Second Week in April 2012

Monday was a triumphant return to running, #5 in 2012 - 1.99 mi (3.2k) in 19:58.2. I hit my distance goal and oh so close to my pace goal (10:02.6 pace). I am going to probably have to start running after work to go much further. After work I came home and was picking up around the house. As I walked by the window, I busted Vivian and Matt about to play a dirty trick on my car. I wanted to check the stroller for TP. Vivian blamed Hannah, but I know who are the TP instigators out there! When all the excitement and accusations died down, I made dinner for the rest of the week.

This is what awaited me on Tuesday morning when I went to work,
I don't think Matt & Viv had anything to do with this.

Tuesday after work I baked the cookie dough I had made on Saturday. The cookies were shared with the people who came over for dance practice sitting around and talking.

Wednesday I cut the lawn. Despite the busyness, I had time to have a little fun.

Zeke! How did you get under that laundry 'basket'??? Oh yeah, I did that to you.

Thursday I finalized my part in the wedding with Jason, packed up the camera and made sure everything was ready.

Friday immediately after work I drove up to Saint Elizabeth Ann Seaton parish and started taking pictures.

Once the rehearsal was done, we went over to Rachel's house and had dinner. You can see all my pictures from the rehearsal dinner here. Once dinner was done, I was pretty fried, so I headed home with no intention of leaving ... that lasted about ten minutes, then I headed over to the regular Friday dance until it ended.

Saturday morning I was up early for pictures of the ladies preparation for the wedding.

All the prep pictures can be found here. I came home around 1130, took a very short nap, then got everything ready to go. I went and picked Maggie up at her house, then headed to the wedding. We set up my computer as a 'photo booth' and went and sat down for the wedding. For a Catholic wedding, it was fast, and accompanied by an epic rainstorm outside.

You can see the wedding pictures I took here. The rain let up almost completely by the time the wedding ended, so at least they were able to get to the car. Maggie and I found a spot next door at the reception hall and waited for dinner to be served. The reception was fun, the food was good, and the facilities were super nice. Many, many thanks to Maggie for being patient while I helped out with the reception.

You can the rest of my reception pictures here. Then there was clean up, pack up and it was over. If you'd like to see all my pictures from the wedding day, you can find them in four easy to use sets right here.

I planned on sleeping in on Sunday and going to church later, but I managed to get a bad migraine in the afternoon. I ended up napping through the afternoon instead and missed church. In the evening the medicine started to kick in and I managed to process a few pictures before heading to bed fairly early.

Next week: games, games, and more games.

Holy Week 2012

Monday during lunch I went running for the third time in 2012. I was a little concerned that it would be too cold, but there was no need to be worried. 1.86 mi (3k) in 19:16.6 ... although I exceeded my distance goal, my pace (10:22/mi) was only slightly faster than pouring cold maple syrup. After work I came home and enjoyed a quiet night hanging out by myself ... well almost by myself, I went out on the back deck to eat and saw someone familiar.

Hannah Marie! ... oh, and her parents too.

Tuesday after work I hung out with Maggie, we went for a walk down by Gifford Farm. I wanted to see what the flood damage looked like first hand, it wasn't as bad as I had feared, although the boardwalk wasn't in good shape.

There were a few trees that were downed, I wanted to walk up this one,
but Maggie said no. She ruins all my neck-breaking stupid plans.

After the walk, we went downtown Bellevue and ate at Swine Dining.

Wednesday Maggie came over and I cooked pieroguies, and then we had a productive dance practice.

Thursday after work I went to Holy Thursday Mass. Father Joseph wanted to wash 12 people's feet, so since I was already going to be there for my confirmation, I (and my fellow classmates) were volunteered. The other eight people were from the parish. I knew I had Friday off as my floating holiday, so I stayed up kind of late.

Friday I was up and met Maggie over at Stinson Park and we went for a long walk along the Keystone Trail, it was a pi walk, 3.14 miles, I'm sure that it was an exactly irrational length. I left the walk, did some errands, finally got home mid afternoon, and immediately took a nap. In the evening I went to Good Friday service. After the service I ate and then to the dance, I heard one of my favorite follows was going to be there...

...or several of them. Photo credit: Matt


Babies make you do weird things. Photo credit: Matt

After the dance I went to the Donut Stop, but not with the usual crowd. It was still fun and funny, but I didn't stay up too late.

Saturday I slept in as long as I could, since I was expecting to be up late. In the early afternoon I baked cookies from scratch. I tried two different oatmeal cookie recipes, one that was difficult (the dough ended up in the fridge), and one that was easy. I over baked the second batch just a little too long, they were not as soft as I wanted them to be. Frank came over while I was baking and hung out for a while.

Saturday evening was the culmination of all those RCIA meetings, I was confirmed at the Easter Vigil. Thank you again to Joe for being my sponsor. Thank you to my classmates, Jamie and Stephanie, to Father Joseph, to the deacons Ron, Gary, and Subby, the helpers Sandy and Joyce, and to all of my friends who supported me during the year and showed up for the Vigil.

Sarah, Marilou, Joe, Maggie, Frank, Beth, Josh, me, Cullen, and Jen.
Thank you again. Photo credit: Joe


Look, we're both smiling! Photo credit: Joe


Rosary, Crucifix, and book from the parish. Photo credit: Joe


Ice cream! I don't know Maggie is doing. Photo credit: Joe


Thank you to Frank (not pictured) for hosting the party,
here is the obligatory stuck-in-the-pantry picture. Photo credit: Joe

The evening ended at Frank's house, as usual, with Joe, Marilou, Sarah, and I whooping it up while Maggie and Frank desperately tried to stay awake. You can see all the pictures that Joe took here.

Sunday I slept in, got up at the crack of noon, and was lazy until about 1430 at which time I started cooking some peiroguies for Easter dinner at Amanda's. I took the borrowed toy and took a few pictures.

I'm not sure you can see what makes this picture hilarious, but I'm still laughing.


Part of the spread and all of the hosts.


Bocce ball! Maggie did quite well.


This is not an action shot.


Technically, this one is not either.


There was a Dance Central contest to end the evening...


...Maggie was first, I was second, Joe was third.
I don't know what is wrong with Joe and I. Photo credit: Amanda

Thank you very much to the hosts, Chris and Amanda. Dinner was good, multicultural, and very fun. You can see all 166 pictures I took from the event here.

Next week: Rachel and Jason get married.

Last Week in March 2012

Monday immediately after work I met with Rachel about her wedding plans and my participation in taking pictures. Jason and Rachel bought a Canon Rebel XS, flash, and a couple of lenses, and they were lending it to me early so I could get used to it and be able to take pictures at the rehearsal and wedding. So, on Tuesday I came home and immediately grabbed the camera and went out to take pictures ... so I could practice.

I'm not sure I quite got the focus where I wanted it, but it was windy.

Maggie showed up, we came inside, and she made me alfredo for dinner, again.

Wednesday during lunch I went running at work, run #2 in 2012, 1.49 mi (2.4k) in 15:08.2, that's a 10:09 pace.

After work, I went to RCIA, the final time before Easter. I am going to miss this part of my life, I really grew to like and appreciate the deacons and my classmates. After RCIA, I came right home for the final fitting of my Miracle Max costume by Lee, it's going to be awesome! We then had some dance practice. I had to show Maeg the borrowed camera, and we took a bunch of semi-candids.

Maeg was behind the camera for a lot of them.

If you'd like to see all the pictures we took, please look here at the set called Borrowed Toy v1.

Thursday I went to Sarah's karaoke birthday party. I arrived at Mic's before anyone started singing. I put my name in, and I was first to sing, Staind's It's Been a While. When no one else wanted to go second, I was second to sing too, Bobby Darin's Beyond the Sea. Other people decided they wanted to sing also, so my streak ended at two. Later, I also sang a third time, Dan Seals All That Glitters is not Gold ... man, that song is a heartstring grabber. I didn't stay very late, but I was happy to celebrate with Sarah.

It's a quartet! Now if we could just decide on a musical style. Photo credit: Sarah

Friday after the dance was the last 'fish' fry of the year, the pasta feed at Saint Pius X. This visit did not disappoint, many more people showed up than I was expecting and a very nice time was had by all. Afterwards I made my way over to the usual Friday dance.

In the late morning on Saturday, I took some more pictures with the borrowed toy, you can see them all at that link, or selected ones below.

The afternoon was quite interesting, it was my RCIA retreat. At the end of the retreat was confession. It is such a life changer. I completely got ruffled while I was in the confessional, and left quite unhappy. Fortunately, I had to time to calm down and think things through, and decided things would be fine. Confession is something I know I should do more often ... for myself.

Saturday night was Kaleb's (sort of) annual Murder Mystery Party. It was roughly based on The Princess Bride movie, and I played Miracle Max. Brianne was that witch Valerie ... wait, she's not a witch, she's my wife. This was my second murder mystery party, and I confess I was no closer than the first one to guessing the murderer correctly ... and I'm still a little confused about my part in it, but it's okay, my character was a little confused too. A big shout out to Kaleb for hosting this, it was fabulous. Kaleb hired Christopher Tierney to photograph the event, so if you like to see his stills of all the characters, they are here, including Brianne and I here.

Maggie "Are you the murderer?"
Ben "I invoketh my right to not incriminateth myself". Photo credit: Matt


I've walked by the place where it was held at 1000 times and not noticed. It is Lucille's in the Old Market and it is a very nice space. Photo credit: Matt


Get away from the baby, witch! Photo credit: Matt

You can see all of Matt's pictures of the party here, no, I didn't take any.

Sunday it was church and lawn work, just a nice relaxing day.

Next Week: Easter

***Note: this entry has been edited, um, twice***

Third Week in March 2012

This week's Monday item is brought to you by the last thing that happened last week. I left my wallet at Kaleb's. I had a little cash, but just enough to get milk and a few other staples.

Tuesday I made arrangements to get my wallet back, via Beth (thank you). Then I met Maggie for dinner at Zio's Pizza. After dinner we went to Krypton Comics and wandered around for an hour in true geek fashion, looking and commenting on everything.

Darth Vader ice cube mold tray, how does Joe not have this?

After the comic book store was happy to see us leave, we went over to Target because I needed some groceries. Suddenly Maggie was replaced with "ooh, shiny" Maggie, and I never knew a shelf full of jelly could be so distracting, and it wasn't just the jelly, it was just about everything in the store, I mean seriously she stared at the Easter basket grass for five minutes. It was all pretty humorous, like hat. Oh, and we saw Jamie from RCIA there.

Wednesday after work I went to RCIA. When I got home, I started cooking, then Kate showed up, then Frank, and I ended up feeding Frank even though he said he was full. I then did a little planning with Brianne for Kaleb's Murder Mystery Party, we are going to play Miracle Max and Valerie.

Thursday after work I drove over to Council Bluffs (while talking to mom on the phone) and met Paul and Brianne at the casino parking lot. They followed me over to Lee's house where she was going to custom make our costumes for the Murder Mystery party. Jillian was playing guitar on the front porch, but we got past her, Zonda was a bit of a different issue, she likes me less and less as she gets older. I had been a little worried that Lee was not particularly interested in this little project, but when I got there she had drawings and plans, and was quite excited.

We got all measured out, Brianne left, and Lee and I went to get into my car to go buy fabric ... when a wild Maggie appeared. So we left in her car, went by Alvarado's so I could feed my face (and they theirs), ate in the parking lot of Hobby Lobby, then went in and bought our fabric, in record time I might add, they close at 2000, who knew?

Friday, the fish fry tour went to Blessed Sacrament. We got a crowd of five and then we were joined by Jennifer and Cullen who were volunteering there. I was not particularly hungry, so I didn't have much to eat. After the fish fry we stood outside and talked about the planetary alignment with the moon, Venus, and Jupiter all within a few degrees of one another.

I left and went to the dance which, for the first time in a couple years was not at the Eagle's lodge, but at InCommon. It's a fabulous space, although not even close to the Eagle lodge size.

The dance floor is not quite as smooth as it looks from this angle. Photo credit: Matt


What's that on your shoe? Photo credit: Matt


Derp, um, I can dance. Photo credit: Matt

You can see all of Matt's pictures from this event here. InCommon is located next door to the Donut Stop, so we just walked next door to unwind after the dance.

Saturday morning I was up at a sort of reasonable time to have lunch with Kimee, we grabbed food from Chipotle and headed out to Schram State Park to eat with the geese. Surprisingly, the geese were not interested in our noms, they kind of kept to themselves. We sat under some pretty trees, and enjoyed our lunch. Afterwards we went on a short walk around the park. Then came home all too soon.

In the evening Maggie and I hosted Dianna and Adam for dinner. I guess in the old days this might have been called a dinner party. Maggie made alfredo, and I made asparagus and fresh salad. Dianna and Adam brought bread pudding. There was plenty of good conversation, we watched Megamind (it was quite enjoyable), ate dessert on the back porch under the stars, and finished the night with a game of Qwirkle. I am know I am not the first person to ever have a double date that was relaxing and enjoyable, but I really enjoy those moments in life when time becomes irrelevant.

Sunday morning Maggie and I got some pie at Village Inn and then went for a walk along the Keystone trail. Although it is only March 25, we were plenty warm and Maggie was worried about getting sunburned. Speaking of it being pretty early in the year, I got out and cut the grass for the first time in the afternoon. I fully intended on skipping Mass, but somehow I ended up at Saint Mary's at 1700. I think it's been 10 months since I missed Mass, I'm sure I could research back through my blog entries, but who wants to read what I write?

The evening ended down at Frank's house with the firepit, some loud conversation, two attention loving dogs, and beautiful weather.

Next week: Miracle Max

here

Photo credit: Matt