Happy Birthday Jenny!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JENNY!

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(some of) the reasons why Jenny is so awesome:

1. She is fun to be around and hang out with

2. She is crafty and creative

3. She is plain amazing

4. She has a great air mattress

5. She is positive and friendly

To a amazing friend who's been there when ever I needed her through good and bad, Happy Birthday Jenny! I hope your 26th year is spectacular! Love you lots!

Happy Birthday Anna

Happy Birthday Anna!

I don't know what I'd do with out you to :
1.keep me sane everyday
2. laugh with about the stuff we deal with at work
3. feed me
4. be a great friend
Happy Birthday!

Chocolate angel food cake made simple

Growing up my birthday cake was always angel food cake. One year when I was about 10 I wanted it to be chocolate so I found a recipe and learned how to make it from scratch. Eventually I took that cake to the county fair, and won a purple ribbon plus the change to take it to the state fair. At the state fair I got a blue ribbon. Yum! Its a lot of work to make an angel food cake from scratch so after that I searched for a faster way to get that chocolate taste. After much experimenting with cake brands and cocoa powder brands I came upon the correct solution. I am not a "brand loyalty" person for many things, however, for this cake you must use these brands to get it to work correctly and taste great!

What you'll need:

1 box Betty Crocker white angel food cake mix

1/2 cup Hershey's cocoa powder

water (as directed on box)

What to do:

1. Mix cake mix with water according to package directions. (hint start with a little water and little mix and work your way up to all of it being added this will give you maximum cake "lift")

2. Add in 1/2 cup cocoa powder. Mix your cake until it holds a stiff peak (this is hard to get with box kinds, do your best so that if you lift a bit of the batter up it makes a "mountain")

3. Pour into un-greased angel food cake pan. "cut" through with a knife to ensure no air bubbles. Tape lighly on the counter to make the top even.

4. Bake according to package directions.

Happy Birthday Nolan!

Happy Birthday to Nolan! You are an awesome friend who keeps life interesting and always makes the work day fly by. And something that makes you even more awsome then you already are is you are good cyclone supportor or symthaizer  amongst a sea of black and gold. I hope you enjoy your day!!

Random story on how I met/didn't met nolan....

It turns out that we were actually in marching band together at ISU  for a year. Not sure if we actually met during this time. He transfer to Iowa eventually and I graduated and moved to Iowa City. Nolan got a job at the company I work for. I kept thinking to myself he looks really fimiliar...hum. One day and I don't remember all the details here (Nolan maybe you can fill in) we started talking and have become very good friends. Strange how paths cross isnt't it!

Happy 25th Birthday Lynne!

Happy Birthday Lynne! 

You are an amazing friend who makes me smile when ever I'm around you. You threw an amazing birthday party full of fun and I'm so glad I got to share that you with you. Happy Birthday!!!!

Here are some of the fun we had last night at Lynne's villains, killers and assassins party.

I was the wicked queen from snow white

John was a nazi

Lynne's rocking birthday cake- yes that is her cake!

Dr Horrible herself

Hey hey you you I don't like your girlfriend!

Happy Birthday!!

Kelli (evil Dorthy) and me

Kelli and Lynne

Lynne's first picture being 25 (most of the gang)

Watch out for Dr Horrible's evil elixir will get you!

oddities birthday roadtrip part two

Part two of our adventure and the sign points to our next oddity


The plow in the oak. (Exira, Ia)


Only working Danish windmill in America (Elkhorn, Ia). I also recently learned I have Danish ancestors. (Lynne go ahead I know you want to comment on this one :) )

I do look rather Danish don't I


What a 'mean' looking viking!


Little mermaid (from the children's book) (Kimballton, IA)



Albert the Cow (and Albert the cow campground-not kidding!) (Audubon, Ia)
This is the self timer pictures where John yelled turn around faster and I made it (although I do look at bit deer in the headlights :) )


Yup hes a bull alright ;)
10 foot tall rotating ear of corn. Coon Rapids, Ia)
Yup that's a big ear of corn!

After that we headed back home. A great time and a lot of great oddities.
Check out a roadside oddity near you and send me your story. You can also find oddities and upload them to the roadside America website.

oddities birthday roadtrip part one

For my birthday this year John 'got me' a road trip. This trip was secret until we came home early from work on my birthday and then I had to solve what we would be doing.
But before we could go its traditional for me to be able to pick a fresh strawberry...and I found one in my 'patch'


The first part was whisking me away to Des Moines for the night to stay at the Sheraton in West Des Moines with shopping and relaxing (no dinner as I was to full from a wonderful treat day at work!! My co-workers know my love of choclate :)). Wonderful!!! I even ran into Cy at the mall!


The next morning I slept late and then we took off on a tour of Iowa Oddities :) Which was about the best present he could have gotten me! I loved every minute of it- photos, road tripping, good music, funny jokes, seeing and doing new things and did I mention pictures? Here are the oddities we visited:


The first bank Bonnie and Clyde ever robbed (Stuart, IA)


The first train robbery in the west. (Adair, IA)


The smiley faced water tower (Adair, IA)



(ok so click on this picture to look at it largly- story behind it. I set the self timer on camera on a tri-pod or the car if we have nothing else. So its a long ways to get to the tree and my timer is 10 seconds so I run as fast as I can and didn't make it. John did yell out turn around but I just wasn't quick enough- this time (see part 2 when it comes up))

(I then played with my camera and learned how to use the custom timer for 30 seconds- so much better!)
The tree in the middle of the road (Brayton, IA)

More to come in part two stay tuned!

Kathryn Visits; John turns 24

HAPPY 24th BIRTHDAY JOHN!

Well its Monday again, I really don't like Mondays...especially when I have such fun on the weekends.
This last weekend we have Kathryn visiting us from Madison. She arrived on Thursday night for a medical/biology conference at the U. We had great fun chilling out at our place, eating out, and generally just chatting away. It was great to see her again!

On the Iowa River bridge after Dinner Saturday

Saturday we did some Geocaching out at Lake Macbride. We had fun hiking around in the woods and taking the long way around to get to our cache.

Sunday was also John's 24th birthday. I made him a 'beer bouquet' in honor of the big day. The Beer Bouque (should I go into business ;) )

I also got him one amazing present but haven't been able to give that to him yet as it is weather sensitive and thus wasn't able to ship till about 2 days ago. I hope it will be here tomorrow...
We did have a nice family birthday party with John's grandparents and parents which was fun.

24 candles all in one blow

K