I didn’t remember the location of my story.

So as I started to tell Kristin, I was like “oh, I remember now.” And then my trusty light bulb came on and I quickly realized I should shut up.  

Oops!

I had gone too far with my story and basically had to tell her not to worry about what I had just said.

I could tell she was completely confused by what was occurring so later on I told her that all I could say was that she’d find out soon enough and it was a good thing. Another crisis averted.

Before Kristin and I took off for Omaha for the weekend, I had one small thing left to do: ask her dad for permission. 

 

I called her dad and asked him out to lunch, and luckily he was free.  We talked for awhile, ate and we were about to head out when I mentioned that I had one more thing I needed to talk to him about...

Her dad responded with "well, just blurt it out already", so I did and thankfully he gave me permission to ask Kristin to marry me.

 

The day that Kristin and I were heading to Omaha for our little getaway, I asked my dad to run down to Joslin’s Jewelry (this is Kristin-best store ever, for real) to pick it up.  He got the ring to me later in the day; just in time for our trek north.

Kristin’s already taken care of all the girly details so I won’t bore you with those J  All I know is she said yes and the wedding planning is in full force!

the proposal

Well...and the rest of our weekend too...

Last weekend Lincoln and I took a trip to Omaha to see one of my FAVORITE singers right now, Jason Aldean.  I have a weird crush on him, but I think it's more because of his voice than his looks...but who knows, really.

Because the concert was on Friday, we decided to make a long weekend of it and went up Thursday night and came home on Sunday.

On our way to the concert on Friday, we stopped off at a bar to grab a few drinks before finishing our walk down to the stadium (which was outside, and if you haven't heard it feels like a balmy 110* on average in the Midwest on most days). 

Once we finished up at the bar we walked outside to a cowboy on a pedi-cab blaring Jason Aldean tunes, so of course I had to hitch a ride with this guy.  He was an interesting fella...

See that chain around his neck?  That was the brake.  And he also had a whip that he insisted we use.

To say we got a few stares on the ride down is an understatement!

Once inside the stadium, we found our seats and I got my camera ready to take a few close-ups of Mr. Aldean.



My feet were about to fall off after standing for the entire concert and walking all the way home so we grabbed a drink at a bar that had a fun band playing after the concert.  I really wanted to find Jason Aldean's tour bus but someone wouldn't let me.

Saturday morning we decided to venture out to the Henry Doorly Zoo, mainly to see an I-max screening of Tornado alley, but since it didn't feel that hot out when we entered the zoo, I figured that we better see all of the animals since we were there, duh.

The penguins were my favorite, but these guys were pretty funny and cute too.

After hitting the zoo and becoming drenched in sweat, we got ready for a nice dinner at 801 Chop House.

If you're a meat eater, this is the place to go!  The steaks were cooked to perfection and we were stuffed.

After dinner we walked downtown through a park and found a bench to sit on (that wasn't covered in bird poop).

The bench was a little uncomfortable and Lincoln was acting a little different...not in a bad way, I think his mind was just a little pre-occupied with other things at that moment. :)

I kept hearing things drop behind me, which of course I assumed was bird poop and I was convinced we were about to get pooped on.  So after awhile, we got up to leave and find a new place to grab a drink at.

When we were almost out of the park, Lincoln stopped and gave me a huge hug and then started saying some nice things and I think all I could say at that point was "oh my God"...repeatedly...because I knew what was happening!! I'm pretty sure I was also shaking at that point too!

Once he asked, he pulled the beauty of a ring out of his pocket and put it on my finger. 

Here we are right after!

I couldn't get over that he kept the ring in his pocket all night and I wasn't aware!  I was surprised to say the least!

While we had been talking about getting engaged for awhile now, I wasn't sure exactly when he would ask.

Hearing all of the stories about him ring shopping without me knowing it and him asking my dad made me laugh a lot (maybe I can convince him to share those later with you guys...hint, hint Lincoln).

The wedding planning has officially begun and we're planning March wedding!  Eek!