Family And A Warning

Posted on by Jordan

We had a busy weekend (like most it would seem)

A bunch of my family was in town to attend a gymnastics event that three of my cousins were competing in.

I am continually impressed by the feats they are able to perform, and by the extent to which they more or less shrug off the ability to do said feats.

We didn’t take any pictures. Primarily because we just looked like we had been siting in bleachers for eight hours, and the events were too far away and moving too fast for our gear to capture. Also, I don’t think I would want to be holding a camera with that many pre-teen girls in leotards running around… It just seems like asking for misunderstandings that involve addressing someone as officer.

Speaking rule enforcement, I now think of our new building as the “see no evil” condos. Exhibit one:

Perhaps the building manager intended a different meaning than the one I read. Just to be safe I don’t look at the neighbors dogs. Probably shouldn’t have a camera in hand ether, who knows what kind of penalties that might entail. 🙂

 

-Jordan

The Wall, We Have Hit It.

Posted on by Jordan

Actually… it isn’t that bad, after a ‘down’ weekend Heather and I are starting to feel like attacking the unfinished tasks again.

Let me catch you up on the past few weeks.

Two weekends ago, we were living in an apartment, and Saturday morning, the view was this:

As some short update posts already gave away, we had plenty of help and got things moved fairly quickly. What took more effort was unpacking and finding a home for everything that was in a box. We powered through that as fast as we could so that our house would be ready for company. Quite a bit of company as it turns out.

On the following Thursday, my grandparents stopped through on their way out to a wedding. That was the first night that we hadn’t both worked until midnight on something, but we still managed to sneak in a few minutes putting our house together. On Friday, Heather’s parents came into town, and they brought our favorite(only) nephew Holden.

He got the deluxe tour:

We took Holden and his grandparents down to the farmers market, and then later he did some fabric shopping with Heather and Pam. We quickly discovered that although the main area in our house was mostly put together, it wasn’t what you would call kid-proof. He kept us on our toes.

That crew headed home Saturday evening, leaving Heather and I a few hours to pull a few things together and grab some much needed sleep. Sunday morning, my parents, sister and brother came into town, just in time for church. We had some really ambitious plans to take them out to see the bike bridge I did a post on a while back. The triple digit heat index, combined with the fact that they had spent a considerable amount of time walking the previous day at the Omaha zoo put a pretty solid kabosh on that idea.

It turned out that a nap and breaking out our new copy of Ticket To Ride was about the perfect use for the Sunday afternoon. I can’t remember if I mentioned Ticket to ride when recapping our visit to DJ’s house out in Colorado, but it has quickly become Heather’s favorite game.

On Monday, Heather and I both worked, leaving the rest of my family free to head down to Pella for some touristing. They came back with some amazing pastries so I have to assume the trip was a wild success. That evening, Heather and I met up with them and headed just outside of Des Moines to where an annual balloon festival is held.

The weather was not ideal for hot air balloons, and we didn’t get to see the kind of numbers featured in the postcards I have seen of the event. That being said, it was really cool. I really don’t understand how they pilot the balloons, except to say they appeared to have more control than I would have expected.

After the balloons, we stopped and got pizza. This is noteworthy only because the local Cub Scout pack was busing tables as a fundraiser. It wasn’t the best table service we have ever had, but it was some of the best mealtime entertainment we have had… perhaps ever.

My family headed home the next day, leaving Heather and I finally home with no impending dates on the calendar. We haven’t been as productive this week as the past few. Today we finally got back into painting and may have a dresser ready to instal soon.

In hindsight, I don’t know if we would have really planned the past few weeks differently, as there were events outside our control driving each visit. All the same, I know we would have been better hosts had there been a few weeks between each event listed above.

On the other hand, we have proven that we can comfortably host three to four guests, and are always happy to have people visit!

… Just give us a week to wrap up this furniture painting 🙂

-Jordan

The 2010 Wedding Season Draws To A Close

Posted on by Jordan

Just thought I would sit down and type out a quick post, as Heather and I just got back from Kansas City, and the last wedding on our calendar for this year.

We closed the year with a wedding that contains a lot of ties to us.

First off, Casey was in our wedding. Second, we met Carson when he came as Casey’s date to our wedding, and finally I put together an awesome website for them! (Looking through the archives, I did the site sometime back in February)

Okay, maybe my making the website wasn’t a major point of connection, and to be honest hacking up a WordPress theme isn’t really much to brag about. The real connection is that Heather and Casey have been friends from early childhood. I have enjoyed getting to see Heather interact with such a great friend.

On a related note, I am glad to be done with weddings for the year! I tried not to be jealous of the wedding couple as they monopolized my wife’s time over the course of the weekend, but there isn’t a ton for a spouse of a bridesmaid to do during all the ancillary activities that take up the proceeding days before a wedding.

The plus side of a KC wedding is that we get to see our nephew on the trip! Heather is enamored with Holden, and complained vocally that I got to see him more than she did this time around. I should really throw up a picture as he seems to change ever time we see him!

I think that sums up another eventful weekend…. now I should go to bed, as somehow Monday is going to be here again already.

-Jordan

Des Moines Habitat, Rain

Posted on by Jordan

Saturday, Heather and I had the opportunity to help provide food to the Des Moines Habitat For Humanity build.

They are doing some sort of large scale build, i think 10 houses in 10 days maybe? At any rate, they are building a lot of houses.

We were simply helping prepare and serve lunch to the crews.

Our involvement was due to Heather’s company providing the food for the day’s meal, and then recruiting staff to come help serve it.

Lunch turned out to be about 300 pork-burgers:

What you can’t really see in the picture is the rain. As has been the trend for September, it was cold and rainy all morning. It never turned into a downpour, but standing outside of the shelter wasn’t ideal. I was more than happy to grill, in part due to the fact I hadn’t brought a coat in my rush to leave the house. Standing by the fire was nice and warm, if a little damp.

The other advantage to volunteering to grill is that I have a defined task, and don’t have to keep wondering around looking for something to do or haunting the one person who seems to know whats going on for another task.

Even on that rather large grill, cooking ~300 burgers was surprisingly time consuming.

After cooking and serving lunch, we cleaned up and headed home. I had just enough time to get a hot shower in before the Nebraska game started. ESPN was streaming video of the game, a trend that I hope continues as we haven’t had a TV for over a year now.

Our plan for Sunday involved helping our friends who have been remodeling their house, to do some painting after church. A phone call from family drastically altered that plan, early Sunday morning.

Heather’s Uncle, the same one I briefly mentioned back in April when we saw him run in the special Olympics, was in the hospital. His remaining lifespan was being estimated in hours when we got the call, and found out that the majority of the family was headed to Omaha. I am not sure if I even know what I think about that day, and I am certain that I cannot refine it into something worth putting here. It was a long, cold, sad, rainy day.

Sorry to end on such a down note, but it ends up being an accurate summary of our weekend.

-Jordan

4th of July!

Posted on by Jordan

I was told in the comments that recaps were required… I guess that means I will start at the top of the month and work my way back to current.

Heather and I went to Kearney to celebrate Independence Day with my family. In talking about the holiday sometime during the lead-up, I discovered that not only is the 4th not really Heather’s favorite holiday, but that she had it in her head that our children would not play with fireworks! I have informed her that there is no point in having kids if I cannot teach them to blow things up.

J_punk

The first day we were in Kearney we mostly just hung out, getting to interact with a lot of aunts, uncles, and cousins. Later in the day my dad, Brother and I went out to buy some fireworks. I am amazed how much money you can spend on fireworks, but at the same time I found some really cool things without feeling too broke :).  Even later in the day Heather and I went for a bike ride, and got to see some of the UNK campus.

Finally, that evening the entire family went down for the big town fireworks show. I don’t think I will ever get tired of seeing the annual fire works shows done like that! It’s just so much fun, the noise, light, smells… just the whole experience!

The next day we lit more fireworks, ultimately concluding with an all-cousin show at dusk.

Heather actually had some fun watching, although I couldn’t really get her to light much in the way of fireworks.

HJ_punk

Sometime between the day-fireworks and the night-fireworks, the family arranged a composite birthday celebration for Heather and cousins who had birthdays close to the 4th. Heather even got to unwrap a few presents!

H_Sprout_Jar

Both the sprouting jar and the bowls in that picture have been enjoyed as much as Heather expected they would be when she opened them.

The next morning, we cleaned up fireworks for quite some time, but managed to have things looking almost civilized by around lunchtime. I realize at some point the cousins also cleaned out several hundred pounds of boxes from the attic, but I can’t seem to place when we did that. Wherever that all fit in… we had a lot of fun, and certainly were not bored all weekend!

-Jordan

Christmas, Day Two

Posted on by Jordan

Christmas day in Kearney started with roughly twenty people all digging into their stockings. It wasn’t as chaotic as it might sound, but still somewhat intense for the first thing out of bed.

Technically breakfast started before stockings I guess, and then continued after… I don’t know where to throw this in, so its going here…

Food over the entire trip was amazing. There were so many sweets around it was overwhelming, and they were all really good. Heather again earned my undying respect by resisting it all, and not even complaining about not being able to eat sweets during Christmas.

In the back ground of the morning was the challenge of cycling 20+ people through 2 showers and 3 bathrooms. Everyone gets along really well or I suppose things could get uncomfortable. Somehow everyone got ready in time, and by mid morning we were all assembled to start the formal process of opening gifts.

I don’t think too many families approach Christmas gift opening as a “one person at a time, one gift at a time” occasion, but its tradition, and I have to say I am fairly attached to all the Christmas traditions. We always open gifts in order of age, and this was the monument where it finally hit me that Heather is a little younger than my sister. The gift opening process took a while, but as always, was a lot of fun with everyone there. I somehow managed to surprise Heather by giving her an ice scraper, despite her having specifically asked me for it, and only it.

After we finished with gifts, we had the traditional Christmas dinner, fitting everyone into one big room downstairs. Throughout all of this it was really fun for me to see Heather get a chance to interact with my extended family. I really enjoy spending time with them, and wanted Heather to feel at home… I think that process started at least 🙂

After dinner we had a few hours of downtime (or maybe I am forgetting something already). Then it was off to the church to meet with the extended-extended family. My mom’s cousins etc, I don’t know what the proper term for them is. We had a few more hours to hang out and talk to people, then more food, then more gifts! Once we finished cleaning up the church, we headed back to the house.

I think we probably could have fit a little more into Christmas day, it didn’t seem that busy to me at the time, but writing it all down we did a lot. At any rate, that covers the high point of day two.

-Jordan