Don't Fear the Inevitable

As I do some pre-planning for our trip to Macy's tomorrow to start our first wedding registry, I can't help but wonder what married life will be like and what things will change. Even though we have been together for what seems like forever, and already feel like a married couple in most ways, everyone promises that being married changes things.

While I am absolutely estatic and excited for our life as a family to begin, I can't help peering into the crystal ball and staring the inevitable straight in the face...

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year...

...makes for the most DEPRESSING post-holiday blues. As Christmas is my favorite time of year, I hate when it is over. Even so, we had an amazing holiday with our friends & families; we are so blessed! Here is a sneak peek at what this year brought:

Wednesday: Christmas at my Dad's in Prior Lake. Lots of cookies, home made chili, and brand new luggage for our honeymoon in May! We ended the day seeing Avatar on the Monster Screen and I surprisingly LOVED it. A good love story is always appreciated, even if it is among aliens.

Unfortunately, I left my camera at home, so no pics to share :(

Thursday: Christmas Eve was hosted at my Mom's house. 29 of our family members on the "O'Rourke" side gathered (despite the snow storm) for an amazing dinner, Tom & Jerry's and a fun gift exchange. My favorite gifts both came from my generous mother: a heart rate monitor that will measure my heart rate & calories burned during my workouts, and one of her old pearl & diamond rings restored beautifully. I'm so excited to pass it down to my daughter some day!

Highlights:

Friday: Christmas morning at the Schneiders, where we (as always) had an amazing brunch and took turns opening gifts in front of the tree. And as usual, everyone was much too generous! Jared was excited to get an old record player, a "dragon" shirt (dork), and a GPS for his car.

Highlights:

The festivities ended with the annual party at Jared's Aunt & Uncle's house, and a fun game of "Mueder in my Town".

'Twas a great week, but as all good things, it came to an end. Now we are anxiously looking forward to all the great things (known and unknown) that 2010 has to bring!

Revenge of the Turkey

Ahhhhhhh...Thanksgiving. One of the best holidays of the year. A holiday centered around food, family, and most importantly: tradition. It is easy to take tradition for granted, and unexpectedly hilarious things can happen when someone throws a wrentch in your routine.

Here is a sneak peek at our typical Thanksgiving traditions:

1. Thanksgiving Eve: We join our friends at the local "townie" bar, to see old faces and celebrate the long weekend.
2. Spend the night in my mother's guest room, to stay close to all the happenings of the next day.
3. Thanksgiving Morning: We join Jared's family for the annual morning bowling. I always lose.
4. Thanksgiving early afternoon: Return to my mom's house to grab all of the delicious foo...

...knock knock knock...

"Mom!"

...pound pound pound...

"Mooooooooooom!!"

Silence.

She locked me out of the house. Even worse, she also locked all of my food, that I had spent the entire night before preparing, inside the house. Ugh.

I make my way to all 5,000 windows in the house to see if any are left open just enough for me to slide through. No luck. The place is locked up like Fort Knox.

Just as I am ready to give up, I realize that I skipped the sliding glass door to the basement. I make my way down to the hill, and as I approach the door a large dark figure that previously resembled a rock comes barrelling at me, coming so close to knocking me over that I feel the air from his feathers blow across my face.

Yes...feathers.

As a scream escapes my throat I finally make out what the object is...

GOOD LORD, IT'S A TURKEY!!

I stand in shock and watch the obese bird run faster than any animal or human I have ever seen run in my life, hauling ass down our hill, across the street, and into the woods.

I fall over laughing. I am, in fact, just about to eat his cousin; the least he can do is give me a heart attack. Oh the irony...

In spite of the locked up food and turkey attack, we had a great Thanksgiving :)

Waking up from Vegas...

I apologize for my lack of postings lately. I escaped to Vegas for a week, and whoever survives a week in Vegas deserves a full 2-week nap. Plus, I needed some time to do some major catch-up on work, wedding planning, and just life in general. I was in Sin City Oct. 28 - Nov. 5 for both work and pleasure. The work part wasn't as much fun, as it was a 3-day meeting for which I was the main planner/coordinator. So basically, I was responsible for the organization of schedules, meals & entertainment for 130 people, all while averaging approx. 3 hours of sleep per night. Not fun! So let's get onto the good stuff...

My girlfriends and I have a tradition of going on a mini-vacation every Halloween, and this year they (being the amazing people they are) decided to throw me an early bachelorette party in the process! And what better place than Vegas?! We had an unforgetable trip, and with all of the "perks" we received by traveling as a pack of 14 young women, I vow to never travel to Vegas any other way. Here are some highlights...

At the airport...on our way!

Night #1 we found ourselves at the ever-popular "Men of X" show at the Hooters Casino. What a hoot!

Day #2 - Lunch at Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville where I got brought up on stage to belly dance! As you will see, I continued to flash the t-shirt that my girlfriends bought for me, which read, "By me a shot, I'm tying the knot!"

Night #2 - My bachelorette. My friend Jenny Carle surprised me with this amazing bachelorette dress, which she MADE! Thanks again Jenny!!

Opening fun gifts... :)

And all of the girls outside of Olives in the Bellagio. Aren't they beautiful?!

Day #2 - Halloween. Well, Ashley needed to sleep in a little... But don't worry. We got all gussied up in our Superhero costumes, and hopped in our limo...

...to make our way to PURE Nightclub, where we sat in VIP all night, and I found my superhero twin! (only with blonder hair, more makeup, and more, eh, plastic)...

OH YEAH! And I got to sing with a Las Vegas Pussycat Doll!!!!!!

Day #3 - Lazy pool day...

...Followed by the Cirque du Solei Beatles LOVE Show (where we got upgrated to front row!)

...Followed by an evening trip to the Palms hotel to take the Playboy staff up on their offer of free VIP and bottle service! (the only condition: NO MEN at the table. That was more than fine by us :)

Our waitress

It was a perfect get-away.

Reality bites...

Haa Hee Hachoo!

Just as I was getting ready to schedule my flu shot, I caught the bug. I'm assuming the little bugger got me at some point on the plane to/from SLC, in spite of me choking down glasses of the disgusting "Airborne". The doctors won't even let me come in for an appointment due to my "flu like symptoms" and the risk of infecting others, so they instructed me to stay at home and rest, drink fluids, and don't come back into work until my temp. is under 100 for 24 hours without meds. It spiked to 100.4 for the first time this morning and afternoon, but it was down to 99.8 tonight so I'm monitoring it and hoping I can be back in business by Thursday. I hate being a prisoner to my home, I even had to miss our wedding menu tasting tonight! :( So, I have been home from work for the past two days and will be again tomorrow looking a little something like this:

*Photo was e-mailed to me today compliments of a co-worker and his excellent skills with photoshop. I think they miss me in the office :)

On a better note, I had a great weekend. Got to see Zombieland (which was hilarious), visit the Trail of Terror (which was predictable, but fun none the less), and play with wedding flowers with my friend and florist Micki.

Now have a good week and I'll see YOU when I'm better.

Salt Lake City

I am in Salt Lake City on a business trip. I am in my hotel room with sandals on, because you never know what is in the carpet. I can describe most of what makes up this town with three "M"s: Mountains. Mexican restaurants. Motels. One motel even advertised their "Honeymoon Suite". Oh yeah, and I walked past a bridal boutique called "Later Day Brides". Don't see that every day. There seems to be a large Mexican population here. At first I wondered why Mexicans would migrate "so far north", but then I looked on a map and realized Utah is just east of Nevada. Duh. The temple is beautiful, but other than that Salt Lake looks like an "Old West" town in the middle of a beautiful mountain basin. There are a handful of modern buildings and nice restaurants, but other than that everything is pretty old & run down. But like I said, the scenery is to die for. Just gorgeous. Meh, check it off the list. At least it's warm here. Back to the tundra tomorrow...

Napa Valley, MN...!?

Interesting fact of the day: The Midwest is one of the fastest-growing areas for vineyards and grape crops in the nation in both land mass and production, and major wine-producing states such as California are already starting to feel the economic "pressure" from the rolling plains in the Midwest. Jared and I learned that tidbit of knowledge this past weekend on the 2nd Annual "Barefoot Bus to the Vineyards" sponsored by Twin Cities Friends of St. Judes. This AWESOME event loaded about 40 "young professionals" onto a bus from Minneapolis to three amazing vineyards on the MN Wine Trail (numbers 1 - 3 on the below map). When the event "hostess" cracked a bottle of champagne as the bus departed at 10am, I knew it was going to be a great day.

The day started at stop #1: Valley Vineyards in Prescott, Wisconsin. We were amazed as the bus pulled into a quaint, country neighborhood and led us to a beautiful home and vineyard on a hill. It turns out the owner got "the itch" three years prior and started making his own wines in his basement, and soon after his hobby turned into a full-blown vineyard. It was inspiring to talk to him as he has my dream job! We tasted his wines, toured his cellars, ate cheese and had great conversation with his neighbors who poured the wine for us. He recruited them in the very beginning stages to help him bottle, label, and eventually build his cellar. I hope I have neighbors like that someday.

Stop #2 brought us to Maiden Rock Winery & Cidery in Maiden Rock, WI. This is a GORGEOUS little town that is literally on a rock overlooking the river. I would highly reccommend passing through if you ever have a chance. This winery was adorned with hay bales, pumpkins, scarecrows, and anything else you would hope to see in the fall. It was very impressive to see a larger more festive location after visiting a small, newer vineyard. They lead us on a tour, showed us how they make their fruit wines & hard ciders, and finally lead us to the tasting room!

Stop #3: Vino in the Valley in Ellsworth, WI was last but definitely not least. Out of all three vineyards this was by far the most beautiful. The building was fantastic and the scenery was breathtaking. I couldn't believe I had lived only an hour from such a beautiful place for my entire life but I had never been there nor even heard of the place. The "outdoor" building was toasty in spite of the 40-degree weather (thanks to the wine and many heat lamps) and they lead us straight into a tasting which was followed by a yummy outdoor italian dinner. We then sat by the bonfire, played bean bags, and relaxed on a hayride.

The day wasn't cheap, but every penny we spent went toward helping the kids at St. Jude's Hospital. It was an amazing day, and we can't wait to go back next year!!

Engagement Pictures

About a month ago Jared & I had an outdoor engagement session with our wedding photographer - Alex del Toro from Imagen International. LOVE him. We already had engagement photos taken by Jared's aunt Peggy about a month after he proposed, but our new photographer insisted he do one with us as well so he could get to know how we photograph (plus - he did it for free. SCORE!)

So, on a lovely and HOT September Sunday afternoon we headed toward the lakes to meet Alex and take some lovey-dovey photos in front of the hordes of walkers/joggers/boaters/eaters. Jared was pretty embarassed at first..."You mean, I have to kiss HER, in front of ALL THESE PEOPLE!?"...but after Alex made fun of him and talked some football, he settled down. Here are a few of our favorites:

I can't wait to marry this man!!

Welcoming Fall

What a smack in the face. I love fall, but this year it hit HARD. The 2nd to last weekend in September the weather was still beautiful - low 80's, sunny, pleasant. And then our wonderful state remembered who she was and pulled the rug from under us. In less than a week it changed to mid-40s, windy and RAINY! I don't think it has stopped "drizzling" in an entire week. What's up with that? But, instead of complaining, I am going to embrace this lovely season with my entire being. While it is depressing to say "good bye" to summer, I do love fall, especially: Pumpkin spice coffee, changing leaves, leaving the window open at night and cuddling under the covers, sweatshirts, decorating the yard with pumpkins and scarecrows, apple orchards, scary movies, HALLOWEEN. But not so much: how it only last about a month in MN, and then Old Man Frost settles in for the next 5-6 months. To get into the spirit, Jared and I have already knocked out two horror movies (watch: The Blood Book - creepy movie!!), bought a bottle of Pumpkin Spice syrup for our morning coffee, and headed out with a group of our friends this weekend for Oktoberfest at Gasthofz in NE Minneapolis. We went to celebrate a few special birthdays, and had a BLAST! You can't lose with good friends, Steins of German beer, and a real live polka band. Here are some highlights: "Snuff Lady!!" The birthday girl on stage with the polka master! And speaking of Fall and pumpkins, tonight we got to visit our favorite little pumpkins who just turned 6 months old! Photo courtesy of their blog :) :

Awkward Door Holding

I pull my car into the parking lot. My windows are down, so I can feel the cool fall air and hear the dry leaves crush under my tires. I turn off my ignition and sit there for just a few moments, sipping down the last of my luke-warm "morning ride" coffee and catching the last few minutes of KQ's 8am interview. I get out of the car. I grab my backpack heavy from a stone-age laptop and workout attire. I'm going to the gym over lunch. I begin the long walk toward the building door. I'm tired. I'm cold. I hate carrying things. I just want to go back to bed. As I get closer to the glass entrance, I notice another "Nine-to-Fiver" walking alongside the building and headed toward the same destination. Ugh. He is about 50 feet in front of me, looking chipper, with his shirt half-untucked and tie slightly crooked. Ugh. As he reaches for the metal door handle, he notices the reflection of a young woman approaching him from a distance. Ugh. He proceeds, as a gentleman would, to open the door and hold it there; just for little old me, who is still a full 20 feet behind him. Ugh. Here we go. There is no way I can continue to slowly trudge my ass to the door, as someone is now waiting for me. Staring at me. Just trying to be a nice guy. I pick up speed in my already uncomfortable heels. I do an awkward half-walk-half-sprint, swinging my stick straight arms back and forth as I go. Trying to keep my packpack, lunch and purse in tact without tripping. I get to the door. I'm out of breath. I smile and say "thank you." You just made my morning so much easier. Moral of the story: if someone is more than 5 seconds behind you, don't hold the door for them. It's not that heavy...

Seeing old friends

"Make new friends, but keep the old; one is silver and the other is gold." The above is a line from a traditional Girl Scout song written by Susan J. Ellis. To this day, it is the only thing that I consiously remember about being in Mrs. Blumer's kindergarden class (besides sitting on the colored block carpeting), and is one of the philosophies that I still live by. Keeping up with old friends takes work. Life is busy, work days are long, and ultimately people change. It is amazing how easy it is to drift apart from your childhood friends while you are in your twenties, as everyone is heading their own directions and building their own lives, which often includes new love interests and different circles of casual friends. Long gone are the days of calling your best buddy at the crack of dawn so you can hang around and just be bored together. I remember being so bored with some of my best friends, that we would watch TRL together over the phone, take long walks to the gas station just to buy a pop, and make up songs and dances about being "so, insanely bored". That is true friendship. I miss those days. The past few days have been spent (working, of course, and) catching up with old friends. The first, believe it or not, were my grandparents. Remember those kind, sweet people who love you unconditionally, even though you were fairly recently some bratty, spoiled teenager that acted like you didn't care much whether you only saw them for a few hours on holidays? They are great people, and I need to make more time for them. On Friday I went out to lunch with my "Papa" and even took him to my office to show him my "cube". He sure got a kick out of that. I asked him a lot of questions about his past that I realized I had never really asked him before. It was really nice to hear his story. On Sunday I invited the Park grandparents over for brunch. It was just them & me, and while we were chatting over eggs & coffee I realized that we had never spent any alone time together. My grandma loved seeing the new Mums I bought for our patio and even plucked a flower to take home and press into her diary. How cute. She appreciated the time we spent together so much that I received a letter from her in the mail yeserday thanking me again and again for the lovely time. It made me really sad that I had never made that time for her before. On Monday I had happy hour with my friend Sue who was in town from Boston, followed by dinner with my friend Kim who was in town from Columbus. And tonight, I was able to grab a late night drink with a work friend who recently moved Florida. It was so great to catch up and see each one of them, and not to mention great to know there are a few potential "vacation spots" in the near future :) Staying in touch takes work, but it is worth it. I hope to never let an old friend be forgotten, as every person who has come into my life has made an impact on the person I am today. I am so lucky to have the great friendships that I do. Goodnight! ...if you're wondering, my "dreaded meeting" last week went great. THANK GOD IT'S OVER!!

Calm Before the Storm

Tomorrow marks the first day of a two-day meeting that my co-worker and I have planned from start to finish, and now we must execute. I'll spare you the boring details, but what I will tell you is that I will be running around like a chicken with my head cut off for the next couple of days. The details are planned, and now as I wait for tomorrow to come I am sipping a glass of red wine and blogging to get my mind off things. I'd like to tell you about my weekend. It was quite phenomenal. On Friday night Jared & I met our friends Kristen & Brian at the new Rick Bronson's House of Comedy at the Mall of America to see Greg Giraldo. We are both huge fans of his comedy and became extremely familiar with him in his many appearances on Comedy Central "Roasts". He was hilarious to see live, but the comedy club was a bit of a disappointment. The large room somewhat resembled an abandoned large retail store, and the tables were set up awkwardly so half of the audience had to turn their chairs to see him. The service also sucked. But, it was a great time regardless and we were really happy to have seen him. After the show, we stopped in at the new bar/restaurant right across the hall (on the 4th floor of the MOA) called Cantina #1. It is a Corona-inspired cantina with a room design that does as good as it can to make you feel like you're on the beach, inside a mall in Minnesota. Us girls took advantage of the fact that our male friends were driving home, ordered a couple of sangrias, and had a blast on the dance floor! We ran into a 50 year-old Mexican man who was there celebrating his 50th birthday with his family. He didn't speak a lick of English, so Kristen & I used it as a chance to refresh our Spanish skills (we studied abroad together in Costa Rica) and our salsa skills!!

Am I really doing the twist??

After this next picture was taken, all the man kept saying to us was, "Thank you, thank you so much for one of the best nights!" LOL

On Saturday, Jared & I spent the day bumming around & running errands, then had an AWESOME dinner. OK...I'm am about to give you a restaurant reccomendation that surpasses all others that I have given you in the past...but are you ready for this information? Are you able to eat delicious food, without thinking twice about how many calories you are consuming? Ok, here goes... Town Talk Diner Go there, and go there now. This place is located on E. Lake Street & Hiawatha in Minneapolis, and has been featured on the popular Food Network show "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives." This cute little place has AMAZING food, a cool menu and fun drinks. They serve "Adult Malts" (malts infused with adult beverages), beer cans in koozies and they even sell 40s! Jared ordered the "Brat Burger" with garlic fries, which was featured on the show. With God as my witness, this is the only time that I have ever witnessed Jared verbally lose his mind over food, yelling "Oh my God!!" after each bite. It is that good. To drink, he ordered a 40oz of Schlitz, which was very appropriately served on ice with a champagne glass. I had the "Kitchen Sink Burger", which is basically a bacon cheesebuger with their special "Kitchen Sink" sauce. That was the best burger I have ever had.... In. My. Entire. Life. To drink, I had a can of Grain Belt, and then helped Jared finish his 40oz of beer :) Then Sunday came, I cried a little knowing Monday was so close, and then Jared & I met our photographer at Lake Calhoun for round 2 of our engagament pictures. We already took some last November, but because we recently hired this photographer he "insisted" that we take some with him so he could "get to know our style". And, he offered to shoot us for free, so we couldn't resist! We think we got some good shots - stay tuned for pics! That's all for tonight. The next time you hear from me I will be a much happier and less stressed out woman. I sure as hell can't wait for that :)