Thanksgibbin Weekend

Thanksgiving is probably my favorite holiday of the year. You get to spend time with the family without the stress that can sometimes be associated with all of the activities of celebrating Christmas. I was very happy to finally be back state-side for Thanksgiving after taking a two year sabbatical of sorts. (I celebrated in Italy with my good friends Sarah and Tim 2007, and celebrated with my girlfriends Jenny, Rachel and Betsy over a bowl of Irish stew in Ireland 2008). This Thanksgiving weekend was jammed full of fun times and good memories.



1st Annual Sherplante Turkey Trot

This year Thanksgiving started out continuing a tradition of running with my brother Matt in the morning. We typically would brave the coldest temperatures to run in the Minneapolis Turkey Trot 5K. This year we opted to make our own 5K-ish run from their house. We say it's a 5Kish run so that we have the flexibility of making the run shorter if we want :) - this year our 5Kish run was 1.5 miles. We had a fairly good audience on our run, and I think we were able to burn off just enough calories to compensate for our breakfast of cinnamon toast!

Later that day we spent up at Casey's parent's house. I think there were about 14 of us there to eat together. I had fun hearing some good stories about Casey's mom and her sisters. Like I said at the beginning of the post the afternoon was full of good times and good memories.


Tool-Time
Friday after was not spent shopping like some do but just getting stuff done around the house. I also chose to use my time to check something off of the "House-Project" list- installing a garbage disposer. I'm not too handy of a person but I love puzzles so this project was sort of right up my alley and was fun too! I got to try my hand at some basic electrical work and plumbing. After 7 trips to Home Depot all is done and it purrs like a kitten. Below on the left is a picture right after I got Casey's help putting the disposer in the sink. On the right is the finished product. Pretty cool huh?





O Christmas Tree!
Another first this year for me was actually going to a tree farm and cutting down our own Christmas Tree. On Saturday, we drove out to a tree farm by Katie's house and I got to try my hand at cutting down our first tree. It took us awhile to find the right one but the one we found looks perfect in our house. (And smells good too!)


Happy Holidays!

November 7th 2009

As most of you know, November 7th was a pretty big day at the Sherplante household. Thanks to everyone that could come help us celebrate in our marriage! Everyone asks what the best part of your wedding day was. For me, I think, besides the obvious (getting married to the person I love most) was the opportunity to spend the day surrounded by the friends and family that we love. We had a lot of fun catching up with family that we don't see very often as well as tearing up the dance floor with our friends (Scott- you had both of our families entertained with your awesome dance moves). I could probably write a book on every little thing that happened at the wedding but I don't think something like that would do the day justice.

Just remember - Keep tightening that weave!!!

Love to you all,
The new Mrs. Plante

Robocop the Pumpkin

This year we were able to enjoy Halloween 'old-school style' - we actually carved our first pumpkin and had tons of trick-or-treaters. I was a little more generous in my candy portions than Casey (I would give a small handful, about 3-4 pieces, and he would give just one tiny piece to each) but we had a fun time seeing all of the costumes the kids came up with! We rounded out the night with a good scary movie - Aliens. Above is a picture of us carving our pumpkin named Robocop. Isn't he handsome!

I also took the time to sort through all of the squishy muck to roast the seeds. It was my first time doing it. It was delicious.

Spiced Pumpkin Seeds

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 tablespoons margarine, melted
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/8 teaspoon garlic salt
• 2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
• 2 cups raw whole pumpkin seeds

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 275 degrees F (135 degrees C).
2. Combine the margarine, salt, garlic salt, Worcestershire sauce and pumpkin seeds. Mix thoroughly and place in shallow baking dish.
3. Bake for 1 hour, stirring occasionally.

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.