Life Lessons

How to open a garage door frozen shut from ice storm with both of your cars parked inside 20 minutes before you have to be at work:
Step 1: Attempt to open garage door twice.
Step 2: Utter a few choice words under your breath (current favorite: FLETCH!)
Step 3: Hit garage door seams with sharp end of snow shovel.
Step 4: Attempt to open garage dor 2 more times.
Step 5: Go wake up sleeping husband.
Step 6: Fill Windex spray bottle with warm water.
Step 7: Spray seams of garage door with warm water (beware: hurts the trigger finger)
Step 8: Attempt to open again.
Step 9: Husband kicks bottom of garage door.
Step 10: Garage door opens.

Jesse Elfed

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Greatest Weekend EVER!

Paul and I have been looking forward to this weekend for like... at least 6 weeks. That's a LONG time. It's an all stars line up with two of our favorites:
FRIDAY: Our favorite comedian BRIAN REGAN

It was amazing... this was the second time we have seen him live and once again we were both almost (or actually) in tears and had stomach aches from laughing so hard. Seriously, he's funny on TV and his DVD's but in real life just watching him play off the audience is incredible... if you get a chance to see him, GO!!!!

SATURDAY: Trans-Siberian Orchestra (this is my favorite song)

This time last year....

I was inspired by my cute sister-in-law Kristen's blog of what she was doing this time last year... This time last year I was GIDDY and brand newly engaged as of last night... late, late last night. Sigh... it was so awesome. He wrote me a song and hid the ring in my guitar... so cute. This year I told him that in honor of our engagement anniversary he should write me a song... and a song every year after :) but that didn't happen. Better luck next year. To celebrate we bought our first Christmas tree today. Now I get to decorate HOORAY! I'm sure it won't be anything grand, but I'll post some pictures of what I do... maybe. ;)

Thanksgiving Trip

So sorry I've been absent from the blogging world for so long. Don't worry... I'm all better now. I was sick for about 2 weeks total, it sucked and I missed the prettiest, warmest days of fall so that was sad for me too!

For Thanksgiving we went to Knoxville, Tennessee to spend a couple days with Paul's family. His aunt Leilani and uncle CJ live there with there 2 remaining kids at home Maraea and Eric. And his uncle Tino and aunt Kim and their 3 kids, Maddy, Molly and Morgan, came down from Michigan. We're happy to be in the East coast Ramos family club!
Wednesday
We drove down Wednesday after work (they let me go early but still didn't leave till 2:30) and drove straight there (10.5 hours... ugh!) and got there at about 2 Eastern time. Our journey took us through Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky and into Tennessee. Highlight of the trip... MOUNTAINS!!! Couldn't really see them.. saw the outline and the windy road. But hooray for MOUNTAINS... didn't realize how much I missed them. Second highlight: gas for $1.47/gallon
Thursday
Paul woke up bright and early to go play in the Turkey Bowl (he was kinda scared that he was going to be playing with a bunch of big black guys like Uncle CJ, but he was ok don't worry although he is still hobbling around like an old man cuz he's "sooooo sore"). I slept in. Then we just ate a lot, played a lot of Rock Band. We started a band called The Mad Turtles (named in part by 6 year olds cousin Maddy) Paul amazed them all with his Expert guitar playing AND being amazing on the drums too. I apparently have no rhythm, still suck on the guitar, but I can sing along with the words like a champion! Therefore I was the designated singer.

-me, my angry hubby Paul, Eric and Maraea-
Friday
More Rock Band. Shopping at Target: got lots of DVD's: Office Season 1 and 2, Cars, Finding Nemo, Kung Foo Panda, 101 Dalmations... think thats all. Then we spent several hours introducing/converting Uncle Tino to the Office (LOVE IT).
Saturday
Drove back home... this time we actually saw some scenery! The mountains in Kentucky were really pretty, although it was strange for me to see mountains covered with deciduous trees instead of evergreens. So they were all smokey gray looking with a few orangey trees here and there. Kentucky was cool with all the horse ranches(?)/farms(?)... just huge pastures with horses and HUGE houses with them. Indiana... flat, made Iowa look hilly. And Illinois was just dark.

Sick!

Hey Everybody, This is actually Paul; I know you've all been just craving a blog from me, so here I am. Just Kidding. Actually, Natalie has been really sick the past few days and while I've tried my best to take care of her, I've really only learned that I'm exceptionally good at getting her to fall asleep on the couch. This of course has left me a lot of time to both discover, and do, everything there is to discover and do in our humble little house... twice. Until now, I am pioneering new territory by trying something I never considered... BLOGGING!

So, I've decided to share with you our joy and excitement this halloween season. It all began when we got our dates mixed up early this week and we thought halloween was coming on Saturday. And so, you could imagine my concern when on thursday I heard what distinctly sounded like trick-or-treaters over at the neighbors house. I took a little peak through the blinds and saw kids in costumes with their parents... and sacks of candy, and I thought to myself, "what kind of two days before halloween activity is going on here?" So as they approached my door I did what came naturally, "I made sure the tv wasn't making any noise and I ran and hid in the bedroom. After all, I remember being a kid; I wasn't about to be that mean old pickle-juice drinker who opened the door and said, "Sorry kids, I don't have any candy..." or as they would interpret it, "I hate halloween, and I hate candy, and I hate sunlight and happiness." So I waited and waited and it turned out that they skipped our house... probably because the light wasn't on... dodged that bullet!

That of course doesn't solve the mystery of what were they doing out two days early? I didn't find out until the next morning that halloween was actually friday, and also that the city of Davenport, Iowa decided to change the laws of nature and make everyone trick or treat a day early so that everyone could attend a city parade on the real halloween. Weird huh? Either way, we missed it all, and so halloween didn't come this year for us... hopefully we'll be a little more attentive of these types of things come Thanksgiving and Christmas. Nobody warned us when we got married that we needed to make sure not to skip any major holidays... good thing we don't have kids yet or we'd be in some big trouble!

4th Folder, 4th Picture Tag

I chose to be tagged by my sister Hilary cuz I haven't blogged in a while... the tag is to go to your 4th picture folder and post the 4th picture in that folder; and tell the story about the picture.

Kind of funny that this is the picture, because most everyone I know has already seen this one! It's the picture we sent out on our wedding announcements. The amazing announcements that my favorite sister Hilary made... thank you thank you thank you! The picture was taken by our awsome photographer, Darrell Mosley from Spokane.

Chicago!

Paul and I went to Chicago this weekend for his birthday... Happy Birthday Paul!!! It was a big city for us small town folks, but we had a good time. We left Friday morning-ish. Started out great, went to pick up my paycheck at work and somehow I only got payed for 1 week instead of 2, so they went a cash register and counted out the other half of my check... in cash. That was fun to carry around... for about 10 minutes till we got to our bank. Had NO desire to carry that much cash around downtown Chicago!

Anyhow, a long toll-road and lots of traffic later we found ourselves hunting for our hotel in downtown. People are CRAZY down there. Drivers, pedestrians... all CRAZY! So glad to finally park our car (for a mere $32) and start walking. We first got ourselves a genuine Chicago-style hotdog. They are described as having been "drug through the garded" they have pickles, tomatoe, onion and NO ketchup, apparently ketchup ruins the flavor.

We then walked to the Sears tower (tallest building in the US), payed a ridiculous amount of money to ride to the top and look around, but it was pretty cool. On a clear day, which it was you can see over 50 miles!


Then we hooked up with Paul's aunt Leilani and Uncle CJ (who were in town from Tennessee for Uncle CJ's b-day) and went out for some authentic stuffed Chicago pizza at Giordano's on the Magnificent Mile. It was DELICIOUS and FILLING!

Oh yeah... that's right I have a black uncle.
Later we took a taxi, adventure for us... neither of us had ever done that, and did what you can only do in downtown Chicago, see a movie.
The next day we shopped around for a bit then drove out to the suburbs to see the Chicago Temple.

Then we went to Ikea... wonderland for me, torture for Paul. We really needed some chairs and finally got some! Hooray! Then we ate dinner at Paul's favorite the Cheesecake Factory and went home... oh yeah, after stopping at the outlet malls. It was super fun!

What do all these movies have in common?

Oh happy day!

Gas is finally below $3.00! It's delightful.... haven't bought any at that price yet, but it's there to be bought. Hooray!