What the deck!?!

So, we're building a deck. And when I say "we", I don't mean just "us". I mean we have a lot of really great family and friends. AND they just happen to be really good at things...double bonus.

Anyway...it's really exciting! We now have the footings poured and the first inspection approved - hooray. Next step is framing the deck. We'll need to have another inspection approved at that point. Then, we can finish it up, get the final inspection taken care of and voila! - instant deck party!

Paul said he'd like to break a bottle of champagne over the edge of it, as he would if it were his ship. I said no. (You know who will be cleaning up the glass shards AND seriously, who wastes good champagne?)

I included some pics of me enjoying a glass of wine on our new "deck" tonight. It's not much to look at right now...but you just wait.

More to come...

Feeling Fortunate.

There's an awesome asian restaurant just down the street from our house and every now and again, we swing in for take-out....tonight was one of those nights! Per usual, it was delicious!

Tonight's fortune read:

"There appear to be many clouds; but they quickly pass."

This has probably been quite true lately...if we're interpretting it literally anyway. The weather lately has been crazy BUT thankfully each time it passes quickly enough to allow Paul & I to still do some pretty fun things!

Thursday night we attended a St. Paul Saint's game for my work and had a blast watching the game....but my favorite part was witnessing all the crazy antics of the St. Paul Saint's Crew!

Friday was my dad's 60th birthday! I included a pic of "Papa Cow" with 2 of his 4 grandchildren. Did I mention there's one more on the way?!?! Kara & Eric are expecting a little one in January! We're so excited!

Friday night we had a cookout with my brother and some friends. I attempted to make this Irish Potatoes recipe as I had a head of cabbage I wanted to use up from our weekly CSA drop off. The consistency of the potatoes ended up more like soup....BUT they still tasted pretty awesome, in my opinion!

Saturday we headed "up nort" to Brainerd to spend the day with tons of family & friends!
We saw sprinkles of rain throughout the day but nothing could have been fierce enough to postpone the crazy castle bouncer, card games, cul-de-sac kickball or the platefuls of delicious food!

Despite the unpredictable weather...our week was enjoyable! Here's to another!

Green Thumb or Red in the Face?

So, I've always wanted to be a master gardener. Last year I started a garden BUT it didn't work out so well. You see, I learned quite a few things during my first attempt at a garden:

1) Planting a garden is hard work. (why does no one tell you this??)

2) A garden won't grow well in soil that is a combination of clay, sand and rocks.

3) Weeds really like to be in gardens....sometimes more than their plant friends do.

4) Some plants cannot survive not being watered for over a week....obviously only the weak ones...

All in all, it wasn't pretty. I walked away from the whole experience ticked off and jaded about plant-life in general. I eventually got over it (thank heavens!) and decided to take another stab at this whole gardening thing. (But first, I completely ripped out the whole garden, covered it with landscape paper and sentenced it to life with mulch.) My second attempt was well...more practical. I went to Menards and bought a bajillion teracotta pots and decided to start a pot garden....I mean, a potted garden! (C'mon people!)

From there on out, life as a gardener was great! No weeding, perfect soil, lush green plants thriving! I loved it! I'd stare out the back window and admire my beauties and I even remembered to water them daily (ok, maybe every other day!)

THEN...one night after work, I was cooking dinner and glanced out the window only to discover a scandelous affair! My backyard neighbor was watering MY plants! What? My plants were loving it - soaking up every last drop...obviously unaware I was watching every second of it. I was hurt...though I didn't know if it was a) because my neighbor thought I was unreliable as a gardener and felt he needed to intervene or b) because I couldn't help but wonder if perhaps my plants were ONLY alive due in part to the secretive waterings from my neighbor. Hmph.

I told Paul this story when he got home that night. He laughed.

So, we're still not sure if I have a green thumb or not BUT I was definitely red in the face that night!

Date Night!

We have 'em often....but really they're not romantic candle lit dinners OR long strolls to the park to watch the sunset.....they're typically just our excuse to do a whole lot of nothing...together!


We only call it "date night" so it sounds really exciting and impressive (ha...joke's on you!)

Recipe for The Rasmusson Date Night:
1 Friday night
2 Overtired adults
2 $5 footlongs from Subway (no one said I eat the whole thing....but...!!!)
2 $1 movies from Redbox
2 Powerade Zeros
(Add a few glasses of red wine or a "sixer" of beer if its been an extra long week!)

I'd let you do the math, but this is just too easy....date night at our house costs a mind-blowing $14 MAX! We're crazy with our money!!

The Rasmusson Date Night lasts for approximately 180 minutes...or roughly the length of 2 feature length movies. Of course, the type of movie selected can greatly alter the "mood" of date night....for instance:


- 2 comedies = laughter, high 5's and sometimes a bad case of Powerade up the nose!
- 1 comedy + 1 love story (in this order) = all of the above shortly followed by Paul's eyes wondering to the nearest computer screen to check scores.
- 1 comedy + 1 action or sports related flick = All of the above again shortly followed by me kicking my recliner back into "3rd" and cruising full speed into slumberland.

Actually...any 2 movie combo is a toughie for me....Kendra + sitting still = hard work. Ok, I'll be honest...I heart sleeping. If I stand still too long, I'm about (this) close to R.E.M. (no, not the band though that would be cooler!)

Anyway....back to date night. I love date night. Paul does too. In fact, tonight is date night....I better get back to it before he realizes I'm not paying attention to.......what's this movie called again?...hmph....anyway, back to it! "I LOVE THIS PART!" (he did't buy it.)

Enjoy your weekend....and sneak in a date night if you can! You're welcome to borrow our recipe!


Will date nights be this exciting 50 years from now? One can only hope!

-The Mrs.

Better Off Wed...

So, as you can see...we've updated the blog!

Since we've been married a month now, we figured it was time to take down the wedding blog header and decide what we were going to do with this here blog....well, we decided to keep it!
BUT we realize that since the wedding is now over, we'll likely be 1000% less exciting.
We ask for your undestanding on this. When the posts drag on and become more exhausting than exciting, just bear with us! Who knows? We might just get exciting again someday....or maybe not, but nonetheless we hope to post stories and tidbits on why we think we're "Better Off Wed!"

Thanks for checking in,
K&P

Stars, Stripes...and Full Circles.

I have a friend who likes to note when thinks "come around full circle"...she usually just says "full circle, full circle" while twirling her pointer finger in a circlular motion in the air...sometimes she doesn't even have to say anything, the action itself is usually enough to get her point across.

Well, I had a "Full Circle" moment this week...allow me to explain:

I've been in my new position for 3 weeks now and I'm really enjoying it! I've been SO busy and much of that is due to the fact that daily tasks take me 100 times longer to complete since I'm still learning what "this" means or who "that" is....Once I catch on, I'm hopeful things will come quicker.

Anyway, as some of you may know, my first experience working in Marketing was for the River Falls Chamber of Commerce, making $0/hour the summer before I graduated from college. I had a lot of fun in that job (thankfully, since well...yeah, no money!) especially since I got to work with one of my closest college friends! Well, this last week I was given my first full event to plan (from start to finish) for work AND guess what? For this event, I'll need to work with the Chamber of Commerce to plan a Movies in the Park event for the city of River Falls, WI - WHAT? How did I get to be this lucky? I can't decide which part is coolest...getting to help plan an event on my old stomping grounds, working with the Chamber where I used to work OR the fact that my good friend still works at the Chamber and I'll get to catch up with him while working...sweet deal!

On an equally cool note - Paul was offered a new position within his company and started just a couple weeks after I did! I'm pretty darn proud of my husband! (I still sorta smirk when I say that word...it feels so grown up!) So, we've both been spending our evenings discussing how "dumb" we feel in our new positions and how tired we are! (How's that for excitement?) Nonetheless, we both know that these new opportunities will be hard work but, no doubt, worth it!

With so many new things going on in our world - we're looking forward to a long weekend of grilling, relaxing and spending time with family and friends. Oh, and we should probably put some wedding stuff away and keep working on our thank you cards!

BUT, in case the grilling and relaxing takes the place of the thank you card writing time this weekend - Here's a big THANK YOU to hold you over for a little longer!

Happy 4th of July,
K&P

PS: And since posts are typically more fun to read when there's pictures included, I added a couple completely unrelated wedding pictures! Enjoy! (We've been married a month now...wow!)