Sinking the biz

This weekend was pretty busy for us. My friend Zach was in town from Miami for the IU-Western Kentucky football game and a visit. He stayed with Somer and we ate dinner with them on Thursday after she picked him up from the airport. The plan was to go to Bloomington Friday night to hang out and hit Nick's. One of the docs I used to work for has a house near Bloomington so we arranged to spend the night there. We had to take the dog because my parents are out of town (getting home tomorrow- yay!). So I left work early Friday, we packed and packed the dog to head down. The cabin was NOT near Bloomington - in fact it was about an hour away. We left the dog there (crying) and headed into town. We didn't get there until almost 9. By that time we were starving. We headed straight to Nick's and ate. Somer was impressed there was a cookie "van" parked outside Nick's that baked fresh cookies. She and Susan hit the truck on our way out of Nick's. I ordered a 1/2 veggie strom and 1/2 order of mushrooms for dinner. It was delicious! Also had 2 Woodchucks. Then we played Sink the Bismark. Please don't let the picture above fool you. That may have been the only time Zach sank the bismark. I don't know how it was possible for me to lose so many times, but I finally had to step out of the game because it was too much for me! After we left we went to Brothers for a quick drink then headed back to Somer's hotel. We decided to drive back to Ninevah and then head back to Bloomington in the morning to tailgate. I slept most of the way back to the cabin but it was a tortuous ride. Saturday morning we met everyone (we were an hour late) to tailgate. I had a veggie sausage, chips and Rice Krispie treats. We brought beer but neither one of us touched them! I think I drank a Coke, too. After tailgating, Ross and I packed up and left to go visit with my Aunt Darlene. We had a nice 2 hour visit then it was time to head back to the cabin to get the dog and clean up and head home. If I had it to do all over again, we probably would have boarded the dog. It was very difficult to travel with her and I felt badly leaving her there by herself in an unfamiliar place. It was great to catch up with old friends and my beloved aunt, so I'm glad we went!!


One last thing. This was the only gas station we found in town. It was gas, gifts, ammo and bait. One stop shopping!

IKEA

Last weekend Ross and I took a trip to IKEA. We also hit up Cinci's new outlet mall and it was fabulous! I came home with some LeCreuset goodness and Ross got some new sunglasses. We also brought home a ton of stuff from IKEA to convert Lucas's closet into a workspace. We're nearly done but it's still a work in progress. Apparently while we remembered to measure, we didn't think to measure the things we were getting, therefore some things didn't fit. Oh well. We don't claim to be Bob Vila. Here's our IKEA haul and my yummy lunch! It was a spinach wrap with vegetable soup. They have pretty good food there.


Now on to the malls! First LeCreuset. I got a 4.5 qt pan at over 50% off. What a dream!

I also managed to talk myself into a tea kettle. It was only $25! It practically blends in with the stove...well not in this picture because our counter is white!


After many hours of walking and shopping we were starving. We stopped at Frisch's Big Boy to eat dinner. They don't have them any more in Indiana and I love it! When I used to eat meat, I got the Swiss Miss. I was hoping for a veggie option. I ended up getting the Big Boy without meat, and basically tailored it to be the Swiss Miss. It had swiss cheese, lettuce, tomato and special sauce. It was delicious! I also got the salad bar. They had a pretty good fruit selection, and Ross was excited to see "strawberry bananas," which are apparently just chopped bananas in strawberry pie filling. I didn't want to see the nutritional stats on that. After our filling meal we went home. It took us so long to get home because of construction and detours. We figured we probably shouldn't ever leave Indianapolis again - we had pretty bad luck during these two trips!

Update

We've had a busy past couple of months. Here's a quick recap. We went to the Pacers Open House after Stella's baptism party. It was supposed to be an event to get people to buy season tickets. It worked - sort of. We bought a mini-game package and it should be fun! We took a tour of the locker room, had some snacks and the boys shot free-throws. Right after that it was on to Max's baseball game. He had a really long day!


A few weeks ago we took a roadtrip to Chicago. We'd been promising the boys a trip to the Museum of Science and Industry for the Harry Potter exhibit. I had a weekend in September picked out, but U2 was there and the Irish festival in the same weekend, so we ended up going the weekend after the boys started school. The exhibit was great, but the travel wasn't! It ended up taking us 7 hours to get home and it was truly miserable. The boys were gems though; I don't know how they managed to keep themselves busy! We were parked on the highway for most of it though, so they could get out and walk around.

Back to school...

Max's ice cream social is tonight, and he has the same teacher for first grade that Lucas had in kindergarten so we're very excited about that. Both boys start school on Wednesday and we can't believe the summer as we know it is already over.

Max started baseball last night and will have double headers through September on Sundays. We are going to Chicago for a quick trip next Saturday to the Museum of Science and Industry to see the Harry Potter movie exhibit and we're all really looking forward to that. Bonus if we can make schedules work to see Val and Swan.

My summer class is finally over (I should not complain since it was only 6 weeks) and my fall classes begin 8/27. I'm in the home stretch, though, and so thankful for that!!!

Finally, wanted to say "Happy Birthday" to my wonderful father. It's his 65th today, and he is the best dad ever. I'm cooking up some meatloaf, mashed potatoes and green beans for dinner for him tonight! :)

Letterboxing

My speech teacher told us about letterboxing and we all thought we'd give it a try. First we made our own stamps, which is certainly not as easy as it looks.




We found a few places in and around Fishers to look for letterboxes. The first place we went was Ritchey Woods. There were supposed to be 4 there but we only found the first three. It was kind of a bummer because the log book was in the fourth one so we didn't even get to use our stamps! The first box we found was pinecone, and the stamp was beautiful.


After we found the three at Ritchey Woods we went to Flowing Well Park in Carmel and found one there. The last one was at the Fishers Train Station but it was closed on weekends so we're going to try to go sometime this week. Letterboxing is free and is great fun for the kids! We highly recommend it!

Summer time, and the livin' is easy

We are having a fantastic summer so far. We have been filling our days with family and friends and a little bit of painting! Lucas went a week-long camp with his friend Phil and had a great time. Max has had a couple of birthday parties, and is looking forward to seeing more of his friends. Hope everyone is having a great summer - it's hard to believe people are talking about "back to school" already!