Tuesday, December 30, 2003

 
Bryan and I went to Kansas for Christmas. It was a week with my parents, sister, aunt and grandfather.

Everyone loved our gifts - they were frames with paper quilling around the edges. I'll have to post a photo soon. This time I promise I'll post a photo. :)

I'm currently reading The Time Traveler's Wife and am finding myself wanting to read more than knit. It's an amazing book! Don't let the 518 pages scare you. I started on Friday night and am nearly half way through the book. I don't want to put this book down! I think about the characters while at work, and when I'm not reading it. I would stay up all night long to read it, if I could!

Books I read while in Kansas:
Babyville by Jane Green
Girl Talk by Julianna Baggott
The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

Currently I'm listening to:
Stars' album Heart. I love it!!

I hope everyone is having a great holiday season! Happy 2004! I am so excited about 2004 because that means the wedding is only about 9 months away, according to theknot.com, the wedding is 263 days away!

posted by erica Tuesday, December 30, 2003 []

  Wednesday, December 17, 2003

 
Bryan and I have been working on our Christmas gifts for the past several days. I'm also working on knitting a baby blanket.

We're getting ready to go to Kansas for a week. I can't wait. It will be interesting to have everyone there. My aunt and grandpa have never met Bryan. The sleeping situations have been changed several times. Bryan has his own room, my grandpa has his own room, my mom, sister, aunt and I are all going to be in my parents' bedroom and then my dad is sleeping either in the living room or the family room, at least, the last time I heard. I'm looking forward to being home for Christmas and being my usual lazy-at-home self! :)
posted by erica Wednesday, December 17, 2003 []

  Monday, December 15, 2003

 
Here are photos from our weekend away at Inn Serendipity. Sorry I haven't had a chance to resize a few of them!

Driving up on Friday, we had a beautiful sunset.

This is Monroe, Wisconsin town square lit up for the holidays.

Bryan in front of the Monroe Public Library.

When we drove into the farm, all of the farm cats would come running to see who was coming. It was quite a site to see all of the cats run up to the car. These photos don't do it justice because it took me a minute to get my camera out. And, of course, the really friendly ones wanted to be petted, one in particular was pawing at my coat. They were all so cute!

Llamas that are on the farm. They are raised for their wonderful coats that makes beautiful yarn.
The wonderful inn owners - Lisa, Liam and John.
posted by erica Monday, December 15, 2003 []

  Tuesday, December 09, 2003

 
What an amazing time we had this past weekend. Bryan took me to Inn Serendipity for my birthday! It was so wonderful! It's a bed & breakfast, as well as, an organic farm. It's near Monroe, Wisconsin. We drove up Friday afternoon. Friday night, we went to the Peppercorn Cafe for dinner. For an appetizer, we had a good swiss cheese fondue with pretzel bread. I had butternut squash ravioli in a maple syrup/walnut sauce. It was excellent. After dinner, we drove through the town square of Monroe, which was all lit up for the Christmas parade that was that night. Then we went back to the b & b and went to bed and read for a while.

Saturday, we slept in. We went into Monroe for a while, had lunch, visited the library and walked around the downtown. Bryan bought a book about stress to use for his collages. Mid-afternoon, we decided to go back to the b & b and read by the fire. We also took a nap and then got ready for dinner at 209 Main in Monticello, Wisconsin.


I came into work on Monday, December 8 and the girls at work had decorated my desk (a Powerpoint presentation). I had made a comment a while back about how I didn't like Bruce Willis or John Travolta, so of course, they put up pictures of John Travolta and Bruce Willis around my cubicle. I have to put them in my scrapbook.
posted by erica Tuesday, December 09, 2003 []

  Friday, December 05, 2003

 
Here are a few engagement photos that Bryan and I had taken about a month & a half ago.

On the steps of the Art Institute
1 | 2

In the Art Institute Garden
1 | 2

In Grant Park near Buckingham Fountain
1 | 2
posted by erica Friday, December 05, 2003 []

  Thursday, December 04, 2003

 
Friday night we went to another Metric show!! I got a TON of photos. It wasn't until Bryan was looking at the photos on the digital camera on the way home that I realized how many I had really taken. He's like, "Wow! Sixty-three pictures." So I will get a fair amount of the good ones on my site soon. I need to take an entire three or four evenings just to get all of the concert photos on my site. I still have to put up photos for Erin McKeown, Innocence Mission and Neko Case. I will definitely have all of them up by Christmas!

So back to the Metric show. It was at the Empty Bottle in Chicago. We walked in and the three guys from the band, James, Josh and Joules were playing video golf. Bryan talked to James for a few minutes and then we sat and waited for the show to start. There were two opening bands, who we had never heard of at the time. Come to find out that my sister is friends with one of the guys in the opening band, Timeout Drawer. When Metric came on about half the crowd was there just to see them. They started out with the two songs they started out with at the Double Door - "IOU" and "Succexy." Off of their album Old World Underground, Where Are You Now?, they played "IOU," "Succexy" (as mentioned before), "Combat Baby," "Hustle Rose," "Dead Disco," "The List" and "Wet Blanket." Emily, the lead singer, introduced a song as "we're going to play this for those that follow us around, I don't know why" and then they played "Calculation Theme." I didn't like that song much at first, but it's growing on me. I think they also played "Grow Up and Blow Away." I can't remember, I wasn't familiar with the song until Saturday after the show, so I'm not the last word on this one. They didn't play an encore, which I was bummed about, but there weren't enough people there to make a lot of noise to get them back on stage. I think was also one of their few shows headlining. After the show, we went to the merchandise table and talked to Josh for a bit. We told him that we had seen them at the Double Door the last time they played in Chicago. Bryan said we were buying the Static Anonymity ep because we need more Metric. We also bought t-shirts. He was really cool and said, "hey, you guys need some buttons too, and how about a poster," which he signed for us. Emily signed the poster too, so we now have two posters signed by Emily.

We got home late after the Metric show, it was definitely worth it staying up late for.

Backing up a bit, Thursday night we had Bryan's nephew, Michael stay over at our house. We played a ton of hands of Go Fish and Old Maid. Friday, I went and bought CandyLand and Chutes & Ladders, which we played for several hours on Friday morning. Michael went home around noon on Friday. We hadn't slept very well on Thursday night because Michael was coughing a lot that night, so we took a very long nap on Friday afternoon, we needed to be well rested for the Metric show that night.

Saturday and Sunday, Bryan worked, so I was home doing my own thing. Saturday, I slept late and read a good part of the day. Sunday, I spent a lot of time working on a birthday card for Susan for her 30th birthday. I will post it on my card page (when I get it up). I learned how to do embossing several weeks ago and decided to do embossing on Susan's card. It turned out really cute. I can't wait to hear about it from her. She's been showing her friends the cards that I've been sending to her. :)

This weekend, Bryan and I are going away for my birthday. He's taking me to a bed & breakfast in Wisconsin called Inn Serendipity. I am really excited to be going somewhere that's just the two of us, we won't know anyone and won't have to entertain. I'm hoping for a nice relaxing weekend.

Current music:
Metric Static Anonymity
Stars heart

Current reading:
Babyville by Jane Green
The Soul of Money by Lynne Twist
posted by erica Thursday, December 04, 2003 []

  Monday, December 01, 2003

 
I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving weekend.
posted by erica Monday, December 01, 2003 []