Postpone the Soup

So, our car has been having issues with its front driver's side tire. We have to put air in it about once every 2 weeks. We said we would get a new tire sometime, but that time wasn't now. Or was it? Yesterday we filled 'er up, she was quite low. Today, well, this morning at 7:30, I went to go to school and the car drove kinda funny, so I stopped, parked in the nearest spot, and sure enough, the tire was flat. Not just low, but flat. I grumbled a little (it was about 12 degrees) and then went back to get my hat, a scarf, and leg warmers (thank goodness for those things!). I proceeded to walk to school and continue with my day.

After we got home around 5, Shannon and I checked to see if we could just use some fix-a-flat and be on our way to the new tire world. But this is gonna need a spare. Dang it all. I'll have to walk to class again tomorrow!

Good Deal

Check out these inline wheels. I've been looking to get new ones. I really feel this company is out to help save me money.

Bank of the West

So, that old account I first started when I moved to Kansas has finally been closed. It's gone through a lot, or lack of gone through. I moved, then got married and changed my name. Then moved again. Then the bank got bought out. And through all this, not much changed in my account, except for that they didn't change my name when I told them first, they continued to send my statements to 1st street, even though I lived in Manhattan. Then when my mom moved from 1st street, the continued to send statements to 1st street... ...

For more details on this event, you can read this.

But, to make it all complete, I got my check for the closed account yesterday (after 2 months). Yay. My money! But the best part is the joke the bank played on the post office!


And that about sums up all of my experiences with the bank. They are they kind of people that send a check in an envelope with an upside-down bonus stamp under the return address.

What is that a picture of?

Last night, Shannon, Chris, Jenette, and I went to La Fiesta, a new Mexican restaurant in Manhattan. It was pretty good. Very colorful inside.

Well, when I tried to park, the first spot I chose wasn't a spot at all. I noticed because the car I was parking behind, had a car parked in front of it. So, that means I would have boxed the truck in. Upon further inspection, I saw that the two rows were already in existence and I would have formed a third. So moved and we went to eat.

Coming out, I could not find the car. I knew I was in the nearer row and about where the car should be. But no luck. I was thoroughly confused. Then I noticed something (what you are supposed to see in this picture). The rows had moved. The row I had tried forming, was now a legitamate row! My car now was in the far row, and there was indeed a poor boxed in truck. You can't tell in the picture, but it is supposed to be of the line of 3 cars in the row parking.

Crazy.

Beaded scarf

For Christmas my mom bought me all the goods to make a pretty beaded scarf. During the power outages in GC I tried to start it, but failed miserably. I had no idea was the long-tail method to cast on was, nor did I know if I was slipping the first stich of each row correctly. But I have recently beaten both my foes and have successfully created the first 8" of my pretty new scarf.

0-2-1

This last weekend was our 2nd best weekend of hockey this season. Sad thing. We still got mercied in 2 games (10-0 and 14-4), but we tied one. I would just like to say, my husband, Shannon got a hat trick in the tie! Woo hoo! Plus he scored 1 of the 4 in the 14-4 loss. Good job Shannon.

For more fabulous pics of the weekend, see Michelle's blog. She beat me to it and used a lot of the same pics I was going to. She even has a video of Shannon scoring one of his goals...yay!

Snow Fort

When I was walking home from school today, I noticed a stick piercing a piece of cardboard stuck into some snow. "flag." I thought that to myself. Then I noticed, wait...its a fort! So I took a pictured and continued the cold, but not quite freezing walk home. 1,800 steps baby.

A New Holy Baby Part 2

On Sunday, the weather was kinda crummy. But, Catholic churches don't cancel their masses (apparently) and we had a baptism to go to. So, just about all of us drove out to the church ususally 30 minutes away (it took us 50). We were a pleasant 30 minutes late to the service.

Afterwards, Baby Nicole was baptized. That was the reason that my family came out now and not some other time. It was a fine ceremony. Jayme made the baby's dress, so that is worth a pat on the back for her. *pat, pat*

After that we drove back to Mom's and about 36 people all together came by to eat with us and have a nice time. While taking some pictures, Nicole decided she wanted to explore that white and pink thing in front of her. So she kinda played with the icing on her cake. She put her hands on it and picked up some of it (accidentally I think). She put her cakey hands up to her face and then squeezed. All the icing oozed out between her fingers. Pretty fun.

That night, Maria and I decorated Dakoda. She let us tie 3 strips of crepe paper to her. The one on her nose didn't last very long.

Baby Nicole is so cute. I really enjoy seeing her. I look forward to when she is old enough to play with and talk to. You done good, Jay.

A New Holy Baby Part 1

This weekend was quite nice. Shannon and I went to Wichita with Maria and Nic. My two aunts and my grandpa flew in from New Jersey Thursday to spend a long weekend with us. We got there Friday night. It was supposed to be all icy, but luckily, it stopped early enough for the roaded to be cleared and we had no problems. G-paps had cooked up some yummy dinner for us. Yay Grandpa's food!

Isn't she cute!

Saturday we all kinda chilled. We did a lot of preparations for the next day's party and also played the Wii. Aunt Diana and Aunt Margie both made mii's. Then, Maria helped make my Grandpa a mii. It was sooo cute! G-paps gladly let us take his picture with it.

We took some video's of my aunt's boxing. It's odd, they looked a lot like my mom boxing...

Yep, still cute.

Stupid, Stupid, Stupid

1. The new way Jardine is renewing their rental agreements looks like Shannon and I will have to pay a non-refundable fee of about 100$. Stupid.

2. My Bank of the West (old Commercial Federal) account was is dormant status, so to reactivate it and close it they needed my marriage liscence. I faxed it over in December and realized I still didn't have a check. Turns out they never got it. Probably because their fax machine is too old to recieve it. The transaction report said "NG: Poor Line Conditions." Stupid.

3. That theory test I was so freaked about, I got a 56% on. Ouch. Bigger ouch, a lot of people got 80's and 90's. There was even a 100%. Stupid.

***FYI***

Today's qwantz has to do with dinosaurs and Patrick Stewart! Check it out.

Fallen Pole-o's

On our way back to Manhattan from GC, we saw a lot of broken and buried power lines. It was quite crazy. I really don't think lil' Kalvesta had any power when we left (still). This picture is the best I got while Shannon drove home. If you click it, you can see a pole just laying there, covered in ice, not doing it's job.

I must say though, Maria and Julia both have fun pictures to check out of the huge wire towns that collapsed.

As it was

This is the light outside of Rhonda's.

It was very sunny after it finally stopped raining and snowing and sleeting.
It was really cool how the said sun reflected in the ice.

There was a lot of ice on all the trees. It rained a lot before it froze.
Then when it did freeze, it continued to ice and rain.

Just some ice on the trees. It was really pretty in real life. Very Chronicles of Narnia like.
When the sun caught all the ice on the trees, they just sparkled. Very pretty.

Shannon, Michelle, and I took at walk down their crazy ally and took some pictures.
This is a neat close up of a pine tree.

And then they sneezed.

After Wichita, we went to good ol' GC. Shannon and the boys Wii'ed it up. It was pretty fun to watch them play. Its always fun to watch people play for the first time.


Before we opened gifts, the kids sang us a song and posed for some pictures. From left to right we have, Brooke, Macy, Tate, Morgan, Brendan, Trevor, Cortez, Adam, Jevon. Macy, Brendan, and Trevor are siblings, then the other 6 are Steve and Margo's children. They are all quite fun to watch and talk to.


Christmas at Rhondas was pretty fun too. Shannon and I got pirate cards. See?


Thursday was the Texas Bowl, K-State versus Rutgers. We went to Andy's to watch it (he has NFL Network). K-State started out okay, then totally sucked it up. We lost. But an interesting note is I have some family friends who went to Rutgers in NJ.

Oh, the black outs. We had approximately 13 too many hours of no power in Garden. It was officially declared a disaster area (not just Garden, but most of that part of KS). Garden didn't have it as bad as other areas either I don't think. Despite that we did have over 1/2 inch of ice on everything. Then some snow to seal it in. It was pretty, but sucky at the same time.

Ai!

This is the Christmas tree at my sister, Maria, 's apartment. It is flocked white. With white lights. and white ornaments. In real life, it doesn't make your eyes hurt as much as this picture does. Ouch.

The Last of the Wichita ness

Shannon and Mom spent Christmas Eve night / Christmas morning putting this up and making it work. After breaking a drill bit (me) putting a support piece up (Shannon and Mom) and finally hanging the 32" TV, it didn't show the channels. So I quit and Mom and Shannon messed around with it for a long time, around 2 hours. The finally called the 24 hour number around 3 am and the guy told them how to fix it. It is a very fun TV.

All the gifts set up at my mom's house. Most of them are for Baby Nicole. :)

This is the cutie opening the gift from Shannon and I. I can't wait until she actually knows what's going on.

Maria put these fabulous reindeer ears on Dakoda. She didn't really care for them to much. This is take approximately 0.5 seconds before Dakoda took them off.


We had Christmas day dinner at Jayme's house. We meant to do it last year, but there were some house problems, so we couldn't. But we did this year and it was quite nice!


After dinner, Shannon and Maria followed Mom around as she cleaned and chimed Jayme's castinettes. Fun times.

Like a sacred badge of honor.

Mom and Maria wore the matching Christmas aprons.


Jayme did Wii boxing. Slightly less skillfully than Maria did. My mom also boxed, and her video won't upload to YouTube. I'll keep working on it, because it's prett


Baby Nicole drolled over the egg nog. FYI, Southern Comfort Eggnog is probably the best you can buy in a carton.

How big should my ribs be?

Other Christmas things included...

A hybrid recipe shrimp scampi. We combined Mom's recipe and Shannon's. It was good.


The traditional crab sauce.


Yummy Ceasar Salad with Panera bread.


And everyone playing the Wii!!

That Flag is Lame

Here it my vacation, or part of it anyways.

This is our Christmas tree for the year. The purple lights are awesome LED lights.


When we got to Wichita, we hooked up the Wii and played some Wii Sports. Maria was an excellent boxer. She KOed about the first 8 opponents before she was even knocked down once.


Mom and I drove around town and found this Auto Zone, I mean, Asian Market. This is where we found the sugar coated fennel seeds.


And some cute baby was involved.

Christmas Ice

This vacation has been covered in ice for the last 4 days. And to go along with the ice, we have had about 4+6+6+4 = 14 hours without electricity. Let me tell you, candles make it pretty warm in a place and oil lamps put out a lot of light. However fun it was, I am glad the power is on and I hope it remains on.

Shannon's got the pictures on his lap top, so I'll get some of them up later.