I mean, my last post was October 12th? Really, Amber? Is it possible to be absolutely swamped without being busy? It sounds ridiculous, but it's not like I've really been up to much the last few months. My wedding has practically planned itself, thanks to my mother. So aside from driving back and forth to Iowa City on the weekends, I don't really have much of an excuse for my L.A.M.E. blog. My world for the last few months:
October 17th: Tyson and I drove up to Madison, Wisconsin for the Iowa football game. 20-10 is all I gotta say! Go Hawks. They were 7-0 after this ass-kicking!
October 23rd-26th: Spent the weekend in Iowa City, babysitting Tyson's younger siblings. Nearly had a heart attack as the Hawks needed a no-time-remaining TD to secure the win over the Michigan State Spartans. I should also note that Tyson's neighbors probably weren't too happy with him, as he ran around the cul-de-sac screaming after the TD! Celebrated my birthday on the 26th (27 years old!) with dinner at Blackstone with my family and Tyson's parents. Fun time.
October 31st: Again nearly had a heart attack as the Hawks waited until the 4th quarter to start playing the game of football, going on to beat the Indiana Hoosiers in controversial fashion. Plenty of blown calls in this game, but the Hawks lucked out and pulled out the "W." Definitely took some criticism from the media after this game, but 9-0 is still 9 wins and NO losses, last time I checked. Also got to see a good friend and former roomie, Ann, who was in town for the weekend with her hubby Justin. Went out and had a ball with them on Halloween. I didn't dress up though! Oops.
November 7th: Unfortunately, I was there, in the stands, at Kinnick Stadium as the Hawks lost their first game of the 2009 season. What a heartbreaker. Never would've lost if Stanzi hadn't gone down. But, some things go your way and others don't. We have Penn State's number, and apparently Northwestern has ours. I expected Tyson to take the loss much worse than he did, but he bounced back pretty quick. The rest of the weekend was kind of a blur!
November 13th: Back to Iowa City... again... this time for Tyson's birthday. We went to dinner at the Wig to celebrate and braced ourselves for the game against the Ohio State Buckeyes. See, with Stanzi out, NO ONE gave us a chance. They'd totally written us off. No way in hell we could pull out a victory AT the 'Shoe. Well folks, we took them to overtime. Damn near beat 'em. If it weren't for a botched 22-yard field goal, we would've taken the mighty Buckeyes down. But, again, things just didn't go our way, but we put up one helluva fight. I was proud to be a Hawkeye! One of my besties from high school was also in town this weekend and we went out and had one heck of a night on Saturday night. Sunday wasn't so much fun, but Saturday night with Kate and Allie was one of the best in a long time!
November 21st: Ahhh yes... the weekend I'd been looking forward to all summer. See, this past summer we had an abnormally large number of Gopher fans around the ballpark. Mostly interns that felt the need to talk sh*t despite taking an absolute BEATING last year in the Metrodome (55-ZERO, in case you forgot...). "We're a better team this year," and "We've got a new stadium that's way nicer than Kinnick," and "Watch out, Minnesota football will be dominant in a few years," is all I heard all summer. Puh-lease. Give me a break. So I just kept my mouth shut and said we'll see how it plays out. Well, although I was hoping for another shellacking , the Hawks still beat the Goophers impressively, holding them scoreless for another 4 quarters. Very impressive, Minnesota. Can't wait to see how dominant you'll really be!
November 25th: Back to IC (see a pattern developing yet?) for Thanksgiving Break! One of my very best friends, and my maid of honor, Sara, was in town so it was fabulous hanging out with her. I think her boyfriend was slightly mad at me for the shape "I put her in" on Friday night. Oops. Let it be known that I wasn't force-feeding her the alcohol! On Thanksgiving, Tyson and I drove to Independence, Iowa to spend time with the Gartner family. After a hearty meal that included plenty of turkey, some cranberry sauce, and Aunt Jeanne's famous rolls, Tyson and I were off to Iowa City to spend some time with his family. I swear, I ate more in this day that I did in the 4 days leading up to Thanksgiving!
December 5th: One of my very good friends from college, Marcee, got married this weekend in a suburb of Chicago! Tyson and I drove over on Saturday morning and stayed in the hotel where the wedding reception was taking place. Wow, what a fabulous idea. No cab ride home, no worrying... just a drunken stumble up to our room. Perfect. Marcee looked absolutely beautiful and it was neat seeing all her ideas play out. About 6 months before her wedding, Marcee and I were exchanging emails about our respective plans for our weddings and we realized that many of the things Marcee was planning, I was planning as well! Without talking to each other at all! So it was neat to see everything come together. Sunday sucked because of all the driving, but all-in-all it was a fantastic weekend!
December 11th: My mom and I departed on an interestingly dangerous trip up to LaCrosse, Wisconsin to visit my Aunt Wanda and her family. I say interesting because, despite having a GPS, we still managed to get lost. And I say dangerous because, despite driving a massive SUV, we were still slipping and sliding all over the road. A trip that should've taken us no longer than 3.5 hours ended up taking almost 5. Oops. I wish I could just blame it all on the weather, but we're just not so good with directions! And I swear, neither of us are blonde! Once we got there, we spent some quality time with Wanda, Tom and their two daughters, Shelby and Joyahna. And we made my bridesmaids gifts for the wedding! AND we made MY necklace for the wedding. A very productive weekend.
December 18th- 20th: I was soooo looking forward to this weekend... I didn't have ANYWHERE to be. I could spend the WHOLE weekend in Des Moines if I wanted to! Tyson even made plans to come visit me on Saturday after he got off work! I was so pumped. Then I get a text message on Wednesday alerting me of a family Christmas on the 19th. Not kidding, I was in tears. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE Christmas. Any one of my friends will tell you that. But I was just SOO looking forward to a weekend of NOTHING. Apparently that weekend just wasn't in the cards. Oh well. So on Friday I packed up my car for the 15th consecutive weekend and headed back to Iowa City. Tyson's family Christmas was fun and it was a joy to see everyone again. The question of the night seemed to be "are you and Tyson going to have kids right away?" Man, give us a chance to GET MARRIED first, people! All-in-all it was a great night and I scored a sweet pair of gloves in the gift exchange!
Well... that pretty much sums up my life for the last two months! On December 23rd I once again packed up and headed back to Iowa City for Christmas. That night, my great friend Kate threw a party at her new condo in Coralville and man, was it fun. Sara was in town and so was one of my very best guy friends from high school, Tonsie. Ahh, good times. Christmas Eve was celebrated at Grandma Judy's in West Liberty, followed by gift opening with my parents, brothers and Tyson later that night. Christmas Day I went to mass with the fam and then headed over to Tyson's parent's to open presents with his family. After a movie with the Gartner clan (went to see Up In the Air with George Clooney... excellent) we headed home to do our Christmas tradition: a meal in which everyone can have ANYTHING they want. You pick, and Bruce cooks! It's awesome! I chose spaghetti and meatballs, like I do every year:) Tyson picked tacos for his first-ever Christmas meal, but about halfway through, he looked at my dad's NY Strip and said "maybe I'll do a steak next year!" HAHA! Saturday and Sunday were lounging days, Monady through Wednesday were spent at work, and as we speak, I'm gearing up for another trip back to Iowa City to ring in 2010. I have a feeling it's going to be one of the best years of my life:)
