Tree in the Street?

So I was driving home from work today, headed down my street. At the corner where I usually turn there is a white van sitting there jutted out in the middle of the intersection. I'm thinking to myself, what is that moron doing there half out in the street where I need to turn? I get a little closer about ready to turn right and what do I see in front of me?? The neighbor's 50 foot tree in the middle of the road. Quite the sight! Actually I've never seen anything quite like it before in my life. Jamie, along with the whole neighborhood were standing outside staring at this giant arboreal monstrosity. We knew this day would come at some point, didn't think it would happen this soon but it did. This tree had been rotting out, you could visibly see it near the top, but apparently it was also rotting out at the base too. And today was its last day standing.

Our Baby's First Pictures!

First Anniversary 3/29/09

For our first anniversary, we took a long weekend trip to downtown Chicago. We took the train in and stayed at the Sofitel Hotel Friday and Saturday nights. On Friday, we went to the Museum of Science and Industry and spent the afternoon watching chicks hatch, learning about genes, and being disappointed that the Crime Lab was closed (the only thing that Jamie really wanted to see that day). Friday night we had dinner at McCormick and Schmick's seafood restaurant which was conveniently located across the street from our hotel. When he called to make a reservation, they asked if we were celebrating anything and he said our anniversary. When we arrived, they had a little notecard wishing us a happy anniversary and our menu had been specially printed for us wishing us happy anniversary. Definitely a nice touch (and something fun to put in the scrapbook). The food was really good and so was the dessert.On Saturday, we were thinking about going to the Art Institute but decided to save a little money so we ended up hanging out at Border's in the afternoon, people watching and reading magazines. Plus the weather was pretty cold and windy and rainy and we didn't feel like being outside, even to travel in between. Saturday evening we had gotten tickets to go see Second City, the improv group in Chicago where greats like Steve Martin, John Belushi, Bill Murray, etc. got their start. The skits were good and we had a good time. So by this point, we knew I was pregnant (!!) and I ordered a couple virgin drinks...pina colada, strawberry daiquiri and the second one I ordered ended up having alcohol in it. I asked our server about it (after he had brought us our bill and charged us for an alcoholic one) and he took it back and brought me a new one. I was a little surprised that he still charged us for it (especially after I told him I was pregnant) but oh well.
We also decided to try on the hotel's bathrobes since we were staying at a fancy hotel (it's apparently ranked #95 in the world for luxury hotels). This isn't something we normally do. =) And on Sunday we had to come home =( Happy First Anniversary!

Positive!

Windmill

Windmill
Originally uploaded by Pierpont Photography

We stopped on the way home from visiting Aaron in Minneapolis to take some pictures. Here's the first one I've processed....more to follow. I promise.

American Idol 3

Haven't posted in awhile who we think will be the bottom 3:

1. Lil Round

2. Anoop Desai

3. Matt Giraud

Our favorite this week: Kris Allen! Jamie has already listened to his song "Falling Slowly" from the Once Soundtrack about 100 times on repeat. :)

Painting the Kitchen

We painted our kitchen last weekend. There was definitely a debate over the color choice but we ended up compromising on Coriander by Martha Stewart, a lovely shade of yellow. Jamie's original choice was lime green which I initially thought I would like as well but then we realized when we went to the paint store that we actually had differing opinions of what "lime green" actually is. I ended up going back later and picked up about 50 paint samples in various shades of yellow, orange, and green. We finally decided on yellow and bought a few mini sample cans at Lowe's to test on our walls. We painted the 4 we had chosen in 3 different places on our kitchen walls (to see what they would look like in the various lights) and then numbered the cans and the wall samples to decide which we liked the best. It's amazing what a coat of paint can do to freshen things up and just make everything look cleaner. We also repainted the trim in the kitchen to touch it up as well.

American Idol 2

Our predictions this week for who will go home on American Idol:

1. Alexis Grace OR

2. Scott MacIntyre

Home Improvement Projects

We've been making a list of home improvement projects over the last couple months and I finally wrote them all down the other day so we make sure we get them all done. These are projects to get done in the next couple months as well as in the longer term (since who knows how long we'll be living here with my house not selling...)

1. Paint kitchen and nook
2. Replace and hang light fixture by back door
3. Replace fans in living and dining rooms
4. Replace fan in nook with light fixture and fan in guest bedroom with new fan
5. Get new outside doors and install
6. Fix quarter round on wood floors
7. Replace outside deck/patio
8. Rebuild outside stone wall holding back flower bed
9. Paint downstairs bedroom
10. Replace light fixture in both bathrooms
11. Fix upstairs shower
12. Landscape outside

Rogue

We finally decided to break down and get a new car. My Altima was struggling as of late and I've been wanting a Nissan Murano or Rogue for some time, so two weeks ago we went to the Nissan dealer in Des Moines and decided to lease a Rogue. It was a much better experience than the last time we went to a car dealer. Two years ago, I considered getting a Murano but the car salesman was awful and put SOOO much pressure on us to buy. We left upset with him and the dealer which is unfortunate since we've bought a lot of Nissan cars over the years. Our new Rogue is a 4 cylinder, all wheel drive, crossover SUV. Color=Gotham Gray, it's like the batmobile. :)