The Weekend Update

Since we're now ready for another weekend, I guess I need to update the blog with last weekend's activities. I swore to myself I would be a better blogger this summer...so I guess it's good that it's still June and I have time to redeem myself!

Last Friday I picked up chicken salad on croissants and potato salad from the Illinois Street Food Emporium in Broad Ripple and we headed up to Conner Prairie for the opening night of Symphony of the Prairie. Mom, Dad and Stormy met us and we enjoyed a great picnic supper (including the great strawberry cake from The Bagel Station in Fort Fun) while listening to the musical stylings of ABBA: The Hits. Mom, Stormy and I went down to the stage to dance at the end - Bob and Brent would have rather sat in a dentist's chair.

These very blonde, fair children were actually from Sweden. I think. Notice the Swedish flags...very cute.

On Saturday we went to the wedding of Emily Moeller and Scott Harding. Emily and I met on our European adventure during Jan Term of 2004 and Scott also attended Manchester. Fun fact - Brent and I also work with Scott now and see him often in our building of 4,000 people! Their very nice reception was held downtown at the Skyline Club downtown.

The bride and I in Vienna

The bride and I on top of the Eiffel Tower...it was windy up there!

It's fixin' to storm somethin' turrble here! I must go now and prepare for the next fun weekend...which includes a grill-out tomorrow at our house with the Sinders' and spa appointments on Sunday when Big Lou and Stormy's Farewell Tour comes through the Circle City. Check this link on Sunday or Monday for an update on the tour. It promises to be entertaining!

And because I am already yearning for a new episode of The Office, I leave you with another classic line...

Today's a very special day for me. And it's really not about me. It's about my grandkids, it's about my great grandkids... I can come back here when I'm one hundred and I can find that piece of cement and say, "That's me. Look kids, your daddy left that face hole." I dunno. It's a good feeling. Michael Scott

Welcome to the World, Baby Girl!

Meet Miss Peyton Margaret. She was born June 2nd to my friend Christi, another proud member of the Ex-BKD Girls' Club. Carrie, Candy and I visited the little peanut and her momma on Saturday and brought lunch. She is such a good baby I almost forgot she was there at times...she never made a peep! Congratulations, Christi and Jay! She's a pumpkin!

One if by land, Two if by sea...

The next fun summer event occurred the next weekend, the first weekend in June. I took a half-day at work on Friday and flew to Boston to see Mel! It was just a quick weekend trip, but we were pretty determined to do as much as we could...and we did, we really did.

My flight got in later than planned (a common theme of the air travel on this trip), so after Mel picked me up from the airport we enjoyed a glass of wine on her awesome roof deck and then headed to the Florentine Cafe for a late dinner of lobster ravioli and all the bread they would bring us. Mel's apartment is in the North End near the Old North Church, Paul Revere's house, and close to Boston Harbor. Sound cool? That's because it is. Her apartment happens to be in a very Italian district, which means all the pasta, cannolli, and gelato you can stand.

A view of Mel's street and the church where Rose Kennedy's funeral was held

Mel walking down her street

Saturday was filled with the complete walking tour of Boston. Since I'm her seven or eighth visitor (or more, Mel?) since she moved out there last summer, her tour-guide abilities have become pretty advanced. Sights of the day were: Beacon Hill, Boston Common, the public gardens, Hahvard, some Kate Spade shopping on Newbury Street (which includes incredible self-control with NOT buying an insanely-expensive bag that I had almost talked myself into), Cheers, and....well lots of other stuff. Other highlights of the day were: eating pastries for breakfast at the famous Mike's Pastry down the street from her apartment and drinking a Sam Adams while looking at Sam Adams - his grave, anyway.

Getting the day started off right.

We were loving these flowers...I have to get some! Is it true they're called Allium? Anyone know how hardy they are...I'm prone to killing things from neglect :(
George Washington statue in the Public Gardens

Thank you, Mr. Adams, here's one for you!

Now, maybe I'm being juvenile, but do you think that Mr. John Hancock's tombstone is unnecessarily phallic? Look at the shape, the wording on the stone, the last name...seems like someone is messing with us. Maybe we just need to grow up...you be the judge

The steps of Harvard's library

Another view of Harvard. I've wanted to get a Harvard Law degree ever since Legally Blonde. Good reason, eh? Well, since that's probably never going to happen, I bought a t-shirt at the bookstore instead. Close enough.

Saturday was also insanely hot and humid, so we rested for awhile back at the apt. until we met Mel's friend Donca for dinner at Legal's Seafood. Legal's is famous for the clam chowder that is served at every Presidential Inaugural Ball. It was delish. I asked for the kettle and a ladle instead of just a bowl - hey, I'm only in Boston once - but fortunately for my pants they didn't bring it to me.

The $200 Catch of the Day. No thanks, just clam chowder for me, please!

After dinner, we met some more of Mel's very lovely grad school friends and headed to the Top of the Hub for martinis. This is the highest observation deck in Boston and was very, very cool. We finished the night at the Cactus Club then cabbed it home.

Top of the Hub!

Foreigners in Baaaahston - Lindsey and Mel from Indiana, Betty from Toronto, and Donca from Connecticut

We slept in on Sunday and then had lunch at The Purple Shamrock near the oldest street in America. I had the lobster roll, another New England delicacy, and topped it off with vanilla gelato. Have any of you blog readers out there noticed that this blog revolves around food? Okay, I thought so. I'm sure of my point when I mention this...maybe I just realized it myself. ANYWAY, I had to be at the airport around 3-ish, so the rest of the short afternoon was spent down at the harbor and strolling the North End. Thanks for your hospitality, Mel!!! I plan to do everything in my power to make it there one more time before you're done with grad school!

A shot of a festival that happens most weekends in the summer on Mel's street. It's a religious festival, but this "band" plays the Godfather theme song each time. Something's not right about that...

Catching Up....

It has been awhile since I've blogged with any updates, and for that I apologize. When I left you last, I was gearing up for my quarter-century birthday. My birthday was on a Friday, and the workday was really laid back and pretty low-crisis, which was nice. Bob and Big Lou came down that night and we met Justin and Rachel and Weber Grill for dinner. I had never been but have added it to my list of favorites for the pretzel rolls and sangria alone. After dinner we went to the beer garden, or Biergarten (but I always feel nerdy and know-it-all by using the correct German spelling, so read it how you want) at the Rathskeller. Unfortunately, a major storm hit at exactly the moment we were walking into the building, which pretty much killed the outside festivities. Instead, we hung out in the dark, basementish beer hall (no, I don't know the correct German spelling of "beer hall") but had a good time anyway. When the May Queen had had enough fun, Brent drove us home in what turned out to be a tornado-producing storm cell. Our house was not damaged but we'll always remember the adventures of avoiding high water and dodging the trampoline in the road.

I got some great birthday loot, including fun shoes, 2 spa gift cards, and a PUPPY! That's right, a puppy. We don't have her yet but Brent put the deposit down for one of the Westie puppies due in early July, so we'll get her after Labor Day. Woo-hoo!!!! My husband rocks. :)



The day after my birthday was a major work day at the Stevenson house. Bob and Brent cut down three trees and a precariously-placed limb that took another of Bob's nine lives. Basically, to "cut" to the chase, he was taking down a tree limb above his head and it ended up crashing down on him while he was standing in the tree. He also happened to be standing directly above the neighbor's fence which would have probably impaled him on his fall out of the tree. Luckily, he ducked his head just enough that it didn't knock him clean out, of consciousness and the tree, and Bob lives on. Scary, scary, scary. Thanks for helping us with the yard, Mom and Dad! And thanks for not dying!

The hat that was knocked off Dad's head...

I call this one "Chainsaw in Motion"

News from Washington

We are so sad today after hearing of Tim Russert's death. Please pray for his family during this time. The sound of Tim Russert's voice is a memory of my childhood/adolescence, intermingled with the rustling of Subway sandwich paper and digging through the Sunday shopping flyers after church. I will miss that voice!

We’ve been tagged by Lauren and Brian! I just loved being tagged, so thank you! :) Sorry it's taken me a few days to get to this...

What were you doing five years ago?
Memorial Day weekend 2003...hmmm. This was the summer between my sophomore and junior year at Manchester, so I was back in Kendallville and working at Peoples Federal. I miss my banking ladies!



What are five things on your to-do list for today?
1. Workout - check.
2. Do homework for Quantitative Methods - it's only 8:30...so of course no chheeck yet.
3. Clean counter-cheeck cheeck (this was not really on my list, but I added it to give myself the sense of accomplishment)
4. Schedule a hair appt
5. Do Financial Lecture #2


What are five snacks you enjoy?
1. Chips & salsa
2. Pretzel sticks with peanut butter
3. Chips
4. Wheat Thins and Diet Coke
5. Stacy's Pita Chips



What are five things you would do if you were a billionaire?(in no particular order)
1. Start a philanthropic foundation - you know, like Bill and Melinda Gates
2. Give yearly scholarships at Manchester, Ball State, and Purdue
3. Take a month-long European trip and a month-long Australian/New Zealand trip
4. Sell house and buy land somewhere outside the city
5. Do work abroad for Heifer International


What are five of your bad habits?
1. Not picking up after myself and then getting stressed out about our messy house. Duh.
2. Talking on the phone too much
3. Procrastinating
4. Not finishing projects I start - they are numerous.
5. Getting fired up about things that are small


What are five places you have lived?
1. Richview, Illinois
2. Mt. Vernon, Illinois
3. Kendallville, Indiana
4. North Manchester, Indiana
5. Indianapolis, Indiana



What are five jobs you’ve had?
1. Banquet server at a catering company
2. Bank teller
3. Admissions assistant (by far the most fun, Lauren!)
4. Auditor
5. Travel Pay Supervisor for our service members


What five people do you want to tag?
1. Big Lou
2. Megan
3. Rachel
4. Ashley
5. Jill

"It's Just a Spring Clean for the May Queen..."

This is a lyric from "Stairway to Heaven." I kind of like to think of myself as the May Queen, since it's my birthday month and all. Feel free to call me this next time you see me, and if your birthday is in May, too, then I guess you can be called the May Queen if you want. Other reasons why May is the most fabulous month include: school is getting out (which doesn't apply to me anymore...waaa-waaa), the weather is usually pretty good or is at least showing promise, and we have a three-day weekend filled with grilled meat to officially welcome summer. Honestly, things could not get much better!

The last two weekends have been fun-filled. Brent and I visited Bob and Big Lou last weekend. Before we left on Friday we met Brent's parents for dinner at Cheeseburger in Paradise and had a fun time catching up on their Hilton Head vacation highlights. On Saturday Mom and I went to the Lovely Lucy's bridal shower at the farm, which reminds me of the trips I used to make to stay with Lucy and her family during the summer. The shower was as lovely as the bride herself and had lots of cute details. Our favor was a cloth napkin with pansies on it, since the pansy has always been Lucy's favorite flower. We ate on china and had cheesecake similar to the cheesecake that will be on each table at the reception. Lucy and Jaer are getting married over Labor Day weekend in Houston and I am already getting excited for the week-long roadtrip for the wedding.

Lucy and I last July

After the shower we met Stormy at Casa Grille, our favorite, and then headed off to see Blind Melon at Piere's. This is our second time seeing them in two months, so you can say we must really like them. This time we were on the band's guest list, which seemed fair since we just paid for their tickets in March. It was pretty exciting to go right to the door and say, "We're on the list", but the bouncers didn't seem impressed. Hey, it's the first and probably only time that will happen to us, so they could have at least humored me and acted like we were the 1-millionth concert-goer or something.

We stayed in town for Memorial Day weekend and enjoyed dinner with the Wrights at another favorite of ours, Chile Verde, on Friday. We celebrated because Brent and Eric earned their Green Belt certification this week...and I'm not referring to karate. This is a Lean 6 designation for a project management tool they developed that saved the agency money. They've worked on this project for about the last 6 months, so the boys were pretty happy it is complete.

I treated myself to a mani and pedi on Saturday afternoon, just because. My last pedi was a year ago, so this was a wonderful treat. We attended the Sinders' Annual Memorial Day cookout yesterday evening and had a great time eating and playing Uno. I brought the Hot Bacon Dip for an appetizer and Pavlova for dessert...both recipes are on Big Lou's blog, and both are tasty. In fact, some may say that the dip is good enough that you can eat it on cardboard circles and not really even notice. We dipped with Wheat Thins and Ritz, so I wouldn't know about that.

We really enjoyed the dip.

Love that Corgi!

Brent and I grilled out ourselves tonight after wussing out on going to the race. We went to church and Panera instead, which I'm sure was a much less draining day than going to the infield at 6:00 a.m. We'll gear up for next year. By the way, how much do I love Danica Patrick??? A whole lot. I listened to the race on the radio and really enjoyed when the announcers said she was "making a beeline for Ryan Briscoe's car." Hilarious. The point where she really won me over was the race where she kicked her helmet on the ground and then stomped off, looking ridiculous. I can relate because that's something I might do and then regret later. Similar to when I take the CPA Exam and get so mad about all the stupid questions they ask me that I end up doing a lot of huffing and throwing my pencils around for awhile before I realize I'm being a baby.

I hope your Memorial Day weekend has been as relaxing as ours!