Thanksgiving

Well it's a little later than Thanksgiving but I wanted to wait until I had some pictures to show you.  So how did Thanksgiving go?

I was blessed enough to have Wednesday of last week off of school.  This meant that Emily and I were able to leave Kansas after Tuesday afternoon's basketball practice.  We were on the road by 6:04 with plans to stop once we became too tired.  Emily drove the first stretch with me taking over at 9:00.  Not knowing where we'd finish the night yet knowing of the existence of a hotel in the area, I was hoping to make it to Dixon, IL where we stayed on the way down after the wedding.  Once we made it there, however, I started to realize how close we were.  I had said at the beginning I wasn't going to push anything if I felt the least bit tired and I don't feel we did once.  Instead of Dixon, we pulled into her parents driveway at about 2:30 am. 

Wednesday was spent baking pies and ended up going to Thanksgiving church that evening at Immanuel.  BBQ Burgers from Pistol Pete's are recommended by me by the way.

Thanksgiving Day was spent at the Theine house with Emily's siblings and parents.  It was a fun time had by all which included a Packer victory (of which I missed an impressive amount of the second half while trying to smile for the many takes before the 'perfect' picture was captured), good food, good dessert, and no one can forget Band Hero.

The day after Thanksgiving gave us another Thanksgiving celebration to be thankful for.  It was very nice to be able to spend a whole day at both places.  Thanks mom!  We missed out on seeing all of our nieces but were pleased to see half of the Racine Lorenz's.  We missed you guys Sarah and Emma!  The food was again amazing.  It was great to see as much of the Lorenz side as we could.  Thanks for hanging out everyone!

Believe it or not my Saturday, the last Saturday in November in fact, was spent on the golf course.  My dad and brother were able to take advantage of some amazing November weather and hit the links for what I'm sure will be my last round of the year.

We got a late start on Sunday but nonetheless we were able to leave after 9:30 church at Immanuel.  It was a long drive of course but for the most part it was rather uneventful.

Here's a (short) list of things I am thankful for (in no particular order):
1) My faith God has given me.
2) Emily
3) My family that is full of parents, siblings, nugens, etc... on multiple sides now.
4) Safe travels
5) Good eating
6) Brewers baseball
7) Wisconsin
8) Kansas
9) Brats
10) Math
11) Cars
12) Sothwest Airlines which now services Milwaukee
13) Friends
14) Dr. Pepper
15) Guitars
16) The chance to teach
17) Rock Band
18) Snooze button
19) Vacations
20) The Red Box
21) Our house
22) Sports
23) Trivial Pursuit
24) Books
25) Music

Again I know that it has been a while since my last post.  Please accept my apologies as it has been a rather busy few weeks.

Nonetheless the wedding day has come! It came and it went and it brought us back to Kansas.  It's so nice to finally have someone else from home in Kansas.

For those that were unable to be there I'll tell you a little bit about the weekend:

For myself it started after school on Thursday when I flew home.  Emily picked me up from the airport and we drove to my sister's house where we had the pleasure of meeting Grandpa and his lovely bride Peggy for the first time.  We also got the opportunity to see my parents, Matt, Elise, Madeline and Carly. 

Friday was busier than I had thought it was going to be.  It began with several errands to prepare the groomsmen/ushers gifts.  I also spent some time at the reception hall trying to help to be sure everything was ready.  From there we went to the church for the rehearsal.  Many thanks to Dean and Cathy for hosting the rehearsal dinner.  Everyone enjoyed a wonderful meal and time to relax.  This still made for a long night before the big day. 

As I went to bed that night, forecast: High of 59, Partly Cloudy

Though there were some kinks in the plan right off the bat nothing major happened to cause any problems.  Right from the get-go I woke up and relaxed a bit in the morning.  The TV was on and I was waiting for the weather.  Today's forecast: High of 68, Sunny.  Looks like everything is going to work out after all. Rumor has it that the temperature actually got up to the mid 70s.  I don't have any confirmation of this. 

Emily was stunning.  The service was beautiful.  I could not have asked for anything better than what we got.  The reception hall was gorgeous.  Emily did a great job of paying attention to the details.  From the cake to the tables to the favors to the dance floor.  It was all amazing.  We were very pleased with our photographer, our hall, the church, the DJ.  It was all amazing. 

The other amazing piece was all the guests that made it to town for the wedding.  We both want to thank our guests for making the long journeys from Kansas, Oregon, Washingtin, Georgia, Costa Rica, Brazil, or the many other places you came from.  It was flattering that you chose to devote your time to be a part of our special day.

Here are just some pictures for those that maybe interested:

Day One Again

Today marks the first Brewer-less day for the next 6 months.  Exactly 6 months today the Brewers play the Rockies at Miller Park to open the 2010 season.  That's 182 days. 4,368 hours. 262,080 minutes. 15,724,800 seconds.  What is there to do during that time? Just makes you wonder why they don't make it a year round sport.

On the brighter side of things, I am excited that the Crew was able to finish off the year strong with a sweep of the playoff bound Cardinals.  Also I'm excited to hear the ringing in my ears that Trevor Time will be returning for 2010.

I apologize for my lack of pictures again this week, but I assure you of plenty next week.  I'll be traveling home this weekend for the final time before the wedding to take care of things.  I have no plans set in stone and I know that Emily will be busy all day on Saturday.  If you are in town next weekend feel free to give me a call to let me know what's going on. 

As for tonight, I'm watching as the Packers are playing the Vikings and hope that they are able to get back into it.  Only the fourth quarter will tell.

Rock Chalk Jayhawk!

So maybe it wasn't basketball but I made it to KU territory for the first time this last weekend.  Even better I got to see Uncle Dave, Aunt Melinda, and cousins Sandi and Angie.  We were all there to cheer on Angie as she competed in her cross country meet.  I decided to bring my camera along but I was unaware of the dying batteries that were in it. I was however able to get the following pictures before it died.  Angie, I'm not sure how you do it.  It takes a lot of dedication to participate in a sport like cross country.  Keep it up!

Cross country aside, I always enjoy seeing family.  Thanks to all four of you for including me in your weekend.  It really made  my weekend.

As Promised...

As I previously promised I'm going to do my best to add a post at least every week that contains some photos of what I've been up to.

I'm fortunate enough to say that I've had a good deal of visitors in my time here in Kansas. Emily and her sister came down this weekend. Arriving Thursday afternoon we enjoyed a delicious IHOP dinner and trip to Walmart. Once at home we tried our hands at tie-dying. My hand remained blue throughout all of Friday at school.

I wasn't the greatest host on Friday as I was at school from 7 in the morning until about 10:30 at night due to girls volleyball games, but I had fun there as well. It's been very clear so far this year that the girls eat, sleep, and breathe volleyball, so having the opportunity to see them play and succeed was pretty cool.

When I got home it was time to untie the shirts and pillowcases that we dyed. Margaret's heart design shirt turned out great. My guitar design turned out alright. Somebody else got upset about another design.

Saturday was the first day we were able to sport our new shirts. Well, only 2/3 of us were really excited for that. We enjoyed lunch at the Kansas City's famous Arthur Bryant's Barbecue. Here's a picture of the groovy shirts that got shown around the town.

Below is Emily and myself in front of the famous barbecue pit.

After lunch we went down to The Plaza to see a movie that was so bad I don't even want to admit to seeing it on the internet. (Finally) the movie was over and we walked around The Plaza a bit. After enjoying a bit of Cold Stone I have to say that Wisconsin Cold Stone employees sing much better tip songs than KC employees. Here are some Plaza pics.

It's been a fun and enjoyable weekend and as always I thank my guests. Like I always like to say, guests are always welcome. If you haven't been here yet let me know when you want to make the trip.

Weekend Update

All of a sudden it seems as though it's been a while again. I think perhaps I get excited to post pictures on here whenever I take some but there's a problem with that: I never take any pictures. For this reason I've decided to try to take my camera home every weekend and try to find something interesting enough to take a picture of. So starting next weekend be ready to look for some recent photos.

This weekend has been rather fast already even though there is still another day in it. Friday night I was excited to be the dinner guest of one of my fellow teachers. It was a very fun evening and just great to hang out with people down here outside of school. I'm in the process of planning a "Taste of Wisconsin" night in which I will invite the faculty over to my place for some beer brats and perhaps some other Wisconsin dishes. If anyone has any ideas let me know what screams WI.

That's all I have for now but like I said, keep your eyes open for some more posts and more pictures very soon. Though it's not a new one, I'll leave you with this picture anyway.

The Prodigal Son