South Dakota Pt. I

After the wedding and a nice Sunday visit with some of Ken's family in from out of state, we packed up the car and got out of town! It's been an unbelievably long semester so far with the wedding planning and students from the underworld for me (Note here that I'm trying to put that nicely -- I have some real doozies this semester). We slowly made our way toward South Dakota and the Black Hills/Mt. Rushmore, but as usual found a couple of good stopping points along the way.

Stop 1: The Beanpod Candle Outlet Store -- Marcy's favorite place to buy her now-favorite soy candles at an exceptionally low price. After stocking up on some good deals, we were back on the road which took us to ....

Stop 2: Clear Lake, IA home of the Surf Ballroom, the last place Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and JP "the Big Bopper" Richardson played in Feb. 1959 before their plane went down a few miles outside of town.

I've been to the Surf Ballroom before, but had always wanted to go to the spot in the corn field where the plane went down. I'd heard there was a memorial there, so off we went to find it. We trudged our way through an extremely muddy March corn field (Hey , where was the frozen ground?). After we were almost there, the ground just became too saturated and I could not go on. By this point my sneakers were coated in mud, but being the neat freak I am, I decided that I just could not walk through the standing water/mud to the memorial. Being the trooper he is, Ken did it for me and got some nice pictures of the memorial. It was strange to think that it was almost exactly 50 years that the plan had crashed in that field killing the three rock legends.

After mudding our way back to the car and trying desperately to clean our shoes off in the lone patch of snow we could find, we got back on the road and headed to....

Stop 3: Sioux Falls, SD. There we decided to go hang at the hotel (Country Inns and and Suites) early, relaxing to a lovely room, comfy bed, and free cookies in the lobby. My idea of a real vacation!

More on the Douth Dakota trip in the next blog. There are too many pictures to post and stories to tell to do it now. It's getting late and I have to start another week tomorrow. More to come soon!

After 8 years...a wedding!

The wedding was beautiful and just the way we wanted it: simple and elegant. The ceremony lasted all of 15 minutes (Lutheran, naturally) and the reception at the ballroom at UNI was lovely. It was so good to see so many of our friends and family there -- many of whom traveled a great deal to be there. Thanks to you all for coming and helping to make our day special!

Here are a couple of pictures from the day shared with me from various friends/relatives who had cameras. If anyone else took pictures, I'd love to have copies! It's so hard not being able to take my own pictures. We'll get the proofs from the photographer in a week or so, but I love the candids that people take.



After the big day, Ken and I headed off for a little mini-honeymoon. Our official honeymoon will be in Hawaii after he comes back from Iraq in 2010, but in the mean time, we both agreed it would be nice to get out of town for a bit. We drove out to South Dakota and visited the Black Hills and Mt. Rushmore. I'll post pictures from that trip in a separate blog.

In short, it was a lovely wedding, reception, and trip afterwards. Now we have the grand task of writing all those Thank Yous. All I can say about that right now is that we're working on them and we will get them out soon!

IA Wedding Shower

Well, with one week to go before the wedding, I find that things are getting a little more rushed in terms of taking care of all that needs to be taken care of. Ken and I did finally get to the Courthouse to get our marriage certificate. His sister Maria came along as our witness. When we signed all the paperwork for that, I had to declare then and there what my name was (is?) going to be after marriage. Rather than keep you all in suspense, I'll just tell you that I'm keeping my name. I realize some people may not agree with that practice and some may think it's just fine. As for me, I decided that keeping my last name was important to me, and Ken didn't really mind, so I'm staying the same. We decided that we'll be just as married whether we share the same last name or not. Of course, when I went back to the Courthouse a few days later to pick up the license, etc., the Clerk had written Ken's last name as the "Bride's Name After Marriage." When I corrected her, she gave me a weird look. I suppose living around here I'll get a few weird looks when Ken and I introduce ourselves with different last names from here on.

A few weeks ago, my sister Melissa threw me a shower in Iowa for my friends and family here. It was a lovely event and it was good to see so many people all together again. We had it at the John Deere Supervisors Club in Waterloo, which had a room big enough to fit everyone in it. Here are some pictures from the day.

This is a picture of the ladies in my immediate family. Back L-R: Sister Melissa, Sister Connie, Brittaney, Mother, Niece Nicole, and Aunt Sheila. Front: Me, Grandma Frieda, Sister Corrina.

Here is a shot of my mom, Aunt Sheila, and some of Mom's co-workers. The woman in red on the right and in the center was actually there working at the hospital the day I was born. She was an OB nurse (and now teaches at the college) and even remembered what room my mom was in when I was born! That made my day!

Here I am posing for a picture with my new set of cookware! It will be so nice having some "good" things at home and to be able to pass along some of our "gently used" items collected during bachelorhood and graduate school days.

Here is simply another shot of the room showing some of the wonderful guests who were able to make it. I wish I could have talked to everyone more, but it's so hard to get a chance to just sit down and catch up with everyone. I know that will be something that's hard for me about the wedding day too, but I am excited for the chance to see everyone and hopefully catch up if only for a little while.

And so there it is. One week from today, Ken and I'll be married. It's hard to imagine that this day is almost here after 8 years and a lot of memories already together.

Illinois Wedding Shower

At last, a moment to post some wedding shower pictures! During the last weekend in January, my friends, Claire and Jan, in Illinois gave me a shower/tea. It was a wonderful day and it was just so much fun getting to see the Illinois friends that I miss so much. Going back made me feel like a grad student again, in this case, a nice feeling. My mom and I drove out on Friday after classes. I got to sleep in my "old room" again, which was cool, but also made me remember those dissertation-writing days which were only a year ago! Saturday was spent getting ready for the afternoon shower at Claire's house. Here are some pictures to put the day in perspective.

Because it was a shower thrown by and mostly for people who teach writing or who are involved in English in some way, the day had to begin with a little writing/creative activity. Claire had materials all set out for people to put together a page of wedding advice or some personal message to Ken and me. I got to wander around and supervise what people were doing as I was going to get to read the book later in the day/evening. People wrote some really touching messages, and I know this will be a book I'll treasure forever.

Then, of course there was the absolutely wonderful carrot cake that Jan brought to the shower, along with chocolates from the Chocolatier in Bloomington, nuts, and tea. While people were feasting on the delicacies, I began opening presents so as not to delay the afternoon too long. I was taken aback at how generous my friends were as Ken and I received many lovely gifts for our home. Among some of the presents received were cookware, a cake plate/dome, roasting pan, picture frame, fondu pot, birdhouse, and wine. Some friends were not going to make it to the wedding in Iowa, so they shared shower and wedding gifts including a clock, webcam so Ken and I can stay in touch while he's in Iraq, and a GPS navigator for the car. In all, Ken and I now have many wonderful items to help build our home up. I am excited because now we have newer items to start with and can pass along some of our grad student/bachelor apartment items!

It was great to see everyone again. Before we knew it, the weekend was over and Mom and I were driving back to Iowa. The following weekend we had another shower for my Iowa friends and family, which was also a lot of fun. I'll try to get pictures posted from that soon.

Just Checking In

I don't have much time to write, but I just wanted to check in. Work is crazy now for many reasons:

1) I've collected my first sets of papers for the semester. That means 6 sets of writing papers for my 6 classes. There are about 12-15 papers in each set, which might not seem like a lot until you realize how much commenting there is for me to do on them considering they are all very developmental and it's their first paper, so they're all making the "first time" errors.

2) Wedding items still loom large and in front. So much to do and only about 3 weeks left to go! Hard to believe, huh? Tomorrow, Ken and I are off to get the rings picked up and go get the marriage license. Hopefully, my dress will be ready late this week so that will be one less thing. I had two lovely showers recently, but that means Thank Yous to finish writing. I have just 1-2 left and then I'm done. Thank goodness! Who knew writing those would take so long!!! This weekend it's wrapping up table chocolates and preparing the rehearsal dinner invites and programs. Thanks to everyone who weighed in via email about my name change dilemma. I'm leaning toward keeping my own name now. I never realized how much work is involved with a name change. Wow!

3) Things at work are good for the most part with the exception of some terribly behaved students and an incident yesterday involving one terribly rude/aggressive student and a teacher in my dept. I swear, I've never had such bad cases of students with no discipline, a lack of maturity, and who are just plain rude. I have one class that I dread going to every Tuesday/Thursday because the students are so whiny, want everything spelled out for them, don't want to do the reading, talk over me and each other, have cell phone use issues, and then proceed to just simply be complete and utter jerks. I really seriously hate going to that class. About 2/3 of the students are great and it's only about 3-4 that are driving me nuts, but still, just those few make me dislike going and dealing with them.

Other things at work are kind of shaky too. The terrible economy has taken its toll on our college and we have to cut almost 25% of our budget due to the state budget crisis (the issue is that we have to cut an additional $1.2 million or something). The college president is now talking staff reductions and everyone is wondering who is going to be let go. I worry because I am a new hire and "low woman on the totem pole." My only hope is that I'm the only full-time writing instructor and I teach in Dev. Studies, a part of the campus that serves nearly 50% of the students. Still, it doesn't mean much when the circumstances are so bad. We're all worried about our jobs and what's yet to come. This topic took up the bulk of conversation during lunch today in the office. I feel bad complaining about students when there are so many other things to worry about with work, job security, etc.

I hope to have time this weekend to post some shower pictures.

The Making of a Card Cake

So, as I've mentioned a few times in this blog, I've been working on something called a card cake (or at least I think that's what it's called given that's what it looks like). I got the idea from my friend Melissa E-T's wedding last October. She had one and I just thought it was cool. I also thought I could figure out how to make one too. And so with the help of my friend Kelly, we managed to figure out the basic parts. Here, my friends and loyal readers, is the making of a card cake.

First of all, what is it? Well, essentially, it's a structure made out of hatboxes built to look like a wedding cake. Its purpose is to hold cards that people bring to the wedding and reception. One could have a basket for cards; some people even use a birdcage as a card collector. I thought M.E.T.'s cake was cool and unique though so I wanted one myself. I bought 2 hatboxes during the holiday clearance sales at Hobby Lobby and picked up the third smaller one later with Kelly.

The first thing we had to do was cut the holes in the hatboxes so that the cards could "fall" through the layers (note the knife stuck in the top of the blue box to the right). Then we had to cover the blue boxes with white before we could cover them with fabric as we didn't want the blue showing through the white. After that, we had to carefully measure the white silky fabric so as to glue it on. It took a little while to figure out what glue, etc. to use, but it turned out that the glue gun was the best way to go in the end.

Now, I don't think of myself as much of a creative person when it comes to things like this, so I relied on Kelly to help me get a mental picture of how this thing would actually come together. I can usually do pretty good when I have directions to follow, but I didn't this time and the Internet wasn't that big of a help. Thankully, Kelly is really good at creative person-type things though and before we knew it, we had a plan for putting it together. Unfortuantely, she had to leave early that day, so it was up to me to do some figuring out on my own as well.

I spent the next two weeks or so in between teaching and other things staring at the structure and waiting for inspiration to strike as to how to decorate it. I'm glad I waited and didn't just glue things according to my first instinct because I was able to get some good ideas from Gail who's doing my flowers. In the end, I think it turned out pretty good for my first try and for having no directions. I may tweak it a little with some of the side flowers, but if I don't have time, I'll be happy with it the way it is.

The next project is assembling programs and table decorations, but those'll have to wait until February as it's time to start going to some fun showers! Next weekend I'll be in IL for a shower with some of my old Illinois gang and then the next weekend a shower here in IA with Iowa friends and family. Should be fun. Only 6 weeks to go until wedding time. It's hard to believe it's coming that fast!

See here the finished product.

Gatlinburg, TN - December 2008

Over the holiday break, Ken and I decided to do a little traveling. Initially, we wanted to make the drive out to the Black Hills in South Dakota, but were strongly recommended not to attempt doing so in the winter given that South Dakota is just as bad as Iowa when it comes to snow and ice on the roads. Instead, we decided to go someplace a little warmer but just as beautiful. We settled on the Great Smoky Mountains in Tennessee since neither one of us had been there before and because we could get a relatively good deal on plane tickets out of Iowa to Knoxville.

I'll spare you all the terrible details about trying to fly out of Iowa in late December, but suffice it to say that it took us 2 days and much switching of flights to get us out of here. First, fog in Cedar Rapids forced all flights in/out of CR to cancel. Then an ice storm the next morning meant that flying out of Waterloo would be just as impossible. We finally decided on just driving the three hours to Minneapolis to make our flight to Knoxville. From there, it was smooth sailing, er...smooth flying.

We spent about 5 days in and around the Gatlinburg, TN area. We started off in the Pigeon Forge area, the home of Dolly Parton and Dollywood, and made our way through Gatlinburg and the large area known as the Great Smokey Mountain National Park. As we drove around the park, we also dipped into a little bit of North Carolina and a Cherokee Indian Reservation.

We saw some fabulous waterfalls around the area and enjoyed being both low and high in the mountains, the low areas known as coves or hollows. In one historical area known as Cades Cove, we saw many of the original settlers' cabins built in the early 1800s when people (i.e., the white man) first came to settle in the mountains. It was interesting to learn about their way of life and how then 100 years later they were forced to leave those tiny communities so that the National Park could be established.

I was really hoping to see a bear there as they do inhabit the mountains, but unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately) we didn't come across any. The weather was decent the whole time though and we were able to get away with wearing long sleeves and light jackets most of the time, except for when we were high in the mountains. There was at least a 20 degree difference between the bottom and top of the mountains. Basically, we got so used to the light jackets that we froze our tail ends off when we got higher up and actually got out of the car.

While in Pigeon Forge, we also took in a few shows. The whole area is really built up for tourists and is sort of a cross between Branson, MO, Wisconsin Dells, and Las Vegas. There is no gambling, but a lot of musical shows and family entertainment. Because we wanted to see a non-Christmas show, our options were a bit limited. We settled on two shows that featured more oldies-style music: one had a Grease-themed show with an Elvis impersonator and the other was all impersonations of famous singers: Conway Twitty, Buddy Holly, Tim McGraw, Kenny Chesney, and of course, Elvis again. I liked the first Elvis better, but the second one had some good show credibility. He had the "motions" down better though the first one (pictured here in blue) was a bit better looking, in my opinion. The Tim McGraw was very impressive and as good as the real deal if you asked me.

By the end of the trip, we were pooped and ready to come home. A quick stop at the USO for some free food and comfy recliners in the Denver airport helped revive us for the second leg of the trip and then, of course, the 3 hour drive back home from Minneapolis to Waterloo.

The next big project is the wedding in March. It's hard to believe that it's almost here.