Tuesday Shoes-day

In honor of Black Friday and the fact that I'll be sleeping, working out and relaxing while millions of crazies roam the stores and the streets, I'd like to offer a little mathematical equation dated 11.24.09:

Summer + Fargo + Nicole + sushi at Yokohama - the presence of any alcohol + joyriding in the sick new Haines-mobile + a get-boots-for-Sum-mission at DSW + a jaunt to Valley Fair mall = 8 pairs of shoes purchased in 2 hours.

That's right, EIGHT. By three people. That's 2.66 pairs per person, or 1.33 pairs per person per hour...yikes. We basically each bought 2% of a shoe every minute for a solid 120 minutes...wow.

Oops. I'll have you know that:
A: most pairs were on riiiiiiidiculous sale
B: I bought the fewest of the bunch (small victories!)
C: I'm completely aware that my insane recent shopping spree won't fill the void left because Rob is temporarily away (for just 21 more days folks - woot!)
D: I'm going cold turkey, starting NOW. Seriously. I have to...

Yeah...I may add pics at some point, but YOU try wrangling up pics of 16 shoes between three girls. It's no easy "feet" (hah! Lame...but I had to).

gobble gobble

Happy turkey day!

I couldn't decide. That, and I reallllllly want you to have a happy Thanksgiving!

my love can be bought...

...but it doesn't need to be! In a longish chain of events, I stumbled upon a new addiction: Ruche. Lately, I've been trying to step up my game in the wardrobe department (the cooler weather this season definitely helps that...years of living in NorCal and SD don't equal a lot of clothing for chilly temps), and Ruche has been a key player.

I found the online boutique through the fantastic Stephanie Williams, Elissa and Lee's engagement/wedding photographer. She shot the Ruche lookbook this year, and inadvertently sent me into a shopping tailspin. Ooopies. The prices are suuuuuuper reasonable, the staff is fabulous, and the clothes...oh, the clothes. So delicious. *sigh*

So when I saw a post on the Ruche blog announcing a MASSIVE Black Friday sale and a $100 giveaway, I responded with, "Oh, you'd like me to jump, would you? How high?!" Here's the hard work I'd have to do for it:

Go there. Buy pretty things. Be happy. Everyone will win.

A little free advertising for them could mean a little spending money for me. Fingers (and toes) crossed!

Danger with a capital 'D'

There's a brand spankin' new Target approximately two minutes from my house. And it's a Super Target or whatever, so it has fresh produce and waaaaaaay more groceries than I've ever fathomed a Target could hold.

I may or may not have visited the world's best Target three times this week. I could walk there if I wanted. And I will. The only oddity we've seen with shiny new Target is that every single employee may be under 21. No joke. And it doesn't yet have any clearance sections because all of the stock is new/current products. If only the Target Lady worked there, I swear I'd snag a stash of blankets and make myself a fort right there in the store.

Pumpkin yogurt and mini Haagen-dazs? Yes, please.
Bananas and salad mixes? Sure, I'll take some of those.
Frosty beers? Uh-huh.
Random kitchen staples? Toss a few in my cart!
Spinach Artichoke dip and fresh French bread? Now we're gettin' craaaaazy.

Dear glorious new Target, Given your intense supply of cold beer, random snack foods and legit groceries, I think we're gonna be goooooooooood friends. Please don't bankrupt me. Kthanxbai. Love, Nicole

I hope the Terrrrgit lady is right and Heaven does have a Terrrrgit

y-o-g-a

Yoga is one of those things that I ADORE...when I'm there. Getting to a class, however, takes an act of God most days. Things tend to get in the way: Target, happy hour, my general laziness. After the shenanigans of this weekend, I neeeeeeeeded yoga in my life. So I went. For the second consecutive Monday. That's big progress for me. And as usual, I loved it. The end. *sigh*

happy early Thanksgiving!

Yup, here at adventuresofnicoleandrob.blogspot.com, we're celebrating a week early. PS: when the hell did it become NOVEMBER?!?!?! Less than six weeks until Christmas = not okay. Urgh.

So. Since Rob will be in Costa Rica on the day of Thanksgiving, I cooked up a mini-version of the feast on Saturday using a few o' Rachel Ray's speedy recipes. Naturally, I modified the hell out of 'em (turkey thighs with skin? nah...I'll go with skinless breasts, thankyouverymuch), but it was edible, which is more than I can say for a certain soup I attempted recently...

The menu:

• Early Bird Turkey with Pan Gravy (Dear RR, where the HELL were my pan-drippings for said gravy?! Liar.)
  
• Apple-and-Date Stuffing (which became Apple-and-Raisin-and-Cranberry Stuffing)
• Golden Mashed Taters

The supplies:

(yes, wine is a crucial supply...)

The results (just 1 hour and 10 minutes later!):

While the turkey looks suuuuuper white and bland in this shot, and I couldn't find thyme to save my life today, it was pretty good. The star of the show, in my opinion, was the stuffing. Legit. Annnnnd, Rob had never had sausage in stuffing before, so I may have created a monster...

Trader Joe's was lacking in the pumpkin dessert department, so we opted for something just as good for us...nothing says fat-and-happy like a microwaveable lava cake...FTW

I love our point&shoot's macro:



Our early Turkey Day made me anxious for two things: 1 - the real T-Day (and the accompanying pumpkin pie) and 2 - Rob to be home (4 weeks and counting!)

Costa Rica - the wrapup

Since I never quite got around to blogging about the second half of my Costa Rica trip (and have been back over a full month...), here's the speedy breakdown of the rest of our adventure:

During the week, we hung out on campus since Rob had classes and group projects before enduring a racuous party on Thursday night, complete with Milwuakee's Best beer. Yikes.

(Andrew, Mark & Rob)

Toward the end of my trip, we jumped in a slightly larger SUV with the Germans and headed to the coastal town of Dominical for some surfing. Many of the beaches in Costa Rica are named "Playa Hermosa", and we surfed at one of them on Saturday:



I made one minor mistake while surfing: forgetting/refusing to reapply sunblock. Whoops. I flew home in full lobster mode and proceeded to flake alllllll over our apartment and my office for the following week. It hurt. Mother Nature won. As in whooped my ass. I learned a hard lesson. Everything worked out in the end...yay.

owwwww.

We swung by Playa Ballena (Whale Beach) before heading back to Alajuela:

a sign warning that there were crocodiles in the brackish water where the river met the sea...

...and the families obviously paying close attention to the signs
HAH!

On our way home, yet another bridge had collapsed, and we were forced to take the lonnnnnnnng and winding road dubbed "Cerro de la Muerte" for its perilous turns and many fatalities. Greeeeaaaatttt. Six hours, fog that wouldn't quit, and a few missed exits later we finally ended up back at INCAE.

my wobbly view from the back seat. clearly there ain't much light. there were moments when we literally couldn't see a single inch beyond the front of the car, and we literally continued by feel along the dots in the road...scary might not begin to describe it

I was suuuuuuuuuuper bummed to leave on Sunday (to the point that I may or may not have alarmed the customs agent with my puffy eyes and florescent red face), and endured an far-from-eventful flight back to the States. Monday at work was ugly, but I'm almost back into the swing of things now...almost.

Elissa + Lee = married!

Just one week ago, on November 7th, 2009, Lis and Lee made it official. (Lee, feel free to bookmark the link to this post so you can remember your anniversary in coming years...!) The day was as smooth as silk, (and prettier than a double-rainbow) to the point where I felt all funny that there wasn't a hundred things to do or anything for us to set up. The ladies lounged around in the morning enjoying mimosas and the Bean. Since none of you tuned in to hear my lame recap of the day, lets move on to the pics, shall we?!

at the cocktail party before the rehearsal dinner

h2o + mimosas + pumpkin latte = breakfast of champions

bows!

Jen & Elissa

Nic & Lis

Molly & our gorgeous bride

Lindsay & Mrs. J

as per usual, we found trouble while waiting our turn for photos

as a bit of an icebreaker and to pump Lee up (more), there was a bit of a surprise for guests when I reached the head of the aisle

Elissa & Rory (who I've known since he was born...)

To surprise his new wife, Lee orchestrated a duet with Molly. The whole operation was very covert, with only fiver or six people in the loop. Since Molls was slotted to give a joint toast with me, and the two needed rehearsal time, we had a helluva time slipping things by the bride-to-be. Elissa was shocked to say the least ("wait...this isn't in the timeline!" so proud.) and the whole thing went off fabulously...

One thing I'd like to point out, however, is that I ROCKED the toast. Killed it. I was nervous and anxious and wanted it to be perfect. And since I was nervous, I joked for weeks that I'd be passing on hard-core boozing, *coughcough* celebrating, at the cocktail hour (you know, so I wouldn't make a complete fool of myself), but would sure as hell make up for it immediately following my toast with a quad o' beers. Rob took the next (sneaky) step upon himself and ensured that there would be four secret beers slammed upon our table as my toast wrapped up. He and a buddy 'went to the restroom' and snuck off to the hotel room to get contraband Bud Light for post-toast chugging. After I handed off the microphone and high-fived Elissa, Rob opened his suit coat like a watch-hustler on the street and pulled out the beers. You can see why I love this man, right?!

The whole weekend was one amazing breeze of fun...it flew by so quickly, but we're still laughing about some incidents today (like the near-brawl during the bouquet toss in which someone ended up on the floor...and the three-peat of garter tossing, since none of the guys really wanted to catch it the first two times...hah!).

Congratulations to the newly-minted Mr. and Mrs.! Love you tons, and can't wait to do it again next year... ; ]

coming attractions

With a not-so-tiny nudge over dinner last night, I realized that I've been twelve kinds of remiss with my blogging of late. HEY - I've been busy! My oh-so-fun to do list does include blogging among the awesome chores of scrubbing the shower and buying cat food, so here's a preview of what's to come (or a note to self to help me remember what I want to blog about when the time comes to do so):

- Elissa and Lee got married last weekend, and I have pics to prove it
- Rob is in town for the week (!) and we've been running around for family visits
- I've been up to my eyeballs in mailing lists, which at times makes me rethink my love for Excel

Happppppppy Friday!