I was going to write two separate posts about my birthday and the Iowa State Fair, but once again i’ve procrastinated too long and so i’m just going to post photos and talk a little bit about them.
For my birthday Nathan got me tickets to three different shows that happened here in Des Moines right around my birthday: Rooney, Phoenix and Tegan & Sara. Rooney was first, and it was a really fun little show in an intimate venue, and it was early in the day which turned out to be nice for us working types. Phoenix was the very next day, and their show was a little too loud and a little too packed and a little too blinding as far as the light show, but it was still fun.
Next came my actual b-day, which i spent trying on wedding dresses, watching Eat, Pray, Love and playing Apples to Apples with a handful of my lovely friends.
A few days later we saw Tegan & Sara, which was definitely an interesting show. They performed at Hoyt Sherman which is a really lovely old venue here in Des Moines. There was no opening band, and T&S played two sets: an acoustic set and one with the full band. During the first set they did some Q&A sessions which got to be a little long-winded, but they’re funny people so it was interesting to hear them talk about some adventures they’ve had both in the recording studio and on the road. We had to cut out of the second set a little early, but i still got to hear all of my favorite T&S songs.
Nathan’s gifts (comic books & concert tickets!)
First thing i saw when i got to work Monday. Love it.
The day after Tegan & Sara, we went to the Iowa State Fair. If you haven’t been to our fair, it’s pretty much the best one in the country. And i say that because i think Martha Stewart said it, or something. It’s all about excess: who grows the fattest pig, the biggest pumpkin, the most enormous stalk of corn; how many calories can we pack into a single $6 fried-on-a-stick commodity; how many big ol’ corn-fed Iowans can you pack into a few hundred acres? I used to absolutely hate it and now i think it’s great fun.
I really wanted to steal a little chickie. They’re SO CUTE.
Our famous Butter Cow. Life-size, all butter.
The biggest pumpkin weighed over 1,000 lbs.
So *that’s* why they call it eggplant.
That cabbage in the back was the size of a beach ball.
…And these were tiny! I like photographing produce…
A sampling of the many, many pretty quilts
This year we ate: mini doughnuts, some rootbeer, a couple of exorbitantly priced brewskis, fried cheese curds (a must), i had 2/3 of a tenderloin (it took a while to find one that wasn’t the size of a dinner plate), and a turkey leg which we took home and made stock with. Have i mentioned that we’re getting really into the whole “domestic” thing?
It’s that time of year again when i get to spend an entire day doing whatever i want! Today i’m on vacation from work so i slept in and looked at all my messages on Facebook, and soon i’ll be going to try on wedding dresses with a few friends and then celebrating the rest of my day with them and Nathan. My lovely friend Jennifer did my nails last night so that i’d look extra glamorous in the dresses:
Happy Birthday to Me! 
Earlier this month Nathan and i journeyed to California to visit my family. It turned out to be quite the Adamo reunion, although we didn’t get everybody in the same house at the same time for various reasons. First of all, my grandparents and my two great aunts live in Corona. My cousin-once-removed, Jo, also lives in southern California. She has a friend who sold her All-Star game tickets to my dad, who was down there for a few days with his buddy Andy. My brother, currently something of a nomad, stopped by for the last couple days of our trip as well. And finally, four of my distant relatives from Belgium began a month-long road trip around the Western U.S. in California, on the same night that we arrived there.
It was great to see everyone, but unfortunately all of the portraits that were taken are on other people’s cameras, so i can’t share them here.
Here are some photos that i took:
We stayed at my grandparents’ house, which is awesome because they make some really tasty European dishes and they insist on feeding their guests as much as possible. Every morning Grandpa makes fresh-squeezed orange juice from the tree in his own back yard. He explained to me that they have two different orange trees; one that produces fruit in the warmer months and one that prefers the cooler months, and this way he gets oranges all year long. If you’ve never squeezed an orange to make your own juice, you really must try it.
Weird flower-looking cactus things
We walked around the neighborhood and i photographed a bunch of the plants in people’s yards because they were just so weird. I told this to Jo and she didn’t understand what kind of world i was used to. I told her “leafy trees,” but i probably should have just said “corn.”
We drove out to the coast on day 2, and we of course experienced a lot of traffic despite having departed in the late morning. When we got there it was cloudy and breezy and cool, and thus i was cranky. When is it EVER not beautiful in California?! We got some In-N-Out burger and then decided to lay on the beach anyway until we could check into our hotel. Gradually it got sunnier, and when we retreated to the hotel we discovered that we had gotten burned something fierce. Tip for living: if you’re a pasty Iowan, don’t just sprawl out on the beach in the middle of the day for two hours and expect not to get roasted, no matter how cloudy you think it is.
This was the view from our hotel balcony. Did i say hotel? I meant resort. That was a surprise that came with several unexpected and incontestable fees. But what’s worse is that we were too sore to even take advantage of the amenities. We made it to Karl Strauss in Costa Mesa and the beer numbed our pain slightly, but we still turned in early and headed back inland right away the following morning.
Side note: it’s been two weeks now since we got burned and i’m still a little bit peely and itchy. I don’t even want to express what a humiliating, guilt-inducing and uncomfortable situation that was. But! We still had a really nice time in California. We wrapped up our trip by exploring the Huntington Library in Pasadena, which was huge and fascinating and could have occupied us for an extra day, easily.
Nathan getting a shot of Pinky. The original.
The bonsai trees were one of the most lovely & interesting things. How do they do that?
Happy Monday, everybody! This weekend was marked by some fun new experiences. At the end of the day on Friday my workplace bid adieu to one of our designers by having a happy hour drink with him on the company’s dime. Gotta love that – especially because it means my job security just increased a fair amount. That’s a feeling i’ve been waiting for for years.*
Saturday we celebrated my friend Calee‘s move back to Ames from Des Moines by hitting the town with her. We got barbecue at Uncle Wendel’s and then went to see the Des Moines Derby Dames‘ roller-derby bout. We lost to the Old Capital City Roller Girls, but it was a fun experience despite the fact that i had to sit on a concrete floor in my short skirt. Hopefully next time they’ll do it in a venue with more seating.
After that we headed to The Lift where i had a grand total of 3.25 drinks and ended up drunk enough to say quite a few silly things, but unfortunately not so wasted that i couldn’t remember them. That Bradie was trying to kill me. I don’t really want to talk about it except to say that i’m sorry if i offended anyone but i had a good time.
Yesterday evening we went over to my grandpa’s house where my mother had been seeing barred owls in the trees for the past few nights. At first we didn’t see them, but Mom was sure they were around because of the commotion from the smaller birds. Sure enough, we spotted one just as we were about to leave. There are four of them hanging around; two adults and two nearly-full-sized babies. We watched all four fly from branch to branch, saw them get pecked by the smaller birds, made noises at the juveniles who made noises back at us and bobbed their heads, and saw one adult feed her babies a small animal.
As it was getting dark, one of the younger owls perched on a post right in the backyard. I got about five paces away from it to try to take photos. It didn’t really work out because of the darkness, but it was amazing to just watch her calmly examine the ground for mice and occasionally swivel her head around to look at us.
This is how i wish my photos had turned out.
It’s been hot and humid here the past couple of days, and that will probably continue for the rest of the week. I’ve been working out several times a week in preparation for dress shopping, but i’m not sure how i’m going to run outside now. I don’t do hot & muggy.
*EDIT: Oh man, i forgot to write about our awesome waitress on Friday night! We went to a place called Paradise Pizza in WDM that we’d never been to, and we had a waitress who was probably just starting out. And had probably never been to a restaurant before. She brought us our beers with straws in them, and brought the check out to us before asking how the meal was or if we wanted any dessert. She wandered around looking bored when she wasn’t helping us. It was an all-around hilarious thing to see. 
We are officially unpacked! The house is all put together and minus a few missing mirrors and a couple of photo frames i’d like to buy, the interior is just the way i want it.
Moving was a pain, as moving always is. We got a key to the new place one week before we had to be out of the old place, and we spent that week packing, taking some boxes over to the new place and painting the bedroom from pink to light gray. Let me tell you, we are not expert painters. I think the last time i painted was about ten years ago and somehow i figured that experience was all i needed under my belt to painlessly paint a bedroom. I was wrong.
We used 2/3 of the gallon of white paint that the landlord gave us on the first coat and the room still looked patchy. So, i decided to buy another gallon, and i figured that changing the color slightly from white to light gray wouldn’t matter much. Wrong again! After the first coat of the gray paint, it still looked patchy. So we went at it again. And after the second coat, we had to go back and fill in what patches still remained. And then we took the tape off the edges, and the trim was messy. I am hiring a professional next time.
Moving the big stuff was easy because we had a team of four helpers and a u-haul. Thank God. Unpacking has taken a lot longer than i thought it would, but it feels awesome now and less than a month has passed. Yay! On with the show:
The house, with our two cars in the two-car garage!
Our kitchen which, sadly, lacks a dishwasher.
The bedroom. Notice the paint job! I want to add a colorful quilt to break up all the gray.
I think we’re calling this room the den, maybe?
We have a weird semi-circular concrete patio thing in the back
And we’ve got a few little plants popping up in the back yard. Happy Spring!
There are more photos in my flickr photo set if that wasn’t enough for you. More details to come.