Staying Busy Before Christmas

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It’s probably a bad sign that every time I sit down to write a post now, I have to fight hard against the urge to spend a paragraph explaining why I am so late in getting the post up…

Anyway, remember that pile of butter from before?

We baked it into hundreds of cookies, and then invited friends over to help decorate!

The event quickly demonstrated we could probably use more variety in Christmas themed cookie cutters, and decorating widgets. On the other hand, Christmas cookie accessories more or less match the “only get used once a year” type of thing I have been known to complain about storing (and moving). I could probably make an exception for things cookie related however.

I did make it clear that there were lots of cookies right?

Everyone took home a heaping plate, and we still had enough left over to represent the Nelsons in two cookie exchanges!

The following weekend, Heather and I made a quick trip down to the KC area for a wedding shower. It was a nice shower, and I wound up having some really interesting conversations with a number of the guests. All the same, if you are planning a shower don’t worry about hurting my feelings if you made it girls only. I am perfectly content to entertain myself 🙂

Because we were going to be in the area Sunday, we headed over to Liberty MO. to meet up with some friends and attend their church. In a rare turn of events, we were running way ahead of schedule when we parked the car in Liberty. I had seen a few of these on the way in:

It was a beautiful old neighborhood, so Heather and I both were eager to walk around and explore… if perhaps for different reasons. You will have to indulge a small tangent here so I can comment on the fact that it was a beautiful day, worth noting mostly because I don’t know how many weekends in December lend themselves to walking around outside for fun.

Back to the mysterious silhouette! A few blocks down the road we found a former presidential mansion!

It may be impossible to see in the small picture there, but the plaque explains that this was once the home of Harry S Truman. A few blocks farther and we were in the historic square and downtown area. It would be difficult not to notice the signs of decline creeping into the area, but it was clear that large amounts of energy have been expended to make the square inviting to walk around in. They have historical site markers and plaques explaining the significance of the area at a density unrivaled by any town square we have ever toured.

Near the far end of the square we finally encountered the man himself:

Then it was back across the square, back to the church, and then back to Des Moines!

-Jordan

Dave Ramsey Live!

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I seem to be falling behind… lucky for me March ended up being kind of uneventful, so the fact that I am just getting this posted doesn’t mean you missed much.

Heather and I went to see Dave Ramsey in Kansas City. We bought the tickets months in advance, and Heather suffered a small amount of ridicule at work for her excitement over having the tickets. The fact that the event later sold out was somewhat vindicating I suppose.

It did mean that the friends who we talked into going to the event with us were unable to purchase tickets, so we had to go by ourselves.

To be completely honest, I was doing a little bit of foot-dragging in the weeks leading up to the event. I mean, how exciting can it be to see a five-hour recap of the class we took three years ago? Well, the answer to that is, a lot more exciting than you ever would have guessed!

Dave is a gifted speaker, and his team puts on a great event. We really enjoyed it.

Reflecting on the event, I think part of the reason it’s worth doing is that culturally, it’s hard to talk about money and budgets with your peers. It was refreshing to be in an environment where people could say “I am debt free!” Granted, a person could go into the office on Monday and say that, but I don’t know how many friends that would make you… or maybe I am taking too dim a view of humanity… at any rate, it got Heather and I excited to buckle down and focus on our financial goals again, and that alone makes it worth the price of admission.

-Jordan

Topic-O-Rama

Posted on by Jordan

And now, a handful of news I have been meaning to post.

First up, the week before thanksgiving, Heather and I went to Kansas City. The event was a birthday party for her grandma’s 85th birthday. The majority of Heather’s extended family was there, and we had a really good time. We also witnessed one of the best “we are going to have a baby” announcements ever. Heather’s cousin played a video, featuring his son singing happy birthday to Gigi, and then ended it with “and what are you going to be?” …. “a DINOSAUR!” “no, what are you going to be?” “A big brother!” and at that point the room went wild. I suppose it didn’t hurt that there were so many friends and family members packed into the room, but it really seemed like a great way to break that news.

Heather and I may have to wait a year or two, just so we can come up with a creative way to announce something like that… I mean the bar is pretty high at this point 🙂

Then of course there was Thanksgiving. Strangely, Heather and I did not even pack our camera… so I don’t have any pictures to post. The traditional meal and family time was spent with Heather’s family in Blair. We really enjoyed it! After dinner though, is when things got more interesting, somehow the women came up with a few copies of the sale fliers from all the stores doing Black Friday deals. The living room was total chaos as they passed around adds and debated plans for the big day. Next thing I know, it’s 2:30AM and I am sleepily saying goodbye and goodluck to my wife as she slips out of bed to trek to the mall. They got eight hours of shopping in before even stopping for breakfast!

While they were shopping, I went with Heather’s dad to the Nebraska game in Lincoln. We left at a much more reasonable hour than the shopping crew had, but still got to Lincoln with plenty of time to do a little tailgating before needing to find our seats. Being at the game was really enjoyable. It wasn’t a nail-biting game like the Nebraska vs. Iowa State game that Jim and I had gone to earlier in the year, but I can live with a less-exciting win!

I forget exactly where this falls in the chronology, but at some point Heather and I attended a “lighting of the Christmas tree” event at the mall next door. (For those of you who haven’t been to our hose… we really are next-door to a mall). I was a little skeptical of the event, but they had a live band and free cookies, so we decided to check it out anyway. Maybe you wouldn’t have been surprised at the number of people there, I know I was… At any rate they easily had a few thousand people all standing outside around the little courtyard lake area listening to the band and waiting for the lights. It was cold, but not unbearable, all the same I was happy when Santa finally arrived with his wand to light the tree. You didn’t know Santa had a wand did you? Apparently when Santa lights a tree with his wand, there are fireworks involved! I am a little sad to say the mall Christmas  tree lighting fireworks are going to go down as the best firework show I got to see in 2010. I am happy to say I really enjoyed them!

Speaking of Christmas events, Heather and I attended the Waukee Iowa Christmas festival. Waukee is just outside of Des Moines, and actually closer to us than downtown. We again got a free cookie, and got to watch ice sculpting. Probably the most enjoyable part of that little trip was meeting up whit a few friends from Church. It was wonderful to feel like we actually know people here in town. Some days it doesn’t feel like we have made much progress in that department.

The last, and most recent event I should record before bringing this to a close is photography related. Heather and I just returned from taking family pictures for another of Heather’s coworkers. We learned quite a lot on that trip. A good thing for sure, as Heather books these things to give us chances to practice. One thing we learned is that, although we got a beautiful sunny afternoon, 25 degrees with a 15mph wind is too cold to do outdoor pictures! We also learned that although our camera has a tiny integrated flash, it really can’t do indoor photography. Despite the challenges we encountered, Heather has some rather impressive results! As I write this she is behind me wrapping up the sorting and editing process. It appears we will need to buy an external flash if we want to do more pictures indoors.

And finally, a bonus future event! We are going to a Court of Honor for my Scout Troop! It will be the first event Heather has attended related to scouts in Des Moines, and the first Court of Honor I have been to. I don’t think it is going to be significant enough to justify its’ own blog post, but we will get to see the boys get recognition for merit badges and rank advancement.

I am still hoping that December is less exciting going forward 🙂

-Jordan

The 2010 Wedding Season Draws To A Close

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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

Two Weddings And Some Pancakes

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Can you guess where our first wedding of the 2010 Memorial Day Weekend was?

Heather and I drove to Kansas City Friday night, and then carpooled with her parents down to St Luis for the wedding of a family friend. It worked out really well to be able to team drive that leg of the trip. Being able to spend that much more time with our new nephew, during the car ride, was certainly another advantage from Heather’s point of view. The wedding itself was… elegant I think is the best word, the chapel on the Washington University campus, in keeping with the rest of the campus, is just beautiful. Even the newer buildings are designed to project a sort of old stone aesthetic. I suppose I should talk about the actual wedding but I really never know what to say…

We did discover that I don’t remember portions of my own wedding. Heather didn’t find it amusing that I couldn’t remember if we had done unity candles in ours or not. In my opinion there are more memories generated from that day than in most months, so I think I should get some slack when it comes to candles.

So back to the wedding, there was a large block of time between when the wedding ended and the reception began. Large enough we decided we could go back to the hotel, change, and catch the train down to the arch. I can without hesitation say that the arch was the highlight of St Luis for me. I think Heather might be more inclined to mention Holden (The nephew in question… can’t remember if I have used his name before, I was going to leave it out but it’s just cumbersome to leave out all other names). I don’t know if he would feel the same way though. Once I get some time to edit together some more video I can demonstrate in a much more visual way his reactions, but for now lets just say he isn’t sold on the Aunt Heather idea quite yet.

The next day we loaded early up and drove back Kansas City. Being able to do a sort of layover in KC was a lifesaver to try and breakup the drive. Heather took full advantage of the situation, both taking a nap on the drive, and a nap at the house. It had been a kind of late night the night before, so I took advantage of the napping opportunity too!

Then it was on to Lincoln, where my cousin Josh was getting married. They had opted for a very small wedding, and then invited everyone to the reception, so we didn’t actually go to that wedding. The reception was really fun though. Heather and I have been married for well over a year now, and it was the first time she got to meet a number of the cousins on my Dad’s side. I have to admit that I get a little overwhelmed in situations like that. You really want to seize the opportunity to talk to all these people that you haven’t seen in years, but there are so many of them, and then add in the fact I want to make sure and introduce my wife to everyone… and well I think we did ok, but I wish we could have talked to everyone a little more. A quick note about the venue: The reception was held at a country club that had two noteworthy attributes. One, it was really cool. They had done a rather good job of the giant lodge build, I guess you could say it was sort of rustic and classy all at the same time. We will pretend not to notice the fact that we were not anywhere near where trees like they used grow, nor does Lincoln have native stone like they were using. 😉 The second point is that it was the lodge for the home course of the UNL golf team, something that featured prominently in Heather’s life shortly before she met me. It was fun to get to see a place that she had spent so much time!

We stayed as late as we possibly could at the reception, but had to leave before we were completely wiped out as we were spending the night with Heather’s aunt Amy in Omaha. We rolled in a little after midnight, actually beating her home as they were off doing some baseball tournament in KC that day, crawled into bed and passed out. The next morning we awoke to the smell of bacon! Amy had mentioned something about doing a pancake breakfast, but neither Heather nor I had thought about it much. When we walked downstairs Amy was nearly done frying what must have been ten pounds of bacon! After recovering from the initial shock, Heather spoke up to suggest that we probably weren’t going to eat that much bacon. It was at that point that we discovered we had inadvertently invited ourselves to a breakfast party. Apparently the graduation reception for Heather’s cousin Jarred had been in the AM, and breakfast themed. As is often the case with receptions, they had substantial leftovers. The solution Amy had was to invite about 30 people over for breakfast on Memorial Day! Heather and I certainly enjoyed getting bacon and pancakes for breakfast, as well as getting to spend a few minutes talking to so many people from the area.

Eventually we had to say our goodbyes, and headed back to Des Moines. We made it home in time to do a few loads of laundry and get ready for another week of work! (albeit a short week)

-Jordan

Sorry for the lack of pictures, I really had planned to stick a few more in, but I just ran out of time… this ended up being a substantial post even without embedding pictures! If you click on the picture at the top of this post, you should to to the gallery and be able to find a few more pictures from the trip!

New Addition… Of Sorts

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Meet aunt Heather! She is giving detailed descriptions of our new nephew to his dad in the picture, so the phone isn’t her somehow being less than attentive 🙂

Over the course of the weekend, Heather and I attended a couples shower for Casey and Carson (as seen in the website I worked up a few months back), and got to spend quite a bit of time with our new, and currently only nephew. (is there a gender neutral term for that? siblings offspring…)

I almost made a post back when Holden was first born, it was kind of exciting news… but I didn’t want to steal anyone’s thunder, and believe me, there are people who are really excited about this! One of them is Heather. She about lost it on the ride to Kansas City, it was just taking too long, and she wanted to meet Holden!

When the actual meeting took place, he wasn’t quite as enthusiastic about the meeting as Heather had been… I really wish I would have had our video camera out and read for it. His face seemed to perfectly express the mental transition from “hmm this seems ok” to “something isn’t quite right” and on to “noooooooo something is very wrong” and then the crying… The funny thing is when your six months old, even crying ends up being kind of cute. I suppose his mom is over that, but we only got part of a weekend, so everything seemed cute! 🙂

The couples shower was probably as painless as I could have hoped for. I don’t want to sound negative… I just don’t know about my participating in wedding showers. Also I didn’t bring our camera, so I can’t just throw up some pictures and avoid having to type much. On a somewhat related note, I thought I should share a color name chart that in a way I think expresses the disconnect: Color Wheel. Actually if you want to get really picky I really only consider there to be five colors… so less than what is expressed on the right hand side of the diagram.

-Jordan

The Kansas City Reception

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The last wedding related event is complete!

And what a fun event it was! I haven’t had time to get any pictures cleaned up to post, but wanted to get a post up anyway…

Heather’s parents did all the work to put together a reception for us in Kansas City. The timing was about perfect. Five weeks after the wedding, Heather and I had time to recover, but were still kind of in the wedding mindset I think.

The only negative was the weather. I suppose you could argue we got lucky with the wedding, but it was still annoying to have the only snow in months land on KC the day we were expecting people to drive in from all over to see us. Fortunately, the snow wasn’t too bad, and to our knowledge, nobody had any trouble outside of having to drive slower.

The event itself was kicked off by loading roughly 30 Gutschow friends and family into a bus, and driving to the location of the restaurant. Heather had expressed some skepticism as to the necessity of a bus before the event, but it turned out to be a really fun addition to the day. The mood on the bus was a lot of fun, and it gave a few more minutes to see people before the official event.

Once on location, Heather scrambled to finish up an epically long slide show of wedding pictures wile I configured a projector to display it. We managed to have everything ready before the official star time.

Once things got underway, everything kind of became a blur. It was so nice to see everyone, and I still cannot believe how quickly time passed. We never had time to talk to anyone as long as we would have liked, and probably failed to get around to everyone we should have. The number of people there was amazing, considering the snow, and the fact that many of the attendees had also been at the wedding. Heather and I were amazed by the dedication and support people showed towards us.

After the official event, we rode the bus back to the house, for more time with family (mostly Gutschow, but my parents and a few others came too!).  I can’t say as I really enjoy being the guest of honor at any event, but it was laid back enough to be rather enjoyable.

Heather and I cannot say how grateful we are to our parents, for everything they did to make the events surrounding the wedding, not to mention the wedding, come of better than we could have ever hoped for. We are also glad its over, as fun as it was, this past weekend left us both exhausted 🙂

-Jordan

note: The slide show from this event will be the core of a web album in the making, coming “soon”!

Kansas City

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Heather and I went to Kansas City over the weekend, to calibrate her dad’s birthday.

As with every trip we have taken to KC, it really felt like we didn’t have nearly enough time, but it was still a lot of fun. I will skip the play-by-play, but I can tell you that we watched a lot of football, and had a lot of really good food.

Some of the football was live, when we attended the Cheifs game on sunday. It was my first pro-football game, and a really fun expereince, even if our team lost.

-Jordan