Sunday, June 29, 2008

MISSING : CUTE TWINS HAT




I have this hat, only it's white with a pink logo. I bought it about two months ago to wear to the Twins game we're going to in August. I figured if I'm going to live in Minnesota, I should own some sports apparel. Today I remembered it and realized I haven't seen it in awhile. After looking around, figuring I just stuck it on a shelf or something, I realized it was nowhere to be found. I looked EVERYWHERE (which only took a little while, there's really not all that many places to look) and it's gone, just vanished. I don't even know if I wore it ever. I loved that hat, hopefully it shows up before I have to get a new one.



I got a new phone this week! I'm having a blast downloading programs for it and syncing with outlook. I love it! I got the white one, I was devastated when I realized you could only get the pink with sprint. I even considered switching, but couldn't convince Calder that I needed the pink phone that bad.

Other than that, we havn't had much going on. Summer finally came and it's been beautiful outside. We're staying busy with work and school. I'm way behind on the online class I'm taking so I'm trying to get on track with that.

Sunday, June 15, 2008

Happy Fathers Day!




Happy Father's Day Dads! We love you! Thanks for all you do to help us out and especially everything you've taught us! We'd both be dummies if it weren't for you!


On a similar note, we're been realizing some of the little things that are pretty nice right now with no kids. We bought this at Costco when we moved to Minnesota in August.



And we just ran out! We're actually on our last roll right now. I feel like there will be a time in the future where we'll say, "Remember that time we bought a pack of toilet paper and it lasted almost a year. Amazing."

So again, thank you Dads, for all the toilet paper you bought. And diapers (did you know an baby will use an estimated 4,201 diapers. Yikes!), and food. We love you.

Another Week!

This week seems like it's gone by extra fast! Here are some of the highlights...

Sunday I went into work for awhile to help move some offices around. Rob, the office manager, went into the front office, I moved to a back cubical that I share what Sue, who only comes in a few hours a week. There were a few more moves. Nothing exciting, but I did make up for some of the time I missed on our anniversary trip.

Monday I went to a Tupperware party at one of Calder's school friends house. (It was his wife's party, not his, just to clear up any concern) I didn't buy anything although I did come pretty close to a few things. I figured I could get it on ebay for cheaper or get another cheaper brand that would work just as well. It was really fun - I was pretty impressed at how fun a Tupperware sales pitch could be. It almost made me want to have my own party.

Tuesday my grandma and grandpa had a long layover in Minneapolis so we got to have dinner together! I drove to the airport after work and picked them up and we headed to Chevy's for a delicious dinner. It was a lot of fun, I haven't seen them since my wedding, and I didn't get to spend as much time with them then as I would have liked, you know, with it being my wedding and all. Unfortunately Calder had class that night and wasn't able to make it, we did bring him some food home though. Thanks again Grandma and Grandpa - it was so fun to see y'all!





Wednesday I was supposed to have Activity Days and had found a game online that I had printed out and was so excited to try. It's a Mormon version of Cranium with fun questions and activities, such as humming a hymn for the other team to guess or making a temple out of a sheet of paper. I had also printed out the clues for 'scriptionary' in case the cranium didn't work out. After all my hard work, only one little girl showed up! It was one of those days where it could be expected (last day of school, stormy, dark) but I was still disappointed. Oh well, I guess we'll have game night next week.

Thursday was laundry laundry laundry. I had four loads to do (yikes! and there are only two of us!) Only three got done since we use the laundry room downstairs and we're not supposed to use it after 10. (I tried once, my clothes were supposed to be dry around 10:30 and someone came in there and opened the dryer so my clothes were still soaked when I got to them :( now I know, seriously, no laundry after 10)

Friday we tried to go shopping and had dinner. I really really wanted to go to the Saks 5th Avenue Outlet we have downtown but Calder wanted to go by Joseph S. Banks to look at a suit first. After spending some time there we got downtown and parked. As soon as we walked in the store we hear "Attention customers - the time is now 8:00 and the store is now closed. Please make your final selections and make your way to the registers." OH NO! I missed shopping! Even though they were closed, I made Calder stick around and browse with me until the workers were giving us dirty looks. I saw some really cute things and can't wait to go back. It's still pretty pricey, but hey, $100 for a skirt is great right, if it's originally $500. After the shopping disappointment we went to eat at True Thai, which we had never tried before. It was not a disappointment. Delicious!

Saturday was a lazy day. We slept in until late and headed to Costco. That's become a favorite Saturday lunchtime activity since by the time we've walked around and sampled, we're not hungry anymore! This time we must not have filled up as much as we thought we did since our purchases resembled that of a shopping trip on an empty stomach. We got some more expensive than we can justify bottled diet sodas, some really good black cherry, raspberry, blood orange jam (it was a sample and has 1/2 the calories of regular preserves - who could resist?!), skinny cow ice cream sandwiches, and a few more unnecessary items.

We had a busy week, but it was tons of fun! I'm staying busy with work and Calder is enjoying his job and working hard at his summer class (it's turning out to be a lot more work than anticipated) We hope you're all having a great week and we're so glad you all read about what's going on here!

Thursday, June 5, 2008

76 words

Speed test



First try.
HA.

This reminded me out how my 3rd grade teacher was blown away at my typing skills. I might have been a little nerdy- I loved 'playing' Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing and was pretty good at it. I mean, what third grader types with all fingers on the right keys? (BEFORE internet, I guess it's more common now)

HowManyOfMe.com
LogoThere is
1
person with my name
in the U.S.A.

http://howmanyofme.com">How many have your name?



One Ivy Huntington
One Ivy Pogue
Zero Calder Huntingtons
135 Robert Huntingtons

There are 24,338 people in the U.S. with the first name Ivy
There are 8,549 people in the U.S. with the last name Huntington
I would have thought Huntington would be a LOT more popular than Ivy.

Monday, June 2, 2008

"The coldest winter I ever spent was the summer I spent in Duluth" - Mark Twain

To celebrate our anniversary and the end of Calder's first year of law school, we took a little trip up North to Duluth. Duluth is an adorable little port town on Lake Superior, which, who knew, is BEAUTIFUL! We started our trip by going to Gooseberry Falls which is about an hour from Duluth, driving along the North Shore of Lake Superior. It was a really fun little hike, that ended up being a lot longer than we had planned. I was only wanting to go around the falls on a path that was supposed to take an hour and a half. We ended up missing a turn or something, because we ended up going on a much longer trail that took us about 2 hours and we didn't make it to all the falls that I wanted. Oh well, it was a really fun walk through the woods and so so pretty!


At one point, we walked down to the water and Calder spotted a spot further down that he really wanted to get to. I suggested maybe we should get back on the trail and try to veer off further down and get to it. Well, I was told that the trail is boring and that wasn't going to fly. Here's how it went...


Here he is trying to figure out how to get to the center island part. I had forbid jumping over because, well, it just didn't seem like a good idea.


He has an idea.


Unfortunately, part of the tree broke as he was moving it. That's what happens when you try to make bridges out of dead trees.


And here is the bridge floating away. As he was working on another idea, I informed him that he had 3 mosquitoes on his leg and 2 on his arm. Suddenly the trail is acceptable.


So by now you might be thinking, 'These pictures are all of Calder - where was Ivy?!' Well, at one point I gave Calder the camera so I could be in some pictures too. This is all he took. Thanks babe, I'll take that camera back now.






I wanted to have a picture of both of us with the waterfall in the background. The first two tries Calder was making funny faces. This is our third attempt, with me watching him closely!

This was the end result of our looong walk. We tried to take a picture together here, but my camera batteries died at that very moment and shut off every time I set the timer.
After the falls, we checked into our Bed & Breakfast, the A.G. Thompson House and stayed in the Mayor's Chamber. It was adorable! It was pretty pricey and I don't feel the need to stay places like this often, but I loved staying somewhere homey and nice instead of a hotel. As soon as we drove up, one of the innkeepers, Tim, came out and greeted us and gave us a tour of the beautiful home. We went up to our room and Jacuzzid for awhile, which was nice after being outside all morning. Here are some pictures of the room, check the website for more!



Across from the fireplace was the jacuzzi. I insisted that we stay in a jacuzzi room! We turned on the fireplace and the air conditioner so we could have the comfy homey feeling of having a fire without burning up.

After hanging around our room for awhile, we finally decided on a restaurant for dinner. We had a couple of options but one of them was highly recommended and right down the road so we chose that one.

We had a little extra time so we walked around the lake. We found a spot where we could walk down and climb around on the really big rocks. Again, so fun and so pretty!



The water was freezing - felt like ice water!


It started to rain so we high tailed it back to the restaurant. We ate at the Blackwoods Grill and it was delicious. We had a coconut shrimp appetizer, then I had the North Atlantic Planked Salmon with a baked sweet potato and Calder had the Pan Seared Ahi Tuna with mashed potato. Both were soo tasty! Well, I loved mine, and Calder loved both of them. I tried the Ahi, but wasn't a huge fan. It tasted alright but the texture wasn't great.

When our waitress came around asking about dessert, they didn't have anything that looked spectacular, so we asked if she had a recommendation for a good dessert place.


She suggested this adorable malt shop, The Portland Malt Shoppe. You can't really tell in the picture, but it's a tiny little building, only about 9 feet deep inside. It was built to be a gas station a long time ago! We got a caramel malt with cookies and cream ice cream and it was to die for. I read on the website that it's the Portland Malt Shoppe because that area was at one point called Portland. The postmaster got annoyed because he kept receiving mail from several other Portlands so they converged with the neighboring city of Duluth.

We went back to our place and watched a movie, The Fog. It was pretty dumb but still scared me a few times.

This morning we slept in right until time to go down for breakfast. We had a fruit and yogurt parfait with a cranberry and white chocolate scone for the first course. The scone was up there on my list of the most delicious things I've ever had. The second course (that's right - a two course breakfast) was some potatoes and a cheddar omelet. I was able to easily eat around most of the cheese parts and loved it. It was also so fun to wake up and have someone serve me breakfast. We were the only guests that night so it was a little weird with it being just us.

After breakfast we got ready for the day and headed out. We went down to Canal Park and went in the touristy shops. I had a great time, and Calder tolerated it with no complaining!


After we went through all the shops, we walked out to look at the lighthouse. It was pretty anti-climatic but fun. I was disappointed since a 1000 ft long ship was supposed to be coming into the harbor at 1:00 at right at 1:00 there was no ship in sight. Bummer, but we decided that we'd have a long wait from the time we could finally see it before it got to the bridge, so we left.



Around the bridge area we saw this awesome little food stand. We went with hot dogs and fries since we were still stuffed from breakfast and dinner the day before, but they also had locally caught fried fish. It was actually a fishing boat that was found rotting away in a boatyard. Someone had the brilliant idea to turn it into a little restaurant stand. The food was really surprisingly good.

On our way out, we drove by the house in Cloquet where my dad lived for a year when he was 9 years old. Thanks Grandpa for the address - hopefully this is the right house!
Before we got home, we stopped in at the North Branch Outlets for a little shopping. It's about an hour north of where I live, so I've never been before. It was a lot of fun but I've seen better. I did buy this cute purse for 75% off!



Calder also got a really nice green dress shirt and tie that he's going to wear tomorrow for his first day of work!

We had a great anniversary getaway, I can't say enough how much fun we had and how nice it was to take a break from everything and just have fun, even if it was for just one night. I was trying to think of my favorite part, but I honestly can't even narrow it down to my 5 favorite parts. I truly loved every second of the trip.

Just For Fun

Today is our one year anniversary! It's so hard to believe that it's already been a year! It's been so fun learning the quirky little things about each other as well as learning how to live together without killing each other. Moving to Minnesota had definitely been an adventure. It's been a great year and I'm excited for many many more to come! Just for fun, here are some of my favorite wedding pictures - one year ago today!



A Horticulture Tragedy!

Saturday I looked out my window and noticed how pretty and big my plants were getting and thought, I need to take a picture of these guys for my blog, I'll do it later. Well, of course, anytime you ever say 'I'll do it later' something bad happens. All of a sudden I hear a funny sound, wait awhile, and realized there are ice chunks falling out of the sky! HAIL! I watched for awhile amazed since I've never seen anything like this (there were some balls slightly bigger than 1" diameter way bigger than I've ever seen) then came back in to finish some housework. A few minutes later I realized my little garden was probably in distress and dashed back to the window. Unfortunately, I seem to have come too later, this is what I found.


This was a red pepper plant on the left and a strawberry plant on the left. I can't even tell where they went into the ground, it's just a jumble of leaves and stems.

And this was a beautiful full tomato plant. I was really proud of how green and healthy it was. On the up side, I do expect this one to survive, which is more than I can say for the others.

And just for fun, here's a picture of all the hail balls on the ground.

This is one of the bigger chunks I found. I actually stuck it in the freezer to show Calder in case he missed the storm. He was actually driving during it, so he was very aware of the hail. At least us and our car survived ok.