Wake me up when September ends

Holy smokes it's been a long time since we've blogged!  Time totally gets away from me this time of year... we've been soaking up the last days of summer, spending time with family and working our butts off at work.   I've managed to either run myself down or develop some seriously inconvenient adult allergies because I woke up Tuesday morning feeling like a train hit me and it's only gotten worse.  Yay for cold weather..... not (in case you didn't pick up on that heavy sarcasm). 

Backtrack.  We enjoyed a PERFECT labor day weekend full of everything that was long over-due.  We finally made it back to West Liberty (the first time since our wedding) and took advantage of the long weekend to log some QT with our families.   We were so busy enjoying the company of our parents, in-laws, siblings and nieces/nephews that I forgot to bust out the camera.... FAIL.  You'll just have to take our word for it when we say that the kids were cuter than ever and the weather was to die for.   The one thing I did snap pictures of was the newest addition to the (extended) Simon family:  Meet Caiden Thomas Simon.

This adorable little fella belongs to Adam & Jill.
(Adam is Kurt's cousin and good friend, too!)

 Caiden is the 40th great-grandchild in the Simon family! WOW.

Other recent developments include my new (more-so-than-before) obsession with baking.  I've decided that since I no longer have a wedding to plan I need a new hobby and since I (honest-to-God) cannot live without chocolate and thoroughly enjoy baking I've taken it upon myself to hone my baking skills.  Don't laugh, because I am beyond serious here.  Although I've been baking since I was about 2 years old thanks to my mother and grandmother -- my family baking experience has been limited to the tried-and-true (and totally delicious) classic recipes so it's time for me to branch out!  I'm all for a good batch of brownies-from-the-box but I am laser focused on baking from scratch now.  I'm discovering new ingredients (although I usually have a hard time tracking them down in the store), forcing Emilee and her houseful of sorority sisters to eat my concoctions and using the heck out of my pretty KitchenAid mixer.  =)   I began my baking adventures with a special request for Emilee's 20th Birthday (side note: OMG when did Em grow up?! This means I'm getting OLD.) which was Funfetti Cupcakes.  And look.... I pulled it off!

Made from scratch Funfetti Cupcakes w/ homemade Cream Cheese Frosting - piped!
With Sprinkles (duh!).  =D  YUM!

After eating a few cupcakes, Kurt tackled a big project of his own... remember that HUGE blue boat cover that he's been slaving over?  Well,  he assembled it last weekend.  Whewwww, that thing is cool.  If I had a pontoon boat, and a dispensable income, I'd be putting in an order for one of these custom-made beauties.  See for yourself...

This boat is ready for Fall. :)

Last but not least, I have 2 new obsessions:  Twitter & Pinterest.  I know, twitter is old news but I finally gave in and am tweeting.... except for I don't have a smart phone so my tweets aren't live-at-this-moment updates.  None-the-less it's still cool and you should follow me by clicking HERE.   As for Pinterest, join at your own risk. It's absolutely, positively addicting.  It's an amazing virtual pinboard ready and waiting to fuel your creative juices!!  I now have about 98792834 crafts and recipes that I have to try because I pinned them.  Love, Love, Love it.

Oh PS.  I whipped these up this week.... I call them PMS bars, but I guess you could call them Chocolate Peanut Butter Bars if you are a freak that doesn't crave chocolate want to.

Yes, I did find the recipe for these little pieces of heaven on Pinterest.

Ta ta for now!  Benadryl and bedtime (yes, at 8pm).

Nothing Compares

We'd have to agree with the marketing genius that pitched this year's Iowa State Fair slogan.... Truly, nothing does compare to the Iowa State Fair!   So corny, we know.  But we seriously enjoy it every year and it's growing into a very fun and memorable tradition for us!  This year might just be the best year yet... although we basically just walked around drinking and eating we're still talking about the fun we had.  One thing we enjoyed was the top-notch company, our buddies Chad & Abbey made the trip this year and proved to be prime fair-goers.  It takes a rare combination of qualities to keep up with Kurt & I at the fair but these two didn't have a problem!  We conquered all our favorite parts of the fair and are already making plans for next summer.

 15 Steps to a Fun Fair Experience

Step 1:  Pitch tents while sipping on beverages of our choice.

Step 2:  Nearly pass out due to the weatherman's incorrect temperature predictions, followed by various wardrobe changes (for the ladies that is, because Kurt insisted on wearing his cowboy boots which require jeans... regardless of the heat).

Step 3:  Enter Fairgrounds and proceed directly to the Hot Lips stand.  Sooooooo good you can't even share.

Step 4: Wander around while making a mental list of funny things to people-watch for. 

Step 5: Pay incredibly too much for a cup of beer, but insist on doing so because it's the State Fair. 

Step 6: Gawk at the unbelievably (but clearly real) HUGE cows and pigs.

Step 7: Convince the wimp to ride an innocent looking roller coaster which results in many screams and sobs.

Step 8:  Laugh so hard at the roller coaster photo that you have to purchase it.

Step 9: Eat more than your fair share of fried food.
(But don't feel bad about it, because it's the fair!)

 

 Step 10:  Purchase cowboy boots and rock them the rest of the night.

 

Step 11:  Eat more food-on-stick or fried food (your choice.. if it's fried AND on a stick that's even better).  Step 12: Proceed to the campsite for a good night's sleep. Camping at the fair is by far the best option.

Step 13: Beat the crowd and enjoy a morning ride on the Sky Glider. (A prime people watching opportunity)

 

Step 14:  Relive your childhood by riding down the GIANT slide.  It's OK to giggle and/or scream.

 

Step 15:  Get at least one more order of hot lips before hitting the road home. 
Hey, you only get these things once a year!

  So there you have it, folks.  A foul-proof recipe for a memorable weekend.  Sadly, the State Fair is over and we're facing the cold reality that Fall is it's way (pun intended, ha!).  Although Fall isn't bad, in fact there's many things we enjoy about it, it still means winter is around the corner and that is not something we look forward to.  

On a side note, work stinks.  This calls for cookies!!  Baking makes me happy.  On the other hand, Kurt says baking makes him fat... we're in the process of finding a happy medium on the acceptable quantity of baked goods to have in the house. =P  I think oatmeal chocolate chip is in store for us tonight.  Mmmmm.  Adios!

What a week!

We've been busy since our last post!  Are you surprised?  ...We didn't think so.

Let me just start by gushing about my good friend, Caitlin's wedding which took place last weekend:  Looooooooooved it.  I was lucky enough to be included in this special day as Cait's personal attendant and it was SO much fun.  I think I may have found another dream job to add to the list... wedding planner! :)   Caitlin & Eli planned an amazing wedding down in southern Iowa aka the boondocks (I believe we passed a sign that said 15 miles to Missouri).  Don't jump to conclusions though because this affair was nothing short of gorgeous and it was a blast to see the two lovebirds take the plunge.  So much fun in fact that I apparently got jacked in the nose on the dance floor (evidently my face is elbow height).  I woke up Sunday morning to a slightly swollen, noticeably bruised, rather painful reminder of this party foul.  True evidence of a epic celebration.  Congrats to the new Mr. & Mrs. Kilburg!!

With the beautiful bride!  I love you!

We also thoroughly enjoyed spending time with this lovely couple.

 

Our first wedding as a married couple.  Awwwww

 After that great weekend we were totally pooped.  What can we say... we're just not as young as we used to be!  Of course, by the time we made it back home it was practically time to jump into another crazy work week.  This week turned out to be unusually crappy.... at least on my end.  It was the regular level of crappy for my hubby (work, work, work).   I'm personally coming off one of those weeks packed with family drama, long days at work, a $114 speeding ticket and then more family drama, all things that are considered to be crap-inducing in my book.  Drama is not my friend, and now apparently neither is my cousin.  (....If I bite my tongue any harder I will definitely start bleeding.)

Now that Friday has FINALLY arrived, I took it upon my self to cash in an impromptu afternoon off.  I'm finally feeling like I can relax for the first time this week.  Kurt's already making plans for a movie night and enchiladas are in the oven!  :)  But never fear, we don't relax long around these parts... we're packing up and hitting the State Fair bright and early tomorrow.  I have a feeling that chicken lips, sweet potato french fries, a cow sculpted from butter, some live music, $12 beers and an assortment of food-on-a-stick will be just the cure I need for this crap-tastic week.  If you're at the Fair, call us up!!! 

Look who's back!

Since our computer is seriously slow (slash the DVD/CD-Rom drive is broken) we're going to skip the attempt to upload wedding photos on the blog.  You might notice some new pics in our layout but other than that we'll be directing our followers to our handy Facebook album if you'd like to get an inside look at our wedding.  Check them out, we're still kind of obsessed with reminiscing about the big day and your comments totally make us smile. 

Here's the album:  Our Wedding <3 June 25, 2011

Whew!  Now that that's out of the way it's time to get back to basic blogging!  We've been slacking in the blog department but lets see if we can get you up to speed with a POWER RE-CAP:

We took a little road trip to the Wisconsin Dells after our wedding and enjoyed a "mini moon" full of fun, relaxation and memory making.  We were SO glad that we decided to go on this trip and fully take advantage of the natural "high" we were feeling as newlyweds! 

We enjoyed the scenery with a stroll down the main strip & a near-by trial.

...Explored some tourist attractions...

Hit the "hottest night club in the Dells", Marley's.

Made some new friends and had a great time livin' it up with them!

Spent some time at the pool/beach... after a 3 hour kayak trip (not pictured)

Soaked up extra sunshine and even hit Noah's Ark, the largest water park in the US!

We also had a super fun 4th of July weekend, too.  Started things off at The Lake where we enjoyed some swimming, boating, fishing and grilling out with my family before heading to West Liberty for Joe & Chana's first annual 3rd of July party.  We got a little rowdy but hey, you can do that in the USA!  :)

Happy Birthday, America! :)

Nice face, Kurt.

Fun times!

Kurt celebrated his 25th birthday by doing "whatever he wanted" which basically included drinking for the entire weekend.   A couple friends came to town and we put our Margarita-ville mixer to good use, went out in Waterloo and then topped the weekend off with a float down the river on Sunday.  Our innocent little float ended up being a 7 hour ordeal, which didn't bother us because it was so much fun!  However, it did result in Kurt being covered in poison ivy and my mother being about 10 minutes away from calling in a missing person's report.  Oops! (Love you, Mom)

We helped my little brother celebrate his 15th birthday with a delicious dinner in CR.   I hit the town in Des Moines with my college friends to celebrate Caitlin's last night out as a single lady.  Kurt jumped back in on the Firebird restoration project.  We've been taking advantage of the opportunity to do some fishing, rollerblading and grilling out, too! 

We love our new grill!! Thanks, wedding party!

That brings us to this past weekend which was also full of fun in the sun.... We had a great time at the annual Trueg Fish Fry partaking in fried catfish (some of which we caught), cold kegs and a bags tournament before spending a lazy Sunday at The Falls.  It was the perfect day for some water slides and lazy river action!

It's hard to believe that August is here -- we have another month of summer fun planned and I'm sure time will continue to fly by.  We're enjoying the opportunity to actually stick around home instead of having to travel back to WL every weekend but our families are not so hot on this change.  I think they got comfortable with our constant visits in the weeks/months leading up to the wedding.  As much as we love seeing everyone back home (and miss them when we're away), we gotta do our own thing too.  :)   For the record:  We love visitors!!

In other news... Kurt decided to shave his head on a whim (imagine that)... and Max has apparently developed a drinking problem.  HA :)   Enjoy these last photos -- we'll be back (SOON, we promise!).

"It's just too hot to have hair"

He must have been thirsty!

Time Lapse.

So aparently we forgot that we have a blog.  Sorry friends!!

Now that we're starting to come back to the real world after the whirlwind of excitement surrounding our wedding, it's time to re-enter the blogging world too.  I didn't actually forget about our beloved blog... I'm just contemplating how on earth we're going to manage capturing the fun, excitement and emotion that occured on our wedding day (and the weeks before/after).   SO, now that our really-super-amazing photographer has shipped us our CD of wedding photos it's time to re-live our big day....almost.

We simply don't have time today because, you see, Kurt is turning 25 tomorrow and there is celebrating that must occur to mark this tremendous date.  Yep, it's a big deal.  BUT Kurt shot down the idea of a party (What was he thinking?? He married an event planner!) and I promised that I would not make any plans so that we could do "whatever he wants".   ....This should be an interesting weekend.  Details to come! :)

Final Flings before the Rings!

Let's just say that we had an EPIC weekend.  We had a great time celebrating the last of our "single" days and are desperately trying to catch up on sleep!  =)  Here's a little re-cap:

Jessi's Bachelorette Par-Tee

Yep, "Par-Tee" because it was a golf theme.   If you know me at all, you know that I love theme parties so this was right up my alley.  My amazing maid of honor, Lauren, put together a Pub Golf game which required us to visit 9 holes (bars) where we enjoyed cocktails, played some drinking games and completed dares to earn different scores.  We had score cards and all!  I am still mildly amazed at how fun it was... We had an awesome group of girls (16 of us!) and we totally tore up Cedar Falls. 

All the girls at Voo-Doo, 2nd stop of the night. :)

We were the first to finish our fishbow...not an easy task!

We played some Flippy Cup at The Hub.

We got "iced" at Pump Haus.

We sang karaoke and did some limbo (DJ's idea) at the Hydrant.

It got a little tougher to round up the group by this time.... 2nd to last stop of the night (Becks). Having a BLAST.

Kurt's Bachelor Party

Kurt and the guys celebrated in a totally different (and totally manly) way -- they hit the road for Monticello and went on a little canoeing and camping trip on the Maquoketa River!  Actually, it wasn't "little" at all.  There was 15 of them and they did an 8 mile float.  They had a blast stopping at sand bars, fishing, and of course, drinking lots of beer.  The big surprise was that Kurt actually stayed awake for the whole thing (ha!!).  Turns out that 5-Hour Energy really does do the trick.  =P

They pitched some tents and played some yard games.

They drank alot of beer.

They chilled around the fire.

One thing the fellas didn't do is take a lot of pictures so I guess we'll have to fill in the blanks with our imaginations. :)   In fact, we don't have a single picture of Kurt with the guys... ha! When will they learn to document these days for future enjoyment?  We'll see I suppose!

We hope you're all as excited for our wedding day as we are! We can't wait to celebrate with our closest friends and family members!!  I had my final dress fitting last night and my gown is now hanging safely at my parent's house.  Woohooooo, it won't be long now! 

June is finally here!!

Oh my gosh it's JUNE!!!!  It's already been a couple weeks since we blogged but it's wedding month - we have a darn good excuse.  Although I've spent the last year (and then some) planning and organizing there is still a lot of running around to do as we watch everything fall into place.  I'm feeling great about where we are -- and we're TOTALLY excited for our big day!  Right now actually, we're focusing on how pumped we are for our Bachelor and Bachelorette parties this weekend.  Can we get a HELL YEAH? 

Since our last update we've been pretty busy.  We went camping for Memorial Day weekend and got rained on majority of the trip - but still had a good time w/ our friends, Justin & Jessi.  We took the fishing boat for the first time, caught some catfish, drank some beers and piled on damp layers to fend off the chilly weather.  Luckily, the sun came out for a few hours to dry us out on Saturday... but not for long, when Sunday morning rolled around we got hit with a storm and threw all our drenched belongings in the back of the truck and hit the road for home.  Of course, Monday was GORGEOUS but we were already back in Waterloo so had to make-due by grilling out in the backyard.  =) 

I spent a couple days at home in West Liberty while my Mom underwent surgery.  After finding a softball-sized tumor, she had to have a hysterectomy.  This was all very recently discovered and quick-moving... of course, her goal was to get this done and over with so she's not out of business for our wedding....  What can you do, she's always thinking like a Mom! <3   I'm so appreciative for everyone that kept her in their thoughts and prayers in the last couple weeks!  She's recovering like a champ and is anxious to get back into the swing of things!!  In fact - tomorrow is her birthday - HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM! :)

On a summer-y note:  Our peonies bloomed last weekend!  I cut a vase full of them for my office and our house -- they're beautiful and fragrant.  We're loving it, but they won't last long... 

Whew - that's the low down on our end.   Time to scoot .... I have a long to-do list this week!