Tara & Wade's wedding

This weekend, we attended Tara and Wade's wedding. Last year, we missed two of our friends wedding :( so... we were looking forward to our first wedding in 2009. Let's just say the last few years have been filled with weddings, weddings, weddings, and babies.




For those of you reading this from the other side of the world, a Minnesotan / Midwestern wedding will never be short of:

• Cheese - there will always be a cheese spread, typically during social hour, as an appetizer or perhaps after dinner and dancing. We had a variety of cheddar, swiss and pepper jack on Friday.
• Beer - non stop flow of keg beer and a variety of wine & spirits. You will never have a shortage of alcohol in the Midwest.

Steak, salad and Shrek

Beginning to see a pattern here? Last weekend, we went to see our friends Chad and Melissa. Melissa was one of my bridemaids and I haven't seen here since the wedding two years ago! In addition to seeing her little girl Niki, we also saw her new home and found out she is 8 months pregnant. I know, I know, terrible at this keeping in touch thing.

Steak, salad, and watching Shrek twice (Niki's favorite). I have to say, since we've been back our diet has turned from 70% veggy 30% protein to 80% red meat and 20% veggy. Bill even picked up some V8 because he felt that we needed more veggies and fruits in our diet.

We had a great time with Chad, Melissa, Niki and Chloe - I'm definitely not waiting another two years before we meet again :)

Burgers, brats and babies

Greetings!

It's been a few weeks and I've been a little delinquent with my blog updates. The summer is flying by and I can't believe it's almost September. Two weekends ago, we went to see a couple of friends for a BBQ in St Cloud. Apparently, since we've been abroad the past year, everyone's been having babies... all girls too!

The rain certainly didn't put a damper to our day of brats, burgers and babies. Both Tim & Jess and Eric & Sara are new parents. Here is Greta (green) and Elsa (pink). Aren't they the cutest?

NYC

For the first two days of the Orange extravaganza, I made it out to NYC to see my trendsetter friend - Shanna (who I call SB, short for Shanna Banana). My 2.5 train ride to the city and back was well worth it. I arrived in Grand Central and realized how much I missed the city. The quick taxi ride across Central Park to the west side further re-affirmed that I wished I lived here.

Our first stop was shopping in SOHO. SB has been on my back about getting a pair of 'premium denim' for 8 months now. I finally sucked it up and after trying on 30+ pairs, made my first outrageously overpriced denim purchase. But they looked amazing. This is the first time I realized that if you pay enough, you too can look hot in a pair of jeans. A few stores later, we went back to the apt. and picked up a LARGE sausage and pepperoni pizza from Patsy's. A New York slice is unbeatable and just to keep reminding myself, I had more than one, two or three slices.

Evening festivities involved meeting up with some of SB's friends from work and volleyball and even had a drink or two myself. I love the diversity. In Minny, I'm usually the token Asian or token minority, but NYC felt right at home for me. If there was a transfer opportunity to NYC or CT, I would be on top of that!!!

The Orange Extravaganza

Every year Anne and I try to make it out to Orange, Connecticut to visit some of her family. This year it turned out to be quite a party. Normally we visit the Camerato's - Anthony, Katrina, Johnny, and Kathy (Katrina & Anthony being Johnny and Kathy's kids). This year Mama Wu (Anne's mom), Mumei (Anne's cousin), and Andrew (Mumei's son) visited too. Fortunately the Camerato's have a big house so we were all able to fit. As always it was a LOT of fun and as always we are really sad to leave. We went to the beach in Rhode Island one day and to the Mystic Aquarium another and the rest was filled with video games, shopping, eating, movies, and entertainment provided by the Camerato's. The big addition to this years trip was all of the Chinese food that Mumei and Andrew brought (1 full suitcase). They made tons of bubble milk tea for us and lots of good eats.

Some of the highlights of the trip were...

Squid and scallops linguine (Thanks Johnny!)

Various Chinese cuisine (Thanks Mumei!)

Hearing Anne sing a funny tune from a video game throughout the trip

Having nightmares brought on by playing too much word warp (an iphone/itouch game requiring you to find all the words you can with 6 random letters)

Just being able to spend some time with family

Being in one room with 3 forms of videos games going on about half the time

All in all it was a great trip and one that we are planning again in 2010.