Finally a night on the town

We had a big achievement last night...our first night away from Addison for a nice date! I want to thank my little sis for the inspiration. After finding out she and Bill were heading our on a date night, Meghan was jealous but torn with the idea of leaving our baby girl alone for a whole night. I assured her if anyone can do a good job watching our little girl at night during her "cranky" time, its her parents who see her every night!

We decided to go for it and I called Saji Ya on Grand and set up our reservation for 2!

We fed Addison and got ready for our date. I grabbed the camera on our way out just in case there was anything fun to take a picture of...we always seemed to think there was back when we were dating! Luckily I did as it provided for some good memories...plus I know Beth hates it when we blog without pictures. ;-)

We arrived at the restaurant and were sat at an almost full table with a family of 5 and a couple on a date. Meg ordered a glass of wine which when you are breast-feeding, is a really nice treat! One of the cool thing about Teppanyaki tables is its more of a social atmosphere...we started talking to the couple next to us right away and really hit it off! David and Trish were a fun couple in their late 30's that had only been dating for about 2-3 months. They were high school friends that reconnected recently on facebook after each going through a divorce. It was fun to see the "young love" that they had building already! Trish and Meg really hit it off so they kept the conversation interesting!

The dinner was fabulous, and so was the preparation. For some reason I didn't take any pictures of the cook making the food, I think was too busy eating it! We shared the Saji Ya which is steak, chicken, and lobster. Luckily my wife doesn't like lobster so I got it all to myself! After dinner the family on the other side of the table started to pull our presents and we realized it was someone's birthday! How exciting! The camera came back out...who doesn't want their picture taken when opening presents, right!?! :-) The first present for Liz (who's name we learned AFTER taking her picture) was a DeWalt power drill...you heard that right. The second gift was a HUGE set of drill bits...later we find out that Liz, who looks maybe 20 but is 25, is a welder! After taking their pictures, the family opened up a lot more and we had some fun times chatting with them too.

The night was still young so we headed over to Dixie's (next door) for a nightcap with David and Trish. After some more fun times, it was time to head home and "rescue" Doug and Jeannie and put our little angel to sleep for the night. We got home at about 9:30 to find her sleeping in Jeannie's arms and she was DONE for the night. I put her in her sleep sack and she was out until early this morning. It was a nice end to our night to have our daughter already sleeping and staying asleep (which is NOT something she always does). We hope to have more nights like this, it was nice to have a night to ourselves to just enjoy one another like it was before Addison came into our lives. Thanks Doug and Jeannie for allowing us to have this night!

Our first party BACK in Minnesota

Living at your parents (or in laws in my case) has some restrictions (though Doug and Jeannie are GREAT about giving us our own space)...one of which is that its kind of hard to have big groups of people over when you are sharing someone's house. When we found out they were going to the UK to visit Patrick & Susan, we jumped at the opportunity to have friends over for a little shindig. What better time is there than celebrating the New Year!?!

We both love entertaining so throwing a party was something we were both super excited to do! We told everyone we'd take care of the food ourselves and we decided to do one of our favorite things...FONDUE! If you go out for Fondue, its like $50 a person, but really its MUCH cheaper to do yourself though there is some prep work involved. We had a cheese fondue and a chocolate fondue with lots of dipping options. It worked out great with the grazing atmosphere we were going with at the party.

Our new WiiFit even got a little use as people tried it out to see what the rage was about. Since many of our friends now have young children, they came and left whenever they needed to but we managed to still have 8 people (including us) still there as the ball dropped! It was a really fun night, so thanks to everyone that came by and spent their New Years Eve with us! I don't have any pictures but if anyone who came does, feel free to send them and I'll post them!!

Merry Christmas to all...

We wanted to take a moment to wish all our friends and family who read our blog a wonderful and very merry Christmas. In the new year we plan to be more active in our blogging as life starts to slow down some more...we hope to have you all as avid readers! Thanks for the memories this year, we love you all!

Trevor, Meghan, and Addison

The Best Buy Story

Apparently not everyone knows about our Best Buy experience two years ago. It was Thanksgiving 2006, my first MAJOR holiday away from my family since Easter back in college when I celebrated Easter with the Rossetti family (that was an experience). Since my family is in WI and Meg's is here we decided long ago that trying to do both families is an impossible task so we split Thanksgiving and Christmas and we visit one family for each...that family gets our full attention if possible for the holiday then!

Anyway, Thanksgiving in 2006 was our first year together and this was the first holiday to try this out. I was missing my family and adjusting to how another family does Thanksgiving (actually Patrick and Susan were hosting which was kind of fun). After the meal finished, we were perusing the Black Friday ads, laughing about people who wait outside in the cold when I notice MY television on the Best Buy ad. I had just accepted my new position earlier in the year and had some "bonus" money stewing in an account waiting for the right opportunity to buy myself a nice flat screen after years of suffering with a 27" for so long.

All of a sudden Patrick, Meg's brother, says hey a couple of friends and I were going to camp out at Best Buy tonight to get that TV along with some other deals.

I turned to Meghan and said "is this your families Thanksgiving tradition?" realizing that I just proposed the day before and I was wondering what kind of a family I was getting joining!

Luckily this was a first and not a tradition. The more I thought about it, getting an $1800 TV for $1000 was too good an offer to turn down and Meg and I decided to join Pat and his friends.

For our readers in distant lands (like California) this is a MUCH bigger commitment here than it is by you...temps that night were in the teens I think and Meg and I were both there from out of town and didn't pack for camping in the snow. We grabbed blankets from the Corcorans though and bundled as many layers on as we could and got to Best Buy at 6 pm...the day before! Doors opened at 6 am the next morning...yes 12 hours later.

I didn't know what to expect, I always laughed at people that did stuff like this! We got to Best Buy in Maplewood to be among the first 10 people in line...which means there were actually people that were there BEFORE 6 pm!! We brought our stuff out and staked our territory. The night was filled with cards, throwing around a football, and sneaking off for late night Perkins meals in small groups (while others stayed behind guarding our spot).

Around 4:30 am things started to get interesting. The line was now around the back of the building...it felt GREAT to be at the front.

People started gathering out front of the store, we assume to attempt to dash in front of us...which would have been a painful mistake for them I think.

The crowd grew restless at these people and eventually the cops showed up and one unlucky guy ended up with a football embedded in the side of his face! haha

Best Buy employees came out and went through the line one by one handing out certificates for the big ticket items we wanted in order of when we got there. Patrick and I each got our 42" Panasonic plasmas and we were both really happy. So that is what Black Friday is like for those of you who think we are crazy! It was a MUCH more fun experience than I expected but I think it comes down to whom you are with!

Update on whats going on in our life

My friend Kristy did a post like this and I thought it was a nice way to get everyone in the loop on whats going on since I don't have any BIG topics to write about. Here's what we've been up to lately:

• Spend Thanksgiving here in MN with Meghan's side of the family. Its always fun to experience Thanksgiving with different people and see what their traditions are. Last time I spent Thanksgiving with Meghan's family we ended up spending the night at Best Buy and buying a new plasma TV. No major expenditures this year.
• We braved the craziness this year and did our Christmas shopping on the afternoon of Black Friday. I was amazed how many of the super special deals were still at Best Buy...certainly a sign of the tough times our fellow Americans are going through! I praise God for our good fortune and for providing me with a great job that meets our needs!
• Meghan took Addison up to Cloquet to meet her grandparents up there for the first time. I wasn't able to come because of work so it was my first night away from my girls since Addison came into our life. It was a little sad after I got home and no one was here.
  
• Our eBay business is ROCKING right now...its hard to even keep up with at times (with a newborn in the house). Christmastime on eBay is WONDERFUL!!
• I am working on our second annual Christmas newpaper newsletter. If you were on the list last year I am sure you'll get another...if you didn't get one in the past I probably missed ya. Let me know!!
• We are spending Christmas in Appleton this year with my side of the family...most of my relatives haven't met Addison yet so it should be a LOT of fun!! We can't wait.
• Everyone should get Skype on their computers if you have family or friends far away...nothing like getting to see your loved ones on video!
  

Well that's all I have for now...keep your eyes open for the Rasmussen Times in the next week or so.