A "Wicked" good weekend

Happy fourth Sunday of Advent!

I have good news!  I am a soon-to-be Riley nurse!  I got a call on Thursday saying that I got the job and will be starting around January 31st!  I'd say that nothing can top that Christmas present :)

Last Friday (the 10th) Matt and I went to my parents' house and enjoyed pizza with them as an early celebration for Mom's birthday on the 12th.

On Sunday the 12th we ended up getting a couple inches of snow.  Mom told me that Westfield ended up canceling school on Monday due to high winds blowing all the snow through the corn fields and over the country roads.  I think the real reason they canceled was to give Mom and extra day off for her birthday!

Matt's Grandma Draper's birthday was also the 12th.  Happy birthday, Marty!

I got ambitious on Sunday night and decided to start painting our laundry room.  My dad has been talking about installing some shelving in that room and I figured that the room should be painted before he did that for us (since the white walls were looking quite scuzzy and scuffed up).  The laundry room and the guest bathroom are the only two rooms in the house that have not been painted since we have lived here and I have planned to remedy that for a while.  Unfortunately my endeavor was cut short after I had painted the woodwork and was starting to paint the ceiling.  A huge drop of ceiling paint landed in my eye, as well and a bit of the popcorn ceiling material.  After yelling a bit, removing my contact, and running my eye under water, I opted to take a break for the night.  (Lesson learned: safety glasses!)  I ended up finishing as much as I could of the laundry room on Wednesday.  Our laundry room is also the furnace/air conditioner/ water heater room and I was unable to paint behind some of the large appliances.  I am hoping that maybe my dad can figure out how to paint back there.  But for the most part, we have a nice light-gray laundry room!

On Wednesday night we ended up getting another three or so inches of snow.  It took me a little over an hour to get home from work (when it normally takes me a half hour) on Thursday morning because part of the road that I take still had not been plowed and it was quite hard to figure out where the lines were.

On Saturday (the 18th), Matt's parents came up to stay for the weekend.  We enjoyed catching up with them, playing with Thor, and eating jambalaya (and gluten-free brownies).  They came up because today (Sunday the 19th) we went with them, my parents, and Eric to see the musical "Wicked."  It seems as though everyone enjoyed it...I know I did!  I actually just got done hinting very heavily to Matt that a nice last-minute gift idea for me would be the soundtrack to the show...

There really isn't all that much happening here.  We are just getting ready for the holiday...finishing wrapping presents, baking cookies, etc.  When Bob and Sheila came over this weekend they brought a couple little host/hostess gifts including some cookie and gingerbread cake mix and decorating materials.  As soon as they left I got busy with baking!  There is a pitch-in at work tomorrow (Monday) for a co-worker who is transferring to another floor and I am bringing gingerbread cupcakes in for all to enjoy.

We are planning to go to Kentucky on Christmas Eve and to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas Day there.  On Christmas Day afternoon we are coming back to Indy and spending the evening with my parents.  On the 26th the Schlaud's are stopping by on their way to Michigan and we will be able to see them as well as Grandma and Grandpa Ward (they will be at my parents' house the 24th-27th).

We can't wait until the holiday is here so that we are able to see most of you!  We hope everyone has a wonderful (and hopefully not too stressful!) week leading up to Christmas and of course a very merry Christmas this weekend!

My playbill from "Wicked"

My finished sugar cookies!

Getting fancy with some gingerbread cupcakes

20 days until Christmas!

Hi everyone!

This week was a pretty busy one.  I worked on Monday night and then had an interview at Riley in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit at 10am!  First I shadowed one of the nurses on the unit for an hour to get a feel for how everything runs and then I interviewed with the manager for about 45 minutes.  The whole time I just knew that it was going well.  The manager said that she would like to bring me back soon for a peer interview with some of the other nurses on the floor!  The interview is not scheduled yet but it should be sometime within the next couple of weeks.  Please continue to pray that the next one goes as well as the first!

After my interview I decided to drive to my parents' house so that my mom and I could go Christmas shopping.  I pretty much had everything bought for Christmas but Matt's family does a gift exchange every year and so we had two more people added to the list to buy for, so in lieu of sleeping I headed to the mall.  Thankfully I accomplished my mission and was able to go home and sleep!

Matt has been very busy this week preparing for an exam tomorrow (Monday).  Good luck, Matt!  The end of the semester is in sight!

Matt has been working on building up his saltwater aquarium and unfortunately one fish brought some sort of parasite to the rest of the tank.  We are now done to one lonely puffer fish, some snails, and some crabs.  He has also been trying to build up the coral in the tank and that is looking really good!  Hopefully with a few water treatments he will be able to put fish in there again soon.

I had Friday, Saturday, and Sunday off this week which was really nice!  I spent Friday preparing the house for guests to come for dinner on Saturday.

Grandma and Grandpa Ward stopped by my parents' house for a few days on their way home from Grandpa's Army reunion in Missouri.  We hosted them, Mom and Dad, and Eric for dinner on Saturday evening.  I tried a new meatloaf recipe and a maple-pumpkin cheesecake recipe.  Both turned out pretty well!  I added some homemade mashed potatoes, fresh green beans, and dinner rolls.  It was nice to see everyone and to show Grandma and Grandpa our house since they had never seen it before.

After everyone left on Sunday and we were just kind of settling down after a busy day, Mom called and asked if it was okay if Dad and Eric come back.  I was going to inherit Dad's old treadmill and they wanted to bring it by that night.  I said "sure!" and our back sunroom/bonus room now houses the treadmill!

This afternoon (Sunday), a co-worker's fiance and son stopped by to pick up our old couch.  We got a new one a few months ago and had just been storing the old one in the bonus room.  It is nice to have the extra space in that room for the treadmill!

Later, I went up to Westfield to watch the Colts game with my friend Katlin.  Katlin and I are friends from high school and we both graduated from nursing school at Purdue.  We went to a local bar/grill (Fox and Hound) to watch the game and get dinner.  We had a good time, even though the Colts lost in over time to the Cowboys.

I think that is it for now!  We hope you have a great week!

Stacey, Matt, and Thor

My new treadmill!

Grandma brought me some Christmas housewarming gifts!

Happy first day of Advent!

We hope you all had a great Thanksgiving!

I have been ready to decorate our house for Christmas since before the sale was even finalized so we ended up decorating the inside on Monday evening.  Thanks to Grandma and Grandpa Seitz for so many great decorations!  The house looks great and all of those ornaments that Grandma Ward and Mom have been giving me for years are perfect on our tree.  Towards the end of decorating we were actually having a hard time finding enough space for all of them!

My parents and Eric traveled to Baltimore to see Uncle Tom, Aunt Kathy, Allison, and Scott for the holiday.  It sounds like they had an enjoyable time running a 7k race, watching Rambo and Cookie play together, shopping, watching the new "Harry Potter" movie, and of course eating turkey!

I worked Tuesday night and then we headed down to northern Kentucky on Wednesday after I had gotten a little sleep.  It poured the entire way there and roads were packed with holiday travelers.  The drive was rough but we made it and enjoyed a nice pre-Thanksgiving meal of turkey and all the trimmings with Matt's dad's side of the family.

On Thursday we went to Matt's Aunt Karen's new house for a Thanksgiving meal at noon with his mom's side.  Their new house is quite nice and the basement was a perfect place for a meal (who knew that a pool table with plywood on top would be such a great eating surface?)!  After lunch/dinner some people went into a post-meal coma while others watched football or played "Pictionary."

That evening Matt and I went with Matt's parents and brother Rob to see the new Harry Potter movie.  We all enjoyed it and I'm already for the next and final installment of the series!

We had planned on coming home on Thursday evening but it was still raining pretty heavily (and the precipitation turned to snow at one point) so we opted to leave Friday morning instead.

On Friday evening I had to work but I really wanted to put Christmas lights up on the outside of the house so I quickly took down our outdoor autumn decorations and hung lights on the porch and one of the bushes in the front.  I think they look great, but I'm a bit biased :)

Oh, here is some exciting news: I have a job interview at Riley Hospital for Children on Tuesday!  It is for a night shift position in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit.  I am learning a lot on the floor where I currently work but I have always wanted to be a pediatric nurse so this opportunity to interview was impossible to pass up.  Please pray for me this Tuesday--I am really hoping for this job!

On that note, congratulations to my cousin Allyson Roelofs on landing her first job as a registered dietitian! She will be moving to Davenport, Iowa sometime after the new year to work at a retirement community.

I think that is all for now!  We hope that you all have a great week!

Stacey, Matt, and Thor

Our tree!

Quick blurb

This will be a short entry since I blogged not too long ago!

We are looking forward to going to Kentucky for Thanksgiving with Matt's family on Wednesday.  His parents are hosting dinner at their house on Wednesday and his Aunt Karen is hosting the meal at she and her husband's new house on Thursday.  My parents and Eric are traveling to Baltimore to see Uncle Tom, Aunt Kathy, Allison, and Scott for the holiday.  Have a safe trip!

I have already finished writing our Christmas cards and am now just waiting until a more holiday-appropriate time to mail them all!  I have been getting antsy about decorating the house for the holidays so I wrote Christmas cards (while listening to our favorite Indiana-based a capella group, Straight No Chaser, belt out holiday hits) to pacify myself.  I have also already wrapped a few gifts and there are currently two strands of Christmas lights on one of the bushes in front of our house.

We will soon be the proud owners of a treadmill!  The console on Dad's kept burning out and after it had been replaced several times, the company opted to let him get a new treadmill as opposed to continually having to fix the old one.  Dad's new treadmill arrived on Friday and on Saturday Eric came home from Purdue to help Dad move the monster into the basement.  Of course with a new treadmill comes re-decorating!  I guess they are planning to paint the walls Colts blue and white and to mount the television on the wall, putting it in a better viewing position for running and using the other exercise equipment.  The console on the treadmill that Matt and I are inheriting is working for the time being, so we are eager to get it to our house while it still has some juice!

That's it for now!  Happy Thanksgiving!

Stacey, Matt, and Thor

p.s.
Enjoy a few pictures from the Colts game that we went to!

I'm a neglectful blogger

Hey everyone!


Sorry that there has been such a huge delay in blog posts (ahem, 3 weeks...).  We have been pretty busy and whenever I think about blogging it is late and I just decide to sleep instead, haha.

I love Halloween and so I made sure to request that I have Halloween off of work.  What I didn't realize was that in Avon, trick-or-treating was the day before Halloween this year!  As I backed out of the driveway to go to work, little gremlins and mini-Miley Cyrus's were running all around so I knew that I was going to miss handing out candy at our house for the first time.  Matt performed the duty, however, and told me that our neighborhood children are ravenous and we ran out of candy after an hour.

To make up for missing trick-or-treating in our neighborhood, Matt and I took Thor over to my parents' house on Halloween to hand out candy there.  There were a lot of kids this year and it was fun to see all of their creative costumes.

Thor also got to meet my parents' dog, Rambo.  The two seem to get along well but Rambo had no trouble letting Thor know when he was getting annoyed.

Thor got his first haircut on November 1.  He now looks more like a well-loved house pet and less like a stray!  It was also nice to receive a package from Aunt Susan and Uncle John's dog, Gus, for Thor.  Thor got lots of tasty treats to welcome him to the family!  Thanks again!

On Friday, November 5, Eric came home from school for the weekend. He came over that evening and he, Matt, and I had a good time eating pizza and watching a cheesy horror movie "Tales from the Darkside" from the '90s.

On Saturday, November 6, Mom and I got to go to my friend Katie's bridal shower.  Katie was in my and Matt's wedding as a bridesmaid and I will serve the same duty in her January 8 wedding.  The shower took place in Geist, a high-end suburb of Indy that is known for its nice reservoir.  We ate at a restaurant called Bella Vita which looked over the reservoir.  We played games and it was nice to meet some of the other people who are involved in the wedding.

After the shower, Matt and I headed down to Kentucky because we planned to go to Matt's friend Nathan's wedding that evening.  This proved, however, to be an impossible feat.  Katie's shower began at 12:30 in Indy and Nathan's wedding was at 6pm in northern Kentucky.  Due to me leaving the shower a little late and running into quite a bit of traffic, we were unable to make the wedding.  We also opted to skip the reception ad we were both pretty wiped out.  Instead we spent the evening with Matt's parents and brother Rob watching all of the dogs run around.  Good thing we just went ahead and had Nathan and Heather's gift sent to them!

Last week, I decided to try yoga for the first time.  The mother of two boys that I used to babysit for, Gina, is the office manager of a yoga studio that has locations in Broad Ripple (near downtown Indy) and in Carmel (near my parents' house).  This yoga studio is unique in that it is "hot" yoga.  They crank up the heat in the studio to the high-90s, making for a sweat-dripping, soul-cleansing experience.  I have been to a couple classes now and I have really been enjoying this new hobby.

On Saturday (the 13th) I went to Riley Hospital for Children to train as a volunteer tour guide.  Riley is building a new family tower that will soon house all of the inpatients.  I wanted to see what it looks like so I went to the training session and am going to give a tour next Monday (the 22nd) to employees.  Some of the units will begin moving next spring.

On Sunday (14th) Matt and I went to the Indianapolis Colts vs. Cincinnati Bengals football game at Lucas Oil Stadium in downtown Indy.  Our tickets to the sold-out game were in the middle of one of the end zones.  We were able to see the action surprisingly well and had a great time cheering the Colts to victory!

Matt has two exams today that he has been studying tirelessly for.  Good luck, Matt!

My cousin Allyson Roelofs had a job interview yesterday (Tuesday) for a registered dietitian position in Iowa.  The company flew her out for the day and it sounds like everything went great!  She says that they will probably offer her the job.  She has another interview (in Iowa again) on Thursday and a different company is flying her out.  Well Allyson, I hope you like corn!

Now it seems that we are all up-to-date!  Sorry again for such a delay in posts.

I will post some pictures from the Colts game within the next couple of days.  Matt is at school right now and all the pictures are on his laptop!

We hope you all have a great rest of your week!  Can you believe that Turkey Day is next Thursday already?!

Stacey, Matt, and Thor

Busy, busy!

Hey everyone!

Meet Thor!

Happy Sunday everyone!

We had a good weekend here in central Indiana.

The Indianapolis German Fest took place in downtown Indy this weekend and Matt, Eric, and I participated in the Lederhosen Lauf 5k race. We had a good time dressing up and getting lots of pictures and comments. I wore a German dress, Eric wore a bierstein hat and a Germanfest t-shirt that said "My wiener dog is faster than your wiener dog", and Matt sported an apron with the Burger King logo and the words "Schnitzel King" on it. Thanks to Alex for all of our attire! My goal for the race was to have my picture on either the Germanfest website or pamphlet for next year, so I will let you know next October whether or not I was successful :)

Lederhosen Lauf 5k participants

Matt's parents came into town to celebrate Matt's birthday a little early and they accompanied us, my parents, and Eric to lunch at the Rathskellar restaurant, an authentic German establishment.

After lunch we headed back to Avon with Matt's parents, but not before making a stop at Super Target. Sheila loves that we have such a big Target nearby and it was nice to look around. On the way home we drove by Petsmart and noticed that there was an adoption fair going on in the parking lot. Matt and I had planned to get a dog at some point but we were aiming to wait for about a year before adopting. However, we decided to take a little scruffy-faced dog named Baskin for a walk and instantly fell in love. We are now the proud owners of a 10-month old terrier mix puppy named Thor (we weren't fans of the name "Baskin".) After getting Thor settled in at home, we went to dinner at Red Lobster to celebrate Matt's birthday.

With his favorite toy

Thor made himself a little nest behind one of our curtains!

Having cheesecake for Matt's birthday

Thor was picked up by the shelter as a stray at the beginning of September and we are very surprised that he wasn't adopted sooner. He is very playful and could play "fetch" all day. He is also crate and potty trained, doesn't shed, and doesn't bark! His favorite toy (at least today) is a chain of squeakers and he figured out how to bite it to get it to make noise. He likes to whine/squeak along with the toy and it sounds like he is singing!

Today (Sunday) we went to church in the morning and grilled burgers for lunch. Bob also trimmed Thor's nails (they were like daggers!), which Thor didn't care about at all. We gave him a bath on Saturday night as well so now he is a nice, clean puppy! After Matt's parents left in the afternoon, Matt and I enjoyed many more walks and games of fetch.

That's all  for now!

Stacey, Matt, and Thor

p.s. Enjoy this video of Thor "singing"!

10/6/10

First of all, happy 26th anniversary to Mom and Dad!It has been pretty low key around here.  Indiana is finally experiencing fall temperatures, much to my liking.  We had an unusually hot (and dry) summer so it is nice to be able to break out the sweaters and jackets.  Fall is my favorite season and we are already enjoying apple cider and pumpkin cookies.

We had a pitch-in at work last Wednesday and I made pumpkin chocolate chip cookies thanks to Matt's mom Sheila's recipe.  They were a huge hit!  I had several people ask me for the recipe.  I had made a double batch per Matt's request and those were devoured pretty quickly as well.  Luckily I bought two cans of pumpkin at the store!

On Thursday night Matt and I went out to dinner and a movie.  We really like the toasted subs from Penn Station so we went there (fancy, I know :-) ).  Also, I usually pick which movie we see so Matt got to pick this time.  We ended up seeing "Resident Evil" in 3D.  I guess there are two or three Resident Evil movies that were released prior to this one, but I have never seen them and nor am I familiar with the video game on which they are based.  It wasn't too hard to follow...there was a zombie apocalypse and a few survivors are trying to find a "promised land" where they will find no zombies and the rest of the survivors.  It seemed much like the premise from the movie "Zombieland," but with less humor.  The 3D was pretty cool though.  I had never seen a live action movie in 3D.

On Friday I went to the mall on a secret shopping trip for Matt's birthday and on the way home stopped at my parents' house.  The video console on my dad's treadmill keeps dying and he has had to have it replaced several times (good thing he has a warranty!).  Sear's told him that if the screen dies one more time that they will give him a whole new treadmill.  Naturally, I had to try and help him break it faster.  I was able to walk 1 mile and run half a mile on the treadmill!  I would have walked a bit further, but I accidentally pulled the safety key off the treadmill and it shut off my progress. I took it as a cue to stop and watch "Lilo and Stitch" with my dad for awhile.

This Monday I was very excited when my dirndl (German dress) arrived from Alex!  Because there really is no direct conversion from European to American sizes, the dress is just a little tight but I took it to be altered yesterday (Tuesday) and it will be ready and fitted perfectly in time for the German Festival on Saturday!  Alex, you did a great job picking it out.  Another lady at the alteration place thought that she thought it was very cute.  Thank you again!

Matt and I had dinner with my parents at Steak n Shake after we dropped off my dress at the tailor.  Afterwards we stayed and watched "Glee." 

I have one more night of work tonight (Wednesday) and then I am off until Monday!  Matt's parents are coming up for the weekend and we are excited to see them.

And in big news, Dad and Grandpa Seitz have already received, countered, and accepted an offer on the house that they renovated!  The house went on the market on Thursday night and by Saturday they had a cash offer!  The woman who is buying the house is a grandmother who is moving from Evansville, IN (southern Indiana, close to the Kentucky border) to be closer to her family.  The process from here should be pretty quick, especially since she won't have a mortgage.  Congrats on the sale of the house!  You guys worked really hard and it paid off!

Have a great rest of your week!

Stacey and Matt

9/28/10

I hope you all are having a great week so far!

The week of the 19th was a pretty eventful one here. Matt had two exams and is looking forward to a semester of good grades. He has another exam this Thursday, wrapping up "round 1."

Last Monday, I had a Progressive Care class at work. My floor has a 4-bed PCU (Progressive Care Unit) where patients are monitored more closely and are more acutely ill (it is the step-down from Intensive Care) so I took a series of classes about taking care of these type of patients. As I was pulling into the parking lot that morning, I took the turn a little too sharp and bumped my front right tire really hard on the curb--oops! A bulge developed in the tire and after consulting with both my dad and Matt's dad, it was determined that I would need a new tire. After class I took my care to Discount Tire Company and was thrilled to find out that it was only going to cost $19 to replace my tire since it was under warranty. Unfortunately my two back tires were nearly bald so I did end up getting those replaced as well.

On Thursday, Matt picked up his new glasses. He says he is still getting used to them, but I think they look really good! To add to the look, he got a hair cut on Friday. He looks like a brand new man!

On Friday evening I went to Purdue to visit some friends for a "Girls Night." A few of us went to see the animated movie "Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole." It is a movie about good owls fighting evil owls because the evil owls are enslaving baby owls (my expert synopsis). My friends were pretty excited to see it, but it wasn't a movie that I would have picked so my expectations weren't too high. I was surprised by how wonderful the graphics were. It was in 3D and there were some pretty cool scenes where the owls were swooping through rain and it looked very realistic. The movie ended being better than I had thought. After the movie, we went back to my old roommate Emily's apartment and joined up with some other girls to watch "Say Yes to the Dress," eat pizza and cake, and drink wine. It was an enjoyable night.

I stopped by my parents' house on the way home on Saturday. Dad, Grandpa Seitz, and Eric have worked tirelessly on the house next door and it was nice to see the very nearly finished result. The house is all painted, the basement is finished (new drywall, ceiling, and all!), and new carpet is installed. It looks great! Dad said that he hopes to put the house on the market by this Friday. Eric was home from Purdue for the weekend and he and Dad loaded my old bedroom dresser into my Vibe so that I could put it in our guest bedroom. Mom and I also went on a small shopping excursion to get a few new clothing items for both Matt and I.

I talked to Grandma and Grandpa Ward on the phone today and they seem to be doing well. They are getting the boat ready to be stored for the winter. They will also be going to Grandpa's Army reunion in Wisconsin in a couple of weeks.

Grandma and Grandpa Seitz flew (okay, drove) south for the winter on Sunday. They will be spending their time back on their property in Venice, Florida until sometime mid-May.

Cousin Allyson Roelofs took and passed her Registered Dietitian exam last week. As she said on her facebook page, by the power of the ADA she now can tell you all to eat fruits and vegetables!

That is all for now! Have a great week!

Stacey and Matt

Girl's night at Purdue!

Safety Dance

Since I posted the last blog on Thursday, I thought I would just share a couple videos. I am a big fan of the TV show "Glee" which starts its second season this Tuesday. The Butler University Dance Department did a little impromptu performance of "Safety Dance" (as re-recorded and choreographed for "Glee") on Monument Circle in Indy this past week. The first video is of the "flash mob" on Monument Circle and the second video is the performance from the TV show. Enjoy!

The Simpsons: Springfield Marathon

I don't watch the Simpsons very often, but I remember watching this particular episode during my days of NSYNC love and finding this scene pretty funny.  Enjoy!

Why hello, Blog. I almost forgot about you!

So here we are on the evening of THURSDAY of the week and I just now remembered to post a blog.  Remembering to write entries is proving harder than I thought!
Last Friday Matt had an eye doctor appointment.  He has had his current glasses for a couple of years and it was time for an upgrade (the old lenses are scratched and one of the little nose pad things broke in half!).  His prescription got tweaked a little bit, he picked out a snazzy new set of frames, and he got a trial pair of contacts to test out for a little while.  The glasses should arrive sometime next week.
I worked night shift on Saturday but right after I got home on Sunday morning we decided to try out a church.  Of course, we didn't really need to hurry as much as we did.  The service was at 9 am but we thought it was at 8:30.  Needless to say, we were quite early!  The service was nice and everyone was very welcoming.  The lady who sat next to me even started crying and gave me a hug afterwards.  We had been talking before service and she knew that we recently got married.  She talked about her husband of 62 years and it sounds like he passed away not too long ago.  She gave me a hug and wished that Matt and I will be as happy in our marriage as she and her husband were in theirs.  How sweet.
And this is the part where I skip over when the Colts lost to the Texans...
I have not had to work since Monday during the day (I had a class) so it has been nice catching up on some housework.
I had a Dr. appointment on Wednesday with my knee surgeon.  He released me from his care and told me that I have no restrictions on my activity any more as long as I continue with physical therapy and have enough discretion not to make my knee angry again.  I told him that I have learned my lesson and that I think I can do that, haha.
I signed up for a 5k (3.1 mile) fun run called the Lederhosenlauf on October 9.  It is run in conjunction with the Indianapolis German Fest.  The race starts and ends at the Rathskellar restaurant and I am planning on dressing up since I will only be walking it.  I was telling Alex that I am going to wear my Werder-Bremen soccer jersey (Alex's home soccer team) because that is the only German article of clothing I own and she informed me that she and her boyfriend Andi have the traditional German outfits.  Of course, I had to see pictures:

Andi wearing the traditional Lederhosen and Alex in the traditional Dirndl

 We hope you have a great week!
Stacey and Matt

Happy Labor Day!

Happy Labor Day, everyone!

This entry will be fairly short since I wrote the last one halfway through the week...oops!

Everything was pretty relaxed this past week.  Aside from school and work, we didn't really do anything out of the ordinary.

Thursday was my first day off of orientation so I was in charge of care for three patients on my own.  My floor can be pretty intense at times, but the charge nurses are good at trying not to overwhelm new RNs when they are first on their own so my assignment was pretty easy.  After doing everything for my own patients, I spent most of the night helping my co-workers with theirs!

While we were in Kentucky last weekend, Matt's parents gave us a wooden flagpole, a small garden flagpole, and a couple flags.  There was already a bracket for a flagpole installed on our front porch from the previous owners but it was missing one of the screws that holds the flag in place so we had to install a new bracket.  We now have an American flag flying out front in honor of Labor Day!  I also found Fall and Halloween-themed flags at JoAnn Fabrics for the next season change.  We also acquired a scarecrow and a fall-colored wreath for the front door.  I'm already anxious to put up my new decorations but since it is still 90 degrees outside, I'm going to wait a bit longer :)

Yesterday (Sunday) Matt and I went to Westfield for an early Labor Day meal with my parents, Eric, and grandparents.  First we made a stop at Grandma and Grandpa Seitz's in Carmel.  Since Grandma and Grandpa will be leaving for Florida at the end of September and they only have so much space down there for Christmas decorations, Grandma laid out a table full of them for us to go through and to pick the ones we wanted.  We ended up filling the trunk (or back hatch?  I guess I don't really have a "trunk" per say) with wreaths, Santas, snowmen, ceramic Christmas trees, candles, and various other decorations.  I think we are set for the Christmas season now!

We enjoyed dinner at my parents' house.  The steaks were delicious (Eric cooks them wonderfully every time!) and I made homemade cherry pies for dessert.

My dad and grandpa continue to work tirelessly on the house they have purchased and are renovating.  It is looking great and we are all hoping that they can easily resell it for a nice profit.  My dad says that he will be happy if they just make a dime off of it, so I went ahead and gave him a dime.  Now whatever they get for it should just be icing on the cake!  They are hoping to have it on the market in a month or so.  To see pictures of the progress, check out my dad's blog: http://seitzupdate.blogspot.com

After dinner, Eric, Matt, and I went to see the movie "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World."  It is based on a comic book that chronicles a young man's fight with the 7 ex-boyfriends of the girl he is falling in love with.  He must defeat them all in order to win the girl.  The movie was set up like a video game and each time he defeated an enemy they turned into a pile of coins.

I have been joking with my parents that we want to take the family dog Rambo to stay with Matt and I.  Last night, we did just that!  Rambo is on vacation at our house until tomorrow (Tuesday) afternoon.  So far he has been following us around the house, throwing his toy elephant around, and hiding Milkbones in various blankets and towels.  Right now he is contently asleep at my feet after having scarfed down his dinner.  We are going to take him for a walk on the trail in Plainfield (about 20 minutes away) this evening.

That is all for now!  We hope you have a great week!

Stacey, Matt, Chewy, Sonny, Jackson, and now RAMBO

P.S.
One of my co-workers just put this video up on Facebook.  There was a "Bed Race" at Methodist Hospital a month or so ago to raise money to add a critical care tower to the hospital.  The first group of people shown are my night shift co-workers on 4North/Trauma-Surgical Unit!
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1179899234867&ref=mf

Defying Gravity

I apologize for the blog being a few days late this week!  We were out of town for the weekend and then we both got busy with school and work!

Well, we finally finished our guest room!  Matt's friend Oesten came over for an evening of video games last Tuesday and he was the first to sleep in the newly finished (and furnished!) room.  I was very happy to find a lamp the same color as the bed's comforter, a picture for the wall, and another lamp at our local Big Lots.  I hadn't been in a Big Lots for years and was very impressed by the deals!

 Matt still seems to be enjoying his classes this semester.  He says that right now it is all still review, which is a nice way to ease his way back into the swing of things.

Over the weekend, we went to visit Matt's family in Kentucky.  On Friday night we enjoyed catching up and meeting their new American Eskimo puppy, Tinkerbell.  On Saturday night we attended a Cincinnati Reds baseball game with Matt's parents and brother, Rob.  The Reds unfortunately lost to the Cubs 2-3, but we had a good time anyway!  After church on Sunday we went to Matt's grandparents' house for a nice lunch of hamburgers, baked beans, fruit, and potato salad.  We couldn't stay as long as we wanted, however, because Matt had an online quiz he had to take the next day.  It was nice to visit and catch up with everyone.

We ended up bringing Matt's aquarium stand back from Kentucky with us.  At some point, his parents will bring up the 75 gallon aquarium.  Matt will be starting up his saltwater tank pretty soon and he is really excited about it.

Matt's cousin Amanda and her husband Matt and expecting their first baby in April.  Congratulations!

My friend/German sister Alex and her boyfriend Andi just moved into a new apartment in Munich a couple weeks ago.  I saw pictures and it looks very nice and it ix very conveniently located near Alex's work at the Munich airport.  She is an air traffic controller.  Andi is in the Army and it is pretty close to where he works as well (right, Alex?).

I am so excited because Matt and I will be going to see the musical "Wicked" at Murat Theater in Indy in December, along with my parents, Matt's parents, and Eric.  The show has won a bunch of Tony awards and is about how the Wicked Witch of the West came to be who she was in "The Wizard of Oz."  I am reading the book right now and it is a little slow and hard to follow, but everyone raves about the musical and I am really looking forward to it!

Well, dinner is almost finished cooking so I will end this entry.  Tonight we are having BBQ ribs, mashed potatoes, and spinach salad...yum!

I will leave you with Idina Menzel and Kristen Chenoweth from the original "Wicked" cast performing the song "Defying Gravity" at the Tony Awards.

Have a great week!

Stacey and Matt (and Chewy the chinchilla, Sonny the gecko, and Jackson the frog)  :-)

8/23/10

Happy Monday, everyone!

Matt starts back to school today.  He will be taking three graduate Biology classes this semester (9 credit hours) and will have class Monday through Thursday every week.  He is excited to go back, though who knows how long the excitement will last!

I had four days off of work last week so it was nice to get things done around the house.  We are still working on the guest bedroom, but it should be 100% finished tomorrow!  Unfortunately it is taking three coats to completely cover the dark red and blue that were the original colors.  But as soon as it is painted, we are setting up our new guest bed and completing the look with a lilac-colored comforter set.  As soon as it is finished, we will post a picture!

On Wednesday, I had physical therapy in Carmel.  My knee continues to heal, but I unfortunately twisted it funny at work at the end of July so recovery slowed down a bit because of that.  However, the PT says that in the next couple of weeks I should be able to do more strength training and start (lightly) using the treadmill again!  Hallelujah!

After PT, I went to my parents' house to continue going through my stuff.  I'm to the point now where I'm mainly getting rid of things I no longer need and separating things to throw away and things to donate.  Eric and I had some brother-sister bonding time with a trip to Taco Bell to partake in their $2 meal deals.  We're big spenders, that's for sure.  Afterward, my mom accompanied me to David's Bridal so that I could pick up a bridesmaid dress for my friend Katie's wedding in January.

My mom seems to be enjoying her classroom this year.  There are only five babies in her room right now, and she really likes all of her co-workers.  I swear the names of the babies in her room get weirder and weirder every year.  The ones I can remember are Sawyer, Riley, McKenna, and Finnegan.  I'm pretty sure that I can't remember the last name because it is a more normal name...Lucas, maybe?  Anyway, it is always interesting to hear her stories about the new milestones that the infants are reaching.

On Thursday, we attempted to finish painting the guest room but encountered a snag.  I was up on a ladder edging by the ceiling and the doorbell rang, so I went to answer it.  After that, I got distracted for a few minutes and when I got back to the room, my tray of paint (which had previously been perched on top of the ladder) was face-down on our carpet.  Matt and I soaked the area with water and tried to sop up the mess with paper towels but after some advice from my dad, we ended up renting a Rug Doctor carpet cleaner from our local Sear's Hardware.  $25 and lots of water later, our carpet is no longer covered in "Champagne Bubbles"-colored paint.

Matt had a doctor's appointment in Lafayette on Friday so we took the trip up there.  After the appointment, had dinner on Purdue's campus at Noodles and Company.  It was an enjoyable day.

Eric moved in to his dorm room on the 4th floor of Wiley Hall (this will be his third year in the same room) on Saturday.  He has his car, the Silver Bullet (a 2008 (?) Dodge Caliber) on campus this year, but all of his stuff wouldn't fit in one load so Mom and I took the minivan up with the rest of his belongings.  After putting everything in his room, we had breakfast at Triple X Restaurant.  Triple X is one of the oldest drive-in restaurants in the country (although there is no drive-in option anymore) and is know for their chop steak hamburgers (the best is the Purvis Burger, named for Purdue football great Duane Purvis. It has peanut butter on it!) and root beer.  It is a favorite of Purdue students, especially Thursday through Saturday nights.  It was also featured in "Drive-ins, Diners, and Dives" on the Food Network.

Speaking of food, the TV show "Man vs. Food" was in Indy for last week's episode and the star came to Bub's Burgers (another favorite!) an Carmel.  Bub's features delicious burgers, including the 22-ounce "Big Ugly."  If you eat one, you get your picture on the wall (Dad, Eric, Nathan, and Zach have all conquered it).  Two gets you a larger head shot, three gets you a poster, and four gets you a life-sized picture.  No one in Bub's history has ever eaten 4, but the Man vs. Food guy attempted.  What a wimp, he only finished two!  We were really rooting for him, though!  We think that next he needs to eat at Bub's Cafe, which has pancakes the size of dinner plates and if you eat a tall stack of them (I can't remember how many that is), you get your picture on the wall.  Last we heard, no one has ever completed this feat.

That is all for now!  We hope you have a great week!

At Bub's back in May.  Eric, Trent, and Zach on the right side of the table all have Big Uglies!

Stacey and Matt

8/15/2010

Happy Sunday!

We have still been working hard to finish painting our guest bedroom.  Unfortunately, deep red and blue are very hard colors to cover with beige!  There are still parts that need a third coat so the room is still not 100% finished.

Yesterday (Saturday), my parents and brother and Grandma & Grandpa Seitz came over for lunch.  They came bearing all sorts of goodies:  a couple housewarming gifts (you can't go wrong with an electric skillet, Kroger gift card, or movie theatre gift certificates!), food to contribute for lunch (7-layer pasta salad from mom and lots of yummy desserts from Grandma), and a bed for the guest bedroom (donated by Mom and Dad's neighbor, Cathy Beadle)!  The bed is currently being stored in pieces in our guest bathroom until we can get another layer of paint on the walls.

Lunch got off to an interesting start yesterday.  I had worked until 7:30 am and started the crock pot for pulled pork as soon as I got home at 8.  When I woke up at 11:30 to finish preparing, the meat wasn't nearly cooked enough.  Apparently 4 hours is not enough time to cook a 5 lb. cut of pork, even if there is a 4-hour option on the crock pot!  As Matt finished picking up the house and vacuuming (he had done a lot the night before while I was at work, but there were still little things to finish), I quickly went to Target for plan B: cheeseburgers.  Everything worked out just fine, but now Matt and I have LOTS of pulled pork for sandwiches.  If anyone wants some, feel free to stop by!

When I got home from work yesterday morning, not only was the house nearly spotless, but I had a bouquet of beautiful pink roses and orange lilies waiting for me.  Thanks, Matt!

After everyone left after lunch, Matt and I opted for a nap since I had only had 3 hours of sleep that day.  When I woke up, the clock said 7:30 and I got really nervous because I thought I had slept until 7:30 in the morning on Sunday!  I frantically texted my friend Alyssa to apologize for missing her birthday party (we were all supposed to go out to celebrate on Saturday night) before I realized that it was still Saturday and I hadn't missed anything!  Matt and I went out to Indianapolis to a town called Broad Ripple for the night to celebrate Alyssa's 22nd birthday with friends.  Broad Ripple is a little section of town mostly occupied by young professionals and is known for unique shops and restaurants, as well as a couple blocks of comedy, night, and dance clubs.

The big news in the Draper family is that they have a new addition!  Matt's parents are now the proud parents of an American eskimo puppy named Tinkerbell.  Unfortunately their oldest dog, Polly, passed away a couple weeks ago at the ripe old age of 18.  We hear that Tinkerbell is getting along with the other two dogs (Ariel and Aladdin) just fine, but she is very curious and likes to try and get into everything!

That is all for now!  We are hoping to have a fun-filled (or at least more relaxing) week coming up.  After Monday I don't work again for 5 days so we are planning on possibly making a trip to the Indiana State Fair for some sheep and pig petting, ferris wheel riding, and deep friend food eating.  The delicacy this year?  Deep fried butter.  I think I'm going to pass on that one, haha.  In just a few days my brother Eric will go with friends to the fair to see comedian/ventriloquist Jeff Dunham perform with his unique cast of puppets.  The tickets were a birthday present back in February, so I know he is very anxious to finally use them!

Oh, and I just noticed but unfortunately the Colts just lost in their first preseason game to the San Francisco 49ers.  Of course, this will be no reflection of what the real season will hold since they didn't even play their starters (at this point the Colts are still trying to figure out which rookies they will keep for the season).  We are looking forward to a great season of Colts football coming up!

Have a great week,
Stacey and Matt

Short entry

Hey everyone,

This well be a semi-short entry since we just blogged a few days ago.  We will try to post every Sunday, so I'm just catching you all up to this point!

On Wednesday, I completed my Multispecialty Internship class at work.  It was a 5-week intensive class covering everything you may ever encounted on a Medical-Surgical floor.  I'm glad to be finished with it because at the end of the 9 hours my brain would be so fried that all I wanted to do was sit and veg!  I had to take a pre-test before the class started and I got a whopping 63% on that.  However, I must have learned something from the class because I got an 89% on the post-test!  To pass the class, an 80% was required.

On Friday, I was very excited to get a new cell phone, an iPhone 4G.  They are in high demand right now and it took 1.5 weeks to arrive at the local AT&T store.  I am having a good time figuring out all the features.  Some of the best I have discovered are 1.) Ping Chat, which allows Alex and I to communicate via text message at no charge (before, it cost $0.25 each way to text between America and Germany!) and 2.) Words With Friends, which Eric and I have been enjoying.  It is a Scrabble game that you can play with other people, even if you aren't near them.  In our current game, Eric is successfully whooping me.

Yesterday (Saturday), Matt and I attending the wedding of my friends Jennilyn and Andrew.  I have been friends with Jennilyn since 8th grade and Andrew since freshman year of high school.  The two finally tied the knot after having dated since our junior year of high school.  The ceremony was held in Jennilyn's home church with both a pastor and a priest presiding (Andrew is Catholic).  The reception included red and white polka-dotted tablecloths, red gerbera daisies and roses, individual cakes for each table, and of course lots of dancing.  It was nice to see a lot of my friends...since we live 45-minutes from most of them, I don't feel like I see them often enough!  JL and Andrew will be moving to Kansas this upcoming Wednesday.  I will be sad to see them go, but Andrew is starting grad school for his Ph.D in Economics at Kansas University.  The two recently got a dog (Zoey) and we have been joking that she should have named her Toto!

Matt and I have been busy painting our guest bedroom.  I am so happy to see the ugly red and blue walls disappear!  So far we are finished with the ceiling and have nearly one coat of paint on the walls.  We hope to have it fully painted by Tuesday.  It probably would have been further along if we hadn't had to make several trips to Menard's for additional supplies!  When it is finished, the walls will be "Champagne Bubbles" (aka cream/off-white) and there will be a full bed in there.  We just ordered the comforter, which is sort of a deep lilac color.  I am excited to see the whole thing put together!

We were planning on taking a day trip to see my former roommate/Maid of Honor Emily in Chicago today, but we decided that it would be too rushed...we didn't realize when we planned the trip that I had to work at 8 am tomorrow.  Emily is interning at Sara Lee foods in Chicago and is living in the immediate downtown area.  Unfortunately, we will not be able to visit her up there before she moves back to Purdue for the school year.

That is it for now!  We hope you all have a great week!

Love,
Stacey and Matt

The guest room thus far

With the happy couple!

Joining the blogging world!

With our busy schedules, it is sometimes hard for Matt and I to keep in touch with everyone as often as we would like.  That is why, following in Dad's footsteps, we are creating this blog!  The goal is to be able to post one entry per week to keep everyone informed of our lives here in Avon.

Last week, I started working night shift at Methodist Hospital.  I have been working day shift (as well as taking some classes for new Registered Nurses) since I started at the end of May, but now it is time to transition in to my actual full-time night position.  Right now my schedule is still a little strange because I have at least one class a week that is during the day, plus I am working about 2 1/2 night shifts in order to get all of my hours.  However, soon I will be fully on nights and when that happens I will work three 12-hour shifts per week (as well as any additional hours that I decide to pick up if my unit needs more workers).  It is exciting to be figuring out my role, but I like getting things done during the day so sleeping until 2:30pm on the days I work is still very foreign to me!

Matt has been very busy around our house.  We finished moving my belongings out of my Purdue apartment last week and we are slowly but surely retrieving the rest of my stuff from my parents' house, so needless to say we are still working on putting things away!  His other project right now is the lawn.  He has decided that he wants the nicest looking lawn in the neighborhood so he has been seeding, fertilizing, weeding, and watering in order to reach his goal!  Can you tell that he is a real homeowner now?

We are very happy with some new furniture that we purchased a few weeks ago:  a faux-leather couch (that reclines!) and a sofa table.  Although we really liked the old sofa from Mom and Dad's basement, it was 12-years old and sank nearly to the ground when we sat on it!  We decided that we would take advantage of a good 4th of July sale at Ashley Furniture and spend just a little bit of our new homebuyer tax credit to purchase our new furnishings.

In addition to the lawn, Matt is very proud of his little nook/sun room that comes off of the kitchen.  He has his exercise bike in there, as well as the couch that used to be in our living room.  He topped it off with a big blue rug and a small bookshelf (both from my apartment), as well as a lamp that Grandma and Grandpa Ward gave me and now he has a nice exercise/reading room.

I have been enjoying using various kitchen gadgets that were given to us as wedding gifts.  Last week I used our new crock pot to make barbeque pork, as well as some little smokies weenies for some friends that came over to see the house!  We have also tested the waffle maker (several times...waffles are delicious!) and the electric skillet.

Speaking of wedding gifts, we apologize profusely for not having sent thank-you's yet.  Trust me, they would have been sent out at least a month ago except they were included in our photography package and they still haven't arrived!  I hate waiting so long to send thank-yous but in the mean time just let us say THANK YOU SO MUCH for the wedding gifts and for your attendance at our wedding!  We had a wonderful time and everything was absolutely perfect and exactly how we envisioned it.  Well, besides the rain...but that didn't end up being bad at all :)  If rain on your wedding day is good luck, a power outage must be awesome luck, right?

Oh, and we had a wonderful time in Hawaii on our honeymoon!  We were on the island of Oahu and we stayed about a 5-minute walk from Waikiki Beach.  We were very close to shopping as well and it was fun to explore the streets of Waikiki at night and people-watch.  We also enjoyed snorkeling, especially at Hanamau Bay (a nature preserve) and Three Rivers (on the north shore, near Waimea Bay).  We saw huge, beautiful fish and coral reefs, and even a family of squid!  One day we also took a trip to the Polynesian Cultural Center to learn more about the island and to partake in a famous hog roast.  However, we ended up buying the wrong tickets and didn't get to attend the luau where the pig was actually roasted.  But we did get to enjoy is buffet style!  After dinner we watched a traditional Hawaiian dance show, complete with fire!  The rest of our trip was spent exploring Oahu (we rented a car), eating seafood and enjoying mixed drinks (I even had one in a pineapple!), and relaxing on the beach.  When can we go back?!

Anyway, that is all for now!  There are a lot of happenings this weekend, so stay turned for the next chapter of the Draper Diaries!

Love,
Stacey and Matt

Snorkeling at Hanamau Bay

Enjoying a princess drink (yes, that is what it was really called!) out of a pineapple!

Before entering Hanamau Bay

A beautiful North Shore sunset