Welcome
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My Parents Visit!
We’ve had a fun time visiting with my parents this weekend. They arrived on Saturday and are staying through Thursday this week. So far we’ve had a lot of good food and conversation. Mom picked up a great pair of Eccos for the upcoming school year and we sampled tea at the new Teavana at West Towne Mall. We have a trip out to APT planned for this week and are hoping to spend a little more time outdoors if the weather stays relatively cool and sunny. Even with some rain and mugginess this weekend, Mom and Dad say Wisconsin feels much cooler than the upper 90s and 100+ degrees they have been experiencing in Florida!
Xaxxon and Small Horse have quickly warmed up to my parents and were giving them more attention than me and Michael this evening! When they started to leave for their hotel, Xaxxon put his paw on Mom to try to get her to stay.
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Movie Night
(cross-posted from Mishaps and Other Haps)
Every Tuesday night for the last two years or so, we have been inviting friends over to our house for movies and pizza. We usually choose the movie, as a group, a week in advance so that the person who owns a copy or has access to a copy can bring it the following week. Occasionally we have longer discussions about movies that should be viewed at future movie nights.
Here is a list of movies we have watched over the last few months:
The Shawshank Redemption
The Scent of Green Papaya
Man on the Moon
UHF
Team America
Kubrick’s Lolita
Help (the Beatles movie)
Zero Hour
Barry Lyndon
Quick Change
The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert
Hedwig and the Angry Inch
Waiting for Guffman
What are the benefits of having a weekly movie night? In general, I’d say that we have watched many movies that we might not ever have taken the time to see (or even known about) because of movie night. Also, our primary crew for movie night includes Colin, Lindsay, and Keith, friends we didn’t see very often before we started having movie nights. It gives us a chance to catch up with friends. It’s a good weekly routine
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Merry Christmas
Merry Christmas and Happy 2010 to all of our friends and family.
Michael has pointed out that it’s been a while since I have posted. I am a little better at updating my own blog, but I will try to give this one a bit more attention next year.
We wish you peace, prosperity, and health for the New Year!
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Having a good time
…in Florida. We’ve had a get together with the close family, a walk on the beach, we’ve watched some Christmas movies and just hung out. It’s been a good time. There are some pictures that I’ll get to post later.
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Taste of Madison
Michael and I worked at Taste of Madison on Saturday and Sunday of Labor Day weekend this year. Heather Lerner’s mom and step-dad, Fannie and Neill, run a cheesecake catering business. They have been selling their frozen, chocolate-dipped cheesecakes at local fairs and festivals, but this was the first time they had run a booth at Taste of Madison. Fannie was at another fair this weekend, so Neill handled the Taste of Madison booth.
A few months ago, Heather called Michael to ask if we could help Neill with the booth this weekend. We didn’t have plans for Labor Day yet, so we put it on our calendar.
We sold frozen cheesecake and made and sold lemonade for about six hours each day on Saturday and Sunday. Unfortunately, we ran out of cheesecake on both days or I think we would have been there until the festival ended each night. I have to say that both the cheesecake and the lemonade were VERY popular.
Michael and I switched off making lemonade, restocking cheesecake from the big freezer in the back, and handling the counter. We really work well together as a team in a production environment, which I guess is good if you’re marrying someone (but not true in all cases). Also, it was an informative test run for us because I’d like to run a small business one day. Michael insists (after this weekend) that any business I run should have air-conditioning.
We had lots of pleasant customers and most people were enjoying themselves and in a great mood, but while I was making lemonade, Michael had one who was kind of loud and rude. Apparently the whole family was arguing amongst themselves and making it difficult for Michael to understand what they wanted.
I don’t think people always understand that they choose their behavior and that they can decide to have a good time or to be miserable, argue, and then berate someone who has nothing to do with their misery. It made me feel glad that I didn’t know the customer and sympathetic to waiters and cashiers in food service jobs who probably see a lot of rude customers that are rude for reasons entirely unrelated to the service they are receiving.
Otherwise it was a pretty good experience. Over the two days of the festival, I managed to find a tasty Jamison burger at the Claddagh booth and samosas and aloo chole at the Taj booth. We didn’t walk around much otherwise– it was a really busy time.
Best of all, it’s a three-day weekend, so we still have one day to laze about a bit, shop, and get the house back in order for the work week. I think Michael would like to spend some quality time with his computer games, too.
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Lodging Information
For those who will be needing a hotel room in Madison for October 9th and/or 10th, I have arranged for a block of 10 standard rooms at the Country** Inn and Suites on Monona Drive (phone # 608-221-0055). It’s one of the closer hotels to the wedding venue. The rate per night they gave me is $128. This rate (and the room availability) is good through September 9th and you will need to specify that you are reserving a room for the Tew/Babler wedding.
We will have Joe staying with us at the house, I imagine (Best Man and college student privileges), and that’s about all we can handle as we will need room and privacy for wedding prep that weekend.
** Thanks for catching my mistake, Mom
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I’ve been told “no backing out now!”
The first wave of wedding invitations will be going out in tomorrow’s mail. Look for them later this week!
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Google Voice
As an FYI I have gotten my invite to Google Voice. I have a Google Voice number, but I’m hoping to port my current number over to GV as soon as they allow it. So hopefully you won’t have to update your contacts.
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Harry Potter
Sweetie and I went and saw the newest Harry Potter film last night. I haven’t read the books, but I have spent enough time around people who like to talk about it that there were no mysteries in store for me. At some point I would like to nab copies of the audiobook, but at $60 a pop, I don’t feel like it’s a worthwhile investment right now. I think we both enjoyed the movie, like the others you can see where sacrifices were made to translate it from a book to a 2 hour movie, but overall its quite enjoyable and there’s no good reason you won’t like it if you liked the others.
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Summer Dinner
I have popped a modified version of Dreena Burton’s Chickpea Curry Casserole into the oven, along with breaded “Sunny Paris” seasoned chicken. Rice is cooking on the stove top. I love having time to cook.
lisa
Michael