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Ready for the Big Day

By admin  |  2004/08/08 15:50 Posted in Uncategorized  |  Comments Off on Ready for the Big Day

Yesterday: Happy Birthday, Eric!

Eric and his wife, Gina, are expecting their second child any day now. Prayers for a smooth delivery are in order.

Things continue to be exciting here in Oregon. The rehearsal was at 10 a.m. yesterday morning, and a meal at the Old Spaghetti Factory followed. The wedding is at the Willamette Valley Vineyards near Salem. The vineyard is on a hill (like I’m guessing most are), so there’s a great view, which I have already captured on digital film. It’s a beautiful place to get married — and that explains why there were two other weddings going on yesterday after the rehearsal.

The dinner (or would you call it lunch?) was also very nice. Family and friends shared stories about Amanda and Dave — everything from when they met to when Dave proposed. The parents had plenty to tell about their childhood years, which was really cute. After the meal, we gathered around them and prayed for their future together. This was something I had never experienced at a rehearsal dinner before, but I think it really prepared us for the joy and excitement that today’s wedding will bring.

More fun stories from our trip when I have the chance to write about ’em.

I’m So Exciting

By admin  |  2004/08/07 01:06 Posted in Uncategorized  |  Comments Off on I’m So Exciting

Our travels to Oregon yesterday were fairly smooth. The only trouble we had is that our luggage did not get successfully transferred from the MKE-ORD plane to the ORD-PDX plane in time, so our bags were delivered to us this morning. No big deal at all.

Speaking of the luggage, here’s an interesting tale from the MKE airport. After we checked in, we put our three bags in the spot where the agent could properly tag them. The agent completed his task and handed the boarding passes to Jenelle. Clearly excited by the fact that we were on our way to Oregon, Jenelle grabbed the passes and began the walk toward the gate. What she forgot is the agent mentioning that we had to take our three pieces of checked luggage (weighing a total of about 60 pounds) to the big x-ray scanners about 20-30 yards from the ticket counter.

Standing by the three bags, watching Jenelle leave me behind, and laughing inside at her oversight, I said, “Oh, I guess I’m supposed to carry these.” I slung my carry-on backpack over my shoulders, hoisted the dufflebag-style luggage over my left shoulder, and grabbed the handles of the remaining two suitcasess, one with each hand.

As I began my trek to the scanners, Jenelle quickly realized her mistake. She looked back at me with the cutest “oops” smile I’ve ever seen. “You need any help with those?” she asked with a chuckle. “Nah, I got ’em,” was my reply, also with a chuckle. We were soon on our way to the gate.

If more interesting things happen to us while we’re out here, I’ll be sure to post them. Have a great weekend, all!

366 and counting…

By admin  |  2004/08/05 17:54 Posted in Uncategorized  |  Comments Off on 366 and counting…

Happy Birthday, Ella!

I just fixed a bug in the History Site that was preventing any events with a day less than 10 from showing up on the main page. If you did an event lookup on such a day, the events would show up fine. The entry for Ella’s birthday is now appearing as it should. A big thank you to all of the people who e-mailed me about the problem.

Also, congratulations to Holly for entering event number FIFTY into the database. Exciting!

Catching up

By admin  |  2004/08/04 03:52 Posted in Uncategorized  |  Comments Off on Catching up

Two short photo albums:

Rachel’s Third Birthday

Roma Lodge Italian Festival

From Friday: Happy Birthday, Adam W.!

As usual, I’ve been pretty lazy in updating the webjournal. Oops. This weekend was another fun one. Jenelle and I saw Anchorman on Friday. We comprised 25% of the entire viewing audience. We went to dinner at Gibson’s Charhouse on Douglas, which was a Big Boy the last time I was there — the food was suprisingly good.

Saturday was a relaxing day — we didn’t do a whole lot of exciting stuff, but we did run a bunch of errands and clean up the condo a bit. Of course, you wouldn’t know that by looking at the place now. 🙂

On Sunday, we went to Lodi to see Gail, Mike, Laura, and several other members of the Isaacson family. We celebrated the third anniversary of Ryan’s departure for heaven. We are all thankful for the ways he blessed us, but it’s hard not to think about what life would be like if he was still here today. In any case, I truly enjoy trips to Lodi. It’s always nice to visit with family — and while Minocqua has transformed into a tourist trap, Lodi remains a quaint small town.

I didn’t have to “work” on Monday, because my team had a group outing to Great America. I managed to ride all of the roller coasters I planned on riding. The only one that had a wait more than 20 minutes was Superman. It took over an hour, but I think it was worth it.

More fun is ahead in the coming weeks. I’ll try and keep you loyal webreaders a little better informed.

Enjoy Roma

By admin  |  2004/07/26 16:28 Posted in Uncategorized  |  Comments Off on Enjoy Roma

41st Place. Oh yeah!

The 2004 Roma Lodge Italian Festival was lots of fun. I didn’t bring my camcorder this year — it’s always best to wait a year or two before releasing hilarious movies featuring the Comande family and their exciting adventures at the festival. And don’t forget about Mr. Roma, either.

Though it was lots of fun, there was one slight “downer” on Sunday — at approximately 4pm, my favorite Italian Festival treat, “pane fritto” — also known as fried dough — sold out. I remember the good ol’ days when I managed to eat 10 of them in a single weekend. I had to stop at four this year. Oh well. Perhaps my stomach is thankful. 🙂

Pictures sometime soon!

Team Cuisine

By admin  |  2004/07/24 02:53 Posted in Uncategorized  |  Comments Off on Team Cuisine

My group at work has a lot of fun together — probably because our bosses are always up for some fun event, whether it’s group pedicures and facials, movie days, field trips or today’s event — Team Cuisine. The Global Public Affairs and Communication team at Johnson Financial asked my group to take a trip with them to The American Inn in Kohler, Wisconsin, for a team cooking contest.

We split into five groups and each were responsible for cooking one dish: crab cakes, mustard and herb asparagus and phyllo, smoked onion and black bean soup with three tomato salsa and cumin sour cream, Herb-crusted tenderloin of been in a roasted garlic sauce, and finally, tiramisu. Then the head banquet chef judged them all on presentation, taste and adherence to the recipe. Mom, you will be very happy to know that my asparagus and phyllo combo took home the top prize! We had a lot of fun, got to eat some great food, and best yet, didn’t have to work today!

Immediate Family Fun

By admin  |  2004/07/23 22:37 Posted in Uncategorized  |  Comments Off on Immediate Family Fun

Here’s the highly-anticipated list of great moments from Andrew, Holly, and Ella’s visit to the Midwest:

—

After another close eight ball match between Andrew and me, Dad came downstairs to demonstrate a new golf hole setup. A tricky par four spanning the length of the main basement room. He said that it was next to impossible to score better than birdie. Without too much effort, he scored an eagle 2.

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We spent about an hour in the pool at Grandma and Grandpa’s condo. We used Ella’s beach ball to play an exciting game of a keep-away. Jenelle and I tried to break Andrew’s record of eight consecutive throws. On two occasions, Andrew was able to stop us at seven. Only after a tremendous struggle did we succeed in reaching nine.

—

Holly’s stepdad (Dave), Andrew, Holly, and I played several hands of Texas Hold ‘Em. On the big blind after two calls, Dave was about to fold. I mentioned that he only had to check, so he decided to do that. I raised him all-in after flopping a pair, expecting him to fold right away. He called because he had flopped top two pair. Lucky for him, not so lucky for me. 🙂

—

We were all in the basement at my parent’s house. Andrew and I were playing my newly-acquired Dance Dance Revolution game. To my surprise, my dad AND my mom also played a song or two. Even Ella joined in the fun for a while. 🙂

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This weekend will have more fun times because it’s the weekend of the Roma Lodge Italian Festival. I’ll be sure to take my camera.

Incredibly Behind

By admin  |  2004/07/22 17:58 Posted in Uncategorized  |  Comments Off on Incredibly Behind

Sorry, folks.  I know it’ s been a while.  I hope you can wait a little bit longer.

Coming soon:

Fun moments from the 4th of July week

Pictures from Rachel’s Birthday Party

Well spent

By admin  |  2004/07/13 19:33 Posted in Uncategorized  |  Comments Off on Well spent

I thought I had posted links to these photo albums on the 8th. Oops. Here they are:

3rd of July

4th and 5th of July

It was wonderful to be able to spend lots of time with Andrew, Holly, and Ella while they visited us last week. I’ll write more about it as soon as I finish compiling my list of memorable moments. 🙂

Me Smile Pretty One Day

By admin  |  2004/07/05 22:19 Posted in Uncategorized  |  Comments Off on Me Smile Pretty One Day

As some of you may know, I now have braces! They’re not your traditional braces. No brace face or metal mouth here. These new invisalign braces are clear, pop in over my teeth and are removable. My orthodontist took a mold of my teeth and now I get lots of clear liners that slowly move my teeth. Because they’re clear, most people don’t even know I have them! The liners are designed using 3D software to simulate how my teeth should move to make them straight. Click here to see a video of how my teeth look now and how they will slowly change this year into a big, beautiful smile!