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.

Where to start? With a house

Don't make fun of this first post. It's as good as it gets for right now!
Think of it as artistic in a modern sort of way. Welcome to the first posting of the SherPlante blog! It's Sher to Plante some memories you won't forget! Megan said she is going to forget about the site, so it is my job to keep it going. I think that's possible. If not, you'll forget about it quick enough and we'll pretend like it never happened. It won't be as organized as Britta's, but we'll hopefully keep you coming back.

So here's the news for this weekend: we're starting the day off tomorrow with a visit with our realator in the morning to discuss an offer we would like to put on a house. We've seen nearly thirty houses, and I would say only two have really caught our eyes. We've selected the house you see in the pictures on this blog. Everything in the house has been updated, but not just to be nice; there was a fire in the house that pretty much ruined everything. Needless to say, we've been a little weary about that detail, but our inspection has not been able to find any remnants that would come back to get us. That's because they have literally replaced everything. So we'll see how it goes. It's an uncertain time to be buying a house, so the price will need to be right.

After that it's off to celebrate Adam's graduation with his master's of exercise physiology. We will be celebrating at El Loro's - a tasty little Mexican chain. After that it's back to my parent's house for some Wii and knitting! Can you think of a more wild night? For those who don't know, my sister and Adam, mom and dad, and myself (and pretty much Megan) bought a Wii together that we rotate between the three groups on a two month rotation. It started with Megan and myself, went to my sister and Adam's, and is finally getting to my parent's house. I think their popularity in the neighborhood is about to go up.

On Sunday we're hitting the slopes - actually, less slopes, more flat ground as we cross country ski with Scott and Kim. Actually, not sure if they're still going. Should probably check on that. Then we're off to Britta and Lynden's for a super bowl party. It's a busy weekend of socializing, and then it's back to the grind.

That's all for now because Megan is falling asleep. I hope this is more riveting for you than it was for Megan. Enjoy the pictures! We'll let you know how it goes.