Alex's Bachelorette Party

Ben and Alex's wedding is just around the corner! They decided to have their respective bachelor/bachelorette parties on the same weekend, but we each chose one of the twin cities (we were in Minneapolis, while the boys were in St. Paul). It was a blast! We started with dinner at the Melting Pot, which I had not been to before. It's a fondue restaurant, and it was delicious! We started with bread and two kinds of cheese, and then they brought out meat that we cooked in boiling broth with 5 different sauces to choose from. There was shrimp, chicken, and beef, and I can only remember the gorgonzola sauce; my favorite! We did a small gift exchange, which included giving Alex underwear and she had to guess who each pair was from, and other small gifts. I got Alex Porn for Women, and if you've never read it, you should! Even Tim enjoyed it when I showed it to him ;o)

The crew at the Melting Pot!

Alex decked out with her bling-bling engagement ring, veil, and martini glass

Cheese fondue. There was cheddar with beer (yum!) and swiss.



The meat that we got to cook. We ate all of it!



Our meat cooking away. It was hard to wait, it smelled so good!



Katie and I were designated dessert sharers. It was an amazing end to the fondue experience!

After dinner, we went for drinks on the rooftop of a bar called Solera, and then we spent most of our night dancing at Bootleggers, and then a little more fun (or too much for some) at the W (part of a hotel I believe). It was a blast! I was an old lady and went home a bit early, but considering I had a 4.5 hour drive home the next day by myself, I wasn't too upset to not be hungover the next day. It was a fun mini-road trip!

We passed a pedal cart! It looked like fun!



Alex getting her groove on ;o)

Looking forward to the wedding in August!

Spicer Vacation

I decided to take off Friday and head up with Tim to go visit his parents in Spicer. We had not been up there since New Years, and decided it was a good time to make a visit. We spent the weekend as usual, sleeping in, lying by the lake, jetskiing, waterskiing, and swimming. We went minigolfing, ate dinner at Melvin's and Jennifer cooked us a number of delicious meals! It was very relaxing, and a nice break from the past couple of stressful months of graduate school.

Unfortunately I didn't take many pictures, but here are a few from the lake! I also have one HILARIOUS story. I was trying to learn to waterski for roughly the first time, and without a doubt I sucked at it. So I kept falling and having to start over. We had decided to take Cooper with us on the boat, and he was doing just fine sitting in Tim's lap (who refused to try waterskiing... slacker). All of a sudden he realized I was in the water, and without notice he FLEW off the boat and swam to me! This dog has NEVER even jumped off of the dock into our arms, but in the middle of the lake he jumped off of the boat to come and save me! It was so cute, and I think a touch traumatizing for him! But he didn't seem to scarred by the experience, and he's enjoying being in the water more and more!

Scott and Becky going for a ride on the jetski

Cooper was one hot dog, but we kept putting him in the water to cool off. When he wasn't in the water, he had to be touching me at all times. I was covered in dog hair. Kind of gross!

Tim on the jetski (but no waterski.... loser!)

Me and my baby. He was so tired from all the excitement and hardly ate any food and would not sleep unless it was at night. Cooper had a blast though!

Lab Decision

After many delays and obstacles and challanges, my graduate school career finally started to come together at the end of June with a (hopefully) final lab decision! I joined the lab of Dr. Robert Nickells, in the Department of Opthalmology and Visual Sciences. He goes glaucoma research, and while I did not think I would enjoy working with the eye, his research is really neat and I'm excited to be a part of it! He is already working to help me cater a project to include immunology (which is what I really want to do!). I'm very happy hear, and I think this is going to be a great fit for my graduate research. The other members of the lab are wonderful, and they all have a great relationship with the PI. Now it's time to start researching! More to come as my project develops :o)

Way Behind

Yes, yes, it's been too long since I last updated. We have been quite busy, and I will try to recap everything that we have been up to in the past few months. Check out the posts below for updated events!

Sarah and Matt's Wedding

On June 26th, also Dan's birthday (Happy 29th birthday Dan!), Tim and I attended our first wedding of the summer (1 out of 3). Tim's parents, brother and fiancee drove down in Madison on Friday, and we all drove down to Wheaton, Illinois the next day for Sarah and Matt's wedding. It was a wonderful wedding, and reminded me a lot of mine and Tim's wedding. They had a simple ceremony is a beautiful church, and a reception at a golf club nearby. Sarah and Matt looked like they were having a lot of fun on their big day, which is always a good sign when the bride and groom are enjoying their wedding ;o) The weather also could not have been better! Congratulations Sarah and Matt!

On our way down we passed a Dunkin Donuts, which we DO NOT have in Madison and it kills me! So me made a mandatory stop. The World Cup was going on and the US team was playing, so off course Tim was on his stupid blackberry as long as possible to keep track of the score!

The church was beautiful, but unfortunately I didn't have a good view to get more pictures!

Instead of assigning table numbers, they did "themes". Each table had a theme that related to a part of their lives together; it was very sweet, but made finding your table a bit tricky!

As you can tell from the quality of these pictures, my little camera didn't do the best job, but I did manage to catch a great picture of Sarah fearing the cake-in-the-face move! She managed to avoid getting smeared with cake, though just barely!

Cooper's Haircut

Alas our fuzzy puppy could not handle the heat anymore, so we got him a haircut! We always shave him down, instead of doing the typical cocker spaniel cut, so he always looks like a little rat when we get him home. We laugh at him for about 2 weeks, and then he starts to look super cute again. Luck for him, he needs to look cute for Dan and Sarah's wedding in September, so he will be getting another haircut in August, so he'll be nice and cool!

Cooper's new do, and the lazy dog days of summer :o)

One Year Anniversary!

It is hard to believe, but Tim and I have been married for an entire year! Unfortunately our work schedules did not permit an extravagant celebration, so we made do with what we could here in Madison. Our anniversary was on a Sunday, so we were able to play mini golf on Saturday before the bad weather rolled in, and unfortunately the rain kept us indoors all of Sunday. Tim did get me an Edible Arrangement bouquet (chocolate covered strawberries!!!), and we went out for a nice steak dinner at Johnny Delmonicos. The baker who made our cake includes a free "replacement cake" when you order through him, so Tim ordered us a carrot cake and cream cheese frosting "replacement" to celebrate our anniversary. We did have some left over from the original one-year frozen cake to compare. In my opinion the one-year old cake wasn't bad, but in the words of our baker, "I have hockey pucks that taste better than one-year old cake!" It was above hockey puck status, but not above "replacement cake" status! It was a good anniversary, and hopefully next year we can play a big trip to celebrate!

Tim brought us all breakfast from Eistein Bros., including a doggie bagel for Cooper! He could not have been happier once he figured out how to eat it!

After breakfast, the boys took a mandatory nap. After watcing one of the world cup games with our neighor, it was off to Johnny Delmonico's!

We started with the crab cakes for an appetizer.

Stuffed chicken, corn au gratin, and yes, this steak is just as amazing as it looks!

Of course we both had to order dessert! Cheesecake and bread pudding.

Back home again, we ate some chocolate covered strawberries and one-year-old cake (our replacement cake was not yet available).

One happy family (Cooper is obsessed with trying to eat the one-year-old cake)!

Happy One Year Anniversary!