Relaxing Weekend

After a long & crazy week it was nice to relax this weekend. Friday night Chris & Erica came over for dinner before heading off to their 80's prom night with the med school class! She has pictures of that on her blog if you want to check it out. Later that night I got some exciting news that my friend Meagan is now engaged!!!!!!!!!! What a cute couple!

Saturday I spent some time at the mall searching for something to wear for my conference in San Francisco (I leave Th.), but found absolutely nothing. John and I ran a few errands and then took the dogs on a long "adventure walk." The chocolate lab in these pictures is our friend's dog that we picked up to take along on the walk. It was great to actually get out--even if it's still very cold. I also had a "phone date" with my friend Jessica who is running the capitol right now! :) Love you Jess! We went to church that night and then joined Kendall, Andi, & her parents who were in town from WI for all you can eat pizza and fried chicken at the Pizza Ranch. Talk about g-o-o-d! I took my camera, but sadly didn't take one picture.

Jax, Dakota & Raleigh

Jax prancing across the pond

taking a break from the cold wind

When it warmed up, the pond ice broke off in chunks & refroze...weird

Sunday was the best day of all. My entire goal of the day was to not take a shower or get out of sweats (judge me if you will). I slept in, caught up on recorded shows, read a little, took a two hour nap, did a little laundry & most importantly didn't leave the house. It was glorious! It was the first time in forever that Sunday felt like a long & relaxing day. Did I mention I slept!?! It was some well needed rest time.

sun bathing!

Happy Birthday, Jeremy!

Last Sunday night John & I joined some friends at a local Japanese restaurant, Jenpachi to celebrate Jeremy's birthday! It was a little surprise get together Jenny (his wife) put together & pulled off perfectly. She arranged a babysitter for their adorable little girl Sophie & Jeremy thought it was just the two of them. It's been forever since I've eaten at a place like this and I loved every single bite. Why is it soooo good!? Well--probably b/c of the enormous pounds of butter they put in everything, but I tried to pretend that didn't really happen.

Jeremy has a funny habit of answering with the number "6" anytime you ask him a time related question. It's hard to explain, but an inside joke (I learned about just before dinner) the boys have at the office. So we appropriately got Jeremy a 6th birthday card and put a 6 candle on top of his dessert.

John, Jeremy & Kendall all work together at Thrivent & we met them one night when all of the people in the office decided to grab a bite together after work. The funny thing about them is that they are from the MN area and moved to Myrtle Beach SC for 2 years just because!! We joke about how they did exactly what we did...except it makes more sense to move to the beach from MN then us to move TO Minnesota!

I also attached a pic. of their daughter Sophie that we watched this week, which has nothing to do with this post, but she's too cute not to mention. Isn't she precious!?!

please ignore how awful I look and focus on the cute little girl!

bling bling!

I found out yesterday while at work that last week when I was in Houston my work credit card numbers were "captured"/stolen! I found out when the credit card theft dept. (yeah aren't you glad they exist) called me at work yesterday and asked about a purchase in GA for $5,000 worth of diamonds at "Diamonds and More." hahaha! That didn't really fit in with my normal, hotel, car rental and food purchases! Once they noticed the purchase they froze my card, but whoever is using it tried to buy $500 worth of stuff at Game Stop and $40.00 at a gas station!

It's so weird b/c my actual card is with ME, it wasn't stolen, but some how they took my numbers. The customer service lady said that if she could tell me "how" they do it she wouldn't be sitting in a cubical! I guess it was one of those devices we've all seen on CSI or Law & Order that captures your numbers after you slide it through the machine....likely it was a gas station. Crazy! So, after being on the phone for an hour yesterday the final decision was for me to call back in 3-5 business days and dispute the claim...who knows how long this will take! It will take 10-14 days for a new card, scary!

I guess it wouldn't be a good idea for me to wear my new tennis bracelet to work tomorrow, huh!? :)

Valentine's Day

John and I had been looking forward to a relaxing Valentine's weekend since I just got back from Cleveland and was leaving again on Sunday for Houston. Friday we had dubbed as laundry day (instead of the usual sat.) & that I would try to pack and get the house in order before I leave. I get pretty uptight about deep cleaning the house once a week and it has to be perfect before I leave for a trip so I don't have to worry about it when I come home. So...Friday after a long work day I was not looking forward to laundry and cleaning & to my surprise I didn't have to! I walked in to a new candle burning and a squeaky clean house! John had left the office early to clean our house so that we could just relax Friday night & he did such a good job! Not only did he just pick up and fluff the pillows, but he mopped, dusted & scrubbed! It was sooooo nice. This may not sound like heaven to some of you, but John knows my love language is acts of service and quality time so by cleaning so we could spend time together was perfect! It was like a weight off my shoulders was totally lifted and all I had to do was pack!

Saturday we took the dogs for a good long walk & made a new pancake recipe. We relaxed, got caught up on shows from the previous week & exchanged gifts (a 2009 goal). I gave John a shirt & tie to match and delivered one from my mom too. I also donated to Angel Mission in his name (see post below). He got me a CD Joey & Rory,reusable produce bags for green shopping & a basket full of vanilla lavender goodies from Bath & Body Works. The produce bags are awesome! They are clear so the cashier can see what is in them and so light they don't cost extra to use. Sweet! You can learn more about them here.

We ventured out of the house to see our friend, Phil jump into a nearby lake & to see a movie! We saw "New In Town" with Renee Zellweger. It's about her move from FL to MN and was cute. It may only be funny to those that have lived in the mid-west, but we're glad we went to the matinee. Phil participated in the "polar bear jump" that is a fundraiser where people actually PAY money to jump into the freezing lake...in MN....in February. This was Phil's third year jumping! Sadly we had just missed his jump, but met up afterwards. That night John fixed me fillet mignon & shrimp cocktail. Yum!

John's shirts!

my sleepy time kit!

my onya bags!people jumping in the ice hole!

afterwards they go straight to the hot tubs....if I could skip the lake part I'd do this :)

ice fishers on the other side of the lake

can you see the holes?

Jax represents all the relaxing that took place this weekend.