Our Winter Adventures

 It has been a while since our last blog, so we figured it was time to write a novel to fill you all in on what has been happening up here in frozen tundra-land! From winter wonders through the park to a health kick, we have been quite the busy bees during 2012 so far!

It all started when we *finally* got some snow. Apparently, this has been one of the warmest, driest winters on record in Fargo. So when the snow actually started coming and sticking, we were very excited . Once we got our long awaited blanket of fluffy white stuff the winter fun was sure to ensue! First call of business...sledding! Jenni took her first plunge down a snow covered hill while sitting on colored plastic, accompanied by the smiling faces of her preschool class and parents. It was a glorious day, she wishes she could post pictures of the kids beaming faces, but alas that is against her moral fibers (too many creepos online, so you will have to wait until we get back to see those gems!) So we're afraid you will just have to make do with Jenni's beaming face on a sled (note the awesome winter getup, complete with pink snow boots!)

Jenni, very excited to go sledding for the first time!

After the excitement of the sledding party, it was time for Jenni to check off another winter bucket list item....building a real snowman. By real snowman, she means the kind where you have to roll snowballs around in snow, as opposed to the kind she has made before by just scooping snow into a round-topped pyramid. With the help of a pair of 6 year old twins, Jenni was able to build her dream snowman...or at least the head....the 6-year old winter wizards tackled the 2 body balls. Jenni's coworker laughed as Jenni shrieked with excitement as her snowball grew and grew to be just the perfect size for a snowman head! Once the snow balls were ready, it was time to stack them! After a quick search for some good rocks, a search through the lost and found for a hat and scarf, and a trip to the kitchen for a carrot our snowman was completed!

Jenni posing with her snowman!

Jenni got home from work and was so excited about the perfect snowman snow that she declared to Brad, we MUST build a snowman of our very own! Since we didn't have as much snow on our deck as the field at work had, our snowman (well Brads really, since he did most of the work) was just a baby snowman, but boy was he cute, in a gangsta snowman kind of way. Complete with pretzel eyes a sideways Cal hat and a hand rolled pipe, our snowman was born atop our glorious plastic Menards chairs (which thankfully Jenni saved from tornadoes!).

Brad building our amazing snowman

Brad and the gangsta snowman atop his Menards throne!

Between all of the snow excitement, Brad came to preschool with Jenni one day. In order to apply for a teaching job in the Bay Area, Jenni had to submit a video of her teaching. So she enlisted the help of her tech savvy fiance to do the job! Brad seemed to enjoy preschool, and got right to work creating a masterpiece with the blue play-doh. The kids loved having Mr. Brad in the class for the day, and even to this day ask when he will be back again!

Brad posing with his masterpiece!

We left our hearts in San Francisco!

A couple of weeks later, Fargo apparently wanted to be like San Francisco and became enveloped in fog. Unlike in the city, however, the trees in Fargo turned white and fuzzy when the fog came to town. While we were driving around, we were so enamored with the beauty of these trees,we decided that a park adventure was definitely going to be happening in the near future. So one afternoon, we set off to Island Park, which is in downtown Fargo, to explore the uber wintery trees. With our cameras in tow, and our beanies and mittens securely on, we set off for our winter wonderings through the gloriously white park. Immediately after stepping into the snow, Jenni regretted her footwear decision, and realized that the $30 boots from Target with holes in the sole, probably wasn't the wisest choice she had ever made, but all that was soon forgotten as soon as we busted out our digi-cams and started snapping some truly epic winter pictures to adorn the walls of our future California home! 

Feast your eyes on these bad boys.....

close up of a white tree!

cheese!

<3 snow covered evergreens!

Pretty much Jenni's dream Christmas tree :D

Hanging out under a pine tree

so pretty!

tattooed bison in the snow!

downtown!

Just look at those white trees!!

Island Park

Island Park!

A snow-family!

Besides winter-adventuring, we both have been making an effort to be healthier. This means that we both got an app on our phones to help us count our calories. As part of a program at work, Jenni committed to working out at least 30 hours during the months of January and February, but sadly this effort got cut short by tragic events for Jenni's ankle tissue...keep reading for more info. As part of this health kick, Jenni has been attending a smorgasbord of classes at the Y, including Zumba and Bodystep, as well as swimming laps every Sunday morning. We have both been so good at sticking to our designated calorie intake, and both even saw some results!! But sadly, all of this workout excitement came to a crashing (but temporary) halt when Jenni fell over during a Bodystep class. Besides being completely humiliating, the instructor stopped the class when she did not get back up (this was not the first time that Jenni made contact with the floor during class), the whole thing ended up with a whole lot of pain, and swelling, and a trip to the ER. This was Jenni's first time experiencing an American Emergency Room as a patient, so she is sure that if she had not been in so much pain, she probably would have tried to make the most of the experience and look for George Clooney behind every corner. Sadly, there was too much pain, and she was confined to a wheelchair the whole time, so no Clooney scoping was able to happen :( On the good side, though, Jenni did not break her ankle, just a bad sprain, which has now turned many pretty colors. On the bad side, she has been confined to crutches for the week, so now is unable to sneak up on anybody ever, since the clickety clack of those crutches are such a giveaway!

On a much happier note, Jenni was able to celebrate her birthday here in snowy Fargo, and we even got a little bit of snow, so even the clouds were celebrating! We went out for dinner to one of our spots in town called HuHot, which is a Mongolian BBQ-ish place where you pick out all your meat and veg and sauce and watch as the grill masters cook it up! For dessert, we headed to Coldstone to get an ice-cream cake, everyone needs a birthday cake! We also made a pit stop to pick up some candles, to complete the experience.

what a creative fiance Jenni has :)

With her birthday inferno!

cheeeese!

As it turns out, Jenni's birthday is 3 days before her coworker friend Heather's birthday. So in order to celebrate we went out to a local Irish pub called O'Learys! At this fine establishment, they serve a delicious delicacy called Taco Pizza, so Jenni ordered one for her and Brad to share. Sadly the camera was forgotten about until the pizza had basically been eaten, but it's pretty self explanatory really, and the picture shows the general idea of taco ingredients as pizza toppings...talk about cuisine fusion!

Taco Pizza!

the birthday girls, complete with tiaras thanks to Stephanie :)

For his gift to Jenni, Brad bought us both tickets to go and see the Fargo Force hockey team play. They are a team in the USHL, the same league that Joe Pavelski, now a San Jose Shark, used to play in. Since this is not an NHL team, the prices for tickets are amazing! Brad was able to get us seats right on the glass behind the players bench for less money than nosebleed seats cost at the Shark Tank...epic hockey experiences definitely ensued. Jenni definitely felt that the hobbling down all those stairs to our seats was well worth it. We both had a great time watching the game, despite the especially stinky Mcstinky man sitting next to us!!

Cheeeese!!!

the view from our seats, no zoom needed!

So that's all for now, until next time!!