MN Bridal Shower

Amy, my best friend and Maid of Honor, was a trooper with hayfever.
Me and my mom!
BIG thank you to Senora H (Nancy) and Rachel for being the best hostesses with the mosteses!!!

And to all the lovely ladies that joined us too! See you all in August for the MN Reception.

Grassroots Music Festival Hits Hutch!

RiverSong Festival premiers in Hutch this Summer.

Here is me, Big Pete, mom and Walllllter in front of the main stage. Mom and I volunteered all weekend.
Romantica rocked the house on Friday night.
Pert' Near Sandstone played on Saturday, four guys, amazing sound:

And good ol' Jim Post was a real hit!
For hundreds of photos go to the Flickr feed.

See you all there next year.

Playing in Knoxville with Annie, Hope and Angela

I spent the Fourth of July with some of my favorite girls. We bought flower girls dresses, made pizza, went to the zoo and had lots of fun!!!

This was my first meeting of little Hope, but she instantly took to me and couldn't wiat to give me a hug!
At the zoo!
Ready to get her hands dirty!
Good little helper!
Mmm-mmm goood!
Bubbles in the yard.
Annie and her new turtle friend we met at the zoo.
Angela and Hope.
My little bug!

Great Meatloaf Off of 2009: And the Winner is....

We held the first ever Great Meatloaf Off. The day begin with a trip to Central Market South for a bunch of supplies. Everyone was home cooking up their meatloaves!

And everyone arrived; we had nine hungry judges. We had four wonderful meatloaf submissions.



We put out all the meatloaves with little flags in them (ISSB is a very good flag maker).
The meatloaves were all different. They all had different combinations of meats, different seasonings, veggies, toppings, etc. I made two very different loves, one was ISSB's family recipe and I also made my mother's recipe, the one I grew up eating.

Everyone got their “test tasters” plates and their score cards and sat down around the house to make their decisions.
So after everyone was done judging, we tallied up all the scores:

And the winner was............
ISSB's mom's four meat meatloaf!

Here is the recipe:

1 lb. meatloaf mix (ground beef, veal & pork)
1 lb. ground turkey
1 1/2 cups fresh breadcrumbs (less if using dried, but they're fine)
1-2 eggs
1 chopped onion, sauteed if you have time
1 grated carrot
The rest of this I eyeball, and since you're a good judge I'd leave it to your discretion:
1 Tbsp. Worcestershire sauce
garlic powder (this is the only thing I ever use it in, but I think it works better than fresh)
dijon mustard
ketchup
oregano
S&P

Panko mixed with EVOO & S&P for topping

Mix gently with your hands and put in oiled loaf pan, top w/panko.
Best to let sit and flavors mingle for at least a couple of hours to a day before baking at 375 about an hour.

Barbara was awarded this cookbook that was recently located at the used book store:
And the runner up was my mom!

Here is the recipe:

2 lb. ground beef
1 cups fresh breadcrumbs
2 eggs
1 chopped onion, sauteed if you have time
A lot of chopped garlic
1 Tbsp. Worcestershire sauce
Salt and pepper
Mix with your hands and form in to a round loaf and place in a Clay Coyote pie plate or in a castiron pan. Cook at 350F for 45 minutes.

At 45 minutes, pour over a mixture of:
¼ cup ketchup
2 Tbsp. brown sugar
1 Tbsp. Worcestershire sauce

And let it cook for another 5 minutes.

Overall the Meatloaf Off was a success!!! Hope that you try these out, happy meatloaffing!!!

New England in May

We traveled to New England for a week to do some wedding planning, celebrate Micah & Erica's vows and enjoyed a fun week with friends and family!

Forest Beach - our ceremony site, we were checking out where we want the whole thing to take place.
The Jetty.
View of the Great Gatsby from the beach! Look at those porches - they are just waiting for us to sit and relax on them!!!
Then on to Micah & Erica's wedding in Boston: ISSB, Noel (his brother) and Micah at the reception.
Soon-to-be-groom and Groom having fun!
Micah, me, Erica and Eloise who came in from NYC/CT.
The next day we wondered the neighborhoods of Boston, hitting up Mike's for some famous cannoli.


And Beacon Hill. And Copley Square.
Next visit will be for the wedding in September!

My Alma Mater: Saying goodbye to Tracey

I recently traveled back to the University of Wisconsin to attend the memorial service for my college adviser, Tracey Gladstone-Sovell. She was one of the first people I met on campus back in 1998, she was one of the people I say daily as I went through my courses and she kept in touch with me after I graduated. I will miss her dearly and I am proud to say I was one of her students.

(Photo from Sept 2008 in Minneapolis at health care house party)

While back on campus, I met with a couple of my favorite professors, talked to some budding poly sci students (and some graduated ones), and popped in to the new University Center. And I have to say I was stunned by it. Really, a truly amazing building. I remember back when I was on the Student Senate we approved the money to build it. And, everyone I talked to about it seemed pleased with it.

Inside of the University Center:

Outside of the Center:

On the way to the airport, I stopped to see Mary Jo and the twins, grabbed a cup of coffee with Brian and met my mom for a nice lunch (I sure wish I lived closer so I could have lunches like that more often).

Overall it was a good trip and I am glad I got to be there.

San Francisco Trip, Take 2

More photos from our San Fran trip with Lucy. Here she is on a walk, playing in her Sox outfit and rocking out with her parents and uncle Ian.

Love this hoodie and the sunnies!!!
After Ian flew home it was time to head in to downtown for the conference I was to attend for the next four days. That afternoon after getting check in and going through my conference packet, my coworker Eric and I headed to the ferry building for a trip to Sausalito for lunch.

Little Lucy

We went to San Francisco recently to meet Ian's niece Lucy!

She is adorable! And we had a blast, here she is:

Above, Ian, Lucy and Ian's sister Becky off to the side.