Well, it appears that I was not able to stick to my mid-year resolution of updating this thing on a more regular basis. Given that I've made several excuses for my MIA status in the past, I will avoid giving you more and will just carry on as though there has not been a 3 month lapse in posts.

John and I went to San Diego a couple months ago to attend our good friends April and Richard's wedding and to spend some time with our toes in the sand and our minds work-free.




Here is the beautiful bride and her wonderful fella reciting their vows. Although I do not remember this part of the ceremony, I heard it was lovely. The next picture is of my sad face after recovering from my overheating/fainting episode that caused me to miss out on hearing April and Richards vows (still reeeallly sorry about that, guys!).










And now, I'd like to compile a list of things that I miss about San Diego:

- Slurpees
- Fume guards on gasoline nozzles
- Nordstrom
- BJ's Pizza
- Jamba Juice
- Five-lane interstates and people who know how to drive faster than 60 miles per hour
- In-n-out
- Toilet seat covers in public restrooms
- Real Mexican food
- Best friends
- Home
- Baby sisters and new nephews
- Charger fanatics

So, as you can see, our trip back to San Diego was a wonderful time. We truly enjoyed spending time with all of our friends, my family, and lounging by the ocean. We'll be back in California in about 8 months for our wedding - June 12th!

Well friends, here's one (maybe the only one?) time where I can honestly say I'm happier to be in Iowa than on the sunny shores of San Diego:



http://www.10news.com/news/20077090/detail.html


Gross, right?


Speaking of gross, John and I were recently bombarded by these flying annoyances: June bugs. Which, by the way, not only are they annoying, but they are also liars in that they were nowhere to be found in the month of June. July however, is a different story. We probably have about 40 of these dead, laying on our garage floor. I'd sweep them out if we had a broom for garage usage, but we haven't taken the plunge in that arena just yet (there are just so many brooms to choose from!).


And, speaking of bugs, it appears as though the pink computer has recently caught some sort of bug/virus and is currently being examined by the Condon family technician, Dave. Hopefully he'll be able to fix it, otherwise I might be forced to go out and buy a new fun colored computer. Anyway, until the pink computer returns I unfortunately will not be able to post pictures of our awesome Iowa extravaganzas since the good ol' company computer prohibits such activities as downloading personal software. We should have lots of fun things to post in the upcoming weeks though; we have our three year anniversary, the Iowa State Fair, fun bridal events for John's soon-to-be-wed sister, Kelly, and then our super awesome trip to San Diego!!

Now, I am aware that no one appreciates excuses so I'm not going to give any to attempt to explain my absence (seemingly abandonment, no doubt) of this blog. That being said, the following list is simply a compilation of the things that have been sucking up every ounce of my spare time over the last four months.

1. I'll start off with the best of all: John and I bought a house! Well, I suppose it is technically a townhouse, but it is all ours! Here's a picture of John being super excited about our "Sold" sign on the day of our final walk-through. All of a sudden much of our time is consumed with home-ownerly things. You might be thinking, "Like what, Kristen?" Well, for starters, you have to buy a whole lot of stuff you never even thought about buying. Like a garden hose, for instance. Had we not decided to embark on the journey of buying a home I would never have known that there are hundreds of types of garden hoses in different types of dutys, materials, and colors. And then you need a nozzle for the damn thing. Ugh. Thankfully, John took the reigns on that debacle and picked out a hose for me. Seems to be working wonderfully, so I suppose it all worked out. But, homes have other time-sucking items too. Like rodents, for example. Just the other day John and I came home and found a tiny little mole crawling up the screen of our egress window. Though, upon further examination he wasn't just crawling, but also eating the screen as he traveled. And now, as a result, we have a window screen that resembles swiss cheese. And I can only imagine the varieties of screens we'll have to choose from when we try to replace it...


2. My main time consumption of all is something we are all too familiar with... work. I'll spare you the details (though, many are quite entertaining) and give a quick recap. I drive around Des Moines all day getting screamed at, cried at, cursed at and sometimes smiled at, and then come home and work on paperwork until the clock strikes approximately 10:00 and this happens:


Truthfully, I thought the list of why I haven't updated the blog would be far longer than just these two things, but it turns out it isn't. Regardless, I'm going to go ahead and take the plunge and make a mid-year (or so) resolution to start to update this thing more regularly again. Because quite frankly, there are tons of blog-worthy things going on out here in the middle of nowhere. Need a teaser of what's to come? Well, rumor has it that there's a butter sculpture contest at the Iowa State Fair and plans to feature a sculpture (we can only hope life-size) of Michael Jackson!

Since John and I have been considering partaking in a little house hunting lately, we decided to do birthday celebrations on the cheap this year. I had considered getting him tickets to an Iowa Hawkeye game, seeing that he is the ultimate superfan, but that didn't fit in the potential home buyer budget. So, I thought I'd get the next best thing: tickets to an Iowa Chops game, Des Moines' minor league hockey team. The fierceness to the right of your screen is their logo. Preettty intense there, Des Moines.

Anyway, right before the game starts the lights go off, and fire starts shooting out of the jumbotron thinger in the middle of the room. Next thing you know they're flashing this fierce pig logo and people are screaming like a bunch of wild banchys. Let me tell you, it was intense. These people really go all out.

The game itself was alright. I'm not too big a fan of hockey, I sort of feel like I'm going to seizure from looking back and forth all over the place chasing this tiny object around with my eyes. It was the extra special Iowa touches that made the game awesome and created a night I hope to share with each and every individual who comes to visit me in the great Hawkeye state. Now, I've already mentioned that the team is the Iowa Chops, with their mascot being a ferocious pig. These lovely ladies are their cheerleaders, the Baby Backs. Clever. And to top it all off, their motto or slogan, if you will, is "GO MEAT!" Yes, I'm serious. A whole venue of Iowans were standing around, ringing their cowbells with great vigor, and screaming like those men in the Hillshire Farms commercial. Oh, and at intermission the Baby Backs drove around on the Pork Patrol while people participated in a game called "pitch a pig" (basically they just threw stuffed pigs into the rink; frankly, I didn't understand the concept).

All in all, John and I had a damn good time at what I figure to be one of the most "Iowa-riffic" things we've experienced since our arrival. I leave you now with a picture of an awesome Chops fan with an even more awesome Chops hat.

Due to my lack of posts in the past month or so, and lack of current time to devote to an entire narrative, I have decided to switch things up a bit and construct a picture collage post.

Let me begin with a picture from Christmas time, which is nearly where we left off before. This is a picture of the predicament we found ourselves in when Iowa experienced a December heat wave. As it turns out, roofs do not need actual holes to leak. Lesson learned. It's a good thing we had a home builder/general contractor at our resources to construct us such an advanced leak channeling system!

This next picture is a snap shot into how we spent our New Years Eve. John managed to score us an invite to his friends pajama party so we could ring in 2009 in the coziest way possible. This picture is when John got in on the inversion table action. It's supposed to be some sort of contraption that stretches out your back, but mostly it just freaked me out. Needless to say, it's pretty fun to watch after having a few drinks.

Shortly after Christmas, John and I took a mini trip to Chicago to take care of a little engagement ring business, and freeze our asses off - windy city style. During our little excursion, I remembered one of the things I hated most about living in Chicago: people still want to go outside and do things, as if it weren't -20 degrees outside. Here in Iowa, people don't go outside and brave the cold, they stay inside and cook pork roasts or something. I much more prefer the latter. Anyway, we got a pretty awesome deal Shatner style through priceline. This picture is the view from our room's window. (On a side note, our sweet deal of a four-star room for $50 wasn't as awsome when we discovered the $48/night parking fee.)

This is Ashlyn, my future niece and style icon. At the ripe old age of three years old, she has the best selection and follow-through of any fashionista I know.

And lastly, this is a brief look at my next post about mine and John's outing to an Iowa Chops hockey game. It was as incredible as mud wrestling, monster trucks, and Nascar all mixed into one! Go Meat!

One of the Christmas traditions my family has is that we visit the Hotel Del Coronado and buy an ornament from their tree, which changes themes each year. Now that John and I are in a new area and are starting our own family traditions, we decided to head south to check out Kansas City, since we had heard that they go all out for the holiday season. It also just so happened to be the anniversary of our engagement, so we thought we'd celebrate that too while we were down there. It turned out to be a quite the tropical getaway, since KC had temperatures in the high 40's... we even enjoyed a coffee outside on the patio together!

Our first stop was Crown Center, home of the mayor's 100 foot Christmas tree. It was a pretty cool tree, but we didn't admire it long since it was windy as all get out. And it wasn't dark out, which was a bummer since Christmas trees don't have the same sort of magic without their lights a'twinkling. There was also a pretty fun play area surrounding the tree area. I think it might have been intended for children, but John and I had a good time nonetheless. I did a little nutcracker investigating and John found himself a sweet new ride.

Once we had seen all there was to see at the Crown Center we headed over to the Country Club Plaza, which was sort of the Rodeo Drive of Kansas City. Alright, it wasn't quite that fancy, but it had all the stores I miss from San Diego that are nowhere to be found in Iowa. We had heard that the Plaza had a pretty light display at nighttime, so we lallygagged a bit until the sun went down, and then walked around for a while and enjoyed the festive lighting decor.

Since we were in Kansas City, John wanted to make sure we hit up a barbecue joint, because apparently they are sort of known for their BBQ skills. His friend James had recommended a place called Gates, which turned out to be the most delicious cafeteria-style establishment I have ever encountered. As it turns out, the San Diego Chargers are a big fan of Gates BBQ as well, seeing that they had eaten there the night before and earlier that day! John and I did our best stalker impressions we could and hung out for about an hour after we demolished some tasty food, but then decided to leave - Charger sighting-less. We never did get in a fancy romantic dinner for our anniversary while we were in KC, but neither of us were too sad about it after engorging ourselves with the scrumptiousness that is Gates BBQ.

After dinner we took our full bellies back to the hotel, spent some time with a group of toilets, and then attempted to relax on the Sleep Number bed (seriously, has anyone tried one of those beds... they are terrible!). The next day we had a not-so-successful trip to Nordstrom, which nearly broke my heart, and headed back home to get back to the daily grind. All in all, we had a great time in Kansas City and are looking forward to visiting again soon.

Tonight I was introduced to the weather occurrence, and cruel and unusual punishment, known as sleet.

With this big storm impending, I had heard the word thrown around a few times and was looking forward to discovering what form of weather sleet actually was, since it doesn't (at least to my knowledge) grace San Diego with it's presence.

When the storm finally hit, I was driving a co-worker back to her car at the office. From inside the car, sleet appeared to be a miniature version of hail, which led me to believe that it was really no big deal at all. Then I had to get out of my car to help my co-worker carry her things, and oh-so-quickly I realized that sleet was not simply miniature hail at all.

Tonight I learned that sleet is more like sharp ice shards pouring out of the sky - hail's pointy and vicious little brother, if you will. In the two minutes I was without the shelter of The Dragon, I was almost certain the sleet had pierced my ears and face in several locations and caused bleeding. As it turns out though, it only felt like the sleet had pierced my face, which is a good thing since I'm not too keen on this look:In other news, John and I went to Kansas City, Missouri last weekend to celebrate the holiday season and anniversary of our engagement. I wasn't aware that Kansas City was a super awesome place with lots of fun things to do, but as it turns out it kind of was. We've been really busy with work and Christmas right around the corner, but I'll update with the KC details soon (I promise, Jody!).

Last week the whole family came to Des Moines to celebrate Thanksgiving. Thursday was Thanksgiving day as usual filled with eating, snacking, football, lounging, and then some more eating. It was also the perfect day to showcase the Iowa Hawkeye's cheer that John had been teaching Ashlyn. After we were rested and some of our food had settled, the girls decided to partake in some Black Friday shopping. One of the local malls switched up tradition a bit and had the stores open at midnight, as opposed to the usual 4am. Now, I don't know how many of you have ever participated in this sort of spectacle (it was my first time), but it was quite chaotic! We got there about a half an hour early and opted to wait in a gated area inside the mall instead of outside, since weather.com reported that it was something like 10 degrees outside. Well, apparently the frost-bitten outside waiters were allowed to enter the mall a few minutes earlier than the room-temperature waiters, and this upset some anxious shoppers. So, they decided to shake their fist at the mall authorities, so to speak, and shook/pushed the gate until it broke and could be moved out of their way. I mean, really guys? All for some discounted sheets? Come on. Anyway, we shopped the night away at the mall and then decided to head over to Kohl's to get in on their 4am madness. Frankly, that was where the deals were at. The Kitchen Aid knives I got were quite the steal! So, after we waited it out in the horrendous Kohl's line, we hurried home to get to bed by 6am and sleep a little before the kids woke up. All in all, it was fun to be a part of the mayhem and shop amongst the Christmas atmosphere.

Friday was a lounge day since many of us were tuckered out from our all-nighter shopping trip, and Saturday was a free-for-all day. John and I took Mady and Kailyn to a Festival of Trees event downtown where companies decorated Christmas trees in various themes for people to purchase or donate to local hospitals and such. Since it was a festive holiday event I, of course, enjoyed myself, and the girls had a good time making gingerbread houses and ornaments for Grammy. Then we came home and played Trivial Pursuit - genius edition, where, surprisingly, neither team won.

It was hard to be away from my family for the holiday, but John's family was, as they always are, so warm and welcoming which made it a lot easier. All in all, I had a great Thanksgiving weekend. And to top it all off, we got our first big snow of the season!

My incessant efforts to find a job have finally paid off! I am now an employed woman once again!

Starting December 1st, I will be the Family Interaction Specialist for Visiting Nurse Services, a local non-profit organization, providing remedial services to children who have been diagnosed with psychological disorders. I'm nervous about the unknown aspect of a position I haven't worked in before, but excited about the opportunity to learn and to finally be busy again!

Last night, to celebrate, we shared a peppermint mocha while we browsed the aisles of Target and then got take-out from my new favorite eatery, Z'Mariks, to eat while we watched One Tree Hill. And then, just when I thought the celebration couldn't get any better, John's sister Casey brought me caramel apple and triple chocolate cupcakes for dessert! I couldn't have asked for a better day!

A couple weekends ago John and I decided to embrace our new town and get out and be festive with the locals. Our first stop was the Des Moines farmers market, since it was the last outdoor one of the year. Now, I can't say I went to too many farmers markets in San Diego to compare this one to, but it was pretty neat. It seemed more like a street fair to me though, which I guess is to be expected since freshly grown local produce is pretty scarce around here in late October. After all was said and done we had shared a delicious breakfast burrito and purchased some homemade root beer, fancy pasta noodles, and my personal favorite: banana marshmallows. Lets go ahead and chalk this one up to a success.

After the farmers market we went out to one of the area's pumpkin patches, since Halloween was just around the corner. Being newbies, we didn't know which pumpkin patch would be at the Bates Nut Farm level of awesomeness so we just picked one and went. Now, let's remember friends: we are in Iowa. Surely there are corn mazes, plentiful patches of pumpkins, and tractor hay rides, right? Not at our selected patch. Well, there was a tractor ride, but that was about it. I'm not really sure if people are just over zealous with their pumpkin purchasing around here or what, but we could have counted the total number of pumpkins at this place on our fingers. Needless to say, the pumpkin patch was not quite a success. Although, it did have one redeeming quality in the form of marshmallow roasting station, so not all was lost.

We haven't really done anything too exciting since. John has been busy working, and I've been busy applying for just about every job I see. This weekend we're off to the Quad Cities to dig through our boxes of belongings for winter coats, since it's already snowed once and the temperatures are rapidly dropping. I do have to admit, as much as I don't like being cold, it does feel more festive and holiday-ish with the colder temperatures. I wonder how I'll feel about being frozen once the holidays are over...