Catching up - way up

So... as has been pointed out to us, we have not updated the blog since "A day at the zoo", which has been quite a while. A few things have happened since then. Nothing all that exciting. We'll catch up with a few entries. This one will cover the rest of the summer.

A visit from Sadie
Lynden and Britta left for a vacation for a week, and Sadie needed a place to stay, so she came and spent the week with us. Boy, did she have a good time! She had a walk every morning (it was in the summer, so it was nice out and there was sunlight - not sure it would have been as exciting in the winter). We played lots of tug o war. In the picture above we are playing fetch with one of the new toys she got while staying at our house (one is still here just in case she comes over again). We also became the most popular people on our street - at least to the kids. They all came over when Sadie was in the back yard. We have not seen the kids since (except to take Halloween candy from us). Overall, Sadie had a great time. We heard she was a little depressed at home for the first couple of days, but that's understandable when you don't get to hang around with us anymore.

State Fair
Megan and I made our annual trip to the State Fair in September. It was a beautiful day out. We ate more than we could handle. We also met up with Katie and Annie. We visited lots of fun stuff. We saw lots of animals, and went down the giant slide (Annie squealed on the way down - she went twice). Annie was passing out by the end of the day. We also met up with Britta and Lynden towards the end of our day (they were just starting theirs).

Babysitting Leah
We also had a chance to babysit Leah for the first time. As long as we were moving around, Leah was having a great time. We had a great time the whole time. Overall, I think it was a successful job as babysitters; she did get a little upset after dinner (it may have gotten her a little gassy), but after that, she passed out and didn't wake up until mom and dad were home (picture of her sleeping above).

That's all for the summer!

Day at the Zoo!

Today was zoo day with Katie and the babies. I good time was had by all (especially Megan). Megan and Annie fed the giraffe, who was very grateful to get some biscuits.

Some of us even looked like animals. Annie preferred an aggressive tiger look for the day (she was ferocious with her tiger roar)







I fit in better with the monkeys:















Pigs were ridden -















Annie and I had a nice discussion about where her life is going and what she wants to do next - astro physics and puppies are her two main concerns right now















We saw lots of animals - swans












Tigers (although they were pretty sleepy)












Goats (that liked to jump on us to get some food)











Ostrich












Giraffe















Otters (they put on a good show)





There were many others as well. Everyone can't wait for the next trip to the zoo (unless were chicken to go back)

Tanta Megan!

For those of you non-Norwegians out there, tanta is Norwegian for aunt. This has been very exciting week in our family! At 3:17 on Monday afternoon Leah Grace Sherwood was born. She and her parents (Matt and Angie) are very healthy and doing well --- besides the lack of sleep on Matt and Angie's side. Thought I would put a little picture up to show off how cute she is! :)

And the Lord said, let there be hot water!

Question: Who do you know that can turn off the water in their home, take apart the shower, increase the maximum water temperature, put the shower back together, and turn the water back on?

A. Nobody, it's impossible
B. That guy on TV
C. Sadie
D. Megan and Casey

Answer: D!!! That's right, after a quick phone call to Father Sherwood, both Megan and Casey were on their way to finally having a hot shower. The showers had been set to the lowest level of hot water possible, so the last couple of days have produced a luke warm shower at best. Megan decided she couldn't take it any longer (Casey's goes with the flow a little more so he could have gone another week probably), so it was done. I'm sorry to report that there wasn't a plumber's crack seen on this adventure, but it was still quite the adventure. In the action pictures, Casey is turning off the water, and Megan is removing the shower handle to adjust the temperature gauge.

So today is day six in the house. It has come an unbelievable amount in those six days. All boxes are unpacked. All rooms are set up. The living room and the hallway have two fresh coats of paint on them (and one cable outlet cover; Megan got a little aggressive). Scott, Britta and Lynden stopped by on Sunday and helped with the painting. Scott and Lynden also helped me (Casey) purchase a grill. We had to rent a truck from home depot to get it to the house. Scott ended up being the one who had to sign up for it as I didn't have an insurance card for my insurance (they only give me a piece of paper that I put in my car). So he drove it back to the house. We managed to forget the burner covers in the back of the truck, but I noticed right away and gave Scott a call to bring them back. The grill works great! So far it has grilled steak, chicken, and asparagus.

We've met about a half dozen neighbors so far. They have all been really nice. The neighborhood is a mix of older people who have been here for decades and young couples and families. We've made a map and written down names so we have a chance of remembering. I usually forget about .5 seconds after they tell me, so the map has been helpful.

If you have tried calling us, you realize that we are in a cell phone black hole of death with no hope of return. Megan has been able to find a couple spots in the house where she can get reception. My phone has given up trying and refuses to have a signal no longer than 45 seconds. So if you need to get a hold of us, try Megan first! I've complained bitterly to Verizon, and they are sending out a team of "Can you here me now" technicians to test our area and see if they can do something about it. They are planning on building a tower on Richfield high school, which is only five blocks away. That would obviously help immensely, but at best they could tell us it will be built this year... hopefully. We can buy a signal booster, but they want to charge us $200 for it, and I've refused to pay them money for their lack of service. That seems backwards. Verizon fails to get a signal to us, so we pay them more money. We'll see how the test goes.

That's all for now. I'm sure there will be many more adventures, so make sure to check back frequently! This adventure went way too smoothly - I promise that something will go wrong the next time.

Winter Wonderland

It's been awhile and I realized there has been quite a bit going on that we could write about. (I'm still getting used to this whole blogging concept :) ) I think the biggest thing that happened the past couple of weeks was our trip to Utah!



We went with Casey's sister Katie and her husband Adam. We stayed at a little hotel in Salt Lake City. You wouldn't expect this hotel to be anything great but WOW did they have amazing breakfast. I learned quick too, that big breakfasts are important if you're skiing all day!

The first day was spent at The Canyons (after buying some snowpants for someone...) and the third day was at Snowbasin. The guys also did Alta the second day while Katie and I spent the day hanging out at the spa!



The snow was great-- We had 10 inches the first day! Though I grew up skiing I found it to be much more difficult than I remember, maybe my age is showing ;) I think what I enjoyed the most was skiing down from the clouds and stopping every once and awhile for a break to take in the scenery. We really had a fun time and are glad we were able to go!

Save the Date!

I am just getting so excited about this year with Casey that I had to write it down some place and what better place than the blog! Casey and I have been very busy the past few weeks between house, wedding and all of the other normal things that go on week to week.

The big news today...we finally were able to set a date for the wedding! We will be getting married November 7th 2009! Save the date! It's going to be a fun day. For me, I feel like this whole year will be fun...

Who wants some sushi?

Last weekend Megan and I went to a restaurant called Tampopo to learn to make some sushi. It was my Christmas present from Megan. We both like sushi and we’ve enjoyed cooking together, so it was a great opportunity to add a new menu item to the list. Tampopo is a small Japanese restaurant in downtown St. Paul by the farmers market. There were six of us in the class with the head chef. None of us had made sushi before, except for a large man named ABBA, who was having trouble cooking the rice and received the class as a gift to hone his skills.

Making sushi isn’t too difficult if you get a couple things right. The most important one is the rice. You need to cook it to the right consistency so that it turns into a nice fluffy ball of stickiness. My guess is that our first batch of sushi rice will do anything but stick together. Luckily, she cooked up the rice for us so we could make sure to go home with some good sushi. Once the rice was cooked and ready, we just had to add our other ingredients; seaweed, crab (cooked), raw tuna, eel (cooked), shrimp (cooked) and smoked salmon. We used these ingredients in different combinations to make the sushi you see in the picture. The most popular and our favorite were the inside-out rolls. They’re the rolls with the rice on the outside. Inside-out rolls are actually not a traditional sushi; they were invented in the United States. I think you end up with a little more rice and a little less seaweed that way. Megan did a better job of rolling her sushi (her tray is on top); I had a lot of rice in mine. Overall, we had made:

California inside out rolls (crab meat) - Megan’s favorite
Spicy raw tuna inside out rolls – My favorite
BBQ eel traditional rolls with the seaweed on the outside
Hand-shaped shrimp, tuna, and yellow fin
Smoked Salmon balls with lemon

Wow was it good! Fresh sushi tastes completely different than even sushi that’s just a few hours old. The big pieces of raw tuna and yellow fin were a little too mushy for Megan, so as you can see, I got a good helping of them. I think I traded her some California rolls.

So when we have a house warming party, get ready to have some sushi! Which reminds me, I should also say that we bought the house! We’re very excited. Our closing date is April 24. We wanted to push it back so we could have time to find someone to replace Megan in her current lease. If you know someone that would like to live downtown in a pretty cool condo, let us know! They’ll have a pretty fun roommate in Betsy as well.