kicking off my 28th year

Go Shorty Kierstan, it's your birthday, we're gonna party like it's your birthday!

Yeah, that song is seriously stuck in my head. Aren't there any other, better, birthday songs out there??

So today is my birthday, I am bound and determined NOT to spend it like last year.

Remember last year?  How I spent my 27th Birthday



The highlight of my day was a morning trip to Costco to buy a huge jar of almond butter.



The next stop was visiting my mom at the hospital's burn unit. Dear Mom - be careful today!



I ended the night very late with a birthday cheers from Roger and a frozen pizza baked to perfection.

I have different plans for today, and those plans include a 1 hour massage (that I have to scoot out the door ASAP to get to!), lunch with Diana and various other activities that I'll post about later.

We did kick-off my birthday with attending "Kale Fest!" last night. Yes, you read that right. Kale.Fest. I love it.





This festival of kale was put on by New Pioneer Food Coop and Earth Source Gardens. This was our first time to visit the gardens and it was beautiful!

























After the festivities that was Kale Fest, Diana and I made a quick trip to New Pioneer to pick up dinner. Lamb burgers for them, a shroom burger for me. We were very European and ate at 9:00 and it was 10:00ish before Nic and I headed home.

My 4:30AM wake up call was fun....! :)

Happy Birthday to me!

dinner with the dukes - celebration

Tonight I surprised Nic with an impromptu dinner date with John and Diana - a celebration was in order.

Yesterday I posted "growing roots" - a post dedicated to our renewed dedication to growing vegetables.

Today's celebratory dinner was in honor of some other roots that have begun to grow just a bit deeper.

{If you are a dear dear friend or family member that is really wanting us to move to Minnesota, I would stop reading just about now.}

Our Iowa roots grew just a little deeper over the weekend.

Nic decided to take on a new job with his company and his first day in that position is Wednesday! This is a great opportunity, a chance for him to grow and to try something new.

It also requited {sort of} a longish term commitment to the company.

Not only is this is great opportunity for him, but it also allows both of us to really live in the present. For quite a while we would dream of moving to Minnesota and make a lot of plans focused around doing just that. I feel that we would focus so intently on that "dream" future, that we were not totally living in the present. Now, I know we are going to be staying put for the foreseeable future and can really plan for and live out our awesome life in Iowa.

Because it is awesome.

So, I tricked Nic when he got home from work and surprised him with dinner with John and Diana at his favorite burger joint in Iowa City - Shorts Burgers and Shine.



I have raved about this place before, but if you are ever in the area you must stop!

They only use beef that was raised in Columbus Junction (just 10 miles from Washington) and pretty much everything is homemade.



And the beer - omg, the actually have good beer on tap! Including our favorite Iowa beer - Peace Tree.

And to top it off - they even have homemade black bean burgers for people like me. :)



Beer, burgers and fries - Nic couldn't ask for anything more.



Well, at last minute stop at Graze and a round (or two) or martinis were icing on the cake.



Congratulations on the new gig, husband!

good time with old friends

On Tuesday night Nic and I headed up to the "big city" to meet up with an old friend, Diana, and her husband John.

Diana and Nic go way back - to elementary school in fact! However, they really didn't know each other.

Diana and myself go way back to middle school where we, together with Laura, were lovers of all things Spice Girls.  :)

Diana ditched the CR scene in high school, but we still managed to run into each other, literally, as we both ran cross country and distance track. We also braved the fridgid temps of Minnesota, donned the lovely spandex in order to ski uphill.

Okay, so I was really trying to dig up a spandex photo...but I am working and don't have time to dig through all of our old photos.  May have to get Barb to look one up for me...?? :)  You know the one I want Barb - Giants Ridge, starting line, Diana and I mentally preparing for the triple climb...

We are looking forward to re-getting to know Diana and John as they plan to live in Iowa while John completes his PhD!