Now That I’m On My Way

We woke up this morning and said,”Today’s our day!!!!” Kevin wanted to do some old man stuff and “walk through the house” so I seized the opportunity for one last run in Winona!

I loved running around Lake Winona. It was one of the main reasons I was excited about living in Winona!! Haha. I’m sure there will be tons of great places to run in Denver! :) I was lazy and had a little food hangover from last night, but my husband gave a me a 30 minute time limit so I covered 3.55 in 27:30 that’s a 7:44 pace. I did NOT bring Boyd.

We had the coffee maker all cleaned up so I had to have Starbucks this morning. Darn. Lol. I picked up a Skinny Vanilla Latte en route to the airport. Kevin looked at this picture and said,”It looks like you’re holding your coffee with your feet!” It does display my odd thumbs rather prominently! Kevin’s parents drove us to the airport and told us fun stories about some of their vacations! It’ll be fun to have them visit us in Denver sometime soon.

Kevin’s airport fashion!

And little me. Passable, but not quite up to Dominican standards! :) I love flying out of a tiny airport at noon! Beats flying out of Chicago at 6AM any day! And this is OUR FIRST BIG TRIP together. Okay, it’s not a really big trip, but it’s our first time in the airport. I LOVE having Kevin on hand to carry all the bags and not lose all our paperwork/passports! It’s wonderful. I’m such a trainwreck in the airport. Every teacher at SCS can attest to this! We have seats together on the first flight, but we bought our tickets so last minute we’re separated on the second. Maybe we can play the Newlywed card? We are pretty cute!

Enjoy the rest of your weekend! I’ll keep you updated on my first impressions of Denver. You know I will! :)

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Posted in Running, Vida/Life

The Last Supper

May I present to you the tastiest wrap in the Midwest?

Flatout wrap + Cajun turkey + spicy cheese + Jalapeño Cheetos that I left for a day in a hot car so they got a little soft = Extra Fabulous! Another great combo is PB&J w/C. Can you interpret that?

For dessert, we continued my last minute foodie tour of Winona and Kevin James took me to the other place I’ve never visited. It’s apparently called Penguin Zesto’s. I have no clue what that is about and I found no informational materials on the building. On the way over I told Kevin,”What I really want is an ice cream cone with sprinkles!” And guess what?

Bling-bling! I asked the girl,”What’s the crunch cone?” You should’ve seen my little freckly face light up like a Christmas tree when she said it had sprinkles. The crunchy part tasted like Butterfingers. I LOVE BUTTERFINGERS!

For dinner we had a double date with Kevin’s parents. I really miss cooking already! But we really enjoyed our time together.

We almost never order appetizers, but the Homemade Pizza Rolls on the menu caught my eye. They were delicious, but not as good the old Tostino’s version! :)

Kevin and I both got wraps and we discussed later that the first thing both of us thought was,”WHAT? THAT’S ALL THE FRIES WE GET?!?!” Haha. It ended well though. Kevin ordered the Turkey-Bacon-Avocado Wrap (he’s learning!!), and I chose the Spicy Buffalo Chicken Wrap. And we split halfsies. The buffalo wrap was AMAZING! It was the best wrap I’ve ever had at a restaurant (remember that cheeto wrap earlier in this post – haha! I make some pretty special wraps at home). It was super spicy! Kevin and I were both so in love with it that we thought the T-B-A Wrap was just so-so. I’m sure we would’ve loved it if it was the only thing we had. I was so impressed because usually when restaurants call something “spicy” it’s still pretty bland. Go Green Mill!

After dinner, we made trip #39 (since being married) to the Winona Target. It’s probably our last time going in Winona so I figured it needed to be documented. I decided to grab a book to read in the airport. What a shame since I had to return all those books to the library! You’ll have to wait & see what I chose. It looks really special. I considered The Art of Racing in the Rain, but decided that it would probably be a love/hate kind of book so I’ll check it out from a CO library someday.

The original purpose of this Target trip was to buy the Boykin a new doggy bed. Kevin was very concerned that some of them would not be soft enough for Boyd.

Kevin looks SO HOT with his Saturday scruffy face! I couldn’t resist a close-up!

I’ve started taking stalking to a whole new level. I think this little photo op made the cash register chick a little nervous, but my prey didn’t even bat an eye.

Don’t you hope our (very future) children have blue eyes like me? I think maybe it was a faux pas to make that comment to my mother-in-law at dinner, but she took it well. Haha. :)

On our way out we got stuck behind a cart limo. I just like saying that after Kevin taught me that’s what they called them in the North Dakota Target where he used to work. One more fun fact about Kevin before I go. My mother-in-law told me that he cried when Kirby Puckett retired. He. He. He. That’s funny. Then we all told stories about when we cried. I cried when Ronald Reagan died. In the gym. At Emmaus. And my mother-in-law cried when JFK died. The Cry-sels. Haha.

P.S. I just titled this post “The Last Supper” so I could tell my favorite joke.

Q: What was the last thing Jesus said during the Last Supper?

A: “Hey, everyone who wants to be in the picture get on this side of the table!”

 

 

 

 

 

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Posted in That's comedy, Vida/Life

Goodbye Waves & Driveways

On our last day in Winona, Kevin FINALLY decided to take me to the “famous” Bloedow’s Bakery. When I first met Kevin, he tried to explain to me where he lived in relation to the bakery and, of course, I had no idea what he was talking about. I think it’s only famous to Winonans! Kevin dragged me out of bed super early on a Saturday. Our first errand was the dry cleaners since I finally decided to be responsible and get my wedding dress cleaned.

Can you guess which donut I chose? It should really be a cinch.

The sprinkled one, of course! I’m not really a donut person (seriously!) and I ended up giving Kevin a pretty decent half of mine.

Kevin & Cruella are experiencing some separation anxiety about leaving the Boykin! Can you believe all the baby holding and Boyd snuggling that has been going on lately? Do you feel like you even know me anymore? One of my students from Facebook even messaged me and asked me if I was a Mom yet?! When I was checking it, I also noticed a similar message I had overlooked in JULY!! My students all requested that I have a baby ASAP and come back to show it off. Not gonna happen! :)

This is what Corrie Anne spent all morning doing! I emptied the refrigerator, cleaned the stove/microwave and contained anything that was open/could spill from the pantry. All the while praying two prayers continuously. 1: thankyouGodthatwedon’thavetoactuallypackallthisstuffourselves and 2: pleaseletsomeonebuythishousefast!

I’m bummed about taking all my library books back! Boo! Don’t try to read all the book titles & judge me! Let me summarize for you: girly fiction. There’s actually a whole bunch of them that I started and I couldn’t get into. Good thing I posted this picture because I noticed Little Bee is not in the stack. Must be in a tote bag somewhere!

Look what we finally got on the wall? I took down Kevin’s feo Australia pictures and put this up. Ok, really I hung it up. And Kevin came behind me and said,”That’s going to fall,” and did all the work of respacing the hooks. Oh well. The beautiful illustrated decal is from Shanna Murray’s online shop. Kevin James is preparing a DIY post about how he made this for our wedding. What? You didn’t know that, honey? Now you do! :) It hung from a tree above our sweetheart table. I really loved that touch because I knew we’d hang it in our home someday. Right now it’s for tricking prospective buyers into thinking that they’re buying a home from a loving family. Not that we’re NOT a loving family. Haha. I’m sure it’s probably something that’s just in my little head, but I would feel better knowing that I was buying a house that was inhabited by a happy family. As a side note, did you know that if you’re selling your home you have to divulge if you know that a murder has ever taken place inside? What can I say, our realtor is a chatty fellow!

P.S. This is Kevin’s ID from when he worked backstage at a BACKSTREET BOYS concert! He. He. He. I’m a little jealous!

Also can you guess without Googling the band alluded to in this post’s title. If so, you can win the usual prize of me liking one of your Facebook posts! :)


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Posted in Boyd

Cotton Candy & Sweet Baby Cheeks

Kevin texted me this little Post-It I left in his office almost two years ago. Back when I was just the BGFE! I have to say – being the wife is so much better!

This evening Kevin James and I had the pleasure of being “carnies” for a little carnival benefitting the youth group at the Hiawatha Bible Chapel.

I happened to run into some adorable family members while I was there. I was supposed to be in charge of two games, but all I did there was lose money. I kept on paying out of my own pocket for people to play my games! It was all for a good cause, right?

Joe was the Ringleader of the entire evening. I’m not sure if there’s a word for Leader of a Carnival, but I’m sure the circus term will do in this case. Check him out with his sweet baby girl!

For some reason, I could resist grabbing the baby! Can you believe it? I think it must be that her shirt totally matches my baby iPhone! I wanted to take a picture of them together, but of course all photos for this blog are taken WITH the iPhone camera. (Isn’t my money fanny pack belt HAWT!?!!??!?!!)

Teenage home school nerds!! :)

Oh my goodness! Where do I keep finding the babies? This is the THIRD baby I held in ONE day! I seriously can’t believe it. That is definitely a record. (Not pictured: I carried Kiptyn almost an entire city block! It’s trickier than you might think!) Amy joked that I looked a little too natural. I PROMISE that is not the case. I love the chubby Jack cheeks, and he didn’t look breakable at all!

The cotton candy was amazing! I can’t remember the last time I had it, and I LOVE THAT FLUFFY PINK STUFF!!!!!!! I know it looks purple. Kevin James asked for pink and of course there was a little blue sugar left in the maker…

The evening ended with some good old-fashioned torture for the youth group leaders! Kids (and adults!) used the tickets they had earned playing games to earn chances to pie and/or dunk leaders! Totally awesome.

I also really enjoyed visiting with Deidre & Amy who both drove down to hang out for the evening. So sweet! I can’t believe we didn’t get a picture together! Probably because I kept getting busted for not being at my station. I also ran into an old friend from high school so it was super fun to catch up a little. I had a really fun evening, and it reminded me that wherever I go I’ll always have Sweet Home Wabasha. It just doesn’t have the same ring to it as Sweet Home Alabama…

Here’s the other baby I held today! And he was lucky enough to snag a Cookie Friday cookie while chilling at our house before the carnival!

I’m off to bed! Sweet Dreams! Tomorrow is an all work and no play day! Boo! We just have to super extra clean everything and pack our suitcases. I actually can’t complain since we are totally blessed to have a moving company taking care of moving everything including our CAR (woohoo!) so we can fly down there. Tell me something FUN you’re going to this Saturday in the comment section so I can live vicariously through you while Kevin has me in forced slave labor. How many Starbucks do you think I can get out of this? :)

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Posted in Vida/Life

Our Last Cookie Friday in Winona: M&M Cookies

For his last Cookie Friday in Winona, Kevin James requested chocolate chip. I eventually tricked him into M&M – “it’s practically the same thing.” I found this recipe on my baby iPhone in a hurry because I was in the grocery store and wanted to pick up the ingredients. This version from the unassuming AllRecipes was simple and definitely a hit! I used dark chocolate M&Ms! Yum!

Ingredients

  • 1 cup packed brown sugar
  • 1/2 cup white sugar
  • 1 cup shortening
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  • 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 1/2 cups candy-coated milk chocolate pieces

Directions

  1. In a large bowl, mix sugar, eggs, shortening, and vanilla thoroughly. Add flour, salt, and baking soda to creamed mixture. Blend well. Add 3/4 cup of M&M candies.
  2. Drop dough by teaspoonful onto cookie sheet. Slightly push a few candies on top of each dough ball with remaining candies.
  3. Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 9 to 11 minutes, to your liking.

Yeah. I used a whole cup of Crisco. It made me think of a very funny scene from The Help movie where one of the maids is giving a lesson on cooking fried chicken.

Last night we dropped over to see the Lundgrens and their new baby girl! When they asked if we wanted to hold her, Kevin and I were both like,”Uhhhhhh……..” Kevin ended up braving it. Doesn’t he look so sweet with her? There’s a man who’s going to spoil his baby girls (if Boyd’s treatment is any indication!!). Good thing he totally spoils his wife too!
Frozen pizza. New lows in the Kreisel household. I’ve really missed cooking this week! We’ve been going out a lot for farewell business and besides that it’s been a lot of sandwiches & chips! Tonight we picked up a frozen pizza to avoid buying a million ingredients that we will just have to throw out tomorrow when we get everything packed up and cleaned out. I loved the crispy thin crust! I was generous and gave Kevin 2/3 of the pizza, but let’s face it – I probably could’ve put away the entire thing myself.
While the pizza was in the oven, I got to work on the Cookie Friday cookies. I planned ahead again since tomorrow is going to be full with moving business, Deidre & Kip visiting, and then off to Wabasha for the youth carnival in the evening. As you can see, I multi-tasked and read a book while working. Can you believe that I read the entire 368 pages between the lunch at Bub’s  and bedtime? We also ran a whole bunch of errands and tied up some loose ends around the hose. The book was Heart of the Matter by Emily Giffis. I have to admit that, but I’m not going to recommend it. The stories of the two women really sucked you in, but overall it was like reading fictional celebrity gossip. I did enjoy coming across the word “adroit.” I love that word! I had no idea one of the author’s other books has been made into a movie starring Kate Hudson! I only happened to notice because we were in Target (SHOCKER) this evening while I was midway through the book. I’m surprised I miss that. That’s ok. I read today about a study finding that for people over 25, for every hour of TV watched, their lifespan shortened by 22 minutes. I suppose they will eventually find the same thing about internet usage, and then I’m a goner!
Has anyone read Little Bee by Chris Cleave? I read the first 50ish pages last night (I know, I know. I’ll stop bragging about my speed demon reading anytime now) and came across a rather disturbing portion. I’m at that point where I don’t really want to finish it unless it’s good because it’ll probably give me nightmares!
Good night! (I have to go to bed now or THIS will happen.)
P.S. Any ideas for our first Cookie Friday in Denver? I’m going to need something particularly festive!  I’m not really sure what I have to work with in the kitchen. It’s a gorgeous furnished apartment very close to Kevin’s office. I’m definitely bringing an apron in my suitcase. And maybe my cute measuring spoons! :)
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Posted in Books, Cookie Friday

Involuntary Intervals

The lazy Boykin has finally been forgiven for eating my nephew’s sock and was permitted to roam the house today. His preference is always to flop down in this sunny spot in his old bedroom. Can you believe he had a bedroom before I moved in? I planned to run that space into a piano studio so he was banished to the back landing.

Do you notice something different about Boyd? He has a new “no-pull” harness. Boyd’s grandparents will be petsitting him while we settle things in Denver, and they have decided to bring in some professional help. Last night we met with a nice lady who tried to give us some pointers in Boyd training. She was not wild about the choker collar claiming that it can give animals negative associations to things like other pedestrians or squirrels that they try to chase after. So Boyd and I decided to take his new harness for a run today since it’s one of our last times to enjoy this activity before the move.

Not sure why Boyd is always so hesitant to head out the door. The freckled jail bird is always chipper & ready to run! I gave you a pre-sweat shot today out of the goodness of my heart!

Why have all the critters converged upon our house lately? Check out that squirrel doing a flying leap in the back! Yesterday there was also a flock of like crows or blackbirds or something back there. I hope there’s not something dead. I’m NOT going to investigate that.

Let me tell you what we learned about the harness today. Yeah. It’s no-pull for Boyd. It’s also no-pull for his step-mama. Boyd has a tendency to get a little lazy so sometimes I have to do a little drag, but today it was out of control since there was no consequence for insubordination! He was also a REAL TREAT at stop lights. Normally, Boyd and I do well running together because he’s gasping for air. But today was a different story. The harness gave him far too much freedom and he abused it like the teenager he is!

And that’s how my run turned into interval training. Boyd even refused to get up after breaks! When I pulled at the harness, he just let his little body slip ‘n slide in the grass! I finished the loop around the small lake and dropped him off at home. I finished 5.12 miles in 38:02 – that’s a 7:25 pace.

Kevin totally busted me stalking him today! He had an unfair advantage. He was expecting me. I met Kevin at work today to go out for lunch with some of his co-workers as a sort of Bon Voyage party.

They chose Bub’s, a local Winona favorite. I had never been there before, but I’d heard a lot of good things about their burgers and fries.

I ordered the Santa Fe Burger with fries. I was loving those fries! I hadn’t had french fries in a while and they are a huge favorite with me. I’m also a fan of any burger with guacamole. I was glad I worked out before I went because it definitely wasn’t a “healthy” meal, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.

While I was downtown, I had to take care of some business – getting a social security card with my new last name! Fun stuff.

But when we got home, we saw THE BEST NEWS OF THE DAY!

Our house is officially on the market!!! Any takers?????

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Posted in Boyd, Eating out, Running

Things I Miss About the DR: The First Day of School

Yesterday I missed the first day of school at SCS. This would have been my “senior year.” Some of the mistakes we made our first year of teaching were so laughable that we started to lovingly refer to it as “freshman year.” Each year got progressively better as we learned that cupcakes can motivate students to do almost anything and that the prospect of  Sleep-In Thursday can help get you through the whole week! But this year was to be our “senior year. The year when you get all the attention and all the parties. I can’t believe I’m missing it!

Isn’t the first day of school the BEST? That was before my lovely students broke my glasses while we were running the mile. Fun fact: Do you know that teaching is how I finally got into running hard core? I would be sooo stressed out by trying to get my high school students to listen for 5 seconds that I would need to run a good 5 miles to run off the anxiety! They really gave me a hard time my first year. And I wouldn’t blame them. I had mostly seniors, and there I was fresh out of college. Totally NOT a high school teacher and woefully unpreprared when it was sprung on me. I wish you could see the way they charmed and sweet talked me. It was a work of art! I did much better when I got myself reassigned to P.E. I find that students who are sweaty and exhausted are much more cooperative! :) My problem is that I tend to be too empathetic with older students. I would want to text in my class too! I plan to stick to the K-6, but you never know when the Lord is going to change things up! In the end, my #1 favorite part of each day was greeting all the high school students as they walked out for specials chanting things like “EXERCISE IMPROVES YOUR MOOD” and spouting statistics about the correlation between working out and college achievements.

Next week, I’m blessed to be starting out fresh in a whole new world with my hottie husband by my side. DR, IBVN, and my students – “I have you in my heart.

Just for fun, here’s how my classroom looked when I first stepped foot inside in 2008. Now I know why they stalled for the three days on giving me the keys! Keep in mind that it was at least 110 degrees in this room in the month of August since we had that roff and we were on the second floor!

Creepy warehouse, right? With a few pieces of random gymnastics equipment that I wanted to burn before two weeks. Can you imagine the distraction the tumbly mat was?

At least in the three years there, I never once found a tarantula in my classroom! Hooray! My second year they surprised me by tiling the floor and painting it. My third year they added all the Orff instruments. The new teacher has no clue how good he has it! I remember thinking it was SO funny that they only had lawn chairs in my classroom. By the time I left, I hardly even noticed it since they are so commonplace in the country.

Of possible interest: More DR posts.

P.S. Okay, the only good part of not being at SCS yesterday morning was that I was drinking coffee and reading a book in bed. The kind of thing we only dreamed about in excruciating months like March. Haha. :)

 

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Posted in Dominican, Vida/Life
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