We have our first real, long-term house guest! Our Matt (he is the Jesus look alike in the Halloween pictures and he was our wedding photographer) got a job here in Madison and is staying with us until he finds an apartment. We are really excited to show off our city and some of our favorite places, like the Essen Haus, Olbrich Gardens, State Street, and the Great Dane. Hopefully the condo won’t get too crowded with another person in it…

Our condo association has been busy this month, and sometimes not in a good way. I’ll save you some time and give you a summary: our condos were apartments two years ago, and were then converted. They were already 8 years old when converted, and instead of fixing stuff, the company just looked the other way. They also didn’t do our budget correctly, shorting us in the areas of snow removal and savings. Now, we have a lot of stuff that should have been fixed and no money to do it. This creates a lot of frustrated home owners and board members.

The good news is I (Jess) am now on the condo board with a few other fresh faces. It should be really exciting actually. Yea, we have problems, but we are only two years old and have 42 places. That means we have the chance to do a lot of really cool stuff, including a web site that Boone and a neighbor are working on. My mom thinks this could be the start of a Paul-Soglin like career, but I don’t know about that (You can read up on this Madison-celebrity from his blog in our linked blogs section). Let’s see what position on the board I get and how the first few meetings go.

Who ever said that Halloween is not for the workplace has never met Terry Tate, Office Ninja. After a month of binging on Miniature BabyRuths, Black & White Nerds, and delicious York Peppermint Pattys today was the culmination of the sugar coma Wednesday. I hope everyone had a stealthy Holiday. For more Ninja entertainment, check out Ask A Ninja.com. I work with the internet everyday…and this is still one of my favorite sites. Enjoy!

Boo! It’s almost Halloween here in Madison, but as you know, the biggest party was last weekend.

We had a few people come into town and stay with, for an afternoon of grilling and the Badger game, and then an evening of drinks and downtown. We hadn’t planned on going to State street, but the majority of our party had not been there for Halloween before, so we got dressed up, picked some designated drivers, and headed out early. We had a couple of hippies, an army general, two badger fans, a brick layer, a school girl, a witch, a horrible badminton accident, and Miss Freakfest (you were lovely Josie).

It wasn’t as crazy as the years Boone and I had been to, but everyone still seemed to be having a good time and our guests were amazed at the spectical. We had to wait in line to get tickets, then wait in line to get onto State Street, but we didn’t have to wait in line to get into the bars. We loved seeing all the costumes, including a pack of hungry hippos, Mario and Luigi chasing a star, and a dead-ringer for Brett Belima (seriously, I wanted to congratulate him on the game!)

You can say what you want about the city’s attempts (Does it actually cost more? Is it really safer? Does it hurt business?) but we had a good time anyway. The police we saw did a good job and the bands were nice to listen to. Until next year, we’ll just have to settle for the parties that go on around football and basketball seasons. Go Bucky!

So our former roommates and best friends Jon & Mel are engaged, and have decided to have their July wedding in Hawaii! Since Boone is the best man and I am a bridesmaid, that means we get to go to Hawaii for a third time. Crazy! They’ve decided on the island of Maui for their ceremony, so it is nice that we get to visit a new island. We may even make a vacation of it and stay there for an extra week!

Until then, we will no doubt pass our wedding experience onto our friends and help them plan out their day. We are really excited for them (and not just because of the tropical trip) and look forward to parties and dresses and favors and invites.

You can check out pictures from our last trip to Hawaii by clicking on the links to the right!

Despite Jess’s massive Oktoberfest head-cold, we departed this weekend with Jon and Mel and headed to Mel’s home town, Indianola, Iowa. We slept most of the way but 6 quick hours later we arrived at Mel’s parents’ farm. We had a great weekend, fishing, tromping around, and relaxing by the fire. We even got to play with Mel’s parents’ new Australian Cattle Dog Puppy, Bloke. He is super cute and makes Jess and I really want a puppy.

All-in-all, Jess and I had a blast. Thanks Jon and Mel for a fun weekend away!

Wow, wow…and wow. If you have never been to Oktoberfest in La Crosse, Wisconsin you are missing out.

Jess and I went up to La Crosse to visit one of my absolute best friends, Andrew Goehner, and crash at his place during the festivities. We also met, and hung out with all weekend, one of Goehner’s friends originally from La Crosse, Erin. She is currently a reporter for News channel NBC 15 here in Madison WI.

Oktoberfest reminded me a lot of St. Patrick’s Day in Milwaukee; the city shuts down for a weekend of partying, streets are closed to traffic, bars have bands, and food can be purchased on every corner.

Unfortunately, Jess came down with a wicked head-cold that she has been fighting all week. Soaked, standing in the rain throughout the 5 hour parade I’m sure did not help things. On the bright side, I finally got my hearing back, from Saturday night. Between the Dweebs on the Oktoberfest grounds and the 80s-90s rock band playing at John’s Bar it was just a tad too loud for my delicate ears.

Overall it was a fantastic weekend and we are looking forward to next year. Thanks Goehner!

This weekend we snagged the old roomies (Jon and Mel) and headed a few miles down the road to this great little Norwegian Apple Garden, appropriately named Eplegaarden. (Located at 2227 Fitchburg Road in Fitchburg, WI)

We spent most of the afternoon wondering the orchard, eating an apple here or there, and looking for the perfect apples to take home. We selv plukkin and wound up splitting a 10lb “Uff Da-full” bag of assorted Cortland, Red Delicious, Jonee, and Golden Delicious apples.

Additionally, we all purchased some wonderful apple cider. Which we drank later that night with a hearty cinnamon stick. If that doesn’t say FALL, I don’t know what does.

Besides making a great centerpiece on our dinning room table and assorted lunchtime snacks. I believe there will be Apple muffins in our near future. Mmmmmm. Mmmmmm.

Here is a link to the latest happenings and events at Eplegarrden.

So, with all the weddings done and summer coming to a close, I’ve been trying to keep busy with other things besides work. My latest adventure? Cooking. We got so many neat kitchen and cooking gifts for our wedding, and I’ve been trying to put them to good use. My favorite is the box of Penzeys Spices we got from Boone’s old co-workers at MSOE. There are lots of grilling, dressing, and pasta spices to try out.

We are also part of a CSA (Community Support Agriculture) and get a box of veggies every two weeks. If you are not familiar with CSA here’s how it works: a regional farm grows local fruits and veggies, packs them, and sends them to local communities. The veggies are organic, it supports local farmers, and reduces our use of gas (you don’t need to ship veggies across the country in trucks). Our CSA program is Harmony Valley in Viroqua, WI and they ship to West and South WI, and the cities. They also have a stand at the Dane County Farmer’s Market and are always busy. The best things we have gotten are the sweet corn, edamame, and asparagus, but we also get tomatoes, strawberries, peas, cucumber, raspberries, and others. The veggies are really fresh, and sometimes we get some weird stuff that we aren’t use to cooking with, so it’s been interesting to try to come up with ways to use them. Luckily this farm sends a newsletter with recipes and tips with the boxes, so I at least have a place to start with my kitchen adventures.

Jess and I took the time this weekend to finish off the chipmunk roaster (aka. our Dryer) project from a month ago. We purchased a dryer exhaust-vent outdoor cage to prevent what happened from EVER happening again. (Thanks for the use of your Calk, Jeff)

You can see how low to the ground our vent is. The old aluminum vent was fairly worthless and as we reveled in its removal, we could see just how flimsy its construction truly was. Every time we ran the dryer the vent flap got stuck wide open, as if to say “Welcome” to the neighborhood critters. From henceforth, this inviting tube of death is exit only!

Like a good Harry Potter book, we are treating our “little dryer incident” like an evil wizard…not to be spoken of again.