Scott and Jessica

I’m a little behind on getting this one up since I’ve been beardless now for over a month. Here it is being removed from my face.

Winter is upon us here in Eastern Iowa. Scott tried out the new snowthrower (yes, you read that right…snowTHROWER…just like it said on the box) and we’ve both decided it was the best money we have ever spent at Costco.

Check out photos from Christmas in Atlantic with the Fiddelkes, and then later that day in Iowa City with the Malotts.

Photo Gallery

Wishing you a joyous holiday season and a prosperous and healthy new year.

Here’s a short time lapse video of our tree being decorated this year. Thank you to everyone who helped!

It has been a busy few days. We hosted (a very large) Thanksgiving at our house this year. My parents, Jess’s parents, Joanna, little Sam, Ben, his parents, his sisters, a friend or two, my aunt and uncle and brother came to the turkey celebration in our new basement (the only area large enough for that many people). Ben smoked a turkey and we fried a turkey in the back yard. Thankfully (ha! get it? Thanksgiving… thankful?) it was a nice day to stand over a turkey fryer. I believe we also had some smoked ham mixed in there for good measure. I think everyone had a good time, and we all ate too much!

On Black Friday, we went to the Iowa Nebraska football game. The weather from the previous day unfortunately did not hold. It was a blustery cold day in Kinnick, and the Hawks did not pull off the upset that we had hoped… oh well, there’s always next year.

Check out the photos (and turkey-frying video) below.

Here’s a quick video of our pumpkin this year. We decided to go with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle (Michelangelo because the pumpkin is orange) design. Enjoy!

Music: Kevin MacLeod

It has actually been done for a little over a month now, but I’m a bit slow on getting things up here. We’ve finally got a working (finished) basement, with a lot more space that we don’t know what to do with. I guess we need more stuff. Good new is we now have another bedroom if anyone wants to come visit.

A good deal has happened since the last basement update. After lugging all of that drywall down to the basement (thanks again Kieran!), we found someone to hang it, and then our friend Tim did a great job taping and mudding (thanks Tim!). Once the drywall was all finished, we had a couple painting parties – one with my parents and Kieran, and one with Jess’s parents to prime. We used about 30+ gallons between priming and painting, and are still finding little spots to touch up. We are currently on the tail end of round three. Our contractor has finished up the basement, an electrician has hooked everything up, and the plumber installed the toilet, shower and sink. There are just a few small pieces of trim to hang before the carpet gets laid next week. Then we can finally set up some furniture and enjoy our new living space. Below are WAY too many photos of the process… enjoy!