Saturday, November 29, 2008

Only one injury on Thanksgiving...

Yep, only one injury and it had nothing to do with my cooking. We took the dogs to the dog park on Thanksgiving morning and Boulevard somehow got a gash on his leg. And since he was running around, he was splashing blood around so all four paws were covered in blood. He tracked blood all the way back to the car...I'm sure someone thought a crime was committed at the dog park. We bathed him and Mike wrapped up his leg. He's fine now and didn't even need stitches.

Brad and Kat left on Thanksgiving morning...it was great to have them. We had a great time with them and enjoyed having them stay with us! Hope we get more visitors soon...(hint hint!)

Mike graduated on Tuesday, 11/25. The ceremony was really cool! Mike got an award for being #1 in his graduating class. Congratulations babe! He starts his Field Training tomorow at 6am. He'll be working 6am to 6pm and he'll have Thursday, Friday, and Saturday off(& every other Wed) through his entire Field Training. Basically, I won't see him at all on Sun, Mon, Tues, and every other Wed. For his first two weeks, he is based at a station about 30 miles away, which probably equates to 45 minutes(no traffic) and upwards of 2 hours(with traffic) commute for him. Since he'll be getting off at 6pm, he'll hit prime traffic and probably won't get home until close to 8pm. For all you Lincolnites that ever complain about a 20 minute commute, bet you won't be complainin' now. :)
I think that's all for now. I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving holiday!

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

What's the moral of the story?

I'm not going to lie so I'm going to tell you that we just today turned on our furnace. The average temps around here during this time of year are 55 degrees however we are below normal and we've been waking up to 30's and it barely has been getting to the 40's. So, I decided that I was going turn on the heat because I was cold...so I turn it on and the vent was blowing cold air. Now I know that I haven't been in Nebraska for about a month now but I'm pretty sure furnaces are supposed to blow warm air. :)
So, once again, I get to call the maintenance people to get it fixed(this is once again a demonstration of the perks of renting)...so they get here within a couple hours and ask me when it stopped working. I said, "Well we just moved in mid-October and this is first time we are turning on the heat." I kid you not, he looked at me like I was on Mars. "You just turned on the heat?" he asked. I proceeded to tell him we just moved from Nebraska and that 40 degrees is not cold compared to Nebraska temps. He laughed and told his partner the story.
Moral of the story...I guess Nebraska toughens you up for some things. However I think we will eventually start to think 40 degrees is really cold and you will all from the midwest will laugh at us.

We have our first guests coming to visit tomorrow. Brad and Kat from Chadron are coming tomorrow and leaving Thanksgiving Day. It'll be fun to have guests and neither of them have been to DC so they have a lot of sight-seeing to do. AND they'll be here for Mike's graduation on the 25th so that's exciting too.

Friday, November 14, 2008

$1.87?

I have to be honest and tell you I don't drive very often anymore. I obviously don't have to drive to work and usually if I go somewhere Mike goes with me and he drives. Mike was required to work the G-20 Summit tonight and tomorrow so I decided to venture out and see how lost I could get in Laurel, MD. Turns out I didn't get lost at all AND I saw a gas price of $1.87 per gallon. WOW! Is that how cheap it is in the midwest?
I love reading everyone's comments on the blog...Thanks for posting your comments. I'm definitely into this blogging thing! I think I'll blame Mrs. Roach for this new addiction I have with blogging. :)
The latest, as of five minutes ago, in Kirsten's life is that I have a date! With Mike you ask??! Nope, my first 'girl date' since I've been in MD. Nicole(another officer's girlfriend) and I are going out for breakfast tomorrow since the guys have to work tomorrow all day. I'm excited for some girl time!
This week went so fast...Mike had Tuesday off due to Veteran's day so Mike and Taz(everyone has a nickname) played Play Station 3(Mike wishes it was our PS3 but it's Taz's) for about 4 hours. It was quite entertaining to listen to them from upstairs as I worked. They wrapped up the game playing when I got off work.
The other excitement of the week was that our toilet upstairs was leaking through the ceiling of the kitchen. I figured it would be a quick pipe change or something...not so much. So far, it's been about a 3 day task. They had to rip out about a 4 foot section of ceiling in our kitchen and in the kitchen of the townhome behind us. The toilet is now fixed and they just have to finish up the dry wall and paint. It's certainly nice to have people do that stuff for you when you live in a rental.
Hope all is well with everyone! Miss you all!

Monday, November 10, 2008

Finally...

Well for all of you that didn't think we'd ever pick a date...we HAVE!! YAY! It is official that Mike and I will wed on Friday, September 18th, 2009 in Ocean City, MD. We went to visit this place last weekend and we think it's a great place to have our wedding and a great place for a mini-vacation for our guests. There is a lot to do there and it's very family oriented. We'll get info out to everyone regarding the details soon. Ocean City is 2.5 hours from where we currently live so our guests can make it a longer vacation and visit the sites of D.C. More details to come...



I finally bought a leather coat for riding on the bike. Even when it's 60 degrees outside, it's still a little chilly when you are going 65+ miles per hour on the bike. So, of course, since I bought a leather coat, Mike HAD to buy a matching one. :) I'm not sure if it's the cool thing to do to buy matching coats but we look damn good. :) We took our coats out for a test drive on the bike on Sunday. It was pretty chilly but it was a good ride. From last weekend to this weekend, many trees have lost their leaves but it was still a beautiful ride. We tried to make it to Gettysburg, PA but we only made it to Westminster, MD and decided it was a little too chilly. So, now I've decided I need some new boots for riding too.



Mike and I have been living together for a little over 3 weeks now and I'd have to say it's going great. We tend to negotiate on the dog duties..."if you take the dogs out, I'll put the groceries away..." It's working so far. We both tend to get to a point where we can't handle the messiness so we both typically agree when it's time to do some cleaning. Mike is kind of the "lights" patrol...I've been amazed at myself in how often I leave the lights on. Ooops! Mike says, "it's all about saving energy Kirsten." Mike does laundry more often than I do so we do laundry every weekend and then, you'll never believe this, he makes me fold and put my clothes away THAT DAY! What?! If you know me at all, you know I tend to do laundry about once a month and it usually takes another 1 1/2 weeks for me to put my clothes away. So, it's kind of a shock to do laundry every week AND have to put it away that day. So far cooking has been 70% Mike and 30% Kirsten...I'm not a huge cook but I always offer my assistance and he gives me plenty of tasks. :) We are trying to become more "green"...We have a recycling service at our apartment complex so we have become quite the recyclers and we have reusable grocery bags too. Slowly but surely we'll get more and more green.



I think that's all the news for now...I'm sure there will be lots more wedding talk now that we have a date and place!

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Halloween results...


Here are some Halloween pics for your enjoyment. Yep, that's Mike under that mask.

sissy bars are great...

I heard on the news before this last weekend the fall colors were supposed to be the best so Mike and I went on a motorcycle ride. We found some great roads and we ended up somewhere in Pennsylvania. The bike ride was about 4 hours which is the longest ride I've ever been on. I don't think I would have lastest but my wonderful fiance bought a sissy bar for the bike when he was in Georgia. It makes a world of difference when riding on the back of the bike.
This evening I went with Mike to switch over all his insurance stuff and I wish now that I wouldn't have gone. Do you realize how much more expensive insurance is out here? It's crazy!!
I can't believe the holiday's are coming so soon. I think we are spending Thanksgiving with Tim and Nicole(Mike's co-worker and his girlfriend). They live in the same apartment complex and they are not travelling anywhere for Thanksgiving either so we're going split up the dinner duties and hang with them.