Jano, The Fabulous, And The Not-So Fabulous

What's Brewing With Janeric?

2009-04-26T22:58:00.002-05:00

Hi All-

I wanted to let you all know that my fabulous husband and I have teamed up for some blogging. We have started a new blog: "What's Brewing with JANERIC?" which you can find at

www.janericbrew.blogspot.com

Or by clicking on the blog links I have listed here. I will of course remain "Jano Fabulous" and Eric's blogging handle is "Brewmaster E". I will still blog here now and then, but most updates that concern "us" will likely be posted on the janeric blog. Hopefully now that there are two authors we can keep you better updated.

Wedded Bliss

2009-04-20T20:51:00.007-05:00

So I am finally getting around to blogging. Needless to say things have been a little busy lately. Eric and I got home very late last Tuesday night, and getting up for work on Wednesday was a very rude awakening. We have been home for nearly a week now, and things are starting to get back to normal.

This is how the last few weeks have gone down. I headed to C-U/Gibson City after work the Wednesday before the wedding, and Eric came down on Friday. We went to get our marriage license (perhaps the most pleasant and organized governmental form/requirement/license thing ever) and then the two of us had a nice relaxing lunch and a beer at Crane Alley. In the evening we met everyone for the rehearsal, again relatively relaxed and painless, and then we all headed to Jupiter Pizza & Billiards for the rehearsal dinner. It was delicious and lots of fun to get our friends and families together.

Saturday dawned bright and sunny, and turned out to be the only good weather day for weeks. Nikki and Jenn came to my hotel room to get ready, and my hairdresser, Beth, did everyone's hair. Beth totally rocks... everyone LOVED their hair. We all headed out to my friends Jeanne & Ted's house in St. Joseph for family/wedding party pictures. The weather was great, a tiny bit cool but pleasant and sunny, and their Victorian house made for some great photo ops. Our photographer was a trooper and managed to get all the pictures we wanted and then some. We can't wait to see them. Pictures went remarkably smooth given the amount of people involved. And Jeanne & Ted get major kudos for letting us use their house, especially since Jeanne had been working her butt off all week as our florist.

The families headed off to the wedding, while the wedding party hung around for a few more pictures and made another picture stop at the arboretum. It was just amazing how wonderful the weather was... God so blessed our day in many ways. The ceremony was wonderful... thanks Pastor Andy! Jeanne amazed us with all of the flowers, and everything went perfectely. On the way to the wedding Jenn & Nik asked me if I was nervous, if I was going to cry etc. and I said I was totally fine but who knew what would happen when we got down to business. I could be the most stoic bride ever, or be bawling like a total baby. Turned out I was a total "swayer" (this doesn't surprise me... I love to fidget) and I was relatively calm and totally enjoying it. Eric was a little misty-eyed at first and I was fine until I got a little weepy during our vows, but Eric just squeezed my hand and just gave his "I've gotcha" look and all was well.

The reception was great fun, but pretty much a total blur. My friend Kortny gave us some great advice that she and her husband, Jeremiah received... to sit back at the reception together and just try to soak it all in since it all goes so fast. Right after we finished dinner, while everyone else was finishing up Eric and I did just that. We sat there with our heads together and just looked out over the room at all of our friends and family. After dinner the DJ kicked up the tunes and we all danced the night away. It was THE best day ever!!!!

Sunday morning dawned all too soon and Eric and I hit the road just after 6 a.m. to drive to Indy to catch our plane to Ft. Lauderdale (via Detroit...ughh... thanks Northwest). The early flights were a blessing as we left before the snowstorms arrived. We got to our hotel in Ft. Lauderdale just after 5, went downstairs for nice dinner and then crashed for the next 13 hours. Monday we got up, had breakfast and then headed to Port Everglades. We got there just after noon, and were on board enjoying a fruity cocktail just after 12:30. This was Eric's fifth cruise, but my first. We have decided... it won't be our last... I HEART CRUISING!!!!

It really was a relaxing vacation. Our cabin wasn't huge, but far bigger than I was expecting and had lots of storage space. I got my sea legs relatively quickly and had no sea sickness. One night the seas were a tiny bit rough, and I felt just a little dizzy so we skipped the show, but other than that all was great.

Our first night at dinner we had three other couples at our table. Two of the guys talked real estate all night, and we were unable to chat with the one couple we may have had some common interests with. It wasn't all that great, and we managed to scare everyone off. One couple moved to the early seating as she didn't like to eat late, the one couple requested a table for two and we never saw the other couple again. It worked out for the best because the next night we were seated with Todd (just a few years younger than us) from Toronto, Canada, his "mum" Lynn and his 14-year old daughter, Anna. They were delightful and we all enjoyed dinner together all week and hung out some on the Lido Deck as well. The third night we were joined by Georgeen and Claudia from Baton Rouge. They worked at a Dr's office together for more than 25 years, and their employer had given each of them a cruise. They had been placed at "romantic" table for two and that totally weirded them out, and didn't allow them to meet new friends so they requested a table change and joined us the rest of the week. They were delightful and the seven of us had the best time at dinner each night. Our waiter, Alexander was great and we became very attached to our busboy/assistant waiter, Sigit, and our "wine guy" aka beverage server, Edwin. The food was amazing and the service impeccable... I miss having them put my cloth napkin in my lap.

The shows each night were lots of fun, and Eric and I often stopped at Sam's Piano Bar after each show and got to know the piano player, Peter Rossetti. We were there the first night and he chatted with us, and then remembered us every night and always played us a Billy Joel song when we came in. The "Piano Man" was great, and at the end of the week he got a great tip from us, and we came home with his CD.

The ports of call were great. After two and half days at sea our first port was Panama. In Panama we took a bus trip along the canal to the Pacific Ocean, stopping to see several ships travel through the Miraflores Locks. Our guide gave us all sorts of U.S. history about the Canal Zone. We returned to the Atlantic Ocean via a train ride along the canal. The canal was really cool and it was great to see two oceans in just over an hour.

The next day we stopped in Costa Rica. Our excursion to the coffee plantation was cancelled because it didn't fill up, so instead we took another excursion where we stopped at a banana plantation, took a short train ride along the edge of the rain forest, and then a boat ride along the river. The boat ride was awesome... we saw sloths, howler monkeys, iguanas, bats, egrets, a cayman and lots of birds. It was even fun when our boat lost its steering and everyone starting singing "Row Row Row Your Boat" as we waited for another boat to pick us up. After a mini-buffet of fresh local fruits (the best watermelon I have ever had) we headed back to the ship.

The next day we were at sea, and then on Easter Sunday we stopped in Belize. We took another river cruise where we saw a crocodile, manatees, more bats and monkeys and then had lunch and a Belikin beer at a local resort before heading to Altun Ha, which are Mayan ruins. Altun Ha was very interesting and impressive but we mostly admired from a far as it was about 95 and humid and the heat was definitely getting to me.

We only saw our cabin steward twice the entire week, but he kept our cabin spotless. And he left us a new towel animal every night.

One day we took a wine/food pairing class at the ship's supper club. It was lots of fun and we learned a lot. The somalier who taught the class was very interesting. No worries, beer is still our favorite... but we did enjoy wine with our dinner every night. On Saturday night we went to the supper club, Nick & Nora's, for dinner. There was a fee to go but all of the food was free. It was a great way to celebrate our one week anniversary. The service was above and beyond and we shared a great bottle of wine... and the somalier remembered us from the wine/food pairing a few days before and was impressed I remembered what he taught me. We had surf-n-turf and it was an amazing lobster and one of the best filets I had ever had. The dessert was by the far the best I had ever had. I can't begin to describe it, but it was four different chocolate tortes/parfaits/desserts. It was incredible.

By far the best part of the cruise was spending 8 days with my husband. We did lots of things, but also spent lots of time just hanging out together. Talking, sharing, dreaming... I am so excited we get to spend the rest of our lives together.

Oh, one bonus of the cruise was taking "Flat Stella". My friend Sidney's 2nd grade class is learning about geography by sending their "flat friends" all over with various friends and family members. Nik took Stella to Florida for spring training and we took her on the cruise. Stella loved it. Besides the pictures for Sidney and her class we took a few pictures for Sidney's mom & dad, Jenn & John's entertainment. Let's just say Stella enjoyed the bar :)

Stayed tuned as we are working on blog for both Eric & I. I will keep you posted as to its development... no pun intended.

Showered with March Madness

2009-03-19T19:11:00.003-06:00

So I am finally sitting down to catch up on some blogging.

Eric and I ordered Happy Joe's pizza for dinner and are hunkered in watching some basketball. Besides being all cute, handsome, caring and my best friend, Eric comes complete with a big TV that makes for much improved March Madness viewing than what I am used to.

A couple of weekends I headed to my parents house/CU for a long weekend. Friday I spent the day doing various wedding errands and then spent the night at my Mom & Dad's house along with my matron of honor Jenn, and her parents. Jenn flew in from Colorado Springs for the weekend just to throw a shower for me, along with Nikki aka Maid of Honor and Jenn's Mom, Bernice. I was very touched that she made the trip just one month before she does again with John and the girls for the wedding.

The shower was awesome. It was at Silver Creek restaurant in the greenhouse and Bernice, Jenn and Nik went above and beyond. The gifts were wonderful, but by far my favorite part was getting caught up with friends and family and also getting my family, Eric's family, and our various friends together to get to know each other before the wedding. It was lots of fun and bodes well for a fun and exciting wedding reception in a few weeks. Here is the only picture that made it to my camera... Jenn took the rest on hers. I am with my Busey buddies Judy and Linda and my former Busey co-worker Lindsey and her twin sister, Meredith.

A few of my favorite presents include a beautiful glass cardinal my Auntie Ann gave me from her own glass collection, knowing how much Eric and I love Cardinals. Also, my Aunt Mona gave me a Cardinals magnet and a deviled egg plate (we just so happen to have a plated ledge in our kitchen)... which were gifts completely inspired by her late son/my late cousin, Bruce who was my special friend/Cardinal buddy and had a deviled egg plate collection of his own.

After the shower I spent the afternoon/evening/night shopping, hanging out, and enjoying cocktails with Jenn, Nikki and my friend/former roommate, Jeanne. No crazy bachelorette party antics, just good times with great friends. I am truly blessed to have three such awesome friends who though they are completely different from one another, and really don't have all that much in common as far as their daily lives are concerned they all get along great and we had so much fun together.

That Sunday after breakfast with Jenn & Nik, Nik and I headed to Siegel for a baby shower for our friend, Karen. We had just seen her the day before at my shower but it was fun to get caught up with Karen's friends and family too. Karen is looking great and I think motherhood is really going to agree with her.

Sunday after the shower I stopped in Peoria and picked up Eric who spent the weekend with Scott and the rest of the Barkers.

Since then life has been relatively routine with the exception of trying to finish up various wedding details. I think things are relatively under control, and Eric and I are both getting excited for our bid day, and then our cruise the following week. After two moves, adjusting to working from home, and the wedding rush we are ready for a vacation.

Oh, yesterday was a big day. The sale of my house in Champaign closed. My attorney handled it all for me so I didn't have to make another trip to C-U. It went smoothly and the money is in the bank. Eric and I are both so thankful the house is sold, especially before the wedding. We know the quick and easy sale was truly a gift from God. We prayed and prayed about where we should live and if/when we should look for jobs and look for a new house and list me house. Everything in that arena just seemed to fall into place and we know it has all been a "God Thing".

I am not sure if I will blog again before the wedding or not. We are also toying with the idea of renaming or editing this blog to provide for both of us to post. Oh, speaking of blogs Nikki has started one... "In the Nik of Time" (title was my idea:)) and the link is on the right side of this page. She will be heading to Florida for Spring training soon so be sure to check out updates from Florida.

Okay, time to watch the Illini

Rough Week, but a Good Weekend

2009-03-02T20:15:00.002-06:00

Last week was a little rough at Janeric Hills (I am trying to come up with a name for our house... so I will test out a few here and there). Between Eric's asthma acting up, and a visit from the flu fairy and her magic congestion wand. By late Thursday and Friday we were on the mend, but seriously I don't think I have ever used so many Puffs Plus in my life.

Saturday morning we got up early and headed to C-U... the first time I had been back since I moved six weeks ago. We met with our wedding DJ and that went really well... I think we are both getting excited about getting to boogie down with our friends and family in 5 weeks. Next we stopped by my house and packed up the few things we had left behind to helps show the house. It is officially empty and ready for the closing later this month.

Afterwards we had planned to meet Nikki for lunch, but she too was a little under the weather so we picked up a bucket of chicken and hung out at her apartment for the afternoon with her parents. It was nice to just chill and get caught up.

Saturday evening I went to dinner with some of my best girls from my church, Quest United Methodist. It was lots of fun and I shared with them how life in Geneseo is going. I will admit that I am a little sad to being leaving such a wonderful faith community behind... okay a lot sad... but I know God will guide Eric and I in establishing a great faith community here. We don't necessarily have all the details figured out, but are trusting God's plan is far better than anything we could imagine. While I was out with the girls, Eric hung out with a couple of the Quest guys. I think he was a little nervous hanging with guys he didn't know all that well, but they ended up playing "Settlers of Catan" a game that Eric loves so that definitely broke the ice a bit. Eric and I like playing the game but it isn't quite the same with just two people, plus I just don't have quite the competitive spirit that they guys had.

We spent Saturday night at my parents house, and had a nice visit and great breakfast/brunch on Sunday morning. My Mom and I got to chat about some of the wedding details, Eric and both got caught up on some sleep we had missed being sick, and it was just a nice quiet visit. Sunday afternoon we stopped in Peoria on the way home and hung out with Scott, Tara & Kira. We exchanged Christmas presents... who cares that it was March 1st. I got the coolest jigsaw puzzle of all of the baseball stadiums that you can write the date you visited each one on. It will definitely be framed one day and hung on the wall when we have our sports/game room in the basement. Eric got a way cool book on brewing beer... right now it is a coffee table book, but we hope to put it into practice in the not to distant future. It was a fun visit, and we all enjoyed a trip to Flat Top Grill before we headed home. Yummy!!!! They had calamari to add to your stir fry, and personally I could make a meal out of the pita bread!!

We got home just after 9 and unloaded what we was the last truck/car loan of our respective moves. Some folks pointed out that we will have to unload shower/wedding presents... but I don't count that... those are gifts and were packed by someone else and infinitely more fun that the stuff we already own.

So, there you go. That's what is up with me... I can't believe I didn't take a single picture from my Quest Farewell Gathering... duh!!!!

A final move

2009-02-22T21:18:00.002-06:00

Hello all. So I haven't blogged in forever but really there hasn't been all that much to blog about. Yesterday we borrowed the free REMax Realty truck and with the help of Eric's Dad and Dave Roome we move the furniture from Eric's apartment to our house. Eric and I have spent the past month packing and moving the rest of his stuff one carload at a time, so only the furniture was left. The weather was only semi-cooperative as we had several inches of snow the night before and Saturday brought heaving winds that made for somewhat crappy travel, but it was a short drive and we didn't have much to move.

Earlier in the weed my parents came to visit. My Mom and I went shopping for her dress for the wedding and we had success. My parents are the the market for a new refrigerator so they checked out ours... I think my Mom measured it and pondered inside to re-evaluate the storage capacity about 20 times. We also had the Direct TV moved from Eric's apartment. So between having his furniture here and real TV to watch the house is slowing starting to take shape. It is kind of funny how well the random "left over" furniture actually looks kind of nice together in the family room with our bargain brown leather couch we got at JC Penney's for a steal. Also, we put Eric's single sleeper sofa in the office and it looks great. The room was a little sparse with just the desk and the sofa (which is the size of a small love seat or over sized chair) so the sofa really warms up the place. Not that I really will be logging much sofa time in there while I am working, but it pulls out to a remarkably comfortable twin size bed and will serve as an extra bedroom for guests.

Today Eric and went to church and Sunday school, and the had lunch and did a little shopping afterwards. I realized that in less that in six weeks we will be on a cruise and my wardrobe wasn't really ready. We have had a lazy evening at home since... doing a little unpacking (one day we might be done), laundry, I worked on my Bible Study homework, and watched a little TV.

The wedding RSVP's are starting to arrive... and that is exciting. So far it looks like lots of our family and friends will be able to join us. There are still tons of little details to finish up but we are starting to get excited. With each RSVP I get excited about seeing so and so, although I realize that it isn't like we will have tons of time to visit with everyone for very long. My new game is to try and guess who is replying by the post mark. We are meeting with the DJ next weekend so we are thinking about music, and the whole dancing and party aspect of the reception. Woo Hoo!

Well that's about it, a rather boring blog. Hope all is well, and that spring comes soon!

Birthday Bash!

2009-02-11T20:34:00.005-06:00

Hi Everyone- All is well in Geneseo. Still getting used to everything, but so far so good.

Saturday we went over the Travis and Steff's to celebrate Katie's 8th birthday. It was lots of fun with lots of good food, and it was great to only have to drive about 25 minutes after a family celebration as opposed to 3 hours. Here are some pictures of the lovely Miss Kate... sporting a temporary shark tatoo on her forehead, and being ever so lady-like with the worms in her nose. Travis is also striking a pose with one of Katie's gifts. (Okay, so you will have to wait on pics... blogger is not letting me download them... I will try later)

February brought some other family birthdays. Katie shares a birthday with my brother-in-law and fellow beer drinker, Larry. My nephew, Jeremy, celebrates on Valentines day, followed by his mom, Jayne, the next day. I have to brag on Jeremy... he was a great help on move-in day.

Still working on getting settled and making some connections. I am going to my women's bible study again tomorrow and looking forward to it. I also have been going to Curves and enjoy visiting with the women there.

I have been living without TV since I moved. We are having Eric's Direct TV moved next week, and have viewed a few games when we were at his apartment packing. I thought I would just die without it but I don't really miss it all that much. In fact Eric hooked up an antenna to my TV last night so I get the network stations now, but honestly haven't turned it on since last night. I am sure I will watch some tomorrow night when Eric is at a meeting. I am hoping that having gotten used to not having TV I will not watch it as much. It helps having Eric around because we often find something else to do, being it unpacking or we even broke out the Backgammon game the other night. I had not played in many years, but it was lots of fun.

I have been busy trying to work on some wedding stuff too. Invites went out Friday, and RSVP's are starting to arrive. I am glad I have lots of stuff already in place but there will no doubt be several trips to C-U the month before to wrap up some last minute details. It is a great relief to have the invites out.

Well that is all for now. I will probably hit the hay by 10 p.m. Getting up and working by 6:30 these days has moved up my bedtime lately.

Under Contract

2009-02-03T22:23:00.003-06:00

Just a quick blog to let you know my house is "Under Contract"! My realtor, John K, officially listed it on Thursday or Friday and I had an offer Monday evening. I found out they accepted my counter offer this morning.

Thanks to everyone who has been praying for us. It is still "sale pending" subject to buyers home inspection and financing, but so far so good, and Eric and I are so relieved to be this far along in the process so far. Closing should be sometime in March.

Returning to Small Town Life

2009-02-03T21:58:00.002-06:00

So Geneseo is about twice the size of Gibson City, where I grew up, but it is still definitely small town living. I grew up near a small town, so the concept isn't completely foreign, but it has been a bit of a refreshing change. Here are a few examples of small town life.

Last week after we got both my kitchen stuff and Eric's kitchen stuff unpacked we did a little grocery shopping at Fareway in Geneseo... granted it doesn't have all the offerings of Schnucks or Meijer but the full service meat counter was awesome and well priced. They cut/package anything you want the way you want it, and they are ridiculously friendly. Oh, and the bag boy definitely carried carried/carted our groceries out to our car! Oh, and they had a very good beer selection too.

Tonight we went to Hillsdale, about a 10 minute drive to get our hair cuts. Eric's family friend, Beth, operates "The Hair Station" there. Good news... my hair looks pretty good... and it cost us $12 each!!

After our haircuts we went to the Parkway Restaurant in Geneseo... your basic diner/coffee shop kind of place. Our young waitress actually said to us as she brought our menus... "I am not sure I would order the beef/chicken stir fry special... they have been burning it all night. The cooks came into work drunk tonight and have been the death of me. Not to worry though the owner is running the grill now so you are good." Not sure how much of this was true and how much was teen exaggeration, but still made for some good entertainment either way. When we were paying the owner was running Eric's debit card and asked us if we were new in town, when we said yes and explained our situation she promptly gave us a $10 gift certificate and told us welcome to town, and to please come back. I am guessing she was originally from somewhere in the former Yugoslavia... and she was super sweet. The food was pretty good and the price was right so I am sure they will see us often.

Oh, and another one of my small town favorites. Our house is not in Geneseo proper, so our electric is from Farmers Mutual Electric a local co-op. I enjoy how co-ops save money. We got our "self-billing" supplies in the mail the other day. Every month we have to go around to the side of the house and read our meter. We compare it to the previous month's reading, figure our usage and then use the chart they enclosed to figure our bill. If we pay by the 10th of the month we pay the discounted price... if we pay after the 10th we pay the full price. So yesterday before I went to town I trudged out in the snow and read the meter. I am sure they take actual readings every so often themselves to make sure you are cheating, but overall not a bad system.

Last week one afternoon I met two of the neighborhood girls. The door bell rant at about 4 pm. It was Mia from the big brown house across the street from our side yard, and Abby from the house on the corner. They were probably 4th or 5th grade and just wanted to say "hi" and welcome me/us to the neighborhood. The were really sweet and I told them I appreciated their kindness and that hopefully when the weather warmed up we would see them out and about the neighborhood, but that if we got another big snow they were welcome to sled down our hill as long as they rang the bell and let us know they were back there. I am excited to get out and meet more of the neighborhood folks when it warms up.

Livin' in my Jammies

2009-02-03T21:09:00.003-06:00

Greetings from Geneseo. So several folks have inquired on how things are going working from home. I have now been at it for two weeks and for the most part it seems to be going very well.

It took a couple of days to work out some of the technical difficulties, but the Busey tech group helped me get everything worked out. I have a "soft phone" so my work number both external and internal did not change... it just runs through the computer now... and I have a little headset (I refer to is as my "Madonna Mic") and the sound quality is actually pretty good. Everything pretty much works the same... my scanner and access to our shared drives is a little slower than what I was used to but I get around that by saving files locally while I am using them, and then saving them back to the shared drive after my work is done. As for the scanner... while I am waiting for it, that is when I take a bathroom break, refill my coffee, empty the dishwasher, or toss a load of clothes in the wash.

Believe it or not, even though I don't have a commute, I now get up earlier than I did before. Typically I try to get up by 6:15/6:30, I brush my teeth, wash my face, start the coffee and am logging in by 6:30/6:45. I wake Eric up at 7:25, then get my first cup of coffee. Sometimes I wear my pajamas, sometimes I wear sweats... but I am always wearing my slippers :) Starting my work day 90 minutes earlier than normal gives me the flexibility to either knock off early, or in most cases take a longer lunch. Lately the routine has been to head to town (Geneseo... about 10 minutes away) at 11:30 or so on Monday, Wednesday & Friday (after 5 hours of work) and go work out at Curves for 30 minutes. Eric's Mom, Linda works there so I get caught up on the family happenings and get some social interaction with the other ladies there. I meet Eric for lunch, then head home. I am back at my desk by 1:30 and work until 4:30. Then I usually take a shower and get things started for dinner as Eric is getting home.

On Tuesdays and Thursdays, Eric often comes home for a quick lunch, and I finish up work a bit earlier. This Thursday I am going to start a women's bible study at one of the local churches. It is either from 9 to 11 am or two hours in the evening. I think I may try the morning meeting one week, then the evening meeting the next week. If I go to the morning meeting I will likely take a very short lunch and/or just work later in the afternoon/evening to get my 8 hours in. I am really looking forward to getting back into The Word (it took me nearly two weeks to unpack my Bible) and developing some community/friendships. At this point I haven't really had time to miss C-U all that much, the more I get settled the more I am ready to put down some roots.

So far I haven't minded the solitude of working from home. I still talk to lenders on the phone etc. and getting out and going to Curves is not unlike chatting with folks in the break room at work. I often have the radio on as I work so that provides a little pretend co-worker noise as well, and I still email folks to catch up on the latest at the "office". I have tried to be disciplined about staying on task and focusing on my work, stopping to do things like laundry and dishes only when I would be stopping for a coffee refill or bathroom break anyway. So far it seems to working well, as I am at least as productive as before if not more.

I do enjoy the new dress code but perhaps the best benefit is the flexibility of hours. We had a plumber come a week or so ago and it was great to tell them... anytime is fine... I will be home all day. Overall it seems to be working well and I am very fortunate that Busey was willing to try this. It was a struggle to adjust at first, but every day it just gets better and more normal

Movin' on Up...

2009-01-19T21:46:00.007-06:00

So I didn't move on up to the east side, so a deluxe apartment in the sky... but I did move to Geneseo over the weekend.

This was the timetable... it was kind of crazy it all worked out.

Packed up my desk at University Avenue and headed home at noon on Thursday. Met the home inspector at 12:30 to have pre-listing inspection done on my house. Good news... nothing major. Later Thursday afternoon I went over Busey's tech group and picked up my computer and other various equipment for working from home. Thursday night I packed.

Friday morning I went to Urbana, dropped off my DVR at Comcast and went to Busey to close out my safe deposit box and tell Judy (my Bank Mom for lack of a better term) farewell. Stopped by Uhaul on the way home, and met Jeanne & Ted there so we could pick up my moving truck. Went home and had the new stove I bought for the Champaign house (the old brown one was not going to show well) delivered. The could not install it because my gas hook-up is so old it it out of code so I need to have a plumber come and install a new gas line... just what I needed. Eric and his Dad came down Friday evening, and then we went to dinner with Nikki.

Saturday I got up bright and early started the coffee and made a donut run, and did some final packing. The entire loading crew was there and pretty much ready to roll by 9:00. The were incredible and pretty much had me all packed up by noon. Jeanne was on the truck and used her mad packing skills to place everything, while her husband, Ted, my brother, Phil, and my former Illini football mentee Jake and Eric did the big lifting and hauling. Nikki, Eric's Dad, Mike and myself helped with box toting. Jake even ventured up to my attic to get my Christmas decorations down. My mom showed up later with sloppy joes for everyone to have for lunch, and to help me clean the house. We hit the road just after 2:30. Mike driving the Uhaul, Eric driving Mike's truck and me in my car. The trip went well except for some wicked winds along I-39 that had me trying to push back visions of everything I own scattered along the highway.

We got to Geneseo in under four hours... not bad for a Uhaul that didn't past 60 mph much. We unloaded the pick-up and my car, grabbed a bit to eat and then crashed hard at Eric's apartment. My brother and my nephew Jeremy came up Sunday to help unload, along with Eric's Mom, Dad and brother, Travis and my family friends that just so happen to live here... the Roome's. Dave was still in Denver, but Janice, Anthony and Megan were here. Like Jake loading... Anthony was my unloading "young muscle". The guys brought the boxes to the front door and the girls toted them from there... keeping the snow tracked into the house to a minimum. The unloading took less than and hour, then the guys went to Eric's to get his desk for my/our office and his washer and dryer. During the unloading Tom from next door brought over some brownies that his wife, Cheryl had made. They have lived next door for 34 years. Earlier in the week, Wayne who lives on the corner removed the snow from our driveway... twice. So... the neighbors seem great.

Unpacking today is going slow but steady. Our refrigerator and stove were delivered today, along with a new couch that we got on mega sale the day after Thanksgiving. Luckily the sellers left the house in very good shape so the cleaning has been minimal.

Eric got my computer set up and most of the programs I need are working... hopefully the rest can be resolved when I go back to work on Wednesday with a call to our tech group.

Oh, and today we had our first sledder! Eric's Dad, Mike, brought his niece, Katie over since she was out of school today for the MLK holiday. After her first run she hollered from the bottom of the hill... "That was awesome!" She trudged up the hill and did it again another 20 times or so before it was all over.

Anyway, that is all for now. A big huge thank you to all of my friends and family who made the move a big success... especially Eric, who kept me sane throught it all.

Happy Birthday Tralec!!

2009-01-06T18:29:00.004-06:00

Today is a two for one birthday blog. Today's birthday boys include Eric's brother Travis, and Travis' son, Alec. Hence the "Tralec" in the post title. Not quite "Bennifer" or "Brangelina", but you get the idea. One of my favorite things about Eric is his family... they are pretty terrific and have really made me feel welcome.

Travis is turning 36 today, and as far as brothers go I think Eric would have to say... he's got it pretty good. I seems to be my calling in life to somehow through absolutely no skill of my own to somehow beat Travis in nearly every game we play. It has become the family joke, and I think Travis and I both relish the attention. I must say that over the past year Travis and I are developing a bit of a brother/sister relationship... we love to give each other lots of crap, but when it comes down to it... we would pretty much doing anything for the other. Travis is a firefighter and paramedic and I admire his service to the public but it something that I really hope we don't have to call on at the wedding as four couples on the guest list are due with their first babies in April :)

Travis is a great Dad, which segways into talking about the other birthday boy, Alec. Where do I start with Mr. Alec. He is still just a tiny bit shy around me but I can tell he is starting to warm up, and one thing I am looking forward to about moving is getting the hang with Alec a bit more. He really is a good boy, but he is ridiculously cute and given the opportunity he can flash that grin of his and wiggle his way out things. Alec is 5 and into superheroes and such... the first time I met him he was wearing a cape... gotta love that kind of adventurous spirit and wild imagination.

Happy Birthday boys... sorry to be missing your party... I am guessing the cake will consumed in just a few... save me a piece.

Our House...

2009-01-06T14:14:00.003-06:00

... is a very very fine house!!!

Eric and I closed on our house on Friday, with smooth sailing. We celebrated with a nice dinner Friday night at "The Cellar" in Geneseo our new hometown, but Saturday we got to work after giving Eric's parents a tour of the place. Saturday and Sunday we worked our buts off and got the guest bedroom and my office for work painted... no more Pink! We are not reallyy all that skilled in painting, but we managed to do a pretty okay job and stay engaged!

I am moving up a week from this coming Saturday, and things are in pretty good order. Hopefully the refrigerator and stove will come in soon, and can be installed that Monday after I move in.

Here are some pictures of a cute little message Eric left me in paint, and then him looking completely sick of painting.

P.S. I am at home on my lunch hour... I enjoy the short commute to Champaign vs. Urbana... but alas time to return and get back at it. Stay tuned for a double birthday blog later today.

Holiday Traveler

2008-12-29T20:17:00.005-06:00

I hope everyone enjoyed a very merry Christmas, filled with lots of fun and joy.

The first leg of my holiday traveling was cut short. I had planned to go to the Illinois vs Mizzou game in St. Louis on the 23rd, picking up my friend, Karen in Effingham, and then meeting Nikki and her Dad, who were coming down via Decatur. Tuesday afternoon we had another ice storm, and I-57 was 100% ice covered so it just didn't make sense to risk the drive... especially with Karen in the "family way".

Wednesday I headed up to Eric's at about 12:30 (after getting the furnace fixed... nothing major but still not particularly convenient). The drive was uneventful until I got to Galesburg when it the road were very slick and it was very windy with blowing snow. Several cars were in the ditch and it was rather scary, but after a little over an hour of alternately praying and swearing like a sailor I made it Eric's safe and sound. We decided it still was a little risky to drive over to Iowa for Christmas Eve service so we spent a nice quiet evening at home with a Frank's pizza, watching Muppet Christmas Carol and Polar Express before Eric read the Christmas story from the Bible just before we wen to bed. We skipped the gift giving this year... instead focusing our budget on others and the new house.

Thursday we headed to Eric's Mom & Dad's house, and were joined by Travis, Steff, Katie and Alec. After lunch it was time for presents. We received some wonderful gifts, and I really felt so welcomed into the family. Katie and Alec were tons of fun to watch opening their presents. Friday, Eric had to work so I returned a few things to to the mall, and then bunkered down to start addressing wedding invites. I made lots of progress... so hopefully when I get back to it after the move in a few weeks it won't be too overwhelming.

Here are some pictures of Alec & Katie enjoying their gifts, and Uncle Eric struggling to open one of Alec's toys for him :)

Saturday Eric and I both braved fog and horizontal rain and drove down to my parents house for Tjardes Christmas. It was a nasty drive, but our sour moods quickly faded with some great food and fellowship. My Mom likes to get a little ornery with her gift giving and has taken to hiding our Christmas money in unique ways. The best this year was wrapping up pair of my brother platform dress shoes circa 1979 for him... we busted out his letter jacket just to complete the look. She also hid money in socks that Lane and Jeremy had left at her house and then sewed the socks shut. We enjoyed a great time, and it was nice to get caught up with everyone... especially the Fab Five.

For New Years I am headed back up to the QC, as we close on our house on Friday. New Years Eve we are going to Dave & Janice Roome's house for some festivities. Dave is my best friend, Jenn's older brother and a long-time friend of the family. He and his family live in Geneseo, about a 15 minute drive from our house... so it makes the move even better knowing that I will already have some ready-made friends in the area.

Here is a picture of Phil showing off his fancy shoes, and Jeremy doing his best impression of his Dad :)

Having Our Cake and Eating It Too

2008-12-22T21:37:00.002-06:00

So I have been woefully remiss with the blogging, but I think that is just the way it is going to be for a few months. Eric managed to dodge the bad weather and make it here and back safely for the weekend. (Seriously folks, is it just me or is it kind of crazy to have this much nasty winter weather in December?) On Saturday morning we had our final pre-marital counseling session with my/our pastor, Andy. Just one more meeting to finalize the ceremony details is left. I really enjoyed the pre-marital counseling... I feel like we have strong and healthy relationship, but are both committed to nurturing it and growing it, especially with the help of God.

That afternoon we went to a cake tasting, and now we have a "cake lady" for the wedding. Yippee... the cake was delicious and Marissa was a lot of fun to work with. Thanks to Amy from my small group for recommending her. We don't have the final cake details worked out, but we have a general idea. After cake we stopped off for a couple of beers before heading out to Assembly Hall to catch the Illini game. It is slightly weird for me to be a spectator instead of working, but I got used to it, and enjoyed hanging out with Eric.

After the game we grabbed a bite to eat with Nikki and her parents, Debbie and Jerry aka Captain Map, and it was lots of fun to catch up with them. Eric headed back home early Sunday evening with clear roads until the last few miles.

Please pray for continued travel blessing as I will be hitting the road tomorrow to St. Louis for the Illini basketball game vs. Mizzou, the up to the QC on Wednesday for Christmas with the Noyd's and then back to CU/GC for Christmas with the Tjardes' on Friday/Saturday.

I hope everyone has a happy, safe and joyous Christmas, and enjoys special time with family and friends as we celebrate the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ.

A Toast to Champaign

2008-12-11T21:42:00.003-06:00

Hi everyone. I have been a total blog slacker, but I have been super busy what with getting ready to move, buying a house, try to get organized to list a house for sale, planning a wedding, Christmas shopping, oh and trying to see my fiance who live 3 hours away for another five weeks anyway.

So our department at work moved at the end of October/beginning of November from downtown Urbana to downtown Champaign. For the most part I love Champaign, with three possible exceptions 1) not seeing the sun as we are in the lower level, and 2) my office is right next to the employee break room (which is usually a plus) but not when the lunch crowd cranks up the volume to 50 on the TV (for reference I think 25 is plenty loud) and 3) Judy (my bank Mom for lack of a better term) is still in Urbana

But I like to dwell on the positive so here are the reasons I enjoy our new office:

10. At this location they have the liquid non-dairy creamer for our coffee... vanilla even... not plain powder for me!

9. My desk is just off the break room.... except for the loud TV upon occasion this totally rocks... quick and easy access to the creamer in #10

8. The biometric access (when it works, and it has been lately) is so very Jack Bauer meets Star Trek... I put my finger on the reader it scans my finger print and voila... door unlocks.

7. My cube is next to Josh's cube... thus more opportunities to use my "Friends" lingo and refer to him as "Josh-U-A" like Rachel Green did back in the day.

6. Harold the maintenance guy in the Champaign building is totally setting me up with lots of boxes for moving.

5. I have only forgotten and started to drive to Urbana for work once.

4. I am closer to the mall/shopping and basically everything else in town for more productive lunch hour errand running

3. I now takes me less than 10 minutes to get to work

2. Improvement walking distance lunch options... although I rarely take advantage of this.

1. With the shorter commute I can come home for lunch and manage to watch a 1 hour TV program I have DVR'd each and get back to work in exactly one hour.

P.S. In a random wedding update, there are now four pregnant couples on our guest list that are expecting the first baby in the month of April.

Giving Thanks

2008-11-30T21:26:00.004-06:00

I had a great Thanksgiving weekend at Eric's, allow it was shortened a bit by the weather forecast. I headed northwest Wednesday after work, and Eric helped me make deviled eggs for Thanksgiving. We spent Thursday with his family at Travis and Steff's house. Lots of good food including scalloped oysters. Kind of funny, I thought my family was the only one that ate those... but they are a Noyd staple as well. I guess that is just one more reason Eric and I are well suited for one another. Alec and Katie proved to be entertaining as always, and I got a couple of hours in cuddling with the one month old baby Travis and Steff are fostering. She was just so sweet and precious. Of course no Noyd gathering would be complete without me beating Travis at a game... I reigned supreme at Brew-opoly.

On Friday Eric and I lazed around during the day, but did manage to get lots of various wedding things done like ordering engagement pictures, updating our page on theknot.com, and go over some of the DJ song list.

Friday night we ventured out and Eric took me to the QC Flames hockey game at the I-Wireless Center. It was lots of fun. Eric is a pretty big hockey fan, and the more games I go to/watch the more I enjoy it too. I am still learning some of the finer points of the game, but Eric is a good teacher. The Flames won 6-4 so it was quite a high scoring affair, with a few good fights thrown in for good measure. We plan to try to get to a few more games later this season after I move up. We both really enjoy them.

I fixed us dinner on Saturday night, and we woke up to a surprise snowfall on Sunday. We went to church and then headed back home for lunch. After checking the forecast for Sunday evening we decided it would be best if I headed home early so I could drive in daylight and get home before the next round of snow hit. I took advantage of the extra time at home and packed up a few more boxes. Speaking of boxes with the upcoming move I have developed the biggest box obsession. The folks at work have been hooking me up though... especially the maintenance man, Harold. I asked him to be on the look out and he sent me home with 15+ boxes the other day. So many I took some up to Eric so he can start packing for his move in February.

So that was Thanksgiving in a nutshell, but I will leave you with the short-list of things I am thankful for. #1 A loving God, who is good and gives me Grace, #2 Eric! He loves me like no other, truly understands me, takes care of me, and always makes me laugh and smile, #3 Friends and family who make everything brighter, #4 A country that gives me many freedoms and opportunities that most people in this world don't have, #5 DVR's. Okay so #5 is a little shallow, but come on folks you have to admit that technology is remarkable and life changing. I hope everyone had a happy and safe Thanksgiving.

Happy Birthday Sarah J!

2008-11-29T14:14:00.002-06:00

Okay, so this is a day late, but I am just now recovering from my Turkey coma. Yesterday was Sarah J's birthday. I heart Sarah J... she just totally rocks! Back in August I got so spend some extra time with Sarah J, when Nik and I stopped in Vicksburg, MS on our way to Houston. Sarah lives their with her girls, Daisy and Madison... the funniest dogs ever.

Besides just being fun and smart, and pleasant company I have Sarah J to thank for turning me on to this website http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/... a year of crock potting. She also tried to take me to the drive-thru bar across the river in Louisiana. How can you not love that kind of well roundedness.

So Sarah J... sorry this is a day late... but HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!

The "football place", Tjardes Executive Business Center and other odds and ends

2008-11-19T18:16:00.004-06:00

So I don't know if I mentioned it but my friends Jeanne and Ted recently moved to St. Joseph from Florida. Typical... they are now 15 minutes away from me vs. a plane ride... and I am moving in a couple months. Anywho, Ted is working from home for his former professor as an independent contractor and they haven't been able to hook up the cable Internet at their house because they want to put it in the business name and they are still in the process of setting up said business. So, Ted has been working from my house several days, using my Internet connection. It has been good times to hang with Jeanne and Ted on a more regular basis, and they jokingly started calling my house Tjardes Internet Cafe. The later dubbed it Tjardes Executive Business Center because it wasn't too crowed or bustling and I was not offering scones. One of these days I am going to make some scones and leave them in the "office" for Ted. Ted (and Jeanne) sent me flowers at work yesterday to thank me... it has be great fun telling everyone who asks about the flowers "My friend's husband sent them to me!" and then offering no further explanation.

Last night I went with Nikki to Memorial Stadium. She started working there this season in the Colonnades Club, and they had a friends and family night so we could check out the new stadium renovations. The stadium is pretty sweet looking, but the highlight of the night was definitely Jeremiah (2) going through his routine of what he says and does all the time when he comes to "the football place" as he calls it. I attempted to capture in on video with my digital camera... not sure how well the sound picked up but he is saying "Go Illini" and "Touchdown!". Sorry it is sideways, I couldn't find the rotate. He is too cute.

In other random news I am Aunt Jane again... on at least a temporary basis. Travis and Steff (Eric's brother and sister-in-law) are fostering a newborn little girl, and she is super cute. Not that Katie and Alec aren't super cute, but I can't hold them in my arm like a football. She will nearly a month old when we get together for Thanksgiving. Hopefully she will be a permanent addition to the family, but please pray for her happy and safe upbringing wherever it is.

Oh, so under the category of ironic... let me tell you about the bridesmaid dresses for the wedding. Eric and I told Jenn and Nikki, "Please pick out whatever dress you want at David's Bridal... any style you choose as long as it is the color "pool" and knee length go for it. So from three states away, with probably hundreds of dresses to choose from, and somewhat diverging taste they each picked the same dress. I think that is hysterical, especially when Jenn called from the store asking for a description of the dress Nikki was getting and then asked "Is it okay if they do match?". I thought is was so funny it worked out that way. The dress they picked is very nice and universally flattering, and I know every bride says this but in this case it might actually be true "You could totally wear it again sometime" :)

Birthdays, Registering and Packing... Oh My!

2008-11-10T18:28:00.002-06:00

Okay, so first off I was at Eric's this weekend and didn't get a chance to blog on Saturday about two my favorite birthday boys. Happy Belated Birthday to Jeremiah and Nate.

Jeremiah is my "other boyfriend" as Eric and I like to refer to him. He turned two and I am good friends with his parents, John & Marla. I can't believe he is 2 already... he is growing up so fast. Jeremiah and I enjoy talking about the Illini and the Cardinals. We have had a few short visits at the Illini football games this fall, and he cracks me up with his "touchdown signals". He has become quite the talker these days... please check out his blog for all sorts of cute photos and stories. Happy Birthday Jeremiah!!!

Nate is one of my Assembly Hall buddies, technically my boss (kind of weird but whatever) and exactly 20 years older than Jeremiah. Coincidentally Nate and I also enjoy discussing the Illini and Cardinals but he is little bit easier to understand. I can't believe Nate is 22... he is growing up so fast. It seems just like yesterday I bought him a beer when he was under age to celebrate the Cards winning the 2006 World Series... never even crossed my mind that he was under age at the time... ooopps!! Happy Birthday Nate!

On Saturday Eric and I hit a couple of retail establishments and got the wedding registry underway. It was exhausting, but lots of fun too. In case you care, yes we did register for storage tubs for the big basement at the new house. We spent lots of time together this weekend and it was nice. We bought a new game (Brew-opoly, Monopoly for beer lovers) and played it several times. We both realized that we REALLY enjoy each others company. Yes, we both know that "lovey dovey" stuff will fade but we are enjoying while we can, but it was just so great to have it reinforced that the person you are about to commit the rest of your life to really is someone you simply adore talking to about countless topics, hanging out with and being silly with. On the flip side though that made for another one of our "Sunday Evening Sucks!" moments when I had to head for home. Neither one of us likes saying good-bye but this one was more difficult than normal, but we did figure out that we only have about 10 more "Sucky Sundays" before I move and then we will get to see each other nearly everyday.... woo hoo!!!! That also means I have about 10 weeks to pack up everything I own too... Yikes!

Home Sweet Home

2008-11-03T18:08:00.003-06:00

So Eric and I started house hunting a couple of weeks ago, first just driving around on our own and then a week ago Saturday we worked with a realtor and looked at 12 houses in five hours! There was a standout, so we went back and looked at it again on Sunday. Last week we got our financing ducks in a row and we made an offer on Saturday... and after several rounds of negotiations we reached an agreement. Yippee!!! Provided inspections etc. go as planned we will close January 2nd, and I will move up a few weeks later in the middle of January. I don't look forward to packing and moving, but I have over two months to work at it and I think my garbage man will be getting quite a work out.

So the house... we both really love it. Some might think it is a little big for two people, but we hope to do a fair amount of entertaining. Plus I will be working from home, so one bedroom will be my office. The house is just north and west of Geneseo in a somewhat wooded subdivision that sits up on a hill. Winter driving could be challenging at times but the CRV has 4-wheel drive and Eric will only have a 10 minute commute to work, and I will just have to walk across the hall to get to work.

Here are a few pictures. We are really excited to be buying a house together, and we hope to welcome all of the loyal readers for a visit!

A view of the back of the house from the road below... the screened in porch is one of our favorite features. If you continue up the road, turn left and then turn left again you will be on the court where the front of the house is.

The front of the house... could use some landscaping touches to make it more welcoming.
One view of the kitchen... it is so much bigger than my current kitchen... I am so excited to put it to good use!
This is only a portion of the huge storage room in the basement... woo hoo lots of room for our stuff. I am thinking we may register for storage bins for the wedding... is that wrong?

So that is the latest. Hopefully I will be a little more faithful blogging, but until May... don't count on it.

Happy Birthday Old Block!

2008-10-23T17:50:00.003-05:00

Happy Birthday Mike Noyd!

Today is Eric's Dad's birthday. I like Mike, he cracks me up. On of my favorite moments was being at Mike and Linda's house for dinner and card playing one night… perhaps just the second time I ever met/hung out with the Noyd clan… and Mike asking me during a lull in the card game "Do you fart in your sleep?" I thought it was great because one, it is an excellent question, and two, the look on everyone else's face was priceless. Eric was pretty cool, he knew me rather well by then and knew I would think it was funny… but Travis was beside himself with "Gee Dad, she's new did you have to quiz her about farting so early?!". The answer to the question was "I assume I do, but I haven't ever been awaken by said farts so I can't confirm" If this topic sounds familiar it is because I blogged about it when it happened.

Mike is also quite the Cash Cab player. When we were in Springfield for the Masonic Grand Lodge (state meeting for Masons) were were killing some time before a dinner in Mike's hotel room. Eric and I introduced him to our favorite show Cash Cab (a game show you play in a cab in NYC that is on Discover) and he was totally into it. We definitely need to get to NYC sometime and take a cab ride… I think the three of us make a good team and could win some serious cash.

I see a lot of Mike in Eric... that's a good thing by the way. You might say that Eric is a "chip off the old block"… hence the title of this post. They both have kind of a quiet side where they are content to take in the surroundings and situation and wait to jump into the conversation only when they have something of consequence to say. The both can be quite literal and punny, and even silly at times. They both know their Bible and are truly men of God, and put family first. I must say that as I write this I am very thankful that my future-husband has had his dad as a role model… I think I will be in good hands.

Happy Birthday Mike!

DW, The Preacher, That Weird Guy from Florida, The Happy Couple and Darn It I Love The Guy in the Funny Blue Hat!

2008-10-20T20:21:00.006-05:00

Hang on everyone, I have lots of random things to blog about.

Friday night I went to the Chicago Bulls vs. Utah Jazz game at the Assembly Hall. I was supposed to go with my three nephews but Eric Pfeiffer (now referred to by his last name as not to be confused with my Eric, Eric Noyd) has to cancel because it was senior night for his golf team, so my Dad filled in.

I was great to see Deron Williams... former Illini and Olympic gold medalist. He is big time now... as you can see in this picture, he has his own stretcher now. Lane was totally geeked out to see DWill and even wore one of his retro DWill Illini shirts, oh how we miss #5. He was yelling and cheering for him all night.

Jeremy and I were very entertained by all of the non-basketball stuff as well. We are now huge Benny the Bull fans, especially when he was sporting his Illini shirt.

A pleasant surprise was getting to see The Preacher, former Illini Roger Powell play for the Bulls and he actually scored six points. I think it was perhaps even more exciting than seeing DWill because we all knew Deron would do well in the NBA but who knew we would get to see the Preacher... you have to admire that kind of perseverance.

Another Bulls player is Joakim Noah, or as Lane referred to him before the game when we were talking about the teams that were playing... "That Weird Guy from Florida". I don't really have much against the guy... he plays hard, but I have to agree he is kind of weird... the goggles and the fuzzy hair don't help much either.

Saturday I headed to the QC to see Eric. I had gotten a voicemail from Nathan and called him on the drive up. He had some very exciting news... he and Stacey are engaged!!!! Yippeee!!!! I am so happy for them. Nathan and Stacey started dating about the same time that Eric and I did, and it just took me back to a conversation Nathan and I had one afternoon last winter about how we thought that we had each thought we had found "the one" and that we thought is was just so crazy that it happened at the same time and that we didn't know who to be happier for... ourself or the other one.

Saturday night I went to a Scottish Rite banquet with Eric. He was awarded the Moline Cross award for service to their organization. FYI, Scottish Rite is a Masonic organization... kind of like the Shriners is a Masonic organization but without the funny little cars that they drive in parades. Eric did get a cute little blue hat that he gets to wear. I am really proud of all of the service work he does. He takes care of everyone else just as well as he takes care of me.

In other random news...Kudos to Busey Bank. They are going to let me work from home, which is awesome. First, I like my job. Second, I have 12+ years in there and just really wasn't looking forward to starting over somewhere. Third, now Eric and I can start looking for a house now and I can move up and get settled before the wedding. Fourth, with moving and planning a wedding I just don't think I had it in me to search for a job as well. And finally... I will get to work in my pajamas!!!!!

Happy Birthday Lil' Sis!

2008-10-11T16:16:00.003-05:00

Happy Birthday to my Lil' Sis, Nathan. You can read last year's post to learn the history as to why Nathan is my little sister. I think it is a cute story... what is not to love... it involves MC Hammer.

Today is Nathan's 30th birthday. I don't know about the rest of you, many of you are not 30 yet, but a lot of you are... but personally my 30's have been fabulous. I think I finally figured out that you don't have to have it all figured out and just starting enjoying life.

This year Nathan is spending his birthday with his main squeeze, Stacey. They started dating about the same time that Eric and I did. New Year 2008, was really good for us sisters!! It has not worked out for me to actually meet the wonderful Miss Stacey, but I already know she is fabulous. She makes Nathan ridiculously happy, and she enjoys good beer... what is not to love?

Happy Birthday Nathan! Sorry we will be missing your birthday party, but I hope we make it to Chicago to visit again soon... we can celebrate then.

I am just not that big of a person...

2008-10-06T19:59:00.003-05:00

So the Cubs went down in flames in the playoffs. I wish I could say I was a better person, and that I didn't take at least a tiny bit of delight at their demise... but I did. There are delightful Cubs fans out there, my pastor, Andy, Greg from my office, Allison's husband, Abe, and the other Allison and her husband Bill. For Cubs fans like you I kind of feel a little bad the Cubbies didn't come through for you. But... then there are those less than delightful Cub fans... you know who you are... that it is kind of fun to watch suffer. I am not proud of that... wishing suffering on folks, but there it is. As to the reason for the Cubs demise, I can only go with my original theory, Jim Edmonds signed with the Cubs in order to bring them down from the inside.

At least Cub and Cards fans alike can sing in harmony this year.... "Well there is always next year!"

110... My Beer Hero

2008-10-06T19:48:00.004-05:00

Saturday Eric and I headed to Peoria and met Scott & Tara for dinner at Old Chicago. Eric finished his World Beer Tour... it took him about four years, but he managed to drink 110 beers. He is my beer hero! He went with a Harp as #110, a tribute to his Irish heritage, and well I think it make for a good picture.

I am at #24, only 86 more to go!

A Day Late, But Worth the Wait

2008-10-04T12:15:00.002-05:00

So I have a couple of birthday blogs... actually their birthdays were yesterday, October 3rd, but well... time got away from me.

Happy Birthday John & Steff!

John Thomas is my friend Jenn's husband. Although we met via Jenn I would like to think that we would friends anyway. We enjoy the Illini, good beer and good coffee... what else to we need...oh yah... Jenn! John says that when he retires from the military he is going to be a spiritual advisor to rap artists, and change his name to White Mocha. How can you not love someone who has a brain that works like that.

John has had a couple of tough months. He Mom passed away recently, and he is living away from Jenn and the girls. He was transferred to Colorado Springs and Jenn and the girls are still in Omaha until their house sells. So... keep the prayers coming their way folks... I am sure they are appreciated.

Steff, is my future sister-in-law. She is married to Eric's brother, Travis. I am excited to get know her better when she and Travis come visit for the weekend for the Iowa football game. I already know I like her, when I had to use the restroom at the fire station when we were there for the memorial service, she guarded the door because it really wasn't designed as a public restroom. It reminded me of grade school when our bathroom stalls didn't have doors and your friends would say "I will be your door". Steff is a great mother to my future niece and nephew, Katie and Alec, and put on a yummy Father's Day spread at their house.

Happy Birthday John and Steff... albeit a little late. Hope you both had great days!

Sweet Potato Ale

2008-09-27T18:49:00.002-05:00

Hi everyone... I know I have been a total blog slacker... my bad. Things are coming together as far as wedding planning. Pastor... check, banquet hall... check, DJ... check, dress... almost a check, Mom is coming to give thumbs up or thumbs down on in a few weeks, photagrapher... meeting with one on Monday.

Right now I am at Eric's, and we have done a whole lot of nothing this weekend, something we both needed. Last night after dinner we stopped at our favorite local brewery, Bent River. We tried their fall brew, Sweet Potato Ale... two thumbs up. A tasty ale, and the sweet potato very subtle with just a hint of cinnamon. We got a growler of Uncommon Stout to bring home. We will break that out in just a bit and settle in to watch the Illini vs. Penn State. Frank's pizza at half time.

We are treating ourselves with a little Illini football, after working on guest list stuff this morning. A big kudos to Eric's mom, Linda... the queen of family addresses.

Okay, so it almost game time.

Go Illini!

Hey! I like your hair

2008-09-16T13:20:00.002-05:00

So I am at home on my lunch hour, and just had to share. When I was leaving work to come home from lunch, I walked across the street from the bank to get to my car. I crossed in front of a woman stopped at the stop sign at Cedar & Springfield. Once I was across she yelled "Hey" from her window, when I turned to see if she was talking to me (she was), she said "I like your hair!" I told her thanks, and I think my blah kind of day is getting a little better.

Kudos, stranger lady!

Meet the Parents

2008-09-15T20:39:00.003-05:00

Eric was down this weekend along with is Mom and Dad, Mike and Linda. We had a great time. The rain held off and we were able to tailgate both before and after the Illini football game on Saturday. The game itself was a win but not a pretty one. After the game we got out my new Illini tent and took it for a test run... it is pretty sweet. I see Eric and I using it for years to come, but I failed to take a picture of it.

Sunday after church we met my parents for a fabulous brunch at Silver Creek. It was the first meeting of the parents... and all went well. After about five minutes I think both Eric and I were feeling like we really didn't need to be there... they were all getting along just fine without us.

I am very blessed, not only is Eric the most wonderful man on the planet, but his parents are pretty awesome too... a great package.

We are starting some wedding planning... nothing set in stone but April 4th, 2009 is where we are starting. It has been quite an emotional roller coaster this past week, and I have to brag up on Eric. I have been a bit of a spaz at times and he has been so loving and supportive, thank goodness he is the one I am going to marry I honestly don't think I could plan a wedding with anyone else! :)

I Heart the CPD

2008-09-15T20:03:00.002-05:00

So I am not sure how many of you are up to speed on my history with the Champaign Police department... they have a tendency to stop by in the middle of the night. Allow me to explain.

A few years ago when Karen was staying with me while she was doing her student teaching. We got a knock on the door in the middle of the night when some idiot ran into Karen's car which was parked on the street in front of my house. His car ended up just over the curb in my yard, and Karen's was pushed two houses down and totaled.

About a year after that incident I heard arguing in outside, and thought is was perhaps the new neighbors. It kept up and then moved towards the front of the house, I looked out the front window and a mas was being arrested in my front yard. Later the cops were in the back yard with flashlights, so I got brave enough to go out and ask what was going on. Evidently several blocks away the cops were called three times to a house when the ex-husband kept showing up, he took off the last time and the cops chased him on foot and caught up to him when he tried to jump the fence in my back yard. The cops were using the flashlight to find the magazine clip he lost on the fence climb. The next week when I was mowing I found his handcuffs and returned them to the police station.

So on Friday night Eric was in town with his parents, Mike and Linda. On the way to dinner I was telling them my CPD stories, and we were all laughing. Eric joked that it was about time for another visit. Well who knew... Eric can be kind of prophetic sometimes.

At about 5:15 a.m on Saturday morning I was sleeping on the couch (a gracious hostess always gives up her bed for her guests... plus trying to impress the future in-laws never hurts) and I heard urgent voices outside, it let up and I heard it again, then a bright light was shining in through the front window. I got up to investigate and just as I was looking out the front door, and officer was approaching. I stepped outside to talked to him, and noticed he had a nasty cut on his cheekbone, it was swollen and bleeding. After after him assistance (he declined and said the ambulance was on its way) he proceeds to tell me he may have damaged the fence/gate near my garage when he chased a guy around my house... about then another cop comes from said gate/fence with a rather sassy suspect in cuffs. Evidently he possibly burgled a house 4 or 5 blocks away, they saw him walking near my house. The cop pulled in my driveway, and told him to stop and he thought a better idea would be to run around my house. They kind of bent up my fence when he was apprehended. Anywho he was super nice and took my information and said they would take photos of my fence... not big deal it just needs to be bent back.

He came back to let me know they were finishing up (calling me by name) and that he was going to the ER for a few stitches. I took another look later and the other officer was wandering about, I opened the door and he asked if I had a hose... we went back and he just needed an outdoor water source not a hose because the first officer had to use pepper spray on the suspect, and he was the one that took him to the squad car and he got the spray on his hands and then in his eyes. So he proceeded to wash his eyes out in my back yard.

Meanwhile Mike & Linda slept through the whole thing, but Eric had heard the commotion and we laughing hysterically at the timing of it all. We were really rolling but we had to be quiet as to not wake his parents, plus I didn't want to laugh in the face of the very nice police officer who obviously was having a tough night.

FYI, he was totally cute and tall and Eric was getting tickled at the fact that I was trying to look for a wedding ring (not that they always wear the on duty) so I could set him up with Nikki.

Anyway all is well, and hats off to the CPD for keeping all of the bad guys off the street and dragging them out of my yard!

I said YES!!!!

2008-09-07T22:41:00.008-05:00

Yes, to what you ask? Saturday night Eric asked me to marry him, and I said yes! We had discussed the subject, and I knew it was coming at some point, but I really had no clue as to when. After the Illini football game on Saturday afternoon we came back to my house and took a nap. After napping I had the fixings for a nice dinner, and I decided it would be nice if we didn't wear our pajamas for dinner :) Eric took it as a good sign that it was the right time to ask when he suggested that maybe we could even dress up a little bit for dinner, and my response was "Sure that would be nice." and so the stage was set.

After dinner we were sitting on the couch listening to one of the music stations on the TV, and enjoying a nice bottle of wine. I thought I might have felt a ring box in his pocket, but said nothing, figuring it was probably just his inhaler. Near the end of the bottle of wine Eric got down on bended knee, told me he loved me and asked me to marry him. I said yes! After the initial round of hugs and kisses, I asked him what was in his pocket. He soon produced a beautiful ruby engagement ring. The picture below doesn't really do it justice, but my camera was not really cooperating for me.

A ruby ring, an unconventional choice for an unconventional girl. Many of you may have heard me say over the years that I didn't want an engagement ring, but instead something more practical like and engagement couch or something of the sort. Well I am actually not that practical, but just really not a diamond type of girl... hence the ruby. Eric picked the ring out himself, but we had discussed it earlier in the summer and even did a little bit of "window shopping" so he had a general idea of what I wanted. The ruby came about for several reasons, primarily because it is Eric's birthstone, and well frankly I just find them attractive. The red color also represents love, the blood Christ shed for our sins, and of course... the St. Louis Cardinals, one of our shared passions.

We really don't have any details figured out about the wedding other than sometime in 2009.

I am so excited!!! It took me 38 years, but Lord Almighty Eric was worth the wait. I love him like no other, and I know he loves me just as much. I am so truly blessed to have Eric in my life, along with special friends and family who have been sharing our excitement as we have made phone calls to share the big news.

Oh, another great engagement moment. A few minutes after Eric had proposed, I was wearing the ring and we both had calmed down to the point where we could breath... I realized that the song playing on the TV music channel was none other than "Walking on Sunshine" by Katrina and The Waves. Many of you know that this is one of my most favorite songs of all time. It only seems appropriate that this song was playing... does Eric have great timing or what?

I will leave you with the lyrics...

Oh! Ohhhh yeeeaaaah

I used to think maybe you loved me, now baby I'm sure

And i just cant wait till the day when you knock on my door

Now every time i go for the mailbox, gotta hold myself down

Cos i just can't wait till you write me you're coming around

I'm walking on sunshine, wooah

I'm walking on sunshine, wooah and don't it feel good!!

Hey, alright now

and don't it feel good!!

hey yeah

I used to think maybe you loved me, now I know that it's true

and I don't want to spend my whole life, just in waiting for you

now I don't want u back for the weekend not back for a day, oh no no

I said baby I just want you back and I want you to stay, woah yeh!

I'm walking on sunshine wooah

I'm walking on sunshine, wooah

I'm walking on sunshine, wooah and don't it feel good!!

Hey, alright now and don't it feel good!!

Hey yeah, and don't it feel good!!

Walking on sunshine

I feel the love, I feel the love,

I feel the love that's really real

I feel the love, I feel the love,

I feel the love that's really real

I'm on sunshine baby

Oh, I'm on sunshine baby

Oh I'm walking on sunshine wooah

I'm walking on sunshine wooah

I'm walking on sunshine wooah and don't it feel good!!

I'll say it again now

and don't it feel good!!

Happy Birthday Tara!

2008-09-04T20:04:00.004-05:00

So today is a new birthday to blog about. It is Tara Barker's birthday. Tara and her husband Scott are two of Eric's closest friends… any I have to give him credit, Eric did a fine job in the friend department.

I got to know Tara much better in July when we all went to Indy for the weekend of the Brickyard 400. It was there that she introduced me to the most wonderful contraption ever… a pineapple slicer. It is amazing… it slices and cores a fresh pineapple in a matter of just seconds… plus you then have a hollowed out pineapple "shell" to use as a serving dish with just a quick cut of the core. I highly recommend you pick one up if you happen to like fresh pineapple. You can save money by not buying the pre-cut ones at the grocery store. I know I sound like a complete dork getting all worked up about a kitchen gadget, but seriously it has been life changing… Thanks Tara!

Tara's other miraculous talent is finding kick-butt parking spaces in crowded parking lots. It is freaky… awesome spots just appear for her. Oh she might have to circle once, but it isn't like she is stalking everyone leaving the store for 10 minutes… she just totally has "parking chee". My favorite part about this, besides not having to hike long distances when we are shopping together… it completely gets Eric's goat… which is just fun to watch. In general, Tara and I can always find something fun to tease Eric about. Now that I think about it, in general I think most everyone bonds with a significant other's friend by teasing the significant other. I know John & I love to tease Jenn, and Nikki & Eric have shared a few moments teasing me (Case in point, I forgot to mention this when blogging about our trip. I provided two very "Duh, Jane!" moments. First when Nik and I stopped at Wal-Mart in Arkansas on the way downt to Sarah J's. I started to say "Wow, they have a Starbucks here!" when I realized the green sign lettering on the beige building said "Dollar Tree" instead of Starbucks. Then, this is classic. At Minute Maid Park, I leaned over to Eric and asked him "What are the orange things in the cargo car of the train that runs behind the outfield, pumpkins? It is still August, it isn't fall yet, kind of early for pumpkins!" Eric's response was "Dear, I believe those are oranges… we are at MINUTE MAID Park!"… Duh, Jane!)

Okay, so back to Tara. She is also enjoys good beer, and she is doing the World Beer Tour at Old Chicago as well. I think we even make the same "Oh that was bad beer" faces.

Beyond pineapple slicers, shopping and beer… Tara has just been a great friend to both Eric and I. She and Scott have been very gracious in sharing Eric with me. I also remember some very encouraging words she gave to me early this spring when I mentioned something about the trials of a long distance relationship in an email… "Hang in there, you and Eric are both worth it!" I couldn't agree more. Happy Birthday Tara!

Sweet Home Champaign-Urbana

2008-09-02T21:23:00.004-05:00

Hello All! Home at last. Sorry about the lack of blogging, and if any of you were concerned that we had suddenly disappeared. Basically we just got too busy to blog, but we also received some sad news on Wednesday... Nikki's Grandma Hinman passed away. Needless to say blogging didn't seem quite as important when put into perspective. Nikki went ahead and finished up the trip as planned. Grandma Hinman was a big supporter of our road trips and Nikki and her family decided that she wouldn't want Nik to cut it short. We carried on and enjoyed the rest of our trip, although there were some teary moments along the way.

I will do a quick post to update you on the rest of our trip. We have plenty of more video footage that hopefully Nik and I can download later as time permits.

I think we left off with Wednesday. Sarah J went to work that morning to finish up a few things and Nikki and I headed to Jackson to do a little shopping. We met Sarah at the airport so she could drop off her car and it would be waiting for her when she flew back to Houston. We left Jackson that afternoon and drove down through MS, across LA and into Texas and stayed the night about an hour from Houston. Thursday morning we traveled along the gulf, and took the free ferry across to Galveston Island. It was Nik's first ever ferry ride and we all saw dolphins in the water during our 15-20 minute crossing. We had lunch on Galveston and spent the afternoon walking along the beach. The gulf water was nice and warm. We drove up to Houston that afternoon and got settled in our hotel. After dinner and a movie (we watched Hairspray on Nik's computer) we ventured to Houston Hobby airport to pick up Eric. It was great to see my Sweetie.

Nik & Sarah J at the beach, enjoying the warm gulf water

On Friday we all went to Space Center Houston at Johnson Space Center. Ideally we would have had more time there, we are all kind of into the space thing... but we made the most of it. My personal favorite was the tram tour and getting to see historic Mission Control where the famous "Houston, we have a problem!" was first heard. We all resisted the temptation to purchase clever t-shirts that said "It's Not Rocket Science!... Oh wait, yes it is... Space Center Houston" Late that afternoon we headed back to the hotel for a quick change and then off to the ballpark for the game.

Eric & I with the Saturn 5 rocket.

The Cards were swept by the Astros for the series, so nothing positive to report baseball-wise on this trip. Friday was however Brad Ausmus (aka "the cute Astro") bobble-head night, and after a few clicks on Google images Nik and I managed to introduce Sarah J to her new baseball boyfriend, Brad Ausmus. At the game we discovered that the female Astro fans are insanely fanatic about center fielder Hunter Pence. Seriously all weekend the Hunter Pence shrieks were over the top. Personally we don't really get it... he is kind of cute but nowhere near being as attractive as Brad, and frankly his baseball is pretty much just average.

Brad Ausmus: Attractive, and obviously a dog lover... no wonder we got Sarah hooked

Saturday, us old folks (Eric & I) were lazy bums and slept in, while Nik and Sarah J checked out the aquarium. They gave it a thumbs up. We met up for lunch at Flying Saucer where Eric and I sampled some good Texas beer, then we headed off to take a tour of Minute Maid Park. At the end of our tour we got to take in the Astro batting practice from the diamond seats behind home plate. We didn't think of it until later, but we should have asked our tour guide to point out George and Barbara Bush's seats... darn! Here are my thoughts on the ballpark. Overall it was a pleasant experience, the folks were friendly (I had been warned that we would be heckled, but didn't have any problems) and it is a nice park. The concourses are very open, and it reminds me of Miller Park in Milwaukee a bit. The roof was closed all three games due the heat, but we did get to see it open on Friday night for the fireworks show they had post-game. The purist in me finds the indoor baseball with the roof closed to be just plain wrong, but I have to admit the air conditioning was oh so enjoyable. It is way hot and humid in Houston. They have some great food including BBQ, and some awesome baked potatoes.

At Minute Maid, during Astros batting practice

On Sunday Sarah J flew back home, and Eric, Nik and I took in our third game. Another loser. After the game we started our very long trip home. We thought we would stay near Little Rock for the night, but had to press on until 2 a.m. and stopped less than an hour shy of Memphis as all of the Gustav evacuees had taken all of the hotel rooms. We got home at 1:30 Monday afternoon and dropped Nik off. Eric and I grabbed lunch, and then headed to the QC. I came back to C-U today and crashed until just a few hours ago.

Dry Town

2008-08-27T01:09:00.003-05:00

After dinner tonight we decided to go get a drink... this is what happened... enjoy!

Shaker Showdown: The Big Muddy

2008-08-26T09:54:00.009-05:00

Hi Everyone- We arrived in Vicksburg Sunday evening, and have been enjoying a grand time staying with Sarah J and the other Jersey Girls, Daisy & Madison. We went to El Ranchero for dinner on Sunday so we didn't need any pepper, so no GTA news there. On Monday Sarah J went to work, and Nikki and I slept in then ventured out to explore Vicksburg a bit. We followed the "Scenic Tour" through downtown and along the river. Some of the tour was very scenic, some of it was not so much (possible video to come later). We also hit the outlet mall, and had great success at Bath and Body works (you can never under estimate the importance of moisturizing, right Eric?) and the Gap.

We stopped at Sonic for lunch, and then again later for Happy Hour. Kind of hard to rate the pepper shakers there since they use the paper packets... pretty much a "tear and sprinkle" not so much a shake, a lazy man's pepper if you will, right Sergeant Pepper?

For dinner we went to the Heritage Buffet at the Ameristar Casino. It was fabulous with an awesome salad bar, mac & cheese and fried chicken, not to mention the dessert bar to die for.

The pepper shaker left a lot to be desired. It definitely needs work. Sergeant Pepper gives it two shakers. It really only deserves one based on the pepper itself, but the dessert bar makes up for the poor pepper shake.

After dinner we went back to Sarah's and were entertained by Madison and Daisy, the funniest dogs ever.

I think today were are going to check out some of the shops downtown while Sarah J is at work, and then tonight we have something special planned... you will have to tune in later to see what we do.

Shaker Showdown-Lambert's Cafe

2008-08-24T15:17:00.005-05:00

We would like to introduce you to Pepper....George Pepper. He prefers his pepper shaken, not fresh ground.

You may recall from previous posts that Jane's dad George is very particular about his pepper shakers. This is a fact that Jane likes to bring up when we are out eating somewhere. It is determined if the pepper shaker would be "GTA" or "George Tjardes Approved". It's an approval rating that's sweeping the nation. Ok, maybe not the nation but at least close friends and family. Anyways, Jane and I felt that it is our civic responsibility to report back to you, the loyal blog readers, on the GTA ratings of the many establishments we will be patronizing in the coming week. We will be rating the pepper shakers on a scale of 1-5 shakers to be shown at the end of each post by our new friend, Sergeant Pepper. Without any further ado, we give you Lambert's Cafe...

Officially Seageant Pepper is giving this one a GTA rating of 4 shakers. They got 1/2 a shaker for style points for the cute Coke bottle shaker that was effective as well (plus we can't make a 1/2 shaker picture).

Til next time! Happy Peppering!

"Roll"-in on the River

2008-08-24T14:08:00.003-05:00

Hi y'all! This is Nikki, guest blogging for Jane this afternoon on Day 1 of our trek south. Why am I blogging and not Jane you ask? Well, Jane is a great multitasker but I personally feel much safer that she is not trying to blog and drive at the same time. Right now we are coming to you live from I-55 courtesy of my new laptop and Verizon Broadband card which we are so loving right now. Being able to surf the net on the road is great. When you are not exactly sure how to get to Lambert's you can instantly look it up online. However I would recommend getting a power adaptor in which you plug the laptop into while traveling. We had a to make a pit stop at Wal Mart (what trip would be complete without a trip to Wal Mart?) in Blytheville, AR to remedy the dead battery problem. But we are back online again and are adding a new feature to the blog this week......video blogging. When I got my laptop from Dell the nice people there sent me a free gift....a Flip video recorder. Jane and I have had more fun with this video recorder in the last 5 hours....it is our new favorite toy and we already have multiple video ideas for this trip so be sure to check back for the latest.

Ok, back to the point....we headed out of C-U this morning around 7:00. The trip was fairly uneventful until our arrival at Lamberts' Cafe, Home of the Throwed Roll in Sykeston, MO. If you have never been there it is quite the experience. When they say they throw their rolls, they are not lying. We witnessed rolls being chucked the length of the dining room. Jane and I have decided that we would like to be a roll thrower for a day. We could totally walk around yelling "Hot Rolls!" and throwing them at random people on request. We have also decided that this would make a great celebrity fundraising event. Chris Carpenter needs some rehab work? Head on down to Sykeston and throw some rolls for a day. That could totally loosen up the arm. A few people on our celebrity throwed rolls wish list:

Adam Wainwright: He is a southern boy and could totally feel right at home in a place that serves chicken gizzards and fried okra.

Britt Miller (Illinois linebacker): We're not sure if linebackers can throw but he would definitely make it entertaining. He would be awesome at working the crowd.

Brett Favre: When he retires for real he could still go back to throwing something.

Carrie Walsh and Misty May-Treanor: They could spike your roll at you. A whole new spin on the roll throw.

Matthew McConaughey: This is completely dependent on their no shoes, NO SHIRT policy.

But back to our visit. The food was great as was the service. Jane and I both had a little crush on our waiter Andy. He was super cute and had a major southern accent that was adorable. We got there just in time too. We had absolutely no wait for a table but when we left there were probably 50 people waiting outside. Overall Lambert's is a great place to eat (see more of our Lambert's "rating" in our next post). I highly recommend stopping if you are in the area. Here is a little video clip of our trip to Lamberts.

Living a Blog Free Existance

2008-08-21T23:53:00.002-05:00

So it has been brought to my attention (thanks Jenn :)) that I have been a bit of blog slacker of late. Actually that is a bit of a good thing. After being on the on the road every weekend for over a month, last weekend I simply went to the QC to just hang out with Eric. After watching the construction all spring and summer, the Sonic near Eric's house recently opened, so we finally got to go there... twice... supper Friday night was so good, we decided to stop in for breakfast on Saturday morning. Other than that we did a whole lot of nothing, stopping by Bent River to pick up a growler of our favorite beer to go with our Frank's pizza on Saturday night, and then church on Sunday. It was great to have a lazy weekend and rest up before we head to Houston next week.

Right now I am blogging between Benedryl induced comas. There is something in the air the past day or so that has left me with some seriously boogered up and itchy eyes.

The past two weeks I have been checking out the Olympics. So far my favorites are Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh... I will admit I got a little "misty" myself watching them celebrate their gold medal win. My former Illini Justin Spring and Deron Williams are doing me proud too. Justin Spring (gymnast) ties with Usain Bolt (Jamaican sprinter) for best Olympic name ever. A gymnast named Spring, a sprinter named Bolt, does it get any better than that?

Okay, time or more Benedryl and my next coma.

Big Win At Wrigley, and other Windy City Highlights

2008-08-12T14:02:00.006-05:00

This past weekend Nikki, Eric and I headed to Chicago. We stayed with my "lil' sis" Nathan and went to the Cubs vs. Cards game at Wrigley on Saturday. I had not been to Wrigley since I was about eight, and as you might expect not too much has changed. I have to admit, even though it is the home of the rival Cubs, Wrigley is kind of cool. The ivy is truly unique and I enjoyed the "old school" vibe. We also managed to see the only game that the Cards won that series... they beat up Big Z pretty good. Eric tossed out a new name for Skip Schumaker at Wrigley as well. I usually call him "Skippy", and Eric usually goes with "Schu", but for some reason when he came up to bat Eric took it a little further and went with Let's Go "Schu-man-chu"... evidently Skippy is a fan of the new nickname... he went yard!

It was very weird and wrong to see Jim Edmonds as a Cub. I still love him, but as long as he is a Cub I will root against him. You can tell he still has fond feelings for me, when I was there in person he struck out a lot.

It was great to hang out with Nathan for the weekend. I had missed my lil' sis. He was a great host, making us pancakes on Saturday before heading out to the game, and then we all pitched in for a community effort on grilling out an awesome dinner. We also hit Sheffield's for some good beer before the game. He even drove Eric & I to the Metra station on Sunday evening to catch the train. I was a little disappointed to not me able to meet Nathan's squeeze, Stacey, but she was actually packing up her stuff in Nashville, TN and will be moving up to Chicago to be with Nathan later this week. On Sunday we went out for breakfast and met Nathan's college buddy, Maureen, and her boyfriend, Erik with a "K" who were back in the area from Boston visiting her parents. It was kind of cool because Nathan, Maureen and I all started dating Stacey, Eric and Erik right around the New Year and all of the relationships are working out fabulously.

Nik headed out of the city after breakfast on Sunday, but Eric and I stayed and met my friends Abe & Allison (see a link to their blog at the right) Sunday afternoon. They have been married just over a year, and like Eric and I met on Eharmony and had a long distance relationship. It was great to hang out with them, especially to bond over the ups and downs of the long distance relationship.

I like Chicago... at least to visit anyway. It was a great weekend with great friends.

Best Day

2008-08-05T22:32:00.008-05:00

On Sunday Eric and I had one of our best days together. We decided to stay over in STL on Saturday night after the game and spend the day together on Sunday just doing whatever came our way. As it turned out the game on Sunday was moved to a night game for ESPN so we were able to tour Busch Stadium on Sunday after breakfast at our hotel. FYI, the breakfast included at waffle station... one of my favorites. Eric said my waffles were better, but these were pretty good and they were included with our stay.

The tour of the stadium was lots of fun... and a little bit different than the one I went on last season. We both really enjoyed it, and our time together. I snapped a fun little picture of Eric doing his best Tony LaRussa impression on the dugout steps.

After the Stadium we headed about 10 minutes west to the Schlafly Brewery Bottleworks. We have enjoyed the Schlafly beer in the past and wanted to learn more. We had an appetizer and a pint at the bar before we took the tour of the bottleworks. The tour was very interesting and educational, and other than a couple of very college girls who were enjoyable and asked really good questions, we were the only ones on the tour. The free tour included three different tastings. Afterwards we headed back to the bar for an actual meal (late lunch/early supper) and one last pint. We had the best time there chatting with each other, the awesome bartender/waitress and the various other patrons. I swearr if we didn't have to head home we would have stayed there all day and night. We have already decided we are going back on our next trip to STL, either The Bottleworks or Schlafly's Tap Room downtown. The food was fabulous, the beer was great (between the two of us we sampled quite a few and really enjoyed them all) and everyone was so nice and friendly... we felt like Norm at "Cheers!"

All in all it was just a great day. Eric and I got to spend some special time together, just hanging out and enjoying each others company and some of our favorite things... baseball and beer. We both agreed it was just the "Best Day"!

A Picture is Worth 1,000 Words

2008-08-05T22:13:00.006-05:00

Saturday I went to picture day at Busch Stadium... we have had been patiently waiting for this since Spring Training. Essentially, they let the fans down on the warning track before the game and then the players come out and "walk the rope line" waving, posing for photos, just bascially chatting it up with the fans. We we made our rhinestone "Franklin 31" shirts in Florida Frankie asked if we would be wearing them in STL, so of course April, Ang, Nik and I rocked the rhinestones. April even made a 5 foot banner that said "Frankie's Fan Squad". All the players that saw the shirts and banner took note, and once again Frankie was totalling loving it. I believe his quote was "Man, if they would let me stop I would give you all hugs" or something to that effect. Brad Thompson and Aaron Miles had the best reactions. Aaron Mile was just cracking up, and Brad Thompson's said in response to "Frankies' Fan Squad"... "Me Too!"... evidently he and Ryan Franklin are buds. It was really hot but lots of fun.

I got a great picture of Nik and Ang with Rick Ankiel... he wasn't playing that day so he spent lots of time working the crowd. Eric joined us, as did April's Mom, Jane. Eric was a trooper... I know it got way girly for him at times but he was genuinely amused by the players' various reactions to our shirts and banner. Oh, and finally Nikki got to see her favorite, Joe Mather, play in person. Joey Bomb was super friendly with the crowd and Nik was beside herself with the "Aws!" every time he posed with a small child... I will admit he is pretty darn charming.

The Cards lost the game, which was kind of a bummer. Eric was disappointed that his original adjusting of the pins on his floppy hat wasn't successful, and has already done some additional tweaking for our next game in September.

The Birthday Blogs Continue

2008-08-02T11:55:00.002-05:00

Okay, so July is over and you would think there would be a break in the birthday blogging since "Everyone I know was born in July", but August starts off with two birthdays.

August 1st is my Mom's birthday, and my oldest niece Ashley's birthday. I will start with Ashley. It is hard to believe but she turns 21! When did that happen? I am alternately excited and completely freaked out that Ashley and I can actually go out for a beer now, with neither of us being under threat of being carted off to jail. Ashley is currently recovering from knee surgery… kind of a bummer summer, huh? Oh well, I am sure she is making the best of it… she is good about that. It is still hard to believe that she is 21, I guess that makes me old. I remember very well when she was just a little tot, planting marshmallows in her Mom's flower bed in an attempt to grow and harvest one of her favorite foods. I also remember that when she was learning to talk, they taught her to say "Ciao, baby!" instead of good-bye… how Italian Riviera. I must admit, it was pretty hysterical. Anyway, Happy Birthday Ashley! I was going to say that I would buy you a beer the next time I see you, but instead I think maybe you should buy me one!

Happy Birthday Mom! Today is my Mom's 71st birthday. Ashley (her first grandchild) was born on her 50th birthday. My Mom is the least annoying person I know. I know that is perhaps a strange thing to say, but it is true. You know how pretty much everyone you know, even the people you love with all of your heart, do something that just bugs you but it really isn't that big of a deal so you just bite your tongue because you are just being petty and you love them and you know if you said anything it would hurt their feelings… that kind of thing? Well, my Mom doesn't really have an annoying something or other… I love that about her, but at the same time am sort of jealous about it too because I know I am not like that. Maybe that is her "annoying thing"… the fact that she is not annoying! My Mom makes me laugh… a lot, and the best part is she is never really trying to make me laugh, she just says stuff that cracks me up. She also loves the Cardinals, but she is very low key about it. You don't really think she is paying all that much attention, then like she did the other night when Eric and I were at my parents house, she notices that Julian Tavarez (aka "High Cinco" by Allison Sit) is pitching for the Braves, and says "Hey, he pitched for the Cardinals, right?" Heck, even I have lost track of High Cinco over the years and didn't realize he was with the Braves. I like that kind of attention to details, Mom. Happy Birthday Mom!... High Cinco on the big 7-1!

Happy Birthday Sweet-E!

2008-07-30T20:41:00.004-05:00

As promised here is a special birthday blog for Eric, my Sweet-E. Happy Birthday Eric! Better late than never, but I actually celebrated with him that day/weekend so I think I am good.

I love Eric! I love him for lots of reasons but a short list is because he loves God, he loves me and he loves the Cardinals... in that order. I am so blessed to be dating a man who has such a strong faith in God, because it just strengthens my faith that much more. One of my favorite things is that every night before we go to bed and say good night, when we are talking on the phone, Eric and I each pray. It is wonderful to share these things with my partner.

There were several specific instances early in our relationship when I knew Eric was special. The first was in an email, his 9-point answer to what he learned from his divorce pretty much knocked me off my feet. Before we actually met... we talked on the phone for 5 or 6 hours or something ridiculous like that. You kind of have something special when you can talk that long. The next is the night of our first date/face to face meeting. We were meeting at Granite City restaurant in East Peoria. I had gotten off at the right exit, but didn't see the restaurant right away. I decided to pull into the Wal-Mart parking lot and call Eric so he could give me directions. When he picked up the phone and asked where I was, before I could answer he said "Never mind, you are at Wal-Mart", and he was just a few cars behind me and saw my car. I can't describe it, but right then I had an idea that this guy just might be my Prince Charming.

I love Eric because he "gets me" like nobody else I know, and he seems to truly love and appreciate even the wackiest of my quirks. He lets me pick up and straighten because he knows that is what I do, but always seems to have just the right way of getting me to sit still and relax without ever really saying "Sit still and relax". A long distance relationship can be kind of crazy at times, I get overwhelmed and sometimes cry for no reason. This doesn't freak Eric out at all, he just helps me cry, encourages me to just "get it all out". No one has ever done that for me before... it takes a lot of patience and it takes a lot of love... Eric has plenty of both.

I love Eric's little quirks too. He is so literal, and is quick to point out to me that it would be much safer if I just "stepped into the shower" instead of "jumped into the shower". Arrgghh... it drives me crazy, but darn it, I love it too. The best was this past weekend when I was quick to catch him saying he was going to "jump into the shower". I love that he wears his floppy hat to the Cardinals games, and added another pin to the hat for our last game because it had always been a winning hat before, but had lost its mojo at our games in April... the extra pin did the trick. The floppy hat is cute... I like that it isn't conventional.

I love that Eric and I enjoy a lot of the same things, in particular watching baseball and drinking good beer. One of the reasons the River Bandit games have become so special to us is because we can do both there... they serve one of our favorite beers, the Uncommon Stout from Bent River. He also introduced me to one of my new favorites, Whitey's ice cream, a QC favorite. I am hooked, no trip to the QC is complete for me without my Whitey's fix. Eric also just does really sweet things for me, beside the "Eric's Girlfriend" tiara and sash, he rode the Carousel at the children's museum with me last weekend... probably not really his thing, but he knew I wanted to ride it with him... I like that. He also always makes the coffee when we visit each other... it is usually much better than mine.

Eric just knows how to love me, and he knows how to take care of me, and he is very good at letting me know how special I am to him, and how well I take care of him. He also knows how to make me laugh... sometimes it is a look, sometimes he will say something, or sometimes he will just start tickling. I try to tickle back, but he really isn't that ticklish, but I think he ends up laughing anyway because I keep trying to tickle him anyway... I am stubborn that way.

So I guess I will stop now... I could go on forever, but y'all probably think I am being sickeningly sweet already. Maybe I am, but I really don't care... I am so in love with my Sweet-E I just can't stop myself.

Happy Birthday, Eric! I hope to celebrate many more with you!

Birthday Blog Back-Up

2008-07-30T19:51:00.006-05:00

So I leave town for a few days and return to be four birthday behind in the blog... seriously everyone I know was born in July. I was in Indy over the weekend, with Eric and the Barkers, Scott, Tara and Kira. Scott and Eric went to the Nascar race at the Brickyard on Sunday, while the girls did a little shopping. On Saturday we went to the Indy Zoo, and then on Monday we stopped by the Indianapolis Children's Museum before heading home. So... I have been kind of busy, thus me being a total blog slacker. Here is a picture of the gang before heading off to Indy.

Alas, I am going to try and catch up on the birthday blogging. Sunday July 27th was a triple threat... Eric's birthday, my college roommate Jeanne's birthday, and my nephew Lane's birthday. Then on July 28th was my friend Karen's 30th birthday! That's a lot of birthdays, I know here goes.

Happy Birthday, Eric! What can I say.... well a lot actually, so I will special blog for him later. Sorry if the rest of you feel slighted but he is puts up will all of my crap and he makes me coffee, so I am sure you will understand.

Happy Birthday, Jeanne! Actually Jeanne was just here visiting me for few days last week. She was back home visiting her Dad near Chicago for a few weeks, and needed to come down to the U of I to meet with the folks in the Art & Design Department to set up a scholarship in her Mom, Kathleen's memory. It was pretty low key, but I always enjoy hanging out with Jeanne. We watched Project Runway... she turned me on that fabulous show. She and her husband, Ted, are looking to move from Florida now that Ted is wrapping up his PhD. Ted is an ocean engineer so I am hoping for a beachy place to stay when I go visit. Jeanne told me that I always looks so nice and put together whenever I go anywhere. I love that because most times I think I don't look so great. When was Jeanne was planning her visit I mentioned that her birthday was the same as Eric's and she graciously said to blog about me sweetie and not her... that was kind of sweet. Also, Friday before she headed home she stopped and got a birhtday present for Eric... some Fat Tire beer. I was very good... and she slyly figured out his beer preferences by asking me about it the day before... I was clueless I had no idea she was quizzing me, just thought she was showing interest in my boyfriend. I love that Jeanne is setting up a scholarship to honor her mom... she loved art and art history, and I think a scholarship is great way to honor and remember her. I am going to give it a plug. If you love art or art history, or just love Moms, or are looking for a tax write off let me know I can give you all the info for the Kathleen Genis Memorial Fund. Happy Birthday, Jeanne!

Happy Birthday, Lane! Laner is my oldest nephew and he just turned 20. He is going to go to Carlinville High School for one more year, then is going to go to Carbondale the following fall for a residential program to improve his life skills. We he come back from Carbondale he will have his own place to live. Jan & Larry found a little fixer upper house in Carlinville at auction and the Pfeiffer family is working hard on fixing it up for Lane and his dogs. Eric and I checked it out last weekend when we were there. It will take some work (but they are all handy like that) but it will be perfect for Lane. Within walking distance of both Jan & Larry's work, the ballfields at the school, the grocery store where Lane works, and church. Lane is excited about it and I am too. Lane is so much fun to hang out with, he always has something on his mind to ask you about... usually sports, but you never know. Lane doesn't forget much either, he hasn't been around Eric all that much but he remembers what teams/drivers Eric likes and he is quick to ask him about them. Even though he is 20, Lane never fails to tell me "pooty pooty pooh" everytime I see him, something that started when he was just a little boy. I also remember the book Lane loved to have read to him when he was little. He got so excited whenever you read it to him... I still have parts of it memorized "Esther's Trunk by Jez Alborough. Esther felt just like a chump. My trunk (she was an elephant) she said 'has lost it's trump'... whenever you find yourself in such a pickle, here's a feather, try a tickle (she had a pickle stuck in her trunk, and they used a feather to tickle it and make her sneeze and thus eject the pickle) Happy Birthday, Lane!

Happy Birthday, Karen! Karen is one of my bestest buddies that I met at the Assembly Hall. She was Nikki's roommate in college/post college for a few years. She was my roommate for a few months when she went back to school and did her student teaching. Karen live in Effingham with her husband Ben. Okay so they have been married a year and it is still slightly weird to realize that Karen is a wife. Karen teaches high school, and is the yearbook advisor. I admire the fact that she is doing her part to shape the leaders of tomorrow... I don't know that I have the patience to deal with high school kids every day. Some of my best Karen memories are from our trip to Disney a number of years ago, and our annual girls trip to STL for the Illinois-Mizzou braggin' rights game. I can't recall all of the specifics but just remember laughing a lot. I miss having Karen around on a more regular basis, but I love that we pretty much just pick up right where we left off. I also can't believe Karen is 30! I actually have loved my thirties... they have been so much better than my twenties, not sure why but they just have been, probably because I stopped tryin to figure out what I "should" be/do and just started being/doing! Happy Birthday Karen!

Happy Birthday Mom-E!

2008-07-21T19:15:00.004-05:00

Today's birthday bloggee is Linda Noyd, Eric's Mom. Happy Birthday Linda!

I have know Linda for about five months now, and she has been incredibly welcoming. I don't know her really well but so far I like what I see. She is a loving, loyal and caring wife, mother and grandmother. She raised two wonderful sons who love God, their family and the St. Louis Cardinals. She also raised them to put the toilet seat down too. Not just the seat but the lid, which is above and beyond my upbringing. It makes perfect sense but if you put the lid down, then flush it keeps any toilet germs stirred up by the flush inside the bowl, rather than splattered about the bathroom. Eric said his Mom taught him that... why did I not know that before I met Eric?

Linda is infamous for the calendars she makes as Christmas gifts for the family each year. It includes birthdays, anniversaries etc. and each month contains pictures of the family from that same month the previous year. As such she always has a camera at the ready, a you better remember that whatever you are doing you are likely to be calendar fodder. I am thinking I might make the 2009 calendar... it will be an honor.

I knew I liked Linda the first time I met her... when I left she hugged me good-bye... TWICE! Happy Birthday, Linda! And a special thanks for raising your oldest son to be a man I am honored to love and call my Sweet-E.

Editors Note: This is picture of Linda with Eric and his Dad, Mike as they were embarking on a cruise ship last December

Bonus Miles!!!

2008-07-21T00:18:00.004-05:00

Tie game in the bottom of the 9th, the Padres intentionally walk both Yadi and Skippy loading the bases to face Aaron Miles, who they think is not a power threat. Mr. Miles jacks a walk off grand slam... that my friends was what we like to refer to as "BONUS MILES!!!"

Miles is mobbed by his teammates at home, Cards sweep the Padres... FABULOUS!

No I wasn't there to see it in person, but it was still beautiful to see on TV! I heart Bonus Miles!

Uncle George & Jenn: Birthday Buddies

2008-07-17T17:44:00.003-05:00

Okay so the crazy amount of birthday blogging continues, and I have to admit I have been a bit of a slacker because yesterday was my Dad's 72nd birthday. But today is my friend Jenn Thomas' birthday and since one of my stories involves the two of them I decided a combo birthday blog was in order.

Ah my Dad... I am not sure I can really top last year's birthday blog, so be sure to check it out if you can. I must admit the GTA (George Tjardes Approved) pepper shaker rating has taken off like wildfire. The first time I peppered at Eric's house his shakers totally GTA... I knew we could continue dating. I must admit that last Saturday at a wedding the pepper shaker was not GTA and I most definitely followed in my fathers footsteps and screwed the top off and tapped out the pepper that way. My Dad had a tough spring, on two consecutive Fridays in March his brother and farming partner for over 45 years, Harry, and Robert, the man that was their hired hand for 26 years beginning in 1969 passed away. I can't imagine what it would be like to have the two men you spent the majority of your working career, your everydays with suddenly be gone... let alone within a single week. My Dad has managed to carry on, and I truly admire him for that.

Happy Birthday Dad!

Happy Birthday Jenn! Growing up Jenn always referred to my Dad as "Uncle George" I never completely got that... we were not related, but only later in life did I discover that you do not need to be related by blood to be "family". Along those same lines Jenn's daughters call me "Aunt Jane", and I am honored.

So one of my best Jenn stories I believe I told in last year's blog. We had gone out with John and his friend Todd and came back to my parents house, and Jenn was blitzed. She proceeded to tell my Dad, "George I am OBLIVIATED!" My Dad's response was classic George, "Yes Jennifer, I can see that, I can see that you are "obliviated". Dad and Jenn still both enjoy that story even though it happened about 14 years ago.

Jenn has had kind of a tough spring as well. In May John was reassigned to his new Air Force position in Colorado Springs but Jenn and the girls are staying behind in Omaha (at least for the time being) until their house sells. I know the separation is very difficult on their entire family and in the middle of it all Jenn has kept their home "showing ready" for the past six months with a 4-year old and 7-year old in residence. That is perseverance, and I truly admire Jenn for keeping it together. Through all of this she is still the same good ol' Jenn asking me about how things are going with Eric, checking up on my parents, asking about Nikki.

Jenn has been my friend ever since I can remember. I love that I don't have to fill her in on my history. I love that we can talk about ANYTHING and EVERYTHING!

So Dad and Jenn... I hope your birthdays are FABULOUS!!!!

Happy Birthday Sore Loser!

2008-07-14T21:08:00.004-05:00

Today is my friend Jen Rohn's birthday. Jen and I co-lead our small group, and have been friends now for close to three years. Jen is the first one who said "Hi" to me at Quest my first Sunday, and just kept coming back.

Jen is a self-confessed bad loser... it was challenging when we played euchre at small group one night and she wasn't on the same team as Mel... a self-confessed bad winner. Thankfully Jen won, and Mel lost (thanks to me) and we avoided a big melt down. Jen is also partially responsible for introducing me to Karaoke Revolution on PS2... I am so not a singer but I totally rocked Break Away and Proud Mary... and I got to dress my character in fuzzy boots.... how cool is that.

Jen is also a great woman of faith, and I treasure her support of my walk with God. Thanks Jen... have a happy birthday, I hope you win at everything today!

Birthday Blogging: The Rule of 48- Happy Birthday Mrs. Joe Mather

2008-07-13T20:37:00.002-05:00

Okay, so July 11th was Nikki's birthday, and if you do the math you will see that I am two days late with her birthday blog. However on the July 11th I was actually out celebrating her birthday with her, so I couldn't really celebrate and blog at the same time... I am no so good as multi-tasking... just ask Eric. Anyway, but then I remembered the Birthday Blogging: Rule of 48, which states that if you are actually out celebrating said birthday you then have an extra 48 hours to write the blog... you know time to rest up from the celebration, download your pictures etc.

So here goes. Happy Birthday Nikki... or should I say Mrs. Joe Mather. As you all know Nikki is my Cardinal buddy and we have a tendency to crush on players now and then, Joe Mather is Nikki's latest crush. He is an outfielder/first baseman that is currently up with the big league team in St. Louis from AAA Memphis. We met him at Cards Caravan in January, and he was super chatty and sweet. Then at Spring Training one day at practice he came trotting by and said "Good Morning Ladies" to Nik, Ang, April and myself. Okay so this on one of the reasons I love Nikki. A few days before we left for Spring Training she sent us an email letting us know that Joe was her new crush and the long shot she was rooting for to make the major league roster and that these were the reasons #1 He was tall, #2 He was very friendly to us at Caravan, #3 He was very cute, especially when he sports the glasses, #4 He is from Idaho, and Nikki very much enjoys potatoes! Only Nik would come up with something like #4.

Friday night we went to celebrate #29 with Nik at 88 Broadway, a new dueling piano bar in Urbana located at Lincoln Square. Nikki loves piano bars, probably because she know the lyrics to pretty much every song ever recorded. I must admit they are lots of fun, and hopefully this one makes it, it gets thumbs up from me although at times it would appear that some of the crowd really wasn't getting the "sing-a-long" concept. It was a fun little group that we had, besides Nik, Eric and myself, our friend Karen and her husband, Ben joined us, along with our "boss" from the Assembly Hall, Nate and his buddy Jamie, and my friend/former co-worker, Allison, and her sister Meg aka Ace.

So here is another reason I love Nikki, taken from a phone conversation on Friday before we picked her up to go to 88 Broadway.

Nik: Hey, what's up?

Jane: We are running a little late, Eric got a late start and we are just now sitting down to dinner, so we will be there at about 8:00 instead of 7:45

Nik: Excellent, now I can stop running around my apartment like a mad woman trying to get ready in time!

I wish everyone got that excited when I was running late!

I am looking forward to another road trip with Nikki in about six weeks. We are headed to Mississippi to see Sarah J, then head with her to New Orleans and then Houston where Eric will meet us for some Cardinal games against the Astros. I am sure we will have lots of stories to tell.

Happy Birthday Nikki!

Editor's Note: This picture is of Nikki with our buddy Nate, not Joe Mather.

Happy Birthday Linda R. Smith

2008-07-09T22:43:00.003-05:00

Today is Linda's birthday, she is one of the administrative assistants at work. The title of the post refers to the fact that there are two Linda Smith's at Busey. The other Linda, "Linda J" works on the first floor. My Linda is awesome... she always is there to listen to me no matter what, especially now that there are no longer any girls/women in my department. She has gotten me through many a drama, and I enjoy listening to hers as well. Linda loves my cake, and so does her family, especially her daughter, Kate. If I ever bake a cake for something I always box up the leftovers and take them to work for the Smith family. It is one of my favorite things to do. I like to do silly things that make Linda laugh. Today for instance... for once I wore a dress to work, and of course it didn't have pockets. I needed to take some "feminine supplies" with me to the bathroom... oh no! no pockets!... taking my purse was too obvious... what to do?...stick said supplies down the front of my dress and tuck in my bra for safe transport. I went over and told Linda how I solved my dilemma... she laughed out load. It was fabulous.

Tonight Linda is celebrating her birthday at the local ball park, watching her son or daughter or both play baseball. I told her it was her birthday and she needed to really celebrate... go for it girl, put the cheese salt/powder on her ball park popcorn tonight!

Happy Birthday Linda!!!

Beer & Baseball

2008-07-07T21:01:00.004-05:00

I spent the weekend of the 4th in the QC with my Sweet E. As we often do we took in a River Bandits game and enjoyed some beer. We went to Old Chicago Thursday, Friday and Saturday and finished off the "Think Globally, Drink Locally" mini-tour... it took us two weekends but we drank 10 beers from around the world. Our favorites were Blue Moon Honey Moon and Sam Adams Summer Ale... but I will give a nod to Red Stripe and Negro Modelo. I was very excited to get my first mini-tour t-shirt, and it was great to just sit and be mellow drinking beer with Eric. We are total beer snobs... lagers don't do much for us and we make the same icky beer faces.

At the Bandits game we got to see the Cardinals recent #1 draft pick, Brett Wallace. He made a wicked good play fielding a ball at 3rd based, and we saw his first professional RBI. He played along side the Cards #1 draft pick from last year, Pete Kozma, who played short stop. Hopefully in a few years we will get to see them play side be side in STL. Oh, and the Bandits added a great little pre-game thing that was so cool. Just before the starting line up they played the scene from "Field of Dreams" when Shoeless Joe Jackson (Ray Liotta) asks Ray Kinsella (Kevin Costner)... "Is this heaven?" to which Ray answers "No, its Iowa". Then when they do the starting line up the Bandits players don't run out from the dugout, but instead run out from a little plot of corn that they have planted behind the Bandits bull pen under the walkway leading from the third base line to the berm in left field... it was cooler than cool.

We stayed for the holiday fireworks, and as they started the young man sitting in the row in front of us got down on his knee and asked his girlfriend to marry him. This explains why he came and sat in his seat earlier carrying 4 beers... he was obviously a little nervous. In general I am not a huge fan of the public proposal, but I have to admit the fireworks were a nice touch.

Happy Birthday, Abby!: One more year until gum

2008-07-06T21:50:00.004-05:00

Today is my goddaughter, Abigail's 4th birthday! Happy birthday Abigail!!!

Unlike her older sister, Sidney, who was excited to turn 4 because "3 was just so boring", Abby has her eye on an even bigger prize. When I quizzed her last weekend about turning 4, the first thing she said was "Yes I will be 4 and then in one more birthday I will be 5, and then I can chew gum!" Jenn, has established a Thomas family rule... you can chew gum when you are 5. By then your are more or less capable of not swallowing every piece of gum you are given, and can be trusted not to dispose of gum by leaving it on the couch or your sister's hair. It makes sense to me... but if there is anyone who is going to test your rules... it is Abby! :)

I could tell you so many more stories about Abigail, but I think I will stop with that. Ah don't you miss the innocence of youth sometimes... when your big dreams were of chewing gum!

Happy Birthday Abby!

A Year of Birthday Blogging: Happy Birthday to my favorite Yankee Doodles

2008-07-05T14:33:00.003-05:00

Can you believe it? It is the first anniversary of the Birthday Blogging... it all started one year ago when I kicked it all off with the "Everyone I know was born in July" birthday blogs, the first blogees being John Todd and Matt Dvorak aka D-Vak. John and D-Vak are celebrating their birthdays today... one day after our nation.

Happy Birthday boys! I am not sure that I can add too much to last year's blog. John and D-Vak continue to be as awesome as ever. I am always amazed at how many wonderful friends I have found at the Assembly Hall... especially in the late 1990's early 2000's.

I just saw John last week when I got to have a great date with his son, Jeremiah. Over the past year I have had the pleasure of watching John be a great Dad... it has been lots of fun.

Randomly enough I got an email from D-Vak not long ago too. We haven't caught up with each other in quite some time. He just wanted to say hi, and said that he was pretty much all caught up on my life via the blog. I am never really sure who reads the blog, and I love to hear that people do.

Please flip back to last year's blog to remember all great things John and D-Vak. In the meantime join me in wishing these little firecrackers a very Happy Birthday!

Friends & Formal Wear

2008-06-30T18:53:00.002-05:00

After my reunion on Friday, Eric and I headed Peoria on Saturday evening. We attended a formal dinner/award ceremony for Scottish Rite. Eric wore his tuxedo, and I was happy to have an excuse to buy a fancy dress. I didn't get out my camera, but I have to say that we looked good... we clean up well. Eric looked especially handsome in his tuxedo.

We stayed at his place in the QC on Saturday night because on Sunday after church we headed to Geneseo to see my good friend Jenn, and her girls, Sidney and Abby. There were visiting her brother and his family, and since they were so close we made it a point to go see them.

So Jenn and the girls are living in Omaha, while John has already reported for duty at his new post in Colorado Springs. Jenn and the girls will join him as soon as their house in Omaha sells. In the meantime John has been staying with a variety of their friends out in the Springs... including the family of Brittany... who used to babysit for Sidney and Abby. Well Jenn told us that being separated is hard on everyone, and that the other day Abby told a random stranger, "My Daddy left me and now he lives with the babysitter!" Thankfully they were on base so the stranger was military so he understood after a quick explanation by Jenn. You know if you were not aware of their situation you might think they need to make an appearance on Jerry Springer.

It was great to catch up with Jenn and the girls and the rest of the Roome family. I hope all my loyal blog readers will keep John and Jenn in their prayers that their house sells soon and that this separation is a short one.

20 Years, 20 Beers

2008-06-30T17:53:00.003-05:00

Friday night was my 20th high school class reunion. We had a pretty good turn out at Jupiter's Pizza & Billiards, and I think everyone had a pretty good time. I think after 20 years everybody realizes that high school wasn't as awesome or as horrible as we all might have thought at the time. I think my classmates and I have finally had enough life experiences to realize just how blessed we were to attend Gibson City High School... no metal detectors or bomb threats.

Here are a couple of photos. One is a group photo that includes a banker, a fighter jet pilot, a state's attorney, a meeting planner, a technology company founder, a couple of radiology techs, a respiratory therapist, a teacher, a brick layer, an education program director, financial analyst, wrestling coach, a waitress, a stay at home mom.. just to name a few.

Eric snapped this picture of me regaling my classmate, Mike (he is the state's attorney) with some fascinating story. I did this a lot in senior year study hall too... regaling Mike with stories... and unfortunately he got moved to the other side of the room. There is also picture of me with Dianna and Susan. We think Eric did a great job with this photo, I don't think we look like we are at a 20th reunion... the 10th tops! Dianna was a cheerleader with me, but we resisted the urge to break out the pom poms.

Okay, so you are probably wonder what the 20 beers reference is about... no, I did not have 20 beers at the reunion. I refers to my World Beer Tour at Chicago. A couple of weeks ago I reached 10, and collected my WBT playing cards. On Saturday Eric and I started a mini-tour of international beers, when I get through that I will get a mini-tour t-shirt and be at 20 total beers. The mini-tour means we will be stopping by Old Chicago pretty much every night of the holiday weekend coming up for a beer or two... but sharing a brew with my sweetie is one my most favorite things to do. Plus, I am bound and determined to get a t-shirt!

A Date With A Much Younger Man

2008-06-23T22:41:00.002-05:00

I had a date tonight, and it wasn't with Eric... it was with a much younger man. I met John & Jeremiah Todd out at Dodds Field this evening, for a hot date with Jeremiah. John had a softball game to play, and Marla was out of town... so, I got to hang with Jer. Nikki came out to join us.

Jeremiah was a very good boy... there were just a few tears when John headed towards the dugout but they faded pretty fast. He had fallen asleep in the car on the way to the game, so it took a couple innings for him to warm up. It was so funny, he hadn't seen Nik or I since Super Bowl Sunday so it is not like we are part of his regular posse, and during the first few innings he kept turning to each of us about to say something, then would realize that he didn't know us that well and then would just casually turn back and watch the game., and not say anything.

Jeremiah knows a few sign language signs and he definitely put the "more" sign to use. I did countless renditions of "This Little Piggy" and "10 Little Monkeys Jumping on a Bed"... after every one... "more". After the game we all headed to Za's for dinner... no date is complete without dinner. Jeremiah managed to charm the staff and guests, waving at everyone. He totally cheesed for my camera as well.

It was a fun time... hopefully Eric won't be too jealous!

Happy Birthday Eric: You have come a long way from Keewawa!

2008-06-16T21:16:00.004-05:00

June 17th is my nephew, Eric's, 17th birthday. Happy Birthday Eric! He is 17 on the 17th.

When Eric was little he had the cutest little "bowl" haircut. Hopefully I can find a good picture of it. I am sure Eric is hoping I can't put my finger on one.

It is hard to believe that Eric is 17. I remember his younger years just like they were yesterday. When Eric was about 1 or 2 he became very attached to his little baby quilt that had eyelet trim on it. For whatever reason Jan and Larry didn't want to refer to it as "blankie" so somehow it got named "pretty cover". Now when I say attached, I mean attached. If Eric was upset or crying for whatever reason you could hand him "pretty cover" and he would clutch it, stick his thumb in his mouth and all was quiet. When he was learning to talk Eric couldn't say "pretty cover" and it came out "Kee-Wa-Wa" instead, so then we all started calling it Keewawa. When Jan used to wash it Eric would sit and cry at the top of the basement steps whimpering "Keewawa! Keewawa!"

Eric has a completely different personality than his older brother, Lane, but they actually get along very well. I always used to joke with my sister, Jan. When I am old and in the nursing home: Lane will come and visit me everyday, and tell me he likes my house slippers... Eric will make sure I have the biggest and best TV in my room, and will spring for cable! Between the two of them all I know I will be well taken care of at the old folks home.

Eric loves to joke on my Mom. He always jokes with her that she "went to the bakery" when she shows up with homemade rolls, pies or bread. No family dinner is complete without Eric razzing Grandma about her "bakery" rolls.

You may have noticed that last month was Taylor's 17th birthday. Yep, they are just 5 or so weeks apart in age, and have been best of buds since the beginning, even though Eric referred to Taylor as "Trailer" for the first several years.

Now that I am dating an "Eric" there are multiple Erics. Kind of like we have multiple Ja(y)nes in my family.... nothing is simple.

Anyway Happy Birthday Eric! I hope you have a great day that is Keewawa kind of happy!

Water Blogged!

2008-06-16T20:24:00.005-05:00

So my weekend was full of water. I went to Eric's this past weekend and the QC has had lots of rain. After a big downfall on Thursday night, Eric woke up to water in his garden level apartment on Friday. The landlord did a once over with the wet/dry vacuum on Friday and again on Saturday, and brought in a couple of extra fans. He left the vac with us on Saturday and we gave the wettest spots another couple of runs. It is slowly starting to dry out and is a little stinky be we made the best of it. On the plus side we realized we work well as a team in semi-crisis situations. I was so proud of Eric, he so easily could have been a "grumpy gus" all weekend, but there just wasn't much we could do other than vacuum, strategically place fans and remember not to walk across the room sock-footed... so he just chose to make the best of a very soggy situation. Luckily there wasn't enough water to do any real damage; however, depending on how well the place dries out new carpet may be in order. The baseball cards got a little damp but we managed to lay them out on the kitchen table a few at a time to dry out and relive baseball of 1982 in the process. I was glad I was there for the weekend to help out and keep Eric's mind off the sogginess.

On Friday night we headed out to the River Bandits game. Modern Woodman Park is located right on the Mississippi River in Davenport and it was surrounded by water, but amazingly the stadium remained dry the result of some incredible engineering done when the park was renovated several years back. The City of Davenport constructed a wooden pedestrian walk way that the baseball fans used to cross up and over the flooded river banks to the sand bagged stadium. It was completely nuts, but really cool. Hopefully these pictures do it justice. The game was lots of fun... they played the theme song to Gilligan's Island and kept referring to the "island that is Modern Woodman Park", plus the eventually changed the smashing windshield sound effect for the foul balls that exit the stadium to splashing water as the typical parking lots were under water.

Water affected the weekend in another way as well. Eric and I were planning to go to Des Moines to meet Jenn, Sidney and Abby for the day... since it is nearly the halfway point between QC and Omaha. But I-80 was closed near Iowa City, and it would have taken us way more than the regular 3 hours to get to Des Moines. Plus Des Moines was experiencing some flooding as well so we decided to try again another time when it wasn't quite so wet.

Despite the abundance of water it was still a great weekend. We went to Eric's brother and sister-in-laws house on Sunday to celebrate Fathers Day. Alec and Katie requested that Eric and I sit with them at the kitchen table. We felt special, and we definitely got our money's worth when just as we sat down to eat Alec blurted out "Uncle Eric, you should marry Jane!". Eric nearly choked on his pork chop, and I couldn't help but laugh... 4-year olds don't edit anything they say... I love it. I laughed and told Eric "No pressure, honey", and then Eric and Katie mimicked me so then then said "No pressure, Uncle Eric, no pressure." All in all it was a fun time.

Happy Birthday Phoebe... I mean Al

2008-06-16T19:59:00.003-05:00

Today is another birthday blog. It is Allison Hocker...oops I mean Allison Durand's birthday. Happy Birthday Allison!

Allison is yet another one of my Assembly Hall buddies. She just got married about three weeks ago, and I usually call her "Al". One of my favorite Al stories is when Nikki and I flew to Florida to visit Al for a long weekend when she lived in Daytona. She worked for the Daytona Cubs at the time. We headed out to a bar out on the beach one night, and were loving the fact that we had our feet in the sand as we had a few drinks. We decided that we were not likely to meet any potential "Mr. Rights" that night so we decided to play a little game and give fake names to anyone who came up to talk to us... what fake names did we use... we are big fans of "Friends" so we went with Phoebe, Monica and Rachel. I know I was Monica... we share the same anal retentive tendencies. Al is blond, so I think she was Phoebe. Not that I am a proponent of lying, but it was fun being a bit mysterious that night. Of course after a drink or two the real challenge was trying to remember what every one's new name was.

I don't get to see Al all that much, but she is one of those friends that you can just pick up right where you left off... whether it was last week or last year. I love those kind of friends.

Al is a Cub fan, but she has had a forever long crush on STL Cardinal, Rick Ankiel. When she got a chance to meet him at Winter Warm Up she couldn't speak to him, just said thanks for the autograph and moved on. She was so disappointed that she couldn't speak that she went and bought another autograph ticket for the next day, with the express purpose of speaking to him this time. She got all flustered again and couldn't talk.. all she got out was "Blue would be wonderful" in response to Rick's question as to what color marker he should sign with. I wasn't there to witness all of this, but have heard Nik tell the story a million times.

Al, you are the best! Happy Birthday!

Thrillville

2008-06-09T22:00:00.003-05:00

Eric came down to visit me this past weekend. As always it is always great to spend time with him. Eric brought down his PS2 and introduced me to playing video games. I am not much of video game player... not since I had my Atari 2600 back in high school and pretty much rocked at River Raid and Frogger.

Anyway Eric introduced me to a fabulous game Thrillville... you get managed an amusement park. It was lots of fun, and a good way to get used the the PS2 controller. Not surprisingly my favorite parts of the game were chatting with guests, and even finding a date at the park and picking up trash and cleaning up the park. I so love to clean. Needless to say I think Eric has created a monster because by Sunday I was designing my own mini-golf course.

Besides the PS2 we went to see Prince Caspian at the theater, and took in worship service at Quest on Saturday night. On Friday we met Nikki and our friends Karen and Ben for dinner.

Oh, and on Saturday Eric said to me "Were you born this cute, or do you have to work at it?" So very sweet. Later that night when playing the video game, and chatting with a park guest and then having them find a date I realized he totally stole that line from the video game. I still think it is adorable though.

A Little More Cowbell

2008-06-09T21:10:00.005-05:00

So I haven't been very on top of the bloggin' of late. I think I have two weekends of various and sundry activities to catch you up on.

A couple of weekends ago, Nikki was with me as I navigated the CR-V through the worst thunderstorm I have ever had the pleasure of driving through... for about 10 or 15 miles it was wicked. We were on our way up to Chicago that Friday evening to see country artist Billy Currington perform at Joes's Bar. Once through the storm the drive up to Chicago was relatively uneventful, and thanks to good directions from Lindsey there were no incidents to report.

The concert was very enjoyable, however hearing Billy Currington sing "Good Directions" without my buddy Nathan, it just wasn't the same. That is "our" song, and Nathan was supposed to go with us, but he had a better offer and went to DisneyWorld with his girlfriends family instead. The opening act, Lee Bryce, was pretty good too. He wrote Garth Brooks most recent hit, "More Than A Memory" and has a new song he wrote that Tim McGraw has recently recorded.

The only problem with the concert were a few concert-goers that were not following your basic general admission concert etiquette, such as pushing Nik and I out of the way, or just standing right in front of us, after we had clearly staked out our little spot for quite some time. Also, we had the pleasure of standing right next to a 50ish couple that really needed to "get a room". I am all for a little hand holding, perhaps a kiss or two throughout the evening, but really folks I do not need to see the tongues... pulease! Thankfully they left before the encore, because one of the songs Billy sang was "Let's Get It On".

Billy introduced a guy on the side of the stage towards the end of the concert, he said the guy had written Honky Tonk Badonkadonk. It was hysterical because at the exact same time Nik and said to each other "Ok, was it just me or did that guy look just like Nathan... a little shorter and rounder than Nathan, but other than that very creepy how similar they looked.

After the concert Nikki and headed west from Chicago and drove to Eric's place. We got there at about 2:30 in the morning. Needless to say we all slept in on Saturday. After breakfast/lunch we ventured out to see the highlights of the QC... Isabel Bloom studio store, and the John Deere Pavilion. Nikki kicked my but at the planting and combine simulation game... I definitely brought shame to my farmgirl status. We found a Model B tractor and Nikki took a picture for her Dad (Captain Map) because that the kind he drove as a kid on the farm. We grabbed some eats at Huckleberry Pizza in Rock Island and then headed to the River Bandits game.

It was Cowbell Night at Modern Woodman Park. I am not sure if y'all are familiar with the cowbell skit from Saturday Night Live... if not take a look... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZOHY7Z5eaQ&feature=related

It is one of my favorites skits, and they played it a couple of times on the jumbotron. Nikki, Eric and I all got souvenir cowbells as well. They were lots of fun. The River Bandits lost the game, but Eric and I got to have a pint of Bent River Uncommon Stout so we got over it, and the soundtrack at the game was pretty much personally designed for Nikki so we all had a good time. After the game we stopped a martini bar in Rock Island where Nik and I tried a few new martinis. After a lazy Sunday Nikki and I headed home that evening.

It was nice to have company on the drive home, and great to get to see and concert and still fit in a visit with Eric too.

Editors Note: The first picture is entitled "Rally Cowbell"... I love this picture of Eric, he was wearing his rally cap in the 9th trying to get a Bandits victory

Birthday Hugs

2008-06-07T11:25:00.004-05:00

Happy Birthday Anne Ahrens!

Today is my friend, Anne's, birthday. I met Anne at my church, Quest United Methodist. She actually helped lead an Alpha class I took when I first started attending Quest, and that discussion group eventually evolved into our small group. She and her husband, broke off from our group awhile back to start a new group. I miss Anne, but I know they were being called to spread God's word to others.

Anne is like no other person I have ever met. I think she approaches life with a great combination of childlike delight and sage wisdom. Some of my most favorite conversations have been with Anne. She has such a strong faith, and she has encouraged me in my walk with God, and we have had some great conversations about that. However, at the same time we have had some completely ridiculous conversations too about such topics as McDonalds, hugging, bowel movements, and the inability to stop singing "Good Morning Baltimore" for days after seeing Hairspray (both the movie and musical).

I have Anne to thank for introducing me to High School Musical. I have lots of 7-year old girlfriends and now I have one more thing to talk to them about. When I was sporting a cast last spring and unable to drive, Anne came over to my house one night and made me dinner. It was awesome, I think it was chicken strips and mac & cheese... very simple but something I could not do for myself.

The title of this post refers to Anne's hugging issues. A couple of years ago she decided that she was going to make a point to hug more often in an effort to become more comfortable with random hugging. She even made a t-shirt to that effect... I think it said something like "Arms are for Hugging".

Happy Birthday Anne! I hope you have a great day filled with lots of hugs.

Seven is Magic

2008-06-02T19:29:00.004-05:00

So the title of this post refers to the title of my first grade reading book. For some reason I never forgot that title, and I have to admit being seven was pretty good times.

The post title also refers to today's birthday blog. My pal, Sidney Marie Thomas, turns seven today. I hope Sid finds that "Seven is Magic" for herself. Happy Birthday, Sidney!

For those you not in the know, Sidney is the oldest daughter of my dear friends Jenn and John. She currently lives in Bellevue, Nebraska, but will be moving with her family to Colorado Springs, Colorado soon. She, along with her younger sister, Abigail, are the only children that call me "Aunt Jane" other than my own nieces and nephews.

I love Sidney, she has a zest for life. She never settles for the ordinary. She is also a bit of shopper... gotta love that. You could tell from an early age that she had the shopping gene... check out this picture of her camping out in the Marshall Fields shopping bag.

I have lots of Sidney stories, but will limit it to just a few for this blog. One of my favorites is when I went to visit the Thomas family when they lived in Colorado Springs. Jenn took me to Golden for a tour of the Coors brewery, and Sid was about 2 and behaved quite delightful on the tour. John was away for work that week, and was kind of disappointed to miss the tour since he is one of my beer buddies. Anyway at the end of the tour we were enjoying our complimentary drinks, beer for me, a soda for Sidney. She was asking about her Dad, and Jenn reminded her that he went "bye bye for work" or something along those lines. At that point Sidney responded with a classic line of "No Beer for Dad!".

Another favorite story was approximately 3 years ago. In the days leading up to Sidney's birthday Jenn's parents were visiting and they were asking Sidney if she was excited for her party, and looking forward to turning "4". She proceeded to tell them that she was definitely looking forward to turning 4 because as she put it "3 was SO boring!" I am not sure what 4 brings that you don't have available at 3... perhaps occasionally drinking out of a cup that doesn't have a lid... yeah that's got to be it... lidless drinking... living on the edge... drinking with a lid is very boring.

Sidney is also one of my best little Illini fan buddies. Her Dad and Grandma are Illini alums and she is being raised to cheer for the Orange and Blue. I taught her I-L-L... I-N-I when she was just 2, and she knows Oskee Wow Wow too. She is a good little fan, and has taken a particular interest in football. Last fall when Nikki and I met the Thomas family for the Illini football game in Iowa, Sidney sat between Nikki and I the entire game and completely soaked up all the football knowledge we could send her way. She got the whole 10 yards in four downs concept, and when Nik explained why we were bummed after Rashard failed to make 1st down on 3rd and 2, she confirmed that 2 was just 2 of the short lines (hash marks) and then replied..."Well, that isn't very far, I could run that far!" She also asked why the Illini had to sit in "time out", referring to a penalty flag that had been thrown against our team... she remembered us telling her that a penalty flag meant that your team did something against the rules and that you had a punishment for it.

So Sidney, Happy Birthday Girlfriend!!! I hope Seven IS Magic!

Fired Up!

2008-05-29T18:07:00.004-05:00

So I think I mentioned that when in the QC for my birthday a couple of weeks ago Eric and I went to the annual memorial service for the Moline Fire Department. Eric's brother, Travis, is a fire fighter for the department and served as the master of ceremonies. Eric's Mom, Linda, just sent me a picture of the Noyd family plus one (I would be the one) in front of the old fire truck, so I thought I would share.

From left to right is Stephanie (Eric's sister-in-law), Travis holding their son, Alec, Eric's Dad, Mike, Linda, Eric, myself. Eric's niece, Katie, is standing in the front. Notice that Alec and Katie bogarted their Dad's dress hat and gloves for this picture. As if they weren't cute enough already... they added props! :)

In crazy "Wow it is a small world!" twist of fate, the fire fighter who volunteered to take the photo of us is my sister-in-law, Jayne's, brother-in-law, Greg. Greg is married to Jayne's sister, Jill. I knew he was a fire fighter in the greater Quad City area, but who knew we would actually run into each other.

Random Observation

2008-05-28T19:47:00.002-05:00

So last night I was driving home, and drove past Big Lots. The "L" and the "s" on their sign were burnt out. Yep, there up in lights was "Bigot". Seriously, not really sure I want to shop at the Bigot store.

Boyfriend Kudos!

2008-05-28T19:36:00.004-05:00

So I have to give Eric some Kudos! He is always very good to me, takes care of me, makes me laugh and is just a delightful companion in general, but he went above and beyond this weekend. My friend Jeanne called me on Sunday afternoon to let me know that her Mom, Kathy, had passed away. I took it rather hard and Eric was a great comfort to me. Kathy's wake was on Monday (Memorial Day) and Eric wanted to be there for me, so he rode with me on Monday all the way to Crestwood, a south suburb of Chicago, and back, grabbed a quick bite to eat at my house, then got in his car and made the nearly 3 hour drive home. Yes, that is 7+ hours in a car on Monday just so he could be there for me... add that to the ever growing list of why I love him! Kudos Eric!

Editors Note: Hey loyal Jano Fabulous blog readers... please keep Jeanne and her family in your prayers.

Holy Cow! Al Got Married

2008-05-28T18:36:00.005-05:00

So I have been a total blog slacker of late, but hopefully tonight I can catch y'all up on the latest.

Eric was down for the weekend, and we went to my friend Allison's (affectionately referred to as Al) wedding. So despite having a wicked bad crush on St. Louis Cardinal pitcher turned outfielder, Rick Ankiel, Al is a Cub fan. I know, I know, but we still love her anyway. So get this, Al married an even bigger Cub fan, Bill... but he makes Al ridiculously happy and he is a great guy so we are more than willing to deal with the Cubbieness of their union. Al had a few heart breaker boyfriends in her day, but Bill is a way good guy I whole-heatedly approve of. I guess Al just proves the point that if you don't date the frogs, you can't fully appreciate the prince.

Al and Bill's reception had a bit of baseball theme and Eric, Nikki and I all found it rather enjoyable as we are baseball fans. They had popcorn for us to snack on with our beer, the groom's cake had a Wrigley feel (I really do enjoy the announcement on the marquis on the cake).

Al and Bill even sported their jersey's at the wedding. All in all it was a good time. And I guess if Al couldn't marry Rick Ankiel... Bill will do just fine!

April In May

2008-05-16T18:12:00.002-05:00

Today, May 16th is April Rustemeyer’s birthday. Happy Birthday April!

April is from California, Missouri (near Jefferson City). She is a big Cardinal fan, and works at a bank. Gee, that sounds kind of familiar doesn’t it? I love how April came into my life… it is just a fun story. Nik and I met April and her Mom, Jane, at Cardinals Winter Warm Up in January 2007. We were all camped out in the autograph ticket line way too early in the morning. For those of you not familiar with Winter Warm Up… you spend a lot of time waiting in line, so you just start talking to strangers to pass the time. We got to talking to April and Jane, and then just kept running into them here and there throughout the weekend. We just really enjoyed sharing our Cardinals stories with each other. At the end of the weekend April came over to Nik and I and said something like this. “None of my friends back home are really into baseball, and you guys have just been lots of fun to hang out with. Do you want to exchange email addresses and keep in touch, maybe get together in St. Louis for a game sometime?” The rest is history. We did keep in touch, met for a couple of games last July and just had the best time ever. April and I both work at banks, and Nik and Jane both work at hospitals in “non-patient care” capacities.

Anyway, so this spring April went with Nik, her sister, Angie and I to Spring Training. We all had so much fun. We just all kind of click. We are girls who actually love the game and know all about the fundamentals, but definitely are in tune to the fun personalities and pretty packages of the Cardinals as well.

April gets credit as the original rhinestone Cardinals tank top creator. Her original idea inspired the rhinestone Franklin tank tops we all wore at Spring Training, and now Frankie has spotted them a couple of times at Busch this spring when Ang, Nik and/or April have sported them when sitting near the pen.

April is a small town/farming community girl too, so we have commonalities far beyond baseball. Oh, and she has the coolest tattoo on her shoulder. She designed it herself and each component has special meaning... just very cool, and just very April!

Happy Birthday April!

Happy Birthday Shrooms Buddy!

2008-05-16T16:08:00.004-05:00

Okay, so this technically a day late, but I was on the road yesterday. May 15th was Scott Barker's birthday. Scott is Eric's best buddy, and lives in Peoria with his wife, Tara and their daughter, Kira.

I have met Scott just two times, so I have yet to collect lots of birthday blog material. But these are the things I know.

#1 Scott is very tall... I am tall too
#2 Scott is a big Cardinal fan, and I very much enjoy that.
#3 Scott likes mushrooms and so do I. Eric and Tara, not so much... so he pretty much lead a shroomless existence until I came along. After just two meetings we have a system worked out... Scott and I share a pizza with mushrooms, Eric and Tara share a pizza without.
#4 Scott is a good family man. That is good to see these days.
#5 Scott has been an incredible friend to Eric over the years (Tara too, but her birthday isn't until September I think) and that my friends is priceless. It it good to know that there is someone out there that has my baby's back!

Happy Birthday Scott! Our birthdays are just two days apart, and I look forward to celebrating lots of birthdays with you in the future.

Kudos: How Am I Doin'

2008-05-14T22:43:00.003-05:00

Well I have a special "Kudos" for the blog today, and fittingly enough they go out to my buddy, Nathan, who received the first ever "Kudos" nearly a year ago. I received a card in the mail today from Nathan, but upon opening the card realized that my early birthday greetings were not actually from Nathan, but instead country recording artist, and one of my favorites, Dierks Bentley! Yep, my birthday card was inscribed with these words "Happy Birthday, Jane! God Bless, Dierks Bentley" Kind of exciting! At least it was for me.

To explain a bit, Nathan is in the Dierks Fan Club (and here folks make fun of Nik and I for being in Joe Nichols fan club) and is actually an Executive Producer of Dierks' most recent greatest hits album... an opportunity Dierks gave to about 3,000 of his fans... they got to pick the album art and the live tracks to include. Anywho, Nathan got to meet Dierks this past Monday and catch a special Executive Producer concert. On his way out the door to the meet-n-greet and concert he grabbed the birthday card he had picked up for me that weekend so he could drop it in the mail... but then he got the BRILLIANT idea to have Dierks sign it for me instead. It was such a special little surprise.

I showed the card to Nik and she was impressed. She has been going to watch the filming of the movie "The Informant" about the ADM Price Fixing scandal that they have been shooting in Decatur the past several weeks when she has had a chance. The movie stars Matt Damon and Scott Bakula (aka Quantum Leap guy)... I told her if she really wanted to out do Nathan then I think Matt or Scott need to sign my birthday card! :)

The Dierks card also lead to Eric making the comment (after I told him about the card etc.) "I think Nathan may be sweet on you"... which just made me giggle a little bit and reply, "Well maybe, but not the way you are thinking." When I told this to Nathan later (I had called to thank him for the card, and he personally requested "Kudos"... go figure) he laughed about Eric's comment and said "Wait until he meets me... then he will quickly realize I am not that sweet!" :)

Anyway, Kudos Nathan! BTW, you did an excellent job executive producing Dierks' album.

You Can Call Me Al: The Birthday Girl

2008-05-13T22:19:00.005-05:00

The week of birthdays continues. May 14th is Allison Sit's birthday. Happy Birthday Allison Sit!

I met Allison, then Allison McLaughlin nearly four years ago. She attended Quest United Methodist church, and helped coordinate the Alpha group I went to, that eventually spun off to become my small group. Over the years I have had some wonderful talks with Allison. I love that she is a strong woman of faith, and she inspires me in my own relationship with God.

I remember walking around Meadowbrook Park with Allison just over two years ago when she told me about how she had recently signed up for Eharmony. She thought there might be a few possibilities, but there was this one guy she thought might be special, but she wasn't sure... he was a Cub fan, could they work that out? Needless to say they worked it out, and she married Abe last August. They did the long-distance relationship for over a year... Evanston to Champaign... Champaign to Evanston. Little did I know that I too would meet someone very special on Eharmony and would be in a long distance relationship of my own. Allison has been a great resource for long-distance relationship advice. I have learned for myself that long-distance relationships are not easy... so it makes what Abe and Allison did all the more amazing... but I have also learned that when you are with the right person a long boring drive on Friday night seems like such a small sacrifice.

Besides being a devoted Christian, and a long-distance relationship mentor, Allison is a big time Cardinal fan. Our love for the boys that wear the "Birds on the Bat" is one thing that definitely has brought us together. She totally gets my my baseball crazy, and I get hers. Some of my fondest and hottest memories of Allison are from the ballpark. I have attended two baseball games in STL with Allison... they were were the two hottest days/games I have ever experienced. The first game we went to was with Nik and Allison Hocker in what Nik & I like to call "You Can Call Me Al" Day. We went to Al Hrabosky's for lunch, and then waited in line in the BLAZING sun to get in early for picture day. It was totally worth it because you haven't lived until you have seen Allison's reaction to Julian Tavarez walking by and giving her "High Cinco"... that's a "High Five" for you gringos out there. We were nasty sweaty messes, but we had a great time, and we even got home early thanks to Carp's masterful 1 hour 54 minute complete game shut out... darn it I miss him. The other game I went to with Allison was against the Dodgers in the new stadium, and our seats were in the sun. It was so hot that day, Angie and I applied for credit cards... just to get the free beach towel so we could sit on them and not have the flaming hot plastic seats scorch the skin from the back of our legs. It was wicked hot... so hot I even missed an inning just to catch some shade at the concession stand for awhile.

Oh the memories. We just share that baseball connection... so much so that when Eric and I were at Busch for a game in April, I got a text from Allie... she and Abe were at the game in Wrigley. Neither one of us knew of the others plans ahead of time... we just happened to be at the ballparks on the same days.

I must say Allison found an awesome husband too. Although he is a Cub fan, Abe has many redeeming qualities as well. He is witty and smart, a man of God, and bless him an Illini fan and alum. We bond over this since Allison is a Mizzou alum.

Happy Birthday Allison! May God bless you always! I miss seeing you every week, but I know great things are finding you in Evanston.

Cars & Birthday Cake: A successful trip to Peoria

2008-05-12T21:09:00.003-05:00

On Saturday I headed to Peoria. Before I met Eric at his friends Scott and Tara's I met my brother-in-law, Larry and my nephews who were passing through on their way to Muscatine for the day to see Larry's Mom. They wanted to inspect my car because they were looking at buying it for my nephew Eric since his ride had recently blown up. Good thing it passed inspection and they decided to buy it, because after I parted ways with them I headed to the Honda dealership. They made me a better deal on a CR-V than the local dealership so I walked out about 75 minutes later the proud owner of new car. I have the keys and the owners manual but won't actually pick it up until Thursday. My Mom is dropping me off, and then I will head to Eric's for a long weekend. Anywho... in case you care, this what my new ride looks like.

After buying a car I head to Scott & Tara's to catch up with Eric. We spent the day with the Barkers. Heading to Old Chicago for lunch, and I added one more beer on my World Beer Tour. We listened to the Cards game on the radio that afternoon, and then grilled burgers on the grill for dinner... the first grilling of the season... the burgers were really tasty.

After dinner I was surprised with an early birthday cake. Scott's birthday is two days before mine, so Eric and Tara surprised us with an ice cream cake from Baskin Robbins. I was delicious. It had chocolate cake with cookie dough/chocolate chip ice cream and had chocolate kisses on top. It was a really fun surprise, I even got to blow out a candle.

This is Taylor!

2008-05-12T19:48:00.004-05:00

This week is a busy one for birthday blogs. Today, May 12, is Miss Taylor's birthday. Happy birthday Taylor Marie Tjardes!

Taylor is my younger niece, and is junior at GCMS High School in Gibson City. On Friday evening she qualified or the IHSA state track meet in the pole vault.

Taylor is very mellow and laid back these days, but I definitely remember her going through a bit of a "rage phase" as a little girl. Perhaps it was a way to get noticed as a middle child, but I have to admit it was kind of fun to watch... I enjoy that kind of passion. I thought red heads were supposed to be fiery... not blonds. Taylor was actually a platinum blond as a baby... her hair was almost white as you can see in the picture.

Taylor has provided me with lots of memories. One of my favorites was when I was living with my parents after college, and Phil and Jayne and the girls were staying there as well for several weeks while they were in between houses. Taylor was about three, and she and Ashley has the loudest argument ever about who had more marshmallows in their Lucky Charms. She also managed to cut off the equivalent of a "side pony" of her nearly shoulder length hair. She was supposed to be brushing her teeth, but found the scissors instead. What was funny was that she made a point to close the sink stopper... even at three she didn't want to clog the sink.

Also, I have Taylor to thank for the most amusing answering machine message I have ever received. She was probably about 8 or so, and was selling Girl Scout cookies. The first part of the message "Hi Aunt Jane, this is Taylor. I was just wondering if you wanted to by some Girl Scout cookies." was delivered at a super slow pace, in a very sing songy voice. Then right after that as fast as she could, in a very matter of fact voice was "Call me back, Bye!" I can't do it justice in writing, but next time you talk to me ask me to reenact... it is a classic.

One of my favorite things about Taylor is to watch her with my Dad... she is definitely a Grandpa's girl. Check out this photo below... it is one of my favorites. Only Taylor could ever get my Dad to wear 2000 Millennium party glasses, and a plastic party hat.

Taylor was born on Mothers Day in 1991, and right around Father's Day that same year my nephew Eric was born. They have been best of buddies for 17 years, and it has been fun to watch them grow up together. Here is a picture of them about 14 years ago, at the Easter candy hunt.

As you can see Taylor has come a long way, because here is a picture from her prom last weekend. I got it from her Facebook page... Taylor was one of my first Facebook friends. I in particular I liked this shot... gotta love the thumbs up in the bathroom shot.

Happy Birthday Taylor!

Twice As Nice! A Birthday Blog

2008-04-30T20:08:00.005-05:00

Well there hasn't been a birthday blog in quite some time, but today we have a double bonus... twins! Happy Birthday Lindsey and Meredith Flessner. Their birthday is May 1st, May Day, so happy May Day to the rest of you.

Linds used to be one of my co-workers at Busey. She just recently finished up her degree in fashion merchandising, and moved back home from Chicago (where she attended school) to start the job hunt for job in fashion. Mer is a speech and language pathologist and is getting married in July to Chad... fondly referred to as Chadster.

I adore the Flessners... and just can't say enough wonderful things about them. First of all they just always look good... they are quite the fashion mavens. Whenever they compliment me on my outfit, shoes or hair, I feel extra pretty. It is because of them I have actually worn a skirt to a ball game!

Beyond the fashion though are some amazing friends. They are just so funny, thoughtful and entertaining. There is always a great story for them to tell... nothing is simple. They are also quite passionate, especially about the people and food they love. They can't get enough of the granitas from Kitchens at the mall. I will admit... they are quite tasty. They also love pecans. I told Linds she need to marry a pecan farmer.

My favorite Linds story is when Nik, Karen and I were trying to teach her to say "Move b****, get out the way!" Linds... well she isn't all that "street"... plus it just isn't in her nature to be unkind. My favorite Mer story is when she spoke to me at a basketball game not too long after I had met her for the first time. We had been talking for nearly a minute before I realized that it was Mer and not Linds.

Oh, and they are farm girls... they know how to drive a tractor. Gotta love that!

Anyway, Happy Birthday girls! The granitas and pecans are on me today.!

That's Entertainment

2008-04-28T20:34:00.002-05:00

I went to see Eric in the QC this past weekend. His family came over on Saturday evening, so we did our first entertaining together. It was lots of fun... we work well together. On Saturday we cleaned up his apartment together. I was actually kind of fun, and we developed a good system. I did the dusting... Eric has allergies, he did the bathroom and we worked on the kitchen together. It didn't take long at all working together. Eric picked up Frank's pizza for dinner, a Noyd family favorite, his Mom brought a salad, Travis and Steph brought beer and bread, and I contributed cheese cake for dessert. It was all quite yummy.

We put in a Muppet Show DVD for Alec and Katie to enjoy, and introduced them to the wonderful world of muppets. Actually I think the adults enjoyed it even more than the kids. I haven't watched The Muppet Show in forever... it really is hysterical... so much of the humor was completely lost on me when I was 10... even funnier at age 37. My favorite is the Swedish Chef... I am still humming the theme song.

After the muppets we played Tripoly... I beat Travis in cards again. He officially hates me now! :) That is okay, one of the beers he brought was Lienenkugel's Big Butt, a doppel bock. Eric said I would like it (I like dark beer) so when Travis showed it to me and said he bought this beer especially for me I totally got him by saying "What! You think I have a big butt, huh?" I love messing with him... it is so much fun... I guess that is what is like to have a little brother. It makes sense... it is kind of the same teasing I do with my little sister, Nathan.

Name that Brew

2008-04-28T20:14:00.004-05:00

So when Eric and I were at Jan and Larry's we got to see the bar they are building in their basement. Larry is installing a keg refrigerator for the beer he brews. They are incorporating an Illini/Chief theme. On Friday when Eric and I were enjoying dinner and a few beers at Blue Cat Brew Pub in Rock Island, we came with a name for their bar and brewery. We are thinking they need to name the bar "Orange & Brew Pub". Eric came up with the name... I think is is pretty good. As for the brewery we are leaning towards "The Drunken Pfeiff"... a play on their last name Pfeiffer and "drum & fife".

Later we got to talking about what we would name our brewery... still working on that... but Eric came up with an awesome beer name. He is an Eagle Scout, we enjoy stout, hence one of our beer selections will definitely be "Eagle Stout". I am a little jealous that I couldn't come up with a good beer name that somehow incorporates "Jano Fabulous".

So anybody out there have any good ideas for what I can call my beer... or what you would call your brewery/pub if you had one.

Busch With My Baby

2008-04-28T19:39:00.005-05:00

Sorry for the total lack of blogging lately... just haven't had a chance to sit down and chat.

Last Friday Eric came down, and then on Saturday we headed to STL for some baseball games. Saturday we stopped in Carlinville and picked up my sister, Jan, and nephew, Lane, and they joined us for the game. Jan and Lane are good baseball companions... they know there ball. You can tell Lane helps the high school baseball team because he yells/cheers for the Cards just like the Cavaliers. He once told one of the baserunners, "Legs!" when he wanted them to beat a throw. I picked up some sweet seats at work. Saturday we stayed at Jan and Larry's house, and then Sunday my parents came down and Eric and I took them to the game on Sunday. On Sunday we sat in the new Champions Club... I got half-price tickets as a result of a promotion they had at Cards Caravan. The Champions Club was pretty sweet as it included a nice buffet for the hour before and hour after first pitch, and full bar service beginning 90 minutes before the game and running the entire game. We were very glad that we got there early that way were were sure to score a table. We had reserved seats outside that were right up from third base. I really hope I can get half price tickets again because I don't think my Dad will go to the game any other way again. I knew he would enjoy the buffet, but he had one beer then quickly switched to margaritas... who knew he was such a tequila fan? The buffet had a few ballpark favorites but included other tasty treats as well... Caesar salad, pasta, green beans, roast pork and jambalaya and some fabulous cookies and brownies. Oh, and in case you weren't sure... Eric confirmed that cookies and beer do in fact go together.

All in all it was a great weekend. It was great to go to some games with Eric. We both really enjoy the game. He kept score on Saturday and I did on Sunday. It was also great to spend some time with my family, something I don't very often take the time to do. It was good to get plenty of time to just "visit".

Unfortunately the Cardinals lost both games :( Eric was even wearing his lucky floppy hat, so I am not sure what is up with that. You can probably tell that we lost from the picture... Eric just wasn't quite ready to smile when they were taken right after the game... ahh he takes his baseball seriously... yet another reason I love him! :)

Rollin' With My Homies

2008-04-17T20:04:00.004-05:00

Last night Nik and I went Huff Hall for the Ultimate Basketball Challenge. The Fighting Illini men's and women's basketball teams took on the Illini men's and women's basketball teams in an exhibition game. The event raises funds for the wheelchair basketball teams, both of which recently won their national championship by the way, and for the "Coaches vs. Cancer" campaign... two very worthy causes.

It was a great time. I think everyone on the court was having a good time. It is amazing how fast the wheelchair athletes move... they leave the other basketball players in the dust. Typically the teams were a mix of men, women, able-bodied and wheelchair athletes, but you really got to see how fast the wheelchair athletes move when for a few minutes each it was only the able-bodied athletes on the court, and then right after that is was only the wheelchair athletes.

At half time they had a celebrity free-throw shooting contest (from a wheelchair of course) between Bruce Weber, Jolette Law, Ron Zook, Chancellor Herman and President White. The finals were Coach Law vs. President White,and Coach Law won. I think Ron Zook was kind of frustrated he didn't do better... so be it... I like that kind of competitive attitude in our football coach.

Alex Legion, who transferred from Kentucky (sorry Billy) at semester and will be eligible to play with the Illini beginning Spring 09 semester, totally stole the show. I think he was 0 for 10 at one point, but he certainly was having a good time. Hopefully he turns out to be a better basketball player when he can use his legs. He was just fun to watch... my new favorite for sure.

Brian Randle meets with the Illini press one last time.

You may be Michael Jordan's son, Jeff, but you still appear to be getting run over by your teammates.

What up with that hat, Chester?

Mike Tisdale's 7-foot frame doesn't really fit in a wheelchair.

Coach Zook, not only did you get beat, you got beat by a girl... you got beat by a girl wearing pink shoes!

Stressed?

2008-04-17T19:56:00.003-05:00

So things have been going pretty good for me, but like everyone I have my "stressful" moments. This is my new favorite website... you can pop bubblewrap on your computer.

http://www.therightfoot.net/mystuff/whatever/swf/bubblewrap.swf

I am a particular fan of "Manic Mode"... and then when you click on "Fresh Sheet" it whispers "Must have more!" What is not to love? Kudos to whoever it was that sent me this link... I think it was April.

Here Comes the Bride... and you can all her "Al"

2008-04-12T19:47:00.004-05:00

Today Nik and I headed over to Normal, Illinois to go to a bridal shower for our friend, Allison Hocker. We worked with Allison at the Assembly Hall, and Nik even played softball with her in high school, and they were in the same major at the U of I. Al is going to marry Bill on May 24th. I was great to see Al. We had not seen her for nearly eight months, when she and Bill came down for an Illini football game last fall.

Thursday Nik and I went shopping for a shower gift. We found an 11 x 14 photo frame, and an 21-picture photo collage frame on the registry that we liked, and then... we got a little twinkle in our eyes and decided to have little fun with the gift. I am not sure if there is such a thing, but I guess you would say was gave a "prank" bridal shower gift. We filled the photo collage frame up with all sorts of pictures of Al with the two of us. Many of them were from various St. Louis Cardinal games/outings etc. Al is a big Cub fan, but she had/has the biggest crush on Rick Ankiel so she occasionally leans toward the red side... which Nik and I love... her fiance, Bill, another big Cub fan... not so much. For the cherry on top we printed an 8 x 10 of the three of us and put it in the big frame... I am certain that is why Bill and Allison registered for that frame to display the biggest picture ever of Nik, Al and I... not for their wedding picture of anything. The gift/prank was a big hit... I love that the shower was attended by lots of folks with really good senses of humor.

Here are few pictures from the shower. Allison had a few little helpers to assist with opening the gifts. She was also quite amused with a Chicago Cubs garter. Also, I have included a few pictures among those that we included in the frames. One of my favorites is from "You Can Call Me Al" Day at Busch Stadium, the last season of the previous Busch Stadium. No, it wasn't an official promotion of the ball club, but instead what Nik and I decided to call it since we took Allison Hocker and Allison (McLaughlin) Sit as our guests... and we made a point to go to AL Hrabosky's for lunch :) Ahh... fun times remembered.

I've Got Sunshine...

2008-04-07T20:21:00.003-05:00

So this past weekend nice spring weather finally decided to descend upon Illinois. I headed to the QC to see Eric on Friday after work... yippee! We have seen each other three weekends in a row, it is like we are totally boyfriend/girlfriend! :)

Friday we stayed in and watched the Cardinal game on TV. We tried to spot Nikki and her Dad, who were there, but no such luck. Saturday was a beautiful day, so Eric and took about a 3 mile walk along the river. After resting up we went to Prospect Park to see the Music Guild production of the musical "Once Upon a Mattress". Two of Eric's cast mates from the play he did a couple of months ago were performing. The show was great, I had never seen that musical before and it just cute and fun. This production was really well done too.

The nice weather held out for Sunday too, so after church and Sunday School, Eric and I headed to the ballpark. We went to see the Quad Cities River Bandits, the STL Cardinals single A minor league affiliate, take on the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers. The River Bandits won... yay!, and I managed to pick out my new favorite future Cardinal, center fielder, Justin Roberson. He is a good hitter, stole a base, and had another heads up base-running play. His "at bat" song was a somewhat unconventional choice, but I rather liked it... "I've Got Sunshine/My Girl". It was just a fun song... and it kind of summed up the day. We had a great time at the game, it was nice to enjoy the fabulous weather and the game together... Eric and I both really love baseball. Later I told him, you know if you are going to go date someone who lives nearly 3 hours away, it is nice that he is conveniently located just a few minutes from where your favorite baseball team's single A minor league affiliate plays. Modern Woodman Park/John O'Donnell Stadium is a nice little ballpark. It is right on the river, kind of like a PNC Park (my favorite ballpark to date) wannabe. I am thinking Eric and I will try to take in as many River Bandit games as possible this season.

On the way home Sunday I stopped at Arby's in Morton. The older gentleman who waited on my took note of my Cardinals gear. He said he got Stan Musial's autograph at Sportsman's Park back in the day. I told him to hang on to that memory, it was special... I think he gave me extra curly fries for that.

Breaking Wind...

2008-03-31T17:42:00.002-06:00

... do you do it in your sleep? This is a question Eric's Dad, Mike posed to me on Saturday night. Eric and I were greatly amused by the question. It is an obvious indicator of Mike's comfort level with me. Travis was slightly horrified, and said "Dad! Come on, Jane is still relatively new to this family... you are asking her about farting already?"

So do y'all fart in your sleep? Please let me know, I told Mike I would pose the question to my faithful blog readers... I know you won't let me down and will help with this unofficial survey.

My response... well I am assuming I do fart in my sleep, it is a natural and common bodily function, but I don't really know for sure because I am asleep. I can't recall actually farting so loudly or so much that I woke myself up. How about you?

Nothing runs like a Deere, Nothing tastes as good as a beer

2008-03-31T17:05:00.007-06:00

I spent this past weekend at Eric's in the Quad Cities. It was great to spend time together... this is two weekends in a row we have seen each other... it is almost like we are dating! Friday night we went to Old Chicago for some pizza and I added a few more stops on my Beer Tour. Eric helped me out and when I went to the restroom he asked the waiter to put his beers on my Beer Tour. So, I now have 6 of the 110 covered... although to be completely honest I only consumed four.

Saturday we lazed around a bit in the morning and then headed to downtown Moline. We stopped by the Isabel Bloom studio store. I actually have one Isabel Bloom (ironically it is the same one Eric has... a little basket of four leaf clovers), and picked out a few more that I may add to my collection. In case you want to know, here is the link to the Isabel Bloom website. http://www.ibloom.com/

After a little window shopping, we headed across the street to John Deere Commons. I am a total farm girl, so climbing on and looking at tractors and combines really is my thing. We worked up a bit an appetite by then so we stopped in at Bent River Brewery for lunch. I had an awesome burger and fries, Eric had a pork tenderloin... and we both had the Uncommon Stout (Eric's recommendation... he knows me so well) The stout was REALLY good, and I have already requested we go back sometime soon.

After a nap on Saturday afternoon we went to Cambridge to spend some time with Eric's parents, Mike and Linda. Eric's brother, Travis and nephew, Alec were also there. I managed to "one up" Travis at cards... yet again. I don't think Travis liked it much, but everyone else seemed to get a lot of amusement out of it.

Sunday we went to church and later camped out at Eric's parents house again unexpectedly. Plumbing issues at Eric's apartment... not so much fun, but we made the best of the situation. I am headed back to QC this weekend. I am starting to get used to the drive... it really isn't that bad... not to mention that time with my Sweet E totally makes it worthwhile.

"2-Beer" Jane

2008-03-26T18:11:00.005-06:00

Sorry about the 10-day lag in blogging. Things have been kind of crazy since I got home from Florida. I got home last Sunday afternoon, then on Monday I went to my Uncle Harry's funeral. He died unexpectedly of a massive heart attack the Friday I was in Florida. Uncle Harry was my Dad's younger brother and the one he farmed with. It wasn't like Harry and I were super close but gosh darn it I miss him. He always used to wink at me... he probably winked at lots of people but I always thought those winks were for me. He also had the strongest hands I have ever seen. They weren't necessarily the biggest hands ever, but seriously I think if he tried he could have squeezed coal into diamonds. Harry always said his two favorite kinds of beer were... free... and cold. I can't say I disagree, but my beer pallet had definitely expanded in recent years.

Uncle Harry was only sitting on the "big yard swing in the sky" for just a week before he had some company... somebody stopped by for a free, cold one. One week after Harry passed away, Robert Styck did as well. Robert worked as a full-time hired hand for Dad & Harry for more than 25 years... pretty much the majority of my life. He was a good guy, always teasing me and asking me if he could be my boyfriend. I remember going with my Mom to take lunch to the field when I was little... Robert was always there... he drove the combine. He drank his coffee with sugar, no cream. Somehow it comforts me that Harry and Robert are up there together.

Eric came down to visit me over Easter weekend. He had Good Friday off of work (so I took it off of work) and came down on Thursday evening. We had a great time just hanging out and getting to spend some time together. On Friday afternoon I gave him the nickel tour of C-U and we went "beer shopping" at Friar Tuck. I very much enjoy beer shopping, especially with Eric... he has lots of patience... it took us a very long time to put together our "Pick a Six". We also got the sampler pack from Boulevard Brewery... so far the Irish Ale was just "ehh", but I rather enjoyed the Pale Ale, and as a general rule I am not so much a Pale Ale girl. I am anxiously awaiting the Stout and Porter, which have been my favorites of late... I will report on them when we try them out.

While Eric was down he met my entire family! As far as I know he is still my boyfriend, so I guess everything went well. He was a very good sport... it had been a tough week for the Tjardes Family, and he was very understanding of the fact that I think everyone was still just a little "out of sorts" so to speak, still a little sad and missing Uncle Harry. We were at Phil & Jayne's house on Saturday night... just drinking a little beer and eating a little pizza with the fam. Someone offered Jayne another beer to which she replied "No thanks, I am just a "1-beer" girl, "1-beer Jayne" if you will.' It is kind of a family joke that my Mom refers to us as Mom Jayne and Bank Jane, and well we found another way to distinguish us... I am definitely more of a "2-beer" Jane... hence the title of this post.

I am heading to the QC (Quad Cities) to spend the weekend with Eric on Friday. We decided not seeing each other for 3 weeks just really didn't work so well. Granted most of that was because I was in Florida, but still... 3 weeks is 3 weeks... and 3 weeks is too long to be apart. We got out the calendars on Sunday and worked out a schedule of sorts. It doesn't work out to see each other every weekend, but it looks like we will spend more of our weekends together than apart... WOO HOO! That is cause to celebrate... perhaps I will go have a beer!... no make that 2!

Blowing Kisses in the Wind

2008-03-16T18:30:00.003-06:00

I am blogging from C-U, we made it home safe and sound. And I have managed to get pictures to post... I think the problem was with the hotel internet connection.

Anyway, Saturday was packed up the van (aka Pete) and went to practice one more time. Marty Mason asked us if Franklin liked his shirts and wished us a safe trip home. We told him that he and his pen were going to miss us.

We went to Port St. Lucie to see the game against the Mets. As Frankie walked out to the bullpen we all yelled "Franklin" and waved at him (we had told him the day before that we were headed home after Saturday's game). We were too far away to really have a conversation, but he blew us kisses instead. It was awesome, and very much amused the Cardinal couple standing near us. The Cards got it going and won 10-3 with Adam Wainwright beating Johan Santana... sweet. Frankie closed out the 9th inning and got the save... we cheered very loudly for our new buddy.

We hit the road right after the game, and made it to Marietta about 1 a.m. We left there this morning and got to C-U just after 4 p.m. It was a great trip, four girls managed to share one bathroom without incident and I think we made lots of great memories... for both ourselves and the bullpen! I am very much looking forward to sleeping in my own bed

That's F***in Beautiful

2008-03-14T19:51:00.004-06:00

So last night we came up with a little plan to have the last laugh with Ryan Franklin. He had been giving us girls all sorts of grief all week for our fondness for certain members of the bullpen. We decided we should all make rhinestone "Franklin #31" tanks tops to wear under our jerseys, perhaps for Picture Day at Busch Stadium this summer. Then we decided "What the heck, let's wear them tomorrow!". So at 8:30 p.m. we were off to Wal-Mart to buy tank tops, rhinestones and glue. We were up until midnight, but we each ended up with a very blinged out "Frankie" shirt.

Practice had limited attendance, both fans and players, because the game was in Vero Beach today, but "Frankie" was at practice, not traveling with the team, because he had pitched in recent games. We had taken up our usual post along the fence at practice when "Perry" (bullpen coach, Marty Mason) came by in a golf cart from another field. He stopped nearby, saw us, and laughed saying "You girls haven't found real jobs yet?". We waved him over and asked him to help us out. We told him that Ryan Franklin had been giving us the business all week and that we wanted to have the last laugh before we left the next day. We gave Marty a preview of our shirts (he was greatly amused and told us to make fun of Ryan's new super short haircut) and asked him to tell Ryan to make sure he stopped by.

Sure enough a few minutes later when "Perry" drove by the pitchers playing toss, he hopped off the cart and had a few words with Ryan. When the pitchers headed to our end of the field for fielding practice, sure enough Frankie came to see us and asked "So who is it over hear that needs to talk to me?". We said that we wanted to have the last laugh since he had been giving us the business all week, and we thought that maybe he felt just a little left out of our bullpen lovefest so.... then one by one we each opened our jerseys to reveal four very sparkling "Franklin 31's". His response was classic... after a few minutes of silence he stepped back and simply said "That is F***in' Beautiful!!!" Then he needed to start fielding drills and told us not to go anywhere... as if!

During the fielding drills he definitely pointed us out to the other pitchers and they all proceeded to stare and/or laugh at us. Frankie then took Tyler Johnson's (April's crush who started this all) glove and drop kick it towards third base. He was totally being the "spoon" we all had come to enjoy so much this week.... definitely stirring it up. After the fielding drills he made a point to come back to the fence and chat with us before shagging balls for batting practice with the other pitchers. He was so incredibly sweet and genuinely touched by our thoughtfulness. Unlike the rest of the week he wasn't sarcastic at all. He said that he had been having a really bad week (he had to get his haircut... evidently that wasn't his choice, he had a big old gash on his lip which he pointed out, he got a loss, and he said it was hot) and that we just made his day/week. He asked us if we would wear his shirts in STL (we told him to look for us on picture day) and asked if we were enjoying our Spring Training trip. He discovered that it was Angie's first trip to Spring Training, and he referred to her as "rookie". He said he was completely impressed with the fact that we just put them together on the fly because I have to admit they look "fierce" as Christian from Project Runway would say. We said that they were done quickly and Ryan then said that he did see a little extra glue on April's shirt to which she quickly replied "If you can see the glue you are looking too close." He got all embarrassed and then recovered quickly in total spoon style by saying that he was just checking to see if we had spelled his name right. While were were chatting Ryan Ludwick walked by and noticed the shirts and simply said to the other Ryan/Frankie... "Man!" to which Frankie responded with "Hey man, it is my fan squad, check it out". Before he left he thanked us once again, and then stuck his index and middle fingers through the chain link fence and we shook is fingers since we couldn't shake his hand... he said that is how they all shake hands through a fence :( Ryan Franklin... you are a total spoon, but gosh darn it if you aren't completely sweet as well.

Batting practice with Albert and Yadi was a stitch today. They were challenging each other to get home runs. Albert was teasing Yadi that he needed to just hit one over saying "Come on, we don't have all day!" When Albert didn't get a hold of pitch that he wanted he definitely said "Okay, just wait for next time. I am going to hit it out next time. I know I can do it". Okay, so how awesome is it that Albert Pujols, Albert freakin' Pujols thinks he needs to prove his hitting skills to his teammates, coaches and fans? Hello, you are Albert Pujols... I think I will take your word for it!

After practice we headed to Vero Beach to Dodgertown. On the way up we were slowed down a bit due to construction, and there must have been an accident there earlier involving a truck hauling napkins and plastic silverware as the roadway was littered with napkins and plastic silverware for nearly a mile. We just laughed and laughed at all the plastic spoons on the road, and thought fondly of our Frankie:)

Dodgertown and Holman Stadium is definitely old school, a step back in time. We are glad we got to go and see it before the Dodgers move their training camp to Arizona next spring. The game was great. The Cards won, and went ahead for good with bases loaded in the 9th with two runs scoring on a passed ball. Brendan Ryan was totally heads up scoring from second with excellent base running when he noticed the catcher being a little lax in chasing the ball. Unfortunately we were sitting in front of some very annoying men at the game. They didn't ever shut up, and they were definitely ogling Angie for a bit, but they quickly stopped when she turned around and said "Um, you are the same age as my Dad, so thanks but that is just a little gross"... they left us alone the rest of the game, but still never shut up. Nik caught a game ball tossed into the stands by Josh Phelps, and after the game I managed to get Rick Ankiel's autograph. He didn't stick around to sign for April, Nik or Ang for some reason... guess that makes up for me not getting a ball this trip.

It has been a great week. We head out tomorrow. Practice in the morning, a game up the road a bit in Port St. Lucie in the afternoon, and then head for home after the game. We plan to stop Saturday night, and then get home on Sunday. I am a little sad to leave Spring Training behind, but look forward to getting home and sleeping in my own bed.

Don't You Girls Have Jobs?

2008-03-13T21:11:00.004-06:00

Wednesday night my friend/college roommate, Jeanne, drove up from Ft. Lauderdale with her friend Scarlet for dinner. We all had a great time and great food at the Food Shack.

At practice today (Thursday) we were once again spotted by the bullpen... they all said good morning today. Ryan Franklin... a total spoon, he so likes to stir things up... said "Hey, you guys are still here? Don't you girls have jobs?". It was pretty funny and we all responded with "Vacation/College Spring Break" as appropriate. Ryan tossed us a batting practice ball after practice that April caught.

Our seats today were in the shade, in the upper level between home and first base.... nowhere near the bullpen. From our seat we could definitely see all of the bullpen players scanning the berm and sections nearby for us... I think we were missed.

The game was exciting... we finally got a win. Rico Washington drove in the winning run in the bottom of the 10th.

Random side note: So the van makes this squeaking/moaning sound when you turn it tight (which happens a lot in Florida, land of the U turn). We decided it was totally the tow truck drive we nearly killed in Tennessee, trapped under the van... we named him Pete. On the way to dinner last night we heard another car make a new girly squeak, which Angie named Patty. Tonight when Pete was moaning a lot, Angie said he needed some lovin'... he needed his Patty. She also shared with us this bit of wisdom when discussing if the drawbridge would be up this evening after dinner... "Boats aren't supposed to be on the road at night."

We are working on a little surprise for practice and/or the game at Vero Beach tomorrow, a little something special for the "spoon". Tell you all about it tomorrow.

Gary: Our Hero

2008-03-13T20:42:00.005-06:00

At the game on Wednesday we sat next to a very nice and enjoyable family from Jerseyville, Illinois. Their son, Gary, was probably 10 to 12 and was keeping us entertained. He plays catcher and was telling Nik and Ang about his team. He had a couple of gloves there at the game, and Nik and Ang asked him if he would keep us all safe from foul balls if they came our way. He said "Sure, no problem, I only charge $10 per hour." He was just a great kid, totally into baseball, completely respectful of the game, players, his parents, fellow fans... I think we all have crushes.

When a ball came in our general direction Nik teased him about not catching the ball and protecting us, to which he responded "Of course I did, I so used "The Force" to move the ball several rows back". Later in the game a ball came right our way... really fast. Gary was watching another part of the field and didn't see it in time to get his glove up, and wouldn't you know it he got hit right on top of the head... OUCH! Turns out he was fine, just a big old knot on his head, but he was super brave... it had to hurt really bad but he didn't cry... just a few tears. I would have been screaming like a baby if it was me. The ushers and EMT's responded quickly and checked him out and gave him a few ice packs to keep under his hat.

We did our best to cheer him up, he was a little embarrassed he didn't catch the ball (but he just didn't see it in time). We told him and his family about the blog and asked if we could take a picture with him (it will follow, when I get home and get the blogger picture poting issue resolved). We gave them the blog address. When his mom took our picture she said "Oh Gary, forget all those autographs... this is the souvenir you will be showing everyone when you get home!"

The guys on the team did their part to take care of Gary too. Josh Kinney turned around and said "Hey, don't worry about it kid... I totally would have cried!" Murphy (the bullpen catcher) said he sees professional baseball players miss balls all the time, and get this when Gary's dad said that Gary was embarrassed more than anything because of all things Gary is a catcher Murphy offered to take Gary's glove overnight and have Yadier Molina sign it for him and bring it back the next day.

Today we caught up to Gary and his family after the game. Evidently Gary was a little disappointed that we didn't sit on the berm. He showed us his glove with Yadi's autograph, and also Rick Ankiels... we are so jealous. His mom said that she had checked out the blog already... and asked us about the "puppies". We felt compelled to tell them that we really do love baseball and are very knowledgeable, it is just the "puppies" are an added benefit... to which Gary's dad responded "So you are saying you enjoy the finer "ass"ets of the game...so to speak?

Anyway, Kudos to Gary and family. They were awesome.

2 for 2! High Five!

2008-03-13T19:47:00.004-06:00

For Wednesday's game we sat on the berm, right behind the bullpen... of course. I believe the guys were happy to see us... we are nothing if not entertaining. Ang was wearing her Brendan Ryan t-shirt, which much like Flo you have to special order. Brendan is one of Angie's favorites, and he is super cute. If you look back to last summer I believe you will find an old post entitled "Brendan Ryan, I heart him". Anyway after batting practice in the stadium, Brendan stopped and signed a lot of autographs before heading in to get ready for the game. He is a super nice guy and seems to really enjoy meeting the fans. He signed for all of us, but Angie said "Hey Brendan, check out my shirt!" and he was really excited. He asked her if that was the one she meant to order or if it was a mistake. He also said that since he had a fan watching he needed to try and get a hit.

Before the game we definitely spotted an older couple each wearing autographed Flo t-shirts just like mine... I am thinking they were family friends or something. When Flo came out we told him about seeing the couple wearing his shirts and he was very amused by our comment of "Hey Flo it appears your shirt sales have doubled"

The game was enjoyable as always, but we did have to deal with Timmy and his dad. Timmy was probably about 9 and he had absolutely no interest in the game and/or the players, but since he was under 12 he got to sit in the first row of the berm (a prime autograph spot), and his dad, whose life long dream it was to come to spring training, proceeded to badger all of the players into signing for Timmy despite the fact that Timmy really could not care less, and never asked any of the players for an autograph himself. Timmy's dad spent the entire game regaling us with his vast baseball knowledge and also implied that we would be willing to "do anything" to get a ball... hello we are not those kind of baseball lovin' girls.

During the game at one point the beer vendor came to the berm. After someone bought a $6.50 beer, Izzy turned around and heard the price of beer at the game. At which point he elbows whoever was sitting next to him and said "Did you hear that? A beer costs $6.50! Can you believe that... that is F'in NUTS! Thank you Jason Isringhausen for feeling the plight of the average Cardinal fan. We wanted him to use his paycheck to "Buy a Round for the Berm", but it didn't happen.

After the game we collected Colby Rasmus' autograph (kudos to Colby he has stayed to sign for EVERYONE after EVERY game this week) and also Brendan was signing again so Angie got to chat with him about the game. She caught up with him and said "Hey Brendan! The shirt totally worked! 2 for 2, high five!" to which Brendan definitely high-fived back. He really is a total sweetheart.

Well Looky There!

2008-03-13T17:07:00.006-06:00

We headed to practice on Wednesday and the bullpen definitely remembered us. We are ladies that leave a lasting impression I guess. We were standing along the fence and when the bullpen came running by... they were all definitely giving us looks and grins . Although they thought we couldn't hear it... we definitely heard a "Well Looky There" as they went by. Flo saw me and gave us a friendly "Good Morning".

Tyler was lagging behind the rest of the group. He saw April and was just too shy to say anything. April told him "Good Morning", he said "Hi" buried is head and ran away.

Later Joe Mather came out for batting practice... he too noticed us and said "Good morning, ladies, how are you today"... at which time in total girly girl stereo we all tilted our heads to one side and said "Good!" I guess we are pretty unforgettable.

Despite being girly and very interested in the "puppies" so to speak, all four of us girls know our baseball and don't have lots of patience with those who don't... especially the very obvious and/or basic . At practice that day Albert Pujols was approximately 30 feet from us playing first base for some fielding practice. A guy behind us then said, "Oh is Albert not coming out today!" Hello, he was 30 feet from us, granted he had on a jacket instead of a jersey so you could not see "Pujols 5" on his back, but he is Albert Pujols... future Hall of Famer, MVP, perhaps the biggest star in the game today, and has been a Cardinal his entire career... how can you NOT recognize him! Okay, so maybe you don't recognize Troy Glaus the new third baseman... he is new to the team, but Albert come on. Later that day at the game we heard another fan (Timmy's Dad) ask "Is Tony LaRussa here?", to which we replied "Ah no, Tony left to join the circus... where do you think he is, dingbat!"

Bullpen Buddies: "We'll Be Here All Week"

2008-03-13T15:50:00.004-06:00

Sorry I have been a bit of blog slacker but we have pretty much been on the go non-stop. Hopefully I can get y'all caught up on the past few days here in Jupiter.

Monday afternoon we went to the beach, and then we went and checked out the mall in Palm Beach Gardens for a little shopping and dinner. Tuesday morning we went to practice and it was relatively uneventful, but the same cannot be said for Tuesday's game. Our seats were in the first row down the first base line, very near the Cardinals bullpen. Before the game we were taking shifts getting food, and Nik and I totally managed to snag Yadi's autograph while Ang and April were gone. We all got Carp's autograph along with several others. We asked two of the minor league pitchers, Jason Motte and Kyle McClellan, where we should go to have a few drinks and hang out in the evenings. We said "Ya, we just hung out at our hotel pool last night drinking, and that was fun, but we might want to venture out little bit more while we are here". They told us about a few places, especially those near the stadium, and we went to Jumby Bay for dinner Tuesday night and it was really good... so Tuesday's Kudos go to Jason and Kyle.

Flo came out and was signing and I happened to be wearing my "Flores 34" t-shirt. I had him sign the picture of us from "Picture Day" at Busch Stadium, when I asked him if he remembered me he looked up and said "Hey, you sat next to me at Caravan". He asked if I still had the shirt he signed for me and I showed him that I still had a Flo shirt, but that I did get a new one because the signed one is going into the t-shirt quilt my Mom is going to make for me. He was very amused by this and asked if the quilt was for the dog to use in the doghouse... we thought this was funny since there is already quite the canine theme this week with all of the "puppies".

April was wearing a "Johnson 19" tank under her jersey. She has a similar tank that she wore when she met Tyler Johnson at Winter Warm Up a little over a year ago, and he was rather excited to have a fan. Evidently word got around the bullpen that we have a fondness for the relievers because during the first or second inning (during play, not in between innings mind you) Ryan Franklin leaned forward and turned around and was looking at me, and finally got my attention (for the longest time I just assumed he was trying to get someone else's attention) and told me to get April's attention. I leaned over to April and said "Ya, so Ryan Franklin wants to talk to you". He pantomimed to April for her to open her jersey a bit so that he could see whose name and number were on her tank... she reluctantly "flashed" him and the rest of the pen, and he then he just put his head in his hands and then went to the end of the bench to get Tyler and point this out to him. He shyly waved and said "Hi", remembering her from Warm Up, and then April told him that she had to make a new tank. He asked why and she told him because he changed his number from 61 to 19 last season... to which all of his bullpen buddies said "Duh!". As he was walking away I yelled to Tyler "Ya, and you owe her $5 for new rhinestones!" Meanwhile for the rest of the game the bullpen and the bullpen coach, Marty Mason (which for some reason Angie started calling "Perry" even though she is too young to even know that "Perry Mason" was a TV show) kept looking over at us and were very much entertained by everything we said and did. First, they were giggling at Nik and I trying to find the little salamander that Ang and April has seen in front of us that slipped in between the concrete wall and pad/mat. But Ang definitely managed to have them doubled over in laughter a few innings later when she said rather loudly (volume control is something Ang has yet to master:)) "Well, Son of a ...! I just knocked over my beer, that was $7 and now it is on the ground!"

After the game we got Joe Mather's (up and coming outfielder/first baseman and Nik's new favorite) autograph. Nik and I let him know that we met him at Caravan in Bloomington in January. We told him that we were the "4 girls in a mini-van" that we had told him about at Caravan, and he said, "Oh I remember, that Caravan was in the hockey arena, it was really chilly but I was wearing a hoodie so I was fine". Ang then felt compelled to tell him "We will be here all week! Be sure to look for us!"

It started to rain right after the game so we headed back to the hotel. We went to Jumby Bay for dinner and then crashed relatively early since we had a late night drinking cocktails by the pool the night before.

Baseball Disney Style

2008-03-10T05:34:00.003-06:00

Sunday we drove to Orlando to see our boys take on the Atlanta Braves at Champion Stadium. The Braves train at Walt Disney World and well baseball Disney style is a little different. First, the music and the announcing is just very "Disney" super duper peppy. One of our favorites is when a foul ball went into the stands and everyone was trying to get it they played the "Mine, Mine, Mine" sound bite from "Finding Nemo"... very appropriate.

The weather was great, sunny and high 70's... perhaps a little too great, April, Nik and Angie are sunburned pretty much all over. Me, lobster girl, applied sunscreen three different times but managed to miss a spot on my ankle and it really hurts.

It was great to be in baseball mode again and to see our boys, both old and new. We got to see Randy Flores' younger brother aka "Baby Bro Flo" as we call him. Good thing too, he didn't do so well and was assigned to minor league camp following the game. Angie was talking to her Mom before the game on the phone and also admiring the scenery... she said "Oh, there's a cute butt" and her Mom thought she said "cute puppy" so from now on "puppy" is our euphemism or code word if you will for "butt". Needless to say, we talked a lot about puppies yesterday and probably will for the rest of the trip. In between all of the puppy hilarity a guy accidentally bumped into Angie and she commented about how he knocked into her chest when we were going to get a drink. I was like what do we call those, "kitties"?. Later when sharing this with Nik she said that "kitty" (singular) was the term used by the women in her office at work for another part of the female anatomy, so in keeping with the pet theme they are now referred to as parakeets.

Some of the folks sitting on the lawn provided us with great entertainment. The family behind us definitely kept referring to the "sammiches" they had for lunch. Another dad on the other side of us was definitely wearing gray baseball pants to the game. Hey buddy, as general rule leave the baseball pants to the professionals on the field and to children under age 10. Another gentleman stood up for the 7th inning stretch and he definitely had some but sweat issues... either that or he had a 10-100. I was totally having a spaz about some Mom that only put sunscreen on her son's arms and feet... none on his face. Considering the redness of my ankle I should not judge.

The Cards got their "puppies" kicked, but who cares, spring training games don't count. We think the boys were just overly excited to see us. In keeping with the Disney theme, Nikki said they were "twitterpaited" (think Thumper in Bambi).

There was a cheerleading competition going on at Disney as well, and we noticed some rather revealing uniforms on some young girls... scary.

They pulled us in to a parking space with the van resting downhill towards the lagoon. Definitely a parking brake moment. Then when leaving they only allowed us to turn left and we needed to turn right. We ventured through Disney a bit, Nik got to see Animal Kingdom on the fly and then I was able to rock a U-turn in my Mom's van (it turns on a dime, and corners like its on rails you know) and we were off towards Jupiter. The Florida Turnpike is kind of expensive... $10+ to drive through scenic Central Florida. Perhaps Kentucky needs a turnpike... maybe they could buy a snow plow.

We went to practice this morning... kind of small crew since most of team is still in Florida. We did get to see Carp, ARey and Looper. Matt Clement threw BP to some minor leaguers as part of his rehab as well. Chris Duncan did essentially an individual workout, and stayed to sign autographs for us. We tried to go to the Burt Reynolds Museum here in town but were DENIED! It is only open Friday-Sunday.... we are sad. Apparently there were auditions of some sort going on and they definitely asked us if we were there to audition. We consoled ourselves with a yummy lunch and are now headed to the beach to try to get over our disappointment.

Again, Blogger is denying the photo post. Hopefully pictures to come later.

4 Girls in Mini-Van: The Needs of the Many Outweigh the Needs of the Few

2008-03-10T05:07:00.004-06:00

So we pulled out of Champaign on Saturday at 5:07 a.m., just seven minutes later than our original goal... not bad. Illinois was relatively uneventful, we stopped in Padukah, Kentucky for potty and gas and Nik graciously offered to take the wheel for awhile. Bet she is regretting that now, because just beyond Padukah we quickly realized that the state of Kentucky does not own a snow plow!!! They had about 3 inches of snow the night before, actually a bit less than Southern Illinois, but Illinois owns snow plows. One lane was completely snow packed and the other was only partially cleared. We saw most of Kentucky at 40 mph. Nik gets the Kudos for getting us through that safely... well almost... just as we got to Tennessee, the large semi hauling two yachts in front of us suddenly got over to the left lane revealing a tow truck on the shoulder trying to pull a car out of the ditch. The tow truck was fine, off on the shoulder.... the tow truck driver however had his truck door open and was standing in our lane. We could not get over because there was another semi passing us. Said semi was throwing tons of slush on our windshield, and Nikki was yelling "I can't see! I can't see". Luckily the tow truck driver, who was not smart enough to have flashing lights or orange cones warning traffic of his presence, was at least smart enough to put up his hood and dive for cover in his truck... lucky him. April and Angie were watching "Smokey and the Bandit" in the back seat at the time. Shortly after the near miss of the vehicular manslaughter April said "I bet he had a 10-100", referring to Sally Field's line in the movie when she implies she almost peed her pants. Later when I was relaying the story to Eric and telling him that we didn't have a choice, we couldn't get over in the other lane, we would have definitely hit the semi and all four of us would have perished... there was just the one tow truck driver to our four... Eric's comment was "Well I guess the needs of the many outweight the needs of the few."

Once we got to Tennessee where they own snow plows, driving was simple once again... although please note Tennessee has obviously spent so much money on the snow plows that they can't afford rest areas. We got to Lake City Saturday night about 9:30 local time, after stopping in Valdosta for supper. We headed to Orlando Sunday morning to take in the game vs. the Braves Sunday afternoon. The drive towards Orlando provided us with the opportunity to read the zillions of billboards for strip clubs, gentleman's clubs etc. The most clever name... definitely, "Cafe Risque". The was once club that advertised strippers and billiards... that brought a whole new meaning to the term "Rack 'em Up!".

All About ZZ's

2008-03-09T20:51:00.005-06:00

We are safe and sound in Jupiter, though there were several close calls along the way. Stopped in Orlando at Champion Stadium/Disney's Wide World of Sports/Spring Training Home of the Atlanta Braves for the game today... evidently a member of ZZ Top was there too (see photo, okay don't see photo Blogger is being evil and not letting me download photos). Speaking of ZZ's we need some desperately and will blog more about our adventures (there have been many thus far) later.

Editors Note: This was written Sunday night, but not posted until now. I was waiting for Blogger to let me post the photos but it still is not cooperating

What Did I Do Before Cable?

2008-03-03T20:13:00.002-06:00

Right now I am watching Jon & Kate Plus 8 on TLC. I adore this show... Jon & Kate have a set of 7-year old twins, and 3-year old sextuplets. Their life is so incredibly crazy, but at the same time so very normal. In this episode they are skiing in Park City, Utah... what can I say... Fabulous.

I am anxiously awaiting the season finale of Project Runway on Bravo on Wednesday. I think I am rooting for Jillian, but I could definitely see Christian or Rami winning as well. Christian is just so crazy confident and full of himself, and he is just a total tool. Jillian is so diverse and just always surprises you. I wasn't all that impressed with Rami originally because all of his designs have been the same thing, but he really impressed me with the first three pieces of his final collection... he finally designed outside the "draping box" so to say.

Seriously folks, how did I live before cable.

108 to Go!

2008-03-02T20:21:00.004-06:00

Saturday I met Eric in Peoria at Scott and Tara's house. Scott and Tara are Eric's best friends, and they so very graciously offered to put Eric and me up for the night on Saturday, so they definitely get the Kudos for the day. Both Eric and I had other obligations early on Saturday and then later on Sunday, so meeting halfway in Peoria was probably the only way we were going to get to see each other this weekend, before I leave for Florida next weekend. It was great to get to spend some time together, and to get to meet his friends. I think I passed the "best friends" test, so hopefully Eric will keep me around for awhile :)

Saturday night we went to Old Chicago for pizza and beer. It was delicious and the company was delightful. Eric and Tara introduced me to Old Chicago's "World Beer Tour". They offer 110 beers from around the world... I had a Schlafly Stout and Killian Red... only 108 to go!!! Eric is up to 81 (not to worry it has taken him about 4 years to get that far... not just one night)... I have lots of catching up to do. I will be sure to keep everyone apprised of my WBT (World Beer Tour) progress here on the blog.

Tennis Anyone?

2008-02-29T23:58:00.004-06:00

Earlier tonight I went to the Illini Men's Tennis match vs. Michigan State. I really enjoy Illini tennis, even though I am a bit of a tennis dummy. It was a very good match. The Illini won the doubles point, and many of the singles matches were close and exciting, so the Illini's 6-1 win is not indicative of how close and exciting it really was. My friend Lindsey and I were sitting upstairs near Court 3, and it was quite the match. The player for MSU was a total jerk, he questioned a bunch of calls and at one time even stormed over to the official and just started to go off on her... so much for Spartan sportsmanship... Tom Izzo would be so ashamed. This kid, John Allare, was a total tool. Sadly he besmerched the good name of John's everywhere... John Todd, John Thomas and John Marquardt you guys should so kick him out of the club. John Allare has red hair and Linds likened him to Tom Coverdale, Indiana Hoosier guard from a few years back that was a bit of tool himself... it was a fitting comparison.. definitely another "Opie on crack" as Nik, Karen and I fondly referred to Mr. Coverdale. Fortunately Mr. Allare's unsportsmanlike behaviour was not rewarded and my new hero, Illini Sophomore, Billy Heiser (pictured above) so completely came roaring back from big deficits in each set to beat Mr. Pissy Britiches aka Richard Cranium 7-6, 7-6.... now that is karma don't you think? KUDOS Billy Heiser... you totally rock.

Besides the awesome tennis, it was great to hang with Linds a little bit. I have missed her since she left Busey and went back to school. She has finished school and is back home while she looks for a job so hopefully I can take advantage of her close proximity for awhile and hang out with her more.

Sorry it has been over a week since my last post. Not sure how that happened, I guess I just got busy doing nothing. I have been training two "new hires" at work the past two weeks, and I guess it has me tuckered out. Training is going really well and I think we have two really solid additions to the team, but being "On" most of the work day does take its toll. Saturday I am meeting Eric in Peoria and I am definitely looking forward to spending a little time with my sweetie! We head to Jupiter, Florida for Spring Training in a week. Woo Hoo!... baseball and an escape from this dreadful Illinois winter.... double bonus! Stay tuned for daily spring training blogs.

Bravo Eric

2008-02-18T19:39:00.005-06:00

Saturday I headed up to the Quad Cities to spend the weekend with Eric, and see him perform in a play, "Light Up the Sky", for Richmond Hill Players. The theater itself was just really cool, as it is in the round and located in they hayloft of a converted dairy barn. I grew up on farm, and although we raised beef cattle not dairy... I feel completely at home in barn! I saw two performances, Saturday night and the Sunday matinee. Both were great, but I caught so much more of the humor the second time around. Eric was great, and it was lots of fun to see the actor in him.

Eric's family came to the Sunday show, and we all went out for dinner afterwards. It was lots of fun to meet them. They are all Cardinal fans and Illini fans so it wasn't too hard to fit in. After dinner we went to Travis and Steph's house (Eric's brother and sister-in-law) and we played a little Euchre. Never in my life have I ever gotten such good cards... I am a mediocre player at best, and I could not lose even if tried. Eric and I totally kicked their booties... poor Travis was pretty much speechless as I just laid down trump or an ace every time he thought they were going to make a move. I am thinking Eric and Travis must still have a little bit of a competitive sibling rivalry of sorts going on because Eric alluded to the fact that if going to two play peformances didn't give me "fabulous girlfriend" status already... I pretty much sealed the deal after leaving Travis in a cloud of dust at the card table :) I was quick to let Eric know not to get used to it, that I really was blessed with incredible cards that night, and am certainly no card shark.

Eric and I also celebrated Valentine's Day over the weekend. He gave me THE cutest, sweeetest and laugh-out-loud funny gift. To preface the gift, you have to know that Eric and I were having a conversation a few weeks ago and he mentioned something about referring to me as his girlfriend, and asked me if I minded the "title"... to which I replied, "Well, does it come with a crown and sash?", because well if I was going to have a title I wanted one with a little bling. So for Valentine's Day Eric gave me a custom screen printed green satin sash with "Eric's Girlfriend" in silver lettering on it, along with a rhinestone tiara/crown. It was just the best gift ever... totally the kind of gift I would pick out. I think Eric definitely "out-fabuloused" Jano Fabulous.

I headed for home this morning, when Eric left for work... poor Eric no banking and/or government holidays for him. I did make a slight detour and stopped in Geneseo to have breakfast with Dave Roome and family. Dave is an old family friend, my friend Jenn's (of Jenn, John, Sidney and Abby) older brother. Today's kudos definitely go to Dave's wife, Janice, for making waffles for this morning! Yummy! My favorite.

2 x the Ja(y)ne, 2 x the Fabulous!

2008-02-15T19:30:00.003-06:00

Happy Birthday to the "other" Ja(y)ne Elizabeth Tjardes! That's is right, there are two of us. The "other" Ja(y)ne is my sister-in-law, Jayne.

Jayne is a special person... you kind of have to be to be married to my brother for 25 years! Not that I am complaining about Phil, mind you... in the past month he has fixed my garage door opener and pumped nasty flood water out of my crawlspace... but still it takes a special person, he is a bit of a "character". Jayne and I obviously bond over the fact that we share the same name, with the exception of her "y". Everytime we call one another on the phone it is the same routine... "Ja(y)ne? This is Ja(y)ne."... followed by a little giggle. Yes it is silly, and you would think after 25 years it might get old, but no it really doesn't. Needless to say the same name thing does cause for some confusion... perhaps the creepiest is when one of my co-workers saw Phil at the Hall one time and asked, "You are Jane Tjardes' brother, right?" to which Phil responded, "Yes, and her husband." Luckily said co-worker was aware of the "two Ja(y)nes" because otherwise... EW! After 10+ years of having both of us answer when she called "Ja(y)ne" my Mom came up with new "labels" for us... "Mom Jayne" and "Bank Jane". We don't particularly care for them at all, we even suggested "Jaynie" and "Jano" (Jayne does not share my aversion to "Ja(y)nie") as an alternative, but isn't happening. I will admit that we both immediately know to which one she is referring and I don't know that Jayne plans to get a job at a bank, or I plan to have a baby just to make my Mom stop.

Jayne has a way of making things look "put together". She used to be a visual merchandiser for Von Maur and now she stages homes for sale. I guess I have some style, and perhaps could be considered crafty or slightly Martha Stewart-esque, but I need directions and a specific materials to put stuff together... Jayne puts me to shame, she could organize your broom closet and make it look "designer" or plant a few seeds here and there and have it look like the cover of Better Homes & Gardens.

Happy Birthday Jayne!

Happy Valentines Day

2008-02-14T20:34:00.003-06:00

Hello everyone, I hope you are all enjoying a faboulous Valentines Day. I celebrated by returning to work today after being out for 3 days for what I like to call "Snotfest 2008"... otherwise known as a wicked case of flu/bronchitis/ear infection. I am feeling much better now. Actually I did treat myself to a pedicure after work.

I do have to give a special shout out to my Valentine, Eric. I met Eric on Eharmony right around New Years. I am not quite sure we will be starring in the Eharmony commercials just yet, but things are definitely going well... very well! :) Eric lives near the Quad Cities, and I am looking forward to visiting him this weekend and seeing him perform in a play for a local community theater. So Happy Valentines Day, Eric! Needless to say I think you are FABULOUS!