Kitchen War Zone

Since moving to Arkansas, we have discovered the joys of internet shopping. You have to take measures into your own hands when you are 2 hours from a Coach Outlet or a Bass Pro Shops. :)

Kyle has even graduated to the next level of online shopping with his addiction to Woot and Steep and Cheap - websites with rotating deep discounts that get you to purchase things you don't need within a specified time limit. QVC, anyone?!?

Anyway, the point is to say that it's no longer a surprise when Kyle brings a package in from the porch with his newest toy. Until the most recent package that arrived with ... wait for it ... a Terminator Blow Gun. A who what?!?

Apparently, last time he was in Minneapolis, he hung out with a friend who also has one of these contraptions. I won't name any names, Brent, but Kyle really had fun playing around with it and decided he needed to own one. Hence, the war zone that is our kitchen.

On Wednesday night ... Kyle showed me his skills, blowing little spikes out of this long tube thingy, aiming at a target on the counter. I literally had to announce when I needed to go through the kitchen so that he'd put the weapon down and put his hands up before I walked into the line of fire.



Needless to say, I have put a sign in the backyard warning our little squirrel friends that a predator is on the loose. Let's hope the squirrels are better educated than the locals and heed the warning to keep their distance. Does this look like an innocent face to you?!?

"Toto, I Have a Feeling We're Not In Wisconsin Anymore..."

Mission Accomplished:

... I finally got Kyle's parents out of Wisconsin! :)

While they are not the world travelers that my parents are ... they were gracious enough to drive clear across the map to come visit us in the land of Arkansas. Quite the adventure, as you'll soon see.

We started out with an exotic meal of catfish, of the fried and non-fried variety, at The (famous) Catfish Hole. It was a hit! Kyle's mouth literally starts watering days before we even get to this restaurant, so we knew he wasn't a problem. Mark and Kathy, however, were pleasantly surprised - not only with the catfish, but the unlimited hush puppies that accompanied the meal. True midwesterners ... we love anything that's deep fried. (preferably on a stick, but we'll take it in any form.)
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Saturday, the Petersen boys hit the lake for a day of hunting the mysterious beast of Arkansas ... fish. Mark must be a good luck charm because they pulled in more fish that day than any other day Kyle has been out on the lakes of Arkansas over the past 18 months! Thanks for showing my husband how it's done, Mark!

We were so proud of the boys, that we decided to go get pedicures to celebrate. It was an honor to join Kathy for her first pedicure ... EVER! We did it up right with massage chairs and all. Except, we forgot to get the camera out while in those amazing chairs (relaxing our minds as well as our bodies,) so here we are drying our toes and reading up on the latest celebrity gossip.

Time for a good homecooked meal. Kyle's parents had never seen us work our magic in the kitchen before, and I think we really wow'ed 'em. We sort of have our dinner dance perfected. Kyle usually handles the main course and I coordinate the sides ... and clean up the whirlwind he creates along the way.

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Our timing was perfect, and we feasted on some amazing tenderloin, roasted vegetable casserole (or should I say "hot dish,") salad, biscuits and wine. Mark even admitted it was some of the best steak he had ever had! Now, if you know my father, you'll know that he uses that phrase for absolutely everything ... but Mark is a very tough judge. He is a man of few words so when he decides to tell you that something is the best he's had ... he means it. Nice work, Kyle!

Then it was off to the Arkansan Safari for some real adventure. If you recall, one of our first blogs detailed our very first trip to this crazy drive-thru zoo with my parents. You'll see my Dad is quite the "petting zoo connoisseur" and had camels and other large animals actually IN Kyle's Trailblazer. Brave or crazy ... we're not sure.

Well, we were also brave during our visit ... courageously staring down the animals, right in the eyes with a fierce look on our faces ...

Okay, you caught me ...you'll notice the glass between us and the animals in every shot. Give us a break! We wanted to keep Kyle sane this time around and keep all of our extremities intact ... and I didn't want to scare Kyle's parents out of ever leaving Wisconsin again ... so we had to take it easy. This time, the camel stayed on his side of the car.


We also made time for relaxing on the couch with some football, hit up our favorite pizzeria, took a tour of The University of Arkansas campus and did a little shopping.

We really had a great time with Kyle's parents and are SO grateful that they ventured out of Wisconsin to see us. It was nice to explore Arkansas and spend some quality time together outside of our traditional holiday trips, which are always too busy and always too short.

The family bonding was great and all, but the highlight of my weekend was being awarded my trophy. :) Yes, that's right. I am the Champion of last year's Klimek/Ladsten/Petersen family Fantasy Football League! No, I'm not joking, people. Kyle trained me well. I plan to "repeat the feat" this season and am already on my way with a 2-0 season in progress. We'll have to find a place for this beauty in our new Minnesota home this winter.


Thanks again, Mark and Kathy! We really enjoyed the adventure!

Birthday Babies!

As many of you know ... my ... ehem ... second 29th birthday is coming up in December. This past weekend, I got two of the best early birthday presents EVER! (better get to work, Kyle.)

My Dad was out of town visiting my Aunt Hedy in Cali so my Mom decided to jet out to Austin and visit her little grandbaby. As an early birthday present, she bought me a ticket to join her for the weekend. A-MAZING! I couldn't ask for a better gift! 3 full days with my little nephew is pure heaven.

...and hanging with my Mom, Brother and Sis-in-Law wasn't so bad either. :)

Pretty typical of my visits to see Vaughn, I took hundreds of pictures. Literally, hundreds. Somehow, I didn't take a single one of the entire family together, so I'll have to share separate shots of each family member ...

Here's my big brother, Jeff, showing off his stylish faux-hawk ...

Here's my Mom reading a book ...

Here's my adorable sister-in-law getting ready for work ...

And here's me, taking a nap after a long day of babysitting ...

Good thing I took some time to get shots of the family ... it would have been a shame if I only focused on Vaughn every second of the day. :)

Here's our favorite little Schnitzle watching his first Buckeye victory.

And for my Mom's belated birthday present, we took Vaughn to a photo shoot with his Nana. He's what you would call "a ham for the camera."

I would say, my Mom and I had some pretty fabulous birthdays.

My second gift pales in comparison to a weekend with Vaughn, but I do consider it my baby ...




So, thank you to my Mom for the ticket to Austin. I had a wonderful weekend and am already counting down the days to Christmas in Cleveland with little Vaughn-da-loo! And thank you to Jeff and Kathy for my two favorite babies ... Vaughn and my new Coach bag. They both make me smile. :)

PS - Kyle spent his weekend on the couch with close to 48 hours of pure football, with some frozen pizza's and Dorito's thrown in for good measure. For everyone's sake, there are no pictures to document the event. I must admit that in between the football, he found time to clean the whole house, so I can't complain! Love you, honey!

Lazy Labor Day

It doesn't happen often - but Kyle and I actually took advantage of a 3-day weekend to ... STAY AT HOME! That's right. We didn't travel for once. No road trips, no planes, no visitors ... we just stayed at home, enjoyed each others company and played around in Nortwest Arkansas.

For those that follow our blog regularly, you probably could have guessed that we hit up our local pizzeria, Gusano's, on Friday night. Nothing beats it. We plan to take on the 30 inch pizza challenge (they are now accepting teams) just so we can become part of their decor and get our picture on the wall. Only in America.

We took care of some homeowner duties (less than blogable,) took the boat out for a cruise (you've all seen it before) and cooked some good recipes (if only this thing was scratch and sniff.)

On the more exciting end of things, we celebrated our adopted state and rooted on the Razorbacks in their first game of the season.

Tailgating is universal and Kyle and I generally fit right in on game day ... but this time, I had to put in a little more effort. Football in the South is more of a fashion show for the ladies than I'm used to - they do their hair, wear heels and cute outfits and lots of bling. I even saw a few dresses! Quite a change from the midwestern beer-guzzling, ponytail and sweatshirt girls up North. I did my hair, put on a cute red tee and some bedazzled sandles and blended in pretty well, if I do say so myself.

We had some good seats, courtesy of our good friend, Greg, in the snazzy striped polo. Chaney and Greg are two of our best friends from the Gmills office down here and they happen to be locals (Greg from just west of Memphis, and Chaney from just across the border in OK) so they are good at making sure we soak in the Arkansas flavor.

In our nice view of the field, you can also see our nosebleed seats from the game we went to last year ... the very upper deck on the far left (where no one is sitting ... they know better.)

After the game, we caught a country concert by the Randy Rogers Band, from Oklahoma. Really good tunes, but even better t-shirts. Here I am after the show with my new threads.

"This Guy Digs the Randy Rogers Band"

We also took advantage of the non-100-degree weather and checked out the War Eagle Caverns. We took an hour long tour into the caves. I had to keep a close eye on Kyle ... somehow, he always ended up with the other kids exploring every corner each time we followed our tour guide into a new cavern. Here he is, contemplating darting through the opening to see where that light is coming from. When we add a mini-Kyle to the family, we'll have to keep him on a leash.

Apparently, this area of the country (and more specifically, these caves) are full of bats. I have to admit, they are actually kind of cute when they are sleeping. Had this guy let go of the ceiling and started flying around, I would have a much different opinion.



We're pretty talented with the arms length photo of ourselves ... Kyle holds it perfectly and we finally learned that we don't have to lean our heads to the middle to fit in the frame. We're even super cute in a deep dark cave, huh?!?

A perfect long-weekend at home ... farewell to the hot, humid days of Arkansas summer ... welcome football, cool(ER) weather, fall colors and all around our favorite season!