Adventures of Newlyweds in Kansas

Yesterday we had our first "real" snow in Manhattan. Only got a slight dusting, but it snowed long enough for me to at least see it on the ground for a few hours. The wind was blowing like crazy also and knocked over two chairs and a grill off of our deck.

In non weather related news, Lindy and I had our parents up yesterday for a holiday dinner. The food was wonderful, Orzo rice (my fav), turkey, green beans, jello salad and some ginger snap cookies. Lots of wine and beer was served too :). It was great to have family up to do things like this while we are living close to each other.

Lindy and I are also very excited to be going to the Pinstripe bowl in NYC featuring our Wildcats and Syracuse. We have all the stuff ready to go, plane tickets, etc. and it should be an awesome time. I'm sure we'll have lots to share after that trip is over. I'd also like to announce that I have setup an online cookbook for Lindy and I to keep track of recipes we like. It will be growing as we make new things and put our favorites on it. Check out cookbook.derekandlindy.com!

We spent the weekend of Thanksgiving out in Colorado visiting my family.  My parents rented a van (haha) and my parents, Kali, Derek, me, Mia, and Bristol all loaded up and we headed out!



Oh how I don't think I miss road trips!  We'll about 10 hours later we arrived in Ft Collins at my Grandma's!  Thursday we had a huge, yummy feast at my aunts house.  Friday we went out shopping in the afternoon and got our hair cut by my awesome cousin.  After this we went to a piano bar where we drank far too much, oops, those fish bowls were amazing though!



Derek and I danced towards the end of the night to our wedding dance song, I'm sure it was absolutely horrible, but my mom has all the photos.  Saturday we bummed around and my little cousin Ariston and aunt Teri visited from Denver.  Sunday we got into that van again and drove all the day home!

I have been sick since returning and Derek has been great!  He got me medicine and even went out to get a humidifier at midnight the other night.  We also got me chocolate and pretty roses!  I have been very spoiled.  Well today I finally went to the doctor cause I got sick of coughing and keeping us both awake, and apparently I have bronchitis, but now have medicine to make it go away and some powerful cough medicine so hopefully I can sleep through the night. 

So today my very early Christmas and Birthday present from Derek arrived!  I found a stove I liked for 40% off at Best Buy last week so we decided to order it a bit early.  I find it gorgeous and can't wait to have a flat top stove instead of the crappy coil top.   Derek's presents also arrived in the mail and are all wrapped up and ready to go under the tree when we put that up.

Here is a photo of my new stove, we now have all matching appliances!

So recently I made some goals to cook a few random foods I have never made but felt everybody should know how to make.  Well today I did my first recipe:  Cinnamon rolls!  I used this recipe:
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Clone-of-a-Cinnabon/Detail.aspx

 I didn't use a bread machine and I think they still turned out great!  They took awhile, about 3 hours total but a lot of that was waiting.  I also increased the frosting and cooked at 350 degrees for for 20 minutes instead.  We might of had only these for dinner... oh well.   Here is a photo of the whole pan (it makes a ton) and Derek's dinner, well he might have added another to his dinner too.

Derek's quote "Best cinnamon rolls he has ever had."

So I thought I would go ahead and wrap up my deck project that I have recently completed.

Planning

Initially we had planned on digging foundations, 9 of them in all to provide a footing for the 16 X 16 foot deck. That was a lot of work. Instead we found DeckPlans.com which uses pre-poured concrete foundations instead of digging and pouring your own. We decided to go the route of buying the pre poured foundations. Unfortunately, that meant that instead of 9 we would need to buy 32 to fit our project. In retrospect I think it was a toss up for the amount of work involved. However, it was easier to setup and being unexperienced, I think it was the way to go for the first time. My Dad also came down to help with the foundation work.

Building

Building the deck was actually fairly easy. I went ahead and purchased as much of the supplies at once as I could and had them delivered to our house as we have no truck. We were able to build fairly quickly, and within 2 days, (about 10 hours a day with 2 people and one day had 3 people) we were ready to start decking. Lindy left for a work trip the next week and I had completed all joists, and decking by the time she got back on Friday!

So there, the deck that we built in under a week is done. Sadly its time for winter here in Kansas which means we’ll have to wait till next spring to really enjoy the new deck.

Pretty much done!

Didn't get as far as I wanted but here is where we are at, at the end of today.

All I really have to show is this picture from what I completed yesterday. I hope to lay 10 or more pieces tonight as well.

We spent most the day again today working on our new deck.  We started decking it and hopefully Derek will finish it this week.  Here are some photos

So today we started building our new deck.  We decided to do pre-made concrete blocks instead of pouring foundations.  We need 32 of these instead of 9 but we think it will save money as we don't need as many joist boards, don't have to mix our own concrete, and don't have to buy a bunch of metal connections for all the boards.


While I have been away in KC Derek has removed the rest of the concrete

And purchased all the supplies:

 So today we got to start on the actual construction.  We got all the 32 supports on the ground and tomorrow we plan on doing the rest of the joists and maybe start the planking!

So the demolition of our uneven concrete patio has begun!  We decided to remove our current patio and put in a wood patio in its place.  It should be very interesting haha  The current patio was placed in like 8 separate slabs and we got 2 of them removed today in about 30 minutes.  We will do a few more tomorrow on my day off!  We aren't sure what to do with the concrete but we'll figure out something.

Here are a few photos of the demolition!

So apparantely the photos on my blog aren't showing in Internet Explorer, go figure, I use Mozilla and they show up fine!
Today is kitchens.  I don't particularly love our kitchen mainly because it is a bit small and doesn't have a pantry but we have done a lot of upgrades since we moved in.  Well here it is:




















This is our wall with all our photos from our honeymoon in Europe and also our TV that goes with the bar my husband loves.
























This is our dining table in the large room that is our kitchen/dining room/bar.   The wire thing behind the dining table is going to go away soon, we are going to be getting a buffet to go in its place!



















This is one side of our kitchen.  When we moved in we painted the whole kitchen, added a backsplash, and put in the dish washer.  After this picture was taken we added new handles to the cabinets.




















This is the bar my father built for us!  We love it and it holds all Derek's glasses and alcohol supply.  We are going to be looking for new bar stools that are more real life appropriate than "Coors Light" ones haha



















In this picture we put in a new door to the garage, a new fridge!, and a new microwave.   Someday we might replace the stove cause it doesn't really fit in anymore.



















The last photo is of the window curtain.  I tried blinds because I don't like that people can see in but our dog destroyed those twice so that idea is now gone.

So fall is my favorite season, I love the cool weather, clear skies, falling leaves, cheap energy bills, and football.  I hope it stays a long time this year!  The last few weeks we have had perfect weather and it looks like it might continue 10 or more days!  Tomorrow we play Nebraska and I'm taking off work early, I am getting pretty excited.  I don't think we will win, but I sure hope we play pretty decent.

Well today after work I decided to take some photos of Bristol and some of my flowers this year.  Overall my garden and yard work was a success this year, a few things died but overall most of it is still alive :)  I also am trying to get grass seed to grow instead of all our weeds, so far so good on that too.







































Is it sad that I did a photo shot with my dog?  Probably, but it was fun, and she is an active participant if I have a stick she wants haha

Another Show Us Your Life!  So apparently this is the only time I update my blog but it is fun to do and not a whole lot is going on with us right now.

So we might possibly have the world's smallest master bedroom but we make do.  We only ever wanted a queen bed (I can't believe the people before us fit a king in there) so it is fine.  I wish we had room for another dresser because we have to share the one we have and sometimes it is a tight fit because I have A LOT of jeans for work :)



















I love the color blue we painted the walls and ceiling.  I also love having the ceiling painted, it just makes it feel complete.  Since this photo I have hung a wedding phone on the wall and some other artwork so they are not so plain.  My side table have photos of places in Europe, which is absolutely perfect because we love to travel!  My husband's side table is something him and his dad made, it weighs like 100 pounds (well not really) but I joke if there is a tornado it will be the only thing left in our house.



















Our dresser we have to share and the door to our bathroom


















Our closets.  When we moved in they had curtains hanging for the doors.  I didn't find that appealing for a master bedroom so we (okay my dad) installed the doors for them.  I love our room, very cozy and comfy for us.

Show us your life is back!  Today is Living Room.  We moved into our house about a year ago and have been updating and painting everything!  These photos were taken at Christmas last year (as if the Christmas tree wasn't a give away) haha but I'm too lazy to take new photos now as most of it looks the same.



















The only updates in this photo are we added a magazine table on the closest side of the couch so Derek can have a place to put his stuff!




















The Christmas tree has been replaced with a bookshelf in the corner and the stockings with a wedding photo.  Yes the dog bed is still there, not that attractive, but she loves it.




















This is a table my dad made for us for our Bridal Shower, I love it!  The Christmas decorations have been replaced with a German stein and a clock my father also made.   Yes, the hole in the wall is still there....

So my diet has been going okay, down about 3 pounds since it started so I can't complain.  I have broken it once at work, I ate a cupcake but I made up for it by walking around the work site for about 3 hours afterwards!

The weather has been gorgeous lately so we have been doing more things outside.  Today we went on a nice bike ride and then came home and power washed the brick and cut down a huge limb that was hanging on our power line.  Football starts next Saturday so I hope the weather stays as nice as it has been! We also installed new handles on our cabinets in our kitchen, we both like them a lot!
















We have also talked about our trip next year to Europe and we have decided, assuming I get approval for the days off, to spend 3 weeks (23 days) in Central/Eastern Europe.  Where we are looking at going now is: Salzburg and Vienna Austria, Budapest Hungary, Krakow and Warsaw Poland, and Munich for Oktoberfest.  The money is pretty much saved for it so we are starting to get excited!

This is a slight rant after the recent political news.  How did people in America forget separation of church and state?  The Mosque in NYC has to be allowed to be built, America is a country for freedom of religion and we cannot tell any religious organization where and when they can build things unless we equally do the same to every religion (so this would mean no churches in NYC also).  Then today Beck does a speech and starts it out with "America today begins to turn back to God."  That would be fine is it was "American's" as in the people of our country but our country isn't for or about God.  Our country was built for the religious and nonreligious.  American's need to realize that the separation of church and state is the only way to guarantee everyone equal freedoms but at the same time that does not prevent individuals from being religious.  Okay rant over, but I am slightly scared for the next elections.

My Promotion from work went through today!  I will see the paycheck next week :)  Part of taking the job for the "intern" program was at the end of one year and the end of the 2nd year I would advance 2 grades and see decent pay raises.  So now we will have about $500 more in disposable income to use.  So far we plan on putting an extra $125 towards my student loan and $200 towards a new car per month.  The rest we will just have to see what we want to do with it.  On another good money note, our savings officially has enough to go to Europe in Fall 2011 so now everything we add will go towards other vacations, emergencies, or a new car!  I have my eyes on a Prius, but we will see.  I hope to get one the spring of 2012!

I also purchased Lonely Planet Central Europe on Amazon.com to start planning, I get excited and plan really early!  This is the same book, only an updated version, that we used on our last trip and it was great.  We haven't really decided what we are going to do but so far we know Oktoberfest and Vienna.  Ideally I'd want to do Oktoberfest, Salzburg, Vienna, and Krakow in the 2ish weeks we're going to be there.  We discussed London or Paris but both decided in the far future when we have children those are easy cities to travel with them to so we're saving them for the future.  We've also thrown around doing the Naples area or Venice in Italy.

More on traveling.  I finally finished our online travel blog over DC and Europe.  They are here
http://www.travbuddy.com/dlstegelman/blogs

So last night Derek and I went on a date night!  We went out to dinner at Gigilo's Italian Bistro in Manhattan.  We got a half price giftcard from a local radio station.  I found the food good, better than Olive Garden, and the prices were good.  Dish prices were about like Olive Garden and we got a whole bottle of wine for $22, yum!  I order a specialty dish that had spinach, asparagus, grilled chicken, and tomatoes in a lemon sauce.  It was like they knew I was coming and put all my favorite things together!  After that we went and saw Inception.  That was the first movie we went to in over a year, and it was a good choice.  We both enjoyed the movie and would probably see it again as it could get a bit confusing.

Also last night I finally get Derek to agree I could diet, so I am officially attempting to diet.  I've never done it before so we shall see how it goes.  Derek apparently likes me to weigh more, but I convinced him he would still like me if I lost a little bit of weight!  So today we went and bought a scale so I can actually know how much I weigh.  What I plan on doing to lose some weight:  walking or biking every day (we already do most days but sometimes skip it), portion control (no seconds and watch what I put on my plate the first time), keep Derek from baking me good things, no food after 8:30pm, and not eating snacks people bring into work (they bring in cookies and donuts far too often).

We also went to City Pool today for the first time!  We decided to bike there, it is only 3ish miles, I really shouldn't have said only, I did really good except at the end going uphill!  It was a bit hot on the way there but getting in the pool felt great.  We did all the slides, the lazy river, and hung out in the large pool.  When we first got there it was pretty busy but by the time we left it was much better.  On the way home we decided to stop at Subs-n-Such which makes some pretty tasty subs.

Tomorrow we are going to go to Peace Lutheran Church, it is a church we found that we have been enjoying and hopefully we keep liking it because it like about a block from our house and a great size and has beautiful stained glass windows.

So two nights ago I decided to try to make some peanut butter ice cream.  It turned out amazing :)

The recipe is:
1 cup peanut butter
2/3 cup sugar
1 cup skim milk
1 cup half and half
1 cup heavy cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Mix the peanut butter and sugar with an electric mixer.  Add milk.  Then stir in rest of the ingredients.  We also topped it off with some mini chocolate chips.  If I made it again I would use a bit less peanut butter and more vanilla extract however Derek thinks it is perfect and doesn't want me to change it.  He said it is the best ice cream he's ever had!  I may also try using all half and half instead of heavy cream.  The recipe actually called for 1 cup whole milk and 2 cups heavy cream but I don't feel all that fat is really needed to make it taste awesome.

Date night Friday is going as planned.  We will be going to Gilio's Italian Bistro and to Inception.  This will be the first movie we have been to in over a year, I'm excited!

So this week was Grilling Recipes from www.kellyskornerblog.com/
The recipe Derek and I keep going back to is a Pork Marinade.  We both love it!

Marinade

2 tablespoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon chopped rosemary
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1/3 cup olive oil

Whisk together adding the olive oil last.  Marinade on pork for about 30 minutes. 
Good for 2-3 pork chops

So I haven't updated in awhile!  On June 3rd I flew out to San Diego to help Mindy finish up some planning for her wedding.  I helped with lots of craft projects, I came up with no ideas haha, but I was part of the manual labor!  I stayed in Mindy and Tommy's new apartment, which is very nice, and meet her cat Rose!  Rose is very funny and one of the coolest cats ever :)

Then on Friday the 9th, my parents, Kali and Derek flew out to join me in San Diego.  We stayed in a  hotel on the harbor area by the airport.  The first day they got there we went out to Cabrillo National Monument before heading to Fred's in Old Town for dinner and drinks.
















Then Saturday was rehearsal and rehearsal dinner day.  Well before that Brian setup a scavenger hunt near the hotel for the guests which was fun, and Derek and I won haha go us!  Then my family headed to Balboa Park to see an area selling local artists work.  After that Derek and I went to the rehearsal and saw the venue, which was right on the water, and gorgeous!  I practiced walking in my heals and then dinner was at the hotel next door.

Sunday, wedding day!  Woke up extra early because the wedding was at 10 and setup started at 8:30.  Everything seemed to go great, the weather was gorgeous, I didn't fall over, and the cupcakes were phenomenal!  Mindy and Tommy and their parents all looked great.

















Sister picture!

After Mindy and Tommy left and the venue was cleaned up we headed to a piano bar in downtown San Diego.  Monday we rented a sailboat for Mission Bay that my dad sailed while we sat around and enjoyed the views.  It was fun!  After that we went to the zoo and saw pandas and koalas.  Then on Tuesday we took mom and dad to the airport for their flight and Kali, Derek, and I headed to La Jolla to go to the aquarium and see the ocean.
















I posted more photos here

Now we have been back for 2 weeks and haven't been doing too much.  I had a bunch of cleaning to get done from being gone so much the last few months.  We also purchased an ice cream maker so I have been making some yummy ice cream!  This weekend we are going to do on a date to Giolios (or something) and maybe to Inception if I can convince Derek to!  I also hope to go golfing if it cools down a bit.

So I spent last week in San Antonio for work.  The training was right on the Riverwalk and so was the hotel I stayed at, the Hotel Valencia.  The hotel was really nice the only thing it was missing was a pool.  Here is my room!  It also had a huge balcony and bath robes :)
















With all this training I am starting to get spoiled with all the nice hotels that have Government rates that I can stay in!  I meet some other interns from around the country while there and we hug out every night.  The food in San Antonio was pretty good, especially the Mexican and BBQ.  The margaritas were also great!  The only touristy things I did was walk the Riverwalk, go to the Alamo, and go up the Tower of America for dinner one evening.  Here is a photo of the sunset while we were eating.  We were 500 feet up and the restaurant rotated, it was pretty neat and the food was even good.

















I flew in and out of Manhattan and that was amazing.  I left the house 1 hour before my flight was scheduled to take off.  I can't wait for our flight to Chicago to start.  This weekend Kali came up Saturday to help me paint the outside of our house.  Saturday was incredibly hot so we only painted in the morning and late at night.  Sunday was much nicer and we got a lot done.  One side and half of the back aren't finished but as soon as I hang the shutters up the front will look finished and I'll take a photo!

Tonight was Mexican Monday.  Derek is in love with tacos right now so almost every Monday we have chicken tacos.  I don't plan on cooking the rest of the week :)  I leave Saturday for San Diego for Mindy's wedding and I have lots of other things to get done before then but I am excited for a long vacation and some nice weather.

So I finally, well almost, finished the guest bathroom.  Things we did:  new vent, paint, and storage system.  I still have to add some trim but I'm not sure what I want to do with it so it's not done yet.
Here is a few photos, I still need to move more things onto my storage:











































I also ordered a bookshelf for the living room that arrived and I think looks good for the price.  So for now I think we are done with the interior of our house!  Oh yeah we also bought a baby gate to lock Bristol in the laundry room while we are gone instead of using her kennel.

So Derek and I's goal the last few weeks while grocery shopping is to buy food without high fructose corn syrup which is actually a pretty difficult task.  So far good things that don't always come without it that we have found are:

• Apple sauce:  we like the organic at the store and also Grandma Hoerners
• Cereal bars:  My favorite are Cascadian Farm and Derek likes Kashi Baked Apple Spice
• Chocolate milk:  any type of organic is yummy but the Horizon is best
• Earth Grains 100% whole wheat, Derek even loves it!
• Apple butter, pumpkin butter, and jam all from Grandma Hoerners
• Peanut Butter:  any of the natural kind
• Basil pesto ravioli from a local store, it was amazing
• Pepsi Throwback:  this is nearly impossible to find but good tasting, I am actually trying to get Derek to make me homemade root beer for me instead!
• Yogurt:  you'd be surprised all the junk in normal yogurt, still haven't found a great one without corn syrup too but the Kroger brand doesn't have hfcs
• Lean Cuisine's:  they don't have hfcs and most the the Spa Cuisine is good and includes vegetables

Sunday I head to San Antonio for work while I'm not really looking forward to but that is okay.