caught in the act...

while alex and i were christmas shopping last week, he needed a pit stop, so we ran inside to find a bathroom. unfortunately, the men's room was out of order, but since the woman's room was just one stall, i guarded the door while he went in...i caught a picture on the way out for proof, haha :)

coach heacock's first meet!

this is LONG overdue, but at the beginning of december, alex had his first track meet as a college coach! the meet was at illinois state university, which is located in Normal, IL...that's right, Normal is the name of the town...not totally sure what makes it any more normal than the rest of illinois, but there you have it, haha.

anyways, because it is december in illinois, the meet was indoors at the field house. i had never been to an indoor meet before, and i was totally impressed by how much they pack into this place! the running track obviously goes around the outside, and that includes sprints, distance, hurdles, relays, etc. inside of the track, there is a long jump pit, a high jump area, a pole vault area, and the throwing area.

at indoor meets, only the shot put and a modified hammer (called a weight) is thrown, so no javelin, discus, or real hammer. they throw from within a cage and there is sector with lines showing the distances, just like an outdoor meet (except no grass of course). it was really neat to see alex coaching something outside of his comfort zone, and i even got to meet some of his athletes (who were hilarious). it was a lot of fun to see alex doing something he clearly cares a lot about, and he looked totally official in all of his coaching gear :)

here's a view of the whole meet.


here is alex hard at work, demonstrating something to one of his athletes for his next throw.


this is the throwing area, with the cage and everything!

i promise i have more fun blog posts coming but...

for now i need to express my extreme frustration with president obama and illinois politicians. the obama administration announced today that the federal government is buying a prison complex located approximately 150 miles west of the city of chicago to be used to house detainees currently held in guantanamo bay. you can read all about it here if you're interested in the details (there's also a good/funny quote from my boss on the first page of the article), but i'd also like to give you my side of the story.

president obama pledged to close gitmo this year, but had been totally unsuccessful in finding a place willing to hold the suspected terrorists (what a shock that most americans are opposed to housing terrorists on our soil near their homes). in a last ditch effort to follow through on his pledge and avoid the political backlash from a failure to close gitmo, he approached sen. dick durbin and gov. pat quinn of illinois, both fellow democrats from obama's "home" state, to call in a favor. then, without fully investigating the impact that moving suspected terrorists near america's third largest city could have, durbin and quinn agreed to make it happen, no matter the reaction from illinois' citizens. the pitch was simple - opening the thompson correctional facility will create new jobs, about 3,00 of them.

this situation blows my mind for 3 reasons. first, apparently illinois democrats in charge of the welfare and protection of their state cannot find a more creative way to create jobs than to bring in terrorists. second, our president refuses to acknowledge the reality that most americans don't want terrorists brought to their country, let alone chicago's backyard. and third, if anyone thinks that closing gitmo will stop terrorists from using this new facility in in illinois as a recruiting tool, they are completely bereft of common sense. moving gitmo to illinois will not undermine the stigma of gitmo; it will only relocate it.

that is enough of my soap box for one day :) i am loading pictures to my computer tonight so i should be posting lots more fun things soon!

the real arctic tundra

today in chicago it is FREEZING. when i went downstairs at 7:00 to take leonidas out, the thermometer outside the house said .1 degrees. POINT 1 degrees. when i got to work, this is what weather.com reported:


if you can't read it, that's "Feels Like -21". poor leonidas was doing really well in the snow until today...today it is just too cold for his little paws to handle. obviously, he'll have to go out sometime to use the...facitilities...but this morning it wasn't happening. maybe i'll try again later when we reach the high for the day...12. at least it's still double digits (for now!).

first day of snow!!!

two posts in one day is totally unlike me i know, but there were just multiple noteworthy things to share today, so here we go!

today is the first day of snow in chicagoland! it's just some flurries, and the ground is still too warm for anything to stick, but still...it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

as a general rule, i love the snow from December through the end of January, so for about 2 months. any snow before or after that, and the pretty white snow turns into brown, cold slush and that i do not appreciate. but for now, i'm going to celebrate the beginning of what will hopefully be a very white Christmas season!

this just happened...

but first, a little background. as you know, i bring leonidas to work a lot and he's always been great, never had any "marking" problems (i.e. doing his business in the office), very calm, etc. there is another woman who works in the office who has a cavalier king charles spaniel puppy named lucky who is probably 18 lbs. or so. she's brought him in a few times and he and leonidas haven't really gotten along - lucky is pretty hyper and jumps all over leonidas (and me - he scratched my face once) and then leonidas barks, yada yada yada.

well today, hudson was going to be alone most of the day and i knew we had no volunteers in the office this morning, so i decided to bring both he AND leonidas to work with me. for the first several hours, everything went great! the dogs were calm, chewed their bones, slept, etc. no trouble at all.

then lucky arrived. as the three started playing, leonidas started freaking out, so i picked him up and went to lock him in my office. i came back out to the front just in time to see hudson challenging lucky by "marking" a trash can. thankfully he only got a few sprinkles out before i stopped him. i took hudson back to lock him into my office with leonidas and went to clean up the mini-mess. i came back to take both of my dogs outside, and while i was putting their leashes on, lucky decided to leave some #2 all over the front office. awesome.

so, i finally get hudson and leonidas outside, and all is well until leonidas starts to do his #2. as he is squatting, hudson starts to go #1, aimed right at leonidas. thankfully, i knew to watch for this, as it happened earlier this week and unfortunately my mom wasn't able to stop it (this incident was immediately followed by an extended bath in the laundry tub). i caught hudson in time, but just barely.

to top things off, hudson tried to eat a dead bird on our way back to the office. good thing he knows what "drop" means, because there was no way i was yanking that out of his mouth.

normally, having two dogs is actually more fun than stress. not today. but at least i got a good story out of it :)

here's a picture of the calm before the storm.

cooking like crazy!

for thanksgiving this year, my mom decided to take advantage of having me home and put me to work, which basically meant i did most of the cooking and she did most of the cleaning. so, tuesday before before thanksgiving, i made two pumpkin pies (homemade crusts and all), and then wednesday i took the day off from work to prepare a sweet potato souffle, green bean casserole, two pans of stuffing, egg casserole (for breakfast), cinnamon muffins (also breakfast), and to top it all off, i made a spice cake for my grandpa's birthday (it's his favorite).

between thanksgiving at the midlands and now with my family, i feel pretty prepared to host thanksgiving at my house someday! although i might need katie's advice on the turkey :)

reception site selected!

after 3 weeks of intense searching, we have finally settled on a reception site for the wedding :) i had been feeling like we were just going to have to settle for a place that was just available, affordable, and capable of getting the job done, even if it didn't feel particularly special to us, but my mom kept looking diligently and we actually ended up picking the second-to-last place we looked at!

it is called the Royal Fox Country Club, and we love it for several reasons. first and foremost, it reminds us of W&M! the building is modeled after Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's home in VA, complete with a small rotunda. the interior has a unique colonial feel, with a wood paneled library and decorative oil lamps. second, we'll have the place all to ourselves, so we won't be competing with other DJs or wedding guests. third, the rooms have lots of big windows looking out over the golf course with pretty picture spots close by. and lastly, it was both available and affordable, haha.

with the major decision made (church and reception site), it's on to colors, dresses (including mine of course), flowers, photographers, DJs...so i guess there's still lots to do, haha. oh well, we are definitely making progress!!!

cliche town names

i think it is my destiny to move to a town with a cliche name...apparently it's the cool thing to do. after all, chris and katie did recently move to Farmville and i just found out that anna, a friend from high school, moved to Summerland, CA. Summerland? Seriously? i'm reminded of the first time i told someone (jennie perhaps?) that i grew up in Naperville, and she thought i said "Neighborville". ahh if only i had grown up in Neighborville...then i could be a part of the cliche town club too :)

my new office

as you all know, i recently started my new job and so far i really like it! the work is challenging, my days are busy, and i think i'm really making a difference, so that feels great. you should also know that with my new job came an office upgrade...as in, now i have one and it has a much different feel than a room full of, say, 7 other people. so here is the grand tour!

this is my desk, with my chair for meetings (usually it's just leonidas's chair, but every now and then a real person sits in it, haha). my chair is a giant blue velour-ish feel...it's not your typical office chair but it's comfy and leonidas and i both fit in it when he feels like the other chair is getting lonely.


here is the view from my desk...the highlights include a picture of my fiance :), my morning cup of peppermint tea, and my favorite blue pencil cup/square.


and here is where leonidas is supposed to lay! i used this box to bring things into the office, and then i realized with a few towels, it would make a good little puppy bed. he's also got his two blue dog bowls, and several toys/cheweys not shown here.


so that's the grand tour! hope you enjoyed it :)

going to the chapel...

this weekend my mom, alex, and i went on the hunt for venues for the wedding! and we are really really really excited that we found a church! i took a few pictures of the outside and the interior to give you guys a feel for it...it's really old (built in the 1800's i think), we'll pack the house (it only seats 200), and it's gorgeous inside with stained glass windows, lighting in the pews, and a really pretty alter. my amateur photography doesn't do it justice, but hopefully a photographer will!

here's the exterior (keep in mind, it's november so the grounds will be really pretty in august)


here's the alter (with my mom and the rental attendant)...the windows are colored but with the sun coming through, it's hard to see.

and here is the interior from the entrance to the chapel...

we are...PENN STATE!!!

on halloween day, my family and i celebrated with a little family rivalry...northwestern vs. penn state football! it was a chilly chicago day so we were all bundled up for the afternoon in the stands (i wore a northwestern tshirt under my penn state sweatshirt...nothing like a good compromise!). we got to watch joe paterno himself make his way out on to the field with the ever-inspiring nittany lions...in the end, penn state came out on top, so at least some of us were pleased :)

pumpkin carving

i love love LOVE carving pumpkins, so i was super excited about this halloween for alex and i to carve our first pumpkin...i even sported my "i heart pumpkin pi" apron for the occasion (thanks kayla!).


we decided (meaning i decided...but alex was a good sport, haha) to carve the old WM logo, feathers and all! here's the finished product...


here is it lit, complete with a pumpkin spice candle! what do you think? i was pretty proud of us/myself :)

wm homecoming!

for homecoming, alex and i made the trek down to williamsburg, starting in the dulles airport, where alex was really pleased that i was taking pictures...


when we got there, we wandered around the campus and saw our favorite sites...including the crim dell.


then, alex successfully snagged us some tickets to the sold out JMU football game!

moving to Chicago!

so i have been a serious blogging slacker, but i have been taking lots of pictures, so i'm going to try to update you all even though it's late :) a few weeks ago, i made the big move to chicago! thanks to lots of help from my parents and alex, i finally made it. on the way, we stopped at alex's parents new house and took some pictures with the truck for posterity's sake.


we actually saw some serious snow on the drive through the PA mountains...in the middle of october, i was NOT prepared for that!


alex forgot his sunglasses, so he got to sport mine while he was driving...i think he pulls it off quite nicely, haha.

apple picking!!!

farmville post #4 - sunday we spent apple picking in charlottesville. it was a B-E-A-utiful day and an incredible orchard. we all ate lots of apples, delicious apple doughnuts, and enjoyed the incredible scenery. and, i am thrilled to say, i finished my last apple today! what did you guys make with your apples? i just ate lots of peanut butter haha

photo-tastic!

farmville post #3 - sorry this is soooo late, but better late than never right? anyways, after kicking field goals behind chris and katie's house, we ran around taking lots of fabulous photos...these are the golden times! enjoy!

move over robbie gould!

farmville post #2: saturday afternoon we went out to a field behind chris and katie's house to kick some field goals! everyone got at least one through the uprights, although it took several tries...thankfully, this gave us some excellent opportunities for action photos :)

i chose the "i wish i was square dancing over enthusiastically" dance approach:


katie chose to be more scientific, focusing on incorporating the word "fulcrum" into her description of this technique:

stina went with the ever-reliable high kick follow through...seriously, she could be a rockett!



jennie abandoned her foot all together and went in with her shin instead:

Farmville USA!

this weekend stina, jennie, and i traveled to farmville to visit katie and chris in their new hometown! this is the first of several posts from the weekend (we took LOTS of pictures)...this one is dedicated to sites around town :)

when we drove into town, jennie spotted this burger king sign advertising "funnel cake fries"...we didn't go in for a sample, so i still have no idea what a funnel cake fry actually is. then, katie showed us a bit of the local flavor: Captain America. apparently, Captain America struts up and down the side of the street most days waving this flag to passers-by (he doesn't like getting his picture taken though, so we had to sneak this one from the back). we also went to see hampden-sydney college, where both chris and katie work, so here are a few shots of the basketball court/stands, katie in her very official-looking office, and the group outside of katie's building. enjoy...lots more to come!

baaaad hair day

this morning while i was walking leonidas (lots of weird things happen when i walk leonidas), a bumble bee flew into my hair and got trapped! i immediately freaked out, flipped my head over, and started shaking my head and swatting at my hair to try and get it out. i was successful, but it was terrifying. thanks to all of the tussling and frantic mussing with my hair, on top of the humid weather, i had to show up at work with hair like jennifer grey in dirty dancing...it was so frizzed out i had a good 3 inches of hair reaching out from my head in all directions. here's a picture to help you visualize:

needless to say, i switched to a ponytail as soon as i could find the hair tie in my bag :)

two weird things happened to me today

first, i was walking leonidas before work, heading down chris and katie's old street when all of a sudden i noticed it was raining on just one part of the sidewalk. then i realized it was actually a car backed in to a parking spot that was spraying his wiper fluid...on the front end of his car. this means that his wiper fluid dispenser is powerful enough to blast it across the whole length of the car, over the grassy patch on the curb, and onto the sidewalk. it was like a super soaker, i kid you not.

second, i was in the bathroom washing my hands when another woman came out of a stall with her pants still undone, just buttoning them up in front of the sink. why on earth would any one do this?? it's not like she didn't know i was in there because i was running water...add that to the list unprofessional things people do in office bathrooms. ugh.

brian urlacher and obstacle courses

so i just remembered a dream i had last night...in it, brian urlacher and i were really good friends, hanging out with a group of our other friends doing a timed obstacle course. in case you were curious, i won.

for those of you who don't know, brian urlacher is a chicago icon...he was the bears starting middle linebacker until he broke his wrist in the season opener last week (i was crushed and i don't want to talk about it). anyways, apparently in my dreams i am faster than a 9 year NFL veteran...this is the real reason i should get more sleep :)

sneeze much?

yesterday at work one of the women i share an office with sneezed 9 times in a row! i thought this was pretty intense, since the most i've ever done is 4. well, this got me thinking about the record for most sneezes in a row, and thanks to google, i have discovered it is FAR more than i ever even thought possible. check out just one of the articles about this little record setter here.

977 DAYS?!?!? that is more than 2.5 years of sneezing every 1-5 minutes...can you imagine the day she finally stopped sneezing??? i mean seriously, after that had to be a weird day.

successful trip

i am back in DC after a week of traveling and i have to say, it was a very busy, really fun trip! last friday i drove to cleveland and spent the night hanging out with my cousin and her then-fiance/now-husband. we went to a county fair where they had a whole cornhole booth! you could buy "designer" bags and other accessories...hilarious. the weekend was spent visiting with both sets of my grandparents, and hanging out with family. monday, alex, my dad, and i went car shopping but were unsuccessful...i couldn't get as much for my car as i'd hoped, so i've decided to keep it for a while longer (plus who could resist the appeal of crank windows??).

tuesday, alex and i had dinner with my friend perry and his fiance mallory. it was great to catch up with them and hear about their wedding plans (next june!). wednesday, i went out chicago and spent the day with alex, getting his apartment set up and touring the campus, his office, etc. it was a really great day of relaxing and enjoying being together; we even made an authentic gino's east frozen pizza for dinner, the hallmark of any chicago experience :)

thursday night, we drove down to indianapolis late in the evening, and the next day the boys went to play golf while the girls had nail appointments. that night was the rehearsal (chaos) and the dinner (super fun), and then i spent the night with the bridal party in preparation for the wedding the next day. the wedding day was even more chaos, but after some hair drama, several hours of pictures, and a beautiful ceremony complete with the cutest flower girl and ring bearers, my cousin was officially married and the real fun began.

the reception was a lot of fun, and it was great to catch up with so much family! we danced and drank and laughed the night away until the bride and groom left and my family (true to form) was one of the last to leave. sunday i tackled the 9 hour drive back to DC, made it with one stop and no traffic, and now i am back at work (yay monday!).

so to recap, i completed all of my "definitely" tasks, but only one of my "hopefully" tasks (no tripping down the aisle, but hudson had a minor injury so we didn't even make it to the dog park). however, the trip was still a definitely a success!

travel time!

i am so excited because this weekend i am driving out to chicago to spend a whole weekend with alex and my family! friday i'll be driving to cleveland and staying with my cousin (whose wedding is the purpose of the trip), and then saturday i'll make the second half of the journey to the greater chicagoland area.

while i'm there, i will be doing lots of fun things. as a preview, i've included some of the things i'm most excited for and divided the list into what i will hopefully do and what i will definitely do:

hopefully

• trade in my car for a new, snow-appropriate one
• teach leonidas to swim by watching hudson, who is an expert, while keeping him from doing his business on my parents' carpet (wouldn't want to repeat that part of christmas)
• talk my parents into buying me a digital camera as a early birthday/we're glad you're moving to chicago present (in which case i'll be sure to post new pictures)
• avoid any tripping or crying walking down the aisle at the wedding

definitely

• help alex finish setting up his apartment
• eat chicago-style pizza
• celebrate my brother's birthday and my parents' 30th anniversary
• hang out with all of my extended family including their awesome kids

of course, the whole trip is going to be a blast and i'll be sure to update you all throughout. i hope you enjoy whatever you have planned for labor day!!!

Coach Heacock :)

last week alex was featured in his first north park press release! take a look at the link below and you can read all about it :)

http://www.northpark.edu/Athletics/Mens-Sports/Track-and-Field/Coaching-Staff.aspx

new pet name

now don't get too excited, i'm not getting a new pet. however, i did decide today after reading several MLIA posts, that whenever i do get another pet (meaning dog or cat), i am going to name it waldo, so that whenever i look for it, i can say "hey, where's waldo??". haha...now none of you can steal it, i call dibbs :)

also, we discovered today that we can get pandora at work! still no gchat, but its something. whoo hoo!!

pee schedule

today i ran into a coworker in the bathroom 3 times in a row...thankfully, when i made the joke about being on the same pee schedule like turk and dr. cox on scrubs, she knew exactly what i was talking about, which is good because otherwise talking about "pee schedules" could be really awkward.

wandering mind...

today on my way home from the metro, my mind was wandering as i walked. somehow, i stumbled upon some realization that i wanted to blog about, and yet now, as i sit down to blog, i have no idea what i was thinking about and so the realization is lost...hopefully my mind will wander back there at some point. until then, sorry for the pointless post, but it really bothers me that i can't think of it and i thought if i started writing it would job my memory...it didn't.

alex's new apartment!

so it's been a really long time since i blogged (sorry!) but i thought i'd get back into it with some pictures! as most of you know, alex drove to chicago on monday and thanks to a little help from mama and papa kramer, he is all moved in to his new place! he started his seminary orientation today, and is doing really well do far :)

here are some pictures of his apartment...it's in the basement of a house about a tenth of a mile from campus, so the location is great, and i think the space is pretty nice too! he's going to pick up some furniture to fill it out, but these will give you the basic feel for it. enjoy!

today i ate a tootsie pop at work and felt slightly unprofessional. but i didn't have a choice because i forgot to bring a new pack of gum.

also, i have been reading too much MLIA, because now i'm talking like those posts. awesome.

4th of july weekend

this weekend i went down to williamsburg to welcome alex back to the states from nicaragua and celebrate 4th of july in our nation's birthplace. unfortunately, he came back with a bout of bronchitis, so we spent most of the weekend eating, watching movies, and napping (pretty excellent weekend if you ask me, haha).

as for movies, we saw public enemies with johnny depp (pretty good if you like gangster movies), taken with liam neeson (awesome but kind of makes me afraid to travel alone again), and valkyrie with tom cruise (didn't have the same enthusiasm for this one as maggie...i feel asleep like 4 times, and as expected, i struggled to find tom's portrayal of a nazi at all convincing).

we also drove down to the law school to watch the fireworks from the car, which was fun. leonidas was less than pleased with all of the exploding noises but he recovered. then while sitting in traffic to get home, alex and i traded off throwing snappers out the windows, which was surprisingly quite amusing.

hope you all enjoyed the long weekend! happy birthday america!

keys in a tree

today while walking leonidas, i saw this:


it is a set of keys in a tree. i have no idea what they were doing there, but let me tell you, it took all my willpower (and the desire to avoid having the police called on me again) not to take the keys down and try them in various things (i.e. the car in this picture, the house whose yard the tress was in, etc). so as a note of caution, don't leave your keys in a tree, because someone with less restraint than i may try to break in :)