Happy Birthday Jer-Bear!

Happy Birthday yesterday to Steve's Dad and my Father-In-Law, Jerry!

It was one of those monumental birthdays for Jerry.

On his birthday he enjoyed the restaurants of Storm Lake, and for some reason he received an abundance of candy!


This photo shows Steve and his dad doing one of their favorite things...in addition to looking alike, they are alike in so many other ways (but aren't we all whether we want to admit it or not!).

A Coincidence? I Don't Think So.

Last week Steve and our nephew, Nate, were playing around, and Nate fell off the couch and hit his head on the hardwood floor.

Nate was in tears, and Steve immediately gave him a dollar bill.

Why Steve's first instinct was to give Nate money, I don't know. But it didn't work. When Nate calmed down, he started investigating the dollar bill.

We asked him whose picture was on the dollar bill and he said, "G-ma". We asked him again, and again, he said, "Grandma!"

Yes, my mother's grandson believes she is the first President of the United States.

Pizza-o-rama!

On Saturday night we had a different type of fun.

We were invited to attend a charity auction for a local elementary school.

It was at the school's church so we enjoyed MOCKTAILS (I just like saying that), a jazz band and a live auction that raised a lot of money for the school. Plus we met some new people.

The best part is that Steve and I walked away with an entire year's worth of pizza.

Two comments on our twelve XXL pizzas:
1. It's not dirt.
2. If you are a visitor at our residence in the next year, I hope you like pizza, because we'll be eating pizza at least one night!

Yes, There Was A Full Moon

Last night a group of us reserved three tables at Howl at the Moon in the new Power & Light District.

It was crazzzzzzzzzzzzy.

The Steve's and Rita comfortably cruising in the back of Greg/Rita's Explorer. It's a good thing my brother wore such nice socks.

Howl at the Moon is a dueling piano bar. The staff randomly did "routines" throughout the night.

Before we knew it Ann and Angie were up on the stage for their birthdays. Notice the girl next to Ann. Earlier we believe she was trying to get in a fight with Ann! Doesn't Ann have "FIGHT" written all over her face?

This place was packed. But we ran into Scott, who my brother and I grew up and graduated with in "The Set". The last time we saw Scott and his wife Brooke (I think this is her sister), was at First Fridays when they were expecting their first child and Steve/Ann were pregnant with Nate. So it had been a while! They now have three children. Nate is 2-1/2 so you do the math.

No joke, that's Ann back on the stage again! She was singing the Iowa Fight Song with the singer (shockingly a singer in KCMO did not know the fight song of a school five hours away). It was HILARIOUS. Ann did the I-O-WA movements, too. That girl is too funny when it comes to her Hawkeyes! Herky would be proud.

Then Steve started with the shots. This wasn't the only round of shots for these 30-somethings (all with kids except us).

Isn't the Rainbow Brite girl adorable?

We strive to make our parents proud at all times.

What a Year...

A year ago today I started this blog.

365 days have passed, and I have never gotten Steve to type one word for this blog.

But he did tell me today, he is going to purchase an Internet Child Filter Protector that will keep me from being able to update this blog except when he can watch me, so I don't write anything embarrassing about him. Nobody has ever said Steve's not a funny one...

Anyway, I don't know if this means he actually reads our blog on a regular basis, or if he receives the tidbits from his friends. But I'm happy because at least he only rolls his eyes every other time the blog is mentioned!

Wednesday Nights Have Indeed Changed.

All week I have been at one of our local gambling establishments on-and-off for work due to an annual meeting.

Last night we had the big event. The awards banquet.

My friend and co-worker, for almost seven years, Cathy and me.

I felt like I was at a sorority winter formal without guys (there were only a few men there).

Everyone looked beautiful. Many of the attendees wore extremely fancy dresses, make-up and hair-dos.

We had a Party Pic person taking pictures of everyone. We even had a snazzy, glittery backdrop for group photos.

It was like college all over except that we couldn't really drink since the majority of us had to drive home at 11:30 p.m. and go to work for two more days.

As it neared midnight, and I was driving home in pure isolation after 15-hours of being "on the clock", for some reason it made me realize that during college in the 90's I would most definitely be out at this time.

As we all know, Wednesday night was the start of the weekend in college.

We would go to Tazzles for quarter draws. (I like to secretly believe that the bouncer - who a decade later would become my husband - looked at the driver's license of a certain girl with a rockin' perm and thought, "Someday the girl attached to this frizzy fro will be my wife.")

And then we would walk down to Dean's List or to People's with our mugs for Mug Night until the bars closed at 2 a.m. And sometimes we'd go to after-hours.

As I woke up at 2:20 a.m. last night choking as a result of the second-hand smoke from the casino, and the fact that all of these drinking establishments no longer exist in Ames, it became extremely clear I am SO not in my early 20's in any way, shape or form!

The Trio...

If you want to see three adorable little boys, click here!

There's a New Seiler in Town (well, actually in Des Moines)...

And it's another boy!

Congratulations to Andy, Jamie, Luke and Ty.

Cael Bowen Seiler was born Monday afternoon. He weighed 8 lb. 9.4 oz. and was 20" long.
He was offically named this morning; hence the delay in announcing this very exciting news.

We're extremely lucky because we now have FOUR very cool nephews that we're crazy about (I may have just figured out why they call me Crazy Aunt Beth).

Cael, Luke and Ty.

Anyway, I'm only a little bit obsessed with these cute mini Seiler and Book boys. How could you not be?

Swimming & WWF

On Saturday my parents and I went to my nephew Nate's swimming lessons. This kid loves water. Since Nate turned two, his favorite pool activity is to jump off the diving board alone over and over and over again.

So Nate was extremely happy to be in the water in February until lessons were over and everyone had to exit the pool. This did not make Nate a happy camper.

But there's nothing like some WWF with Grandpa to turn that frown upside down!

Wicked

Last Sunday, Steve said he'd like to take me to the broadway production of Wicked for Valentine's Day when it comes to the Music Hall in Kansas City in May.

This was very exciting news considering the last time we went to a show at The Music Hall, Steve's knees were in his chest for the entire show.

Tickets didn't go on sale until Friday, Feb. 15, but somewhere I had heard about a pre-sale secret code to get tickets. So I found the code, and called my brother to see if he wanted to surprise Ann for Valentine's Day with tickets as well.

My brother came over and we looked at multiple dates of the "good seats". Almost everything was gone before they even went on sale. He finally told to me I was on my own and whatever I found was fine and left.

I did find some decent, expensive tickets for us. It's a good thing because Ann was thrilled when she found out and because my mom got on to look for tickets on Saturday morning and it was pretty much sold out.

I don't necessarily know that the Steves know what Wicked is about or want to go, but none-the-less two points for the Steves!

A New Baby!

Congratulations to our friends John and Jolyn on the birth of their first child.

Jacqueline Jo Kennedy was born on Wednesday, Feb. 13. Feb. 13 is also Jolyn's birthday which makes it even more exciting!

With Love from our Alma Mater

My first Valentine this morning was from Iowa State wishing Steve and me a happy Valentine's Day.

The Valentine is below.

The card is ironic because Steve and I don't share a special connection together at Iowa State. Nor do we have fond memories of our time together at Iowa State.

This is mostly attributed to the fact we didn't date in college. Actually, we didn't even know each other.

But Iowa State did provide some fond memories and special connections for both Steve and me - just not together. And we're thankful for that. Because there's a reason we didn't meet until we were 27 and that we dated for five years before getting married!


Elizabeth and Steven!

You share a special connection
to each other and to Iowa State University.

We hope that this day brings fond memories of your times together and of Iowa State.

Have a terrific day!

Iowa State has a special connection to thousands of students, alumni and donors. Please show your Iowa State pride by making a gift today.

Cruisin'

My parents are gone. They are on their annual cruise going to tons of glorious places with the Robinsons. They flew out of KC a week ago Monday and don’t come back until Friday.

When I was driving them up to the airport (very ill I might add), I realized I knew nothing except what islands they were visiting.

Thinking at that moment I’d probably never get well again, I asked what we should do if there was an emergency.

Was I supposed to look up where they were on a certain day and call The Panama Canal, for instance, and ask if could talk to the Books?

My mom thought for a minute and said, “Oh, call Wendy if you need anything, I’m sure they left the ship information with the girls.” My mom is motherly to-the-max, so this carefree comment threw me for a loop. Later I realized she was providing me the response her adult children give when she asks us questions!

While it’s strange not to have any contact (phone or email) for almost two weeks with my parents, I appreciate them completely getting away from reality. I just wish we were enjoying their reality with them!

Couples Baby Shower II

On Saturday night we got to celebrate the upcoming birth of our friends Mark and Barb's daughter who will join the world in late-March.


I picked out the "Precious" onsie for the little one. Steve purchased some type of legal moonshine for his part of the present(which is the real reason Mark was so smiley).


Steve, Mark, Hacke and Regas discussing their new favorite topic. Blogs!


Renee, Jen, John and me.

* Thanks to Barb and Kati for the photos!

Tile Project Completion

The tile project next to the fireplace is complete!

When my mom was here a couple of weeks ago, we spent one day tile shopping. It was amazingly boring (the shopping of the tile; not my mom). But as with all things my mom is attached to, we found the perfect tile at Nebraska Furniture Mart on clearance! We got around $225 worth of tile for $30.

Thanks to borrowing some tools and some expert advice from our neighbor who does things like this for a living, Steve went to work and successfully completed his first tiling project.


Due to our illness, this pretty thing sat in the middle of our living room all week. It did work as a nice coffee table though.


This is even more of a success story considering I accidently stepped on the "unset" tile on the left end last Saturday night, and Steve had to redo it. Words do not describe his feelings of love he had for me about that time.


A snapshot of 1/2 our living room with the completed project.

A Bump in the Road

Steve and I had a great work week planned - apart. But we ended up more together this week than ever.

I woke up Sunday sick with the high fever/chills/body & muscle ache/cough stuff that's going around. It's been terrible. All I did was sleep and shake.

The above didn't fare well with the fact I had a Tuesday night flight out to Chicago for work. The Tuesday night flight obviously didn't happen as I was still sleeping and shaking.

It's hard to describe the joys of Wednesday. It started with me successfully "poisoning" Steve (his words), as he woke up with my illness. And so his sleeping and shaking began.

Southwest got me on a Wednesday morning flight out to Chicago. That was fine until KC got a few inches of snow, and Chicago got a whole bunch of snow.

Early Wednesday I found out that my rescheduled flight had been cancelled. SWA got me on an early afternoon flight that only turned out to have a slight delay.

That was until they got us on the plane. After a total of 90 minutes of "We'll have another update on the Chicago weather in 30 minutes", we were off!

"Off" consisted of driving around on the cement and then pulling back into the terminal. That's was a good feeling.

The next thing out of the pilot's mouth was, "We'll have another update in another 1-1/2 hours." With that we were swept off the plane with strict instructions to stay inside security. I chose to take my luggage just in case.

I was glad I took my suitcase, because I walked out to a line of at least 100 customers in line trying to talk to the SWA reps. It was obvious nobody was going anywhere.

So after standing in line for almost 1-1/2 hours (with no updates) I finally got to the front of the line. I asked for a refund and they said no problem.

As I stepped out of security with my refund I noticed they only had refunded 1/2 of my ticket!

So I was forced to walk to the SWA ticket counter and get in a completely different line for 30 minutes to get this fixed. By now it was dark, and I was on the verge of collapsing and pretty close to crying due to exhaustion (and I like to cry so it's important to note I never did at the airport; even when sick). They fixed the problem, and I was finally out of there.

Since short-term parking was full, I jumped on the Parking Spot bus in a daze to hear, "Hey, it's Beth Book"! I looked around the full bus and didn't recognize anyone until a woman says to her friend, "Her mom was my kindergarten teacher!". It turned out I did know her. Ahh..."The Set".

It was a long, frustrating day. But even though I came home to a sleeping and shaking Steve who is unfortunately still sick, I was happy to be home so we could both go directly to bed in separate rooms!

(This long story I spent my Thursday night writing really is for my parents so I don't have to repeat it again!)

Tour De Iowa

Here's a video trip around Iowa for all of you Iowans, former Iowans and the few of you that have never been to Iowa!

The video covers both Madison County and Winterset which I like. He unfortunately misses Storm Lake. But he visits Alta and their windmills so just imagine these are the windmills next door in SL.

The video also impressingly highlights some of our NW Iowa Tour De Iowa. There are a few key towns the video unfortunately doesn't include, but 99 counties are a lot to cover!

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The Presidential Effect...

When the President of the United States is staying five-minutes from your house and it's enroute to your place of employment, it can or cannot make you very late for work.

If you are Steve and go to work when everyone is still sleeping, it's not so bad.

But if you're like me and leave for work the last possible minute during the 8 o'clock hour, it can cause some trouble.

My normal 8-minute drive that takes me straight down the street by the Intercontinental Hotel where he was staying turned into a jagged 30-minute commute!

I think I like sleeping down the street from the President much better when he's sleeping at his house and we're in the hotel!