Robyn and Dejan Visit!

We've had a great day so far! Robyn and Dejan are here visiting for a day on their way back from a fabulous Ricks Family Adventure at Yellowstone.


We picked them up at their hotel at 11 this morning and headed to Minnehaha Park for a little bike riding action.


While we were waiting in line a random group of violinists started playing which was a little weird, but provided some entertainment while we waited in line.


Once we finally got our bike we were on our way! Somehow we got completely lost and ended up pedaling over the Ford Pkwy bridge. Oops. We were able to get turned around, though, and head back to the park to finish following the correct path. We only got stuck at one hill. I guess the four of us just aren't very strong because Kristin and I had to get out to push the bike up the hill. Time to work out a little more, eh?


After a 45 minute ride (that felt more like 15) we returned the bike and headed to Chipotle. Robyn always seems to call me when I'm at Chipotle and so I've told her all about how fabulous it is. She decided she needed to try it when she was here. We made it a long lunch and got all caught up.


Afterward we headed back to our apartment to give them the grand tour and to look at their pictures from their trip to Utah. It was fun to see all of them and watch all the videos they had taken with their flip (I really need to get one!).


We just took them back to their hotel so they could "freshen up" before we head to dinner.

It's been a great day! I wish they could stay longer...ah well, maybe next time!

Saturday Night

Nothing too exciting to share, but I've decided I need to blog more, so here I am. Jehn came over earlier to go swimming with Kristin. I'm glad Jehn likes to swim because it's not really my gig and Kristin loves it. While they were playing out in the hot summer sun I took a nap - ahhhh.

When I got up I ran to Target to pick up some pictures so we could FINALLY get photos in our frames. Yes, it has been over a year since we moved in. What can I say, we're a little slow.

We spent the evening picking up a bit in anticipation of Robyn and Dejan's visit. I'm actually on the phone with Robyn now. They are about 1 1/2 hours away. They've driven over 12 hours today - poor them! We're planning on going for a bike ride at Minnehaha Falls tomorrow, relaxing, and eating "authentic Minnesotan food" - whatever that is - look for pictures of our adventures tomorrow or Monday!

New Car!

After weeks of research and days of looking and putting 240 miles on my Focus we finally found our new car - a Ford Escape...blue, no less (the color Kristin really, really wanted). We have both decided we can never buy a house because this first somewhat big purchase was so stressful, but we survived! :)

Middle Child Day

Today is officially “National Middle Child Day.” Don't believe me? See here.

Kristin wondered when it would be time to celebrate her. I explained that she, as the youngest in her family, had been celebrated her whole life while I, a middle child, had never, ever been celebrated.

Some may say that I'm indeed NOT a middle child. After all, how can you have a middle child when there are four children in the family? Simple. Robyn was spoiled because she was the oldest. Cassi was spoiled because she was the youngest. Jason was spoiled because he was the only boy. Which leaves me as the bonafide middle child. A pictoral view for those of you who understand better that way:

The thing is, I don’t think anyone even knows it’s my day. On the train a woman shoved me aside. Walking to work I got rained on. At work not one person said “hey Danette – it’s your day!”

So I’m going to say it myself. After all, I don't need other people to confirm how fabulous my middle child self truly is -

Happy Middle Child Day, Danette!

Whew. There. I feel so much better.

PS – Happy middle child day to all other middle children out there!

PPS - If you want to send a card to a middle child you know, follow this link (yeah, I totally sent one to myself).

Anniversay #1

It has been a year since our wedding! I can't believe it! Time really does fly when you're having fun, I guess :)
Kristin and I decided to spend our first anniversary in Duluth. She researched hotels and made a reservation at The Inn on Lake Superior. We arrived on Sunday afternoon and after taking in some of the sights...

We got ready and headed for dinner. Along the way we discovered that Duluth was a Christian town proudly displaying the 10 commandments.
Kristin also met a new friend.
We finally made it to Bellisio's - a little Italian restaurant we chose in honor of our favorite restaurant in Carmel (where we spent our honeymoon) La Dolce Vita.
After eating (the food was fantastic!) we had the waiter take a photo of us to put in our anniversary book (fantastic wedding gift we received from the Klombies'). Unfortunately it turned out blurry, but I'll post it anyway.After dinner we headed back to the hotel to make s'mores (I think it's a perk all hotels should offer). Then we headed out to a bench by the lake to look at photos from the wedding we hadn't seen yet, reread our wedding wishes that people wrote for us, and Kristin gave me what may be the best gift ever. Since the first anniversary gift is paper she filled a jar with quotes and thoughts for me to read every day for the next year. It looks awesome and I'm excited to read a new thought each day. She spent a ton of time making this, and I love it!

On Monday we spent the day relaxing, shopping, and eating more yummy food! We ended the day once again with s'mores and a dip in the heated pool on the roof of the hotel.

(Anyone know why they are selling
Sand Point, ID shirts in Duluth?)

Tuesday we slept in before getting ready to head home. We headed down to the the lake one last time. This time we took the wedding bouquet we had from our wedding (it's been riding in the back window of my car for the past year) and threw it into the lake.

We also headed over to buy a wind chime we had seen on Monday. It's now happily hanging on our deck.We finally said goodbye to Duluth and headed home only to discover we had left a gift bag with our pictures, wedding wishes, and Kristin's gift to me at the hotel! Thankfully we realized it was missing only 10 miles down the road. I would have cried if we had lost all of those things!!

Anyway, all in all it was a great trip and a wonderful anniversary. Neither of us had been to Duluth for an extended period of time and we loved it! We're already planning what we'll do on our next trip!! Now we're home again and the unpacking and returning to real life will begin...as will the second year of our marriage.
And now, excuse me while I get a little mushy. I love this woman. With everything in me, I love her! She makes me laugh every single day and reminds me that life isn't always supposed to be as serious as I tend to make it. Although this year has had its ups and downs, she has stood by my side and supported me through it all. Here's to many more spectacular years together.

(Click here for more pictures)

Sleep Deprivation

Wow. I’m dragging today. I officially go around 50 minutes of sleep last night. I couldn’t sleep. I tried doing my meditation exercise from my class. Made it through the full 45 minutes and I was still wide awake. Granted, I had things on my mind, but lately I’ve been able to put things aside and haven’t had a huge problem with sleep. So, I got up for a bit, went back to bed when Kristin finally went to bed (around 1). She was snoring in a few minutes. I stayed there for about an hour before I finally got up. I decided I would search iTunes for some sleep meditation tracks.

So I start sifting through them. Started the search with “sleep meditation” and moved to “guided meditation” since I tend to relax more with guided meditation than other versions. So the search for the perfect track turned out to be fairly difficult. Which begs the question: why are most meditation CDs done by creepy men? The only two women ones I could find on iTunes sounded like they were high or something. I finally found one that had three different sleep tracks, each about 25 minutes long. It had good reviews, and the guy’s voice wasn’t too bad, so I decided to download it. By this time it was about 3 a.m. (yes, it took me a full hour to figure out what meditation tracks I wanted to buy). They took FOREVER to download because they were such huge files. It was 3:45 by the time I got them downloaded and put on the iPod and headed back to bed.

I started with the first meditation track. It was called something like sleeping with self hypnosis. It started off okay. He said to listen to the sounds outside of the room. I couldn’t hear anything because I had the ear buds in. Then he said to listen to sounds inside the room. All I could hear was Kristin snoring and the cat purring on my pillow. I realized that sleep was really not going to come easy even with new meditation material. I tried to focus on the guy’s voice and what he was saying, but I realized that it reminded me of a therapist I saw several years ago who always wanted to hypnotize me. I would always tell him no because, frankly, the idea of being hypnotized scares the crap out of me. As the track continued, I realized the therapist had used the same imagery of going down 20 steps to relaxation. Before last night I never realized he had actually tried to hypnotize me, though, and so it freaked me out. Obviously, at the end of the 25 minutes, I was still wide awake.

The second track was called yoga something for sleep. It wasn’t like you had to do yoga moves, but, similar to the meditation I do for my class, it was all about becoming aware of different parts of your body. Jon Kabat-Zin’s version is very slow and deliberate. When I first started listening to it I thought I was going to go crazy. I would think “are we really still on the little toe of the left foot?” This guy’s was fast. Just as I began to visualize my little toe he was on to another part of the body. It wasn’t restful at all, so of course at the end of the 25 minutes I was still wide awake.

When the third track started I realized it was after 4:30. My alarm was set for 6:15. No good. The third track was called deep sleep meditation with ocean sounds. Nice. This one would surely put me right to sleep. So I’m listening. He’s talking. “Drift.” He said. So I drifted. “Float.” He said. So I floated. It was truly lovely (even with the snoring and the vibrating cat next to me). At one point he said “now listen to the music and the sounds and drift into a deeper relaxation.” So I was totally doing that – finally starting to drift to sleep when all of a sudden he started talking again and I jerked awake. “SHUT UP!” I yelled at him. I had been so close! I had to laugh, though, because he was talking about sending thoughts into the subconscious (I’m guessing he assumed most people would be asleep at this point) – things like “I’m calm.” “I’m happy.” “I am satisfied at my job.” “I work hard.” “I am a good person.” It was weird. And there was no way I was going to fall asleep after that.

Around 5:30 I considered just getting up but decided to give it one more shot. I threw the iPod on the floor and tried my old trick of counting backwards. It must have worked because next thing I know it was 6:15 and my alarm was going off. Two Excedrin and two Diet Cokes later, here I am. Falling asleep at my desk and waiting for my phone to ring. It’s gonna be a loooong day.

Nothing new...

Nothing much new to report, but I've been receiving pokes from Kristin and harassing anonymous phone calls urging me to post something. Anything. So here I am.

I've been staying busy even with school out for the summer. I had all sorts of plans with all of the extra time I would discover once I didn't need to study and go to class. Unfortunately, the extra time has seemed to just disappear. I'm not sure where it has gone, though.

I started taking a Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction course at University of Minnesota a couple of weeks ago. It's based on Jon Kabat-Zin's research about the benefits of meditation. I had read his book, Full Catastrophe Living, a couple of times and finally decided to just go ahead and take the class. So far I haven't loved it, but I'm going to give it the full 8 weeks before I make a judgement. I can see the benefits, I think it's just random issues of my own that are making it difficult to enjoy the class itself. Anyway, I'll post more about what the class is like and what I think about it after week 4 and again after week 8.


Kristin and Jehn had a yard sale this past weekend. I don't really get yard sales. I'm a huge throw it away person. If I don't need it I toss it or donate it. Spending the time to sort it, price it, and then sit in the hot sun and wait for people to come sift through it and try to bargain down from 25 cents just isn't my gig. They both seemed to love it, though, and that's all that matters, right? (Proof is in the smiling picture of Jehn below)


Part of my plan for my extra time this summer was to do more "fun" reading. I looked forward to whittling my Goodreads list down. I have been busily reading...and what kinds of books have I been reading? Pretty much nothing that was on my list. For some reason I'm addicted to therapy, social work type books. Books like The Mummy at the Dining Room Table: Eminent Therapists Reveal Their Most Unusual Cases; Schopenhauer's Porcupines: Intimecy and Its Dilemma; Shrink Dreams: The Secret Longings, Fantasies, and Prejudices of Therapists and How They Affect Their Patients; The Boy Who Was Raised a Dog: And Other Stories from a Child Psychiatrists Notebook; and Crazy all the time: On the Psych Ward of Bellevue Hospital...just to name a few. Crazy, I know. But I'm learning a lot and I'm getting excited to get back to school in September.

So, that's my 'nothing new' update. Hopefully I'll have something new, fun, and exciting to share soon :)

4th of July 2008

Kristin and I went to the great state of South Dakota for the 4th of July holiday. We always have a great time there, and I love going (hoping to make it there at least once more before the summer is over!!). We spent a lot of time relaxing (sleeping), hanging out on the deck, and spending time with the family. We were able to see Heather (Kristin's friend from Florida) and little Santiago. I even got to see lots of lightning bugs which was fabulous!

Thanks to Mom and Dad Moe for the hospitality (once again), for putting up with Kristin's antics, and for not hating me for sleeping all the time (I think I need to come for a week or two...spend the first half getting caught up on my sleep and the second doing stuff!!).

I've heard good and bad things about using the photoshop application to display pictures. I may try something different in the future - but for now, another slide show:

Pride 2008

Once again pride is over :( But we had a great weekend! Because I was finishing up Spanish (will try to write more about that later) we didn't get to participate in a ton of events, but we did go to the parade and park on Sunday. Thanks to Kristin, Jehn, and Lisa for the great company!!

What I Know

I know I am sleep deprived, and I know that I am overly stressed with school.

I present you with two examples to prove my point. In the process of sharing these examples, I humiliate myself. So enjoy.

1. I was out on our deck this morning and started to freak out because I saw someone in our apartment...only to realize I was seeing my reflection in the window.

2. Yesterday, I pointed to a tree outside of our window and asked Kristin"are those red things growing on that tree acorns?" Her response? "Well, they could be, but that's a pine tree."