bucket list: visit all 50 states: wisconsin

Hello! I hope you all had a relaxing and blessed holiday.
I'm back after a 14 hour car ride home that started early yesterday morning. Mom said it best when, after a few hours of road tripping, she muttered "This has got to be one of the weirdest Christmases we've had yet."

We spent all but one hour, from 8:30am to 10:30pm, in her SUV on Christmas day.

Instead of turkey, homemade cookies, and mashed potatoes & gravy (my absolute favorite), we ate gas station food and Hardee's. That sounds a bit depressing, but it wasn't so bad. The family was together, I got about 4 hours of sleep, knitted half a scarf, and ate a ton of sunflower seeds (second favorite).

We had made it safely to our final destination and back: Wisconsin. 

My aunt & uncle, their three boys, and grandma relocated to Fort Atkinson over a year ago for my uncle's job. It's about 30 minutes from Madison, and if the roads weren't so icy and the weather wasn't so cold, we might have taken a day trip to the state's second largest city and home of their beloved Badgers. As it was, the state was covered in a beautiful white blanket of snow (!), so we stayed in the house playing games, opening gifts, and eating a delicious feast on Christmas Eve. This also means that I didn't get many any quality photos of the state. It was serene, calm, and cold. I saw wild turkeys for the first time, and went outside long enough to visit my uncle's office building.

I wanted to take so many more pictures of the beautiful white scenery while we drove through the state, but the car windows were too dirty to get a decent shot. So there you have it - I've been to Wisconsin!

Check that bad boy off the list and add a star to the new 50 states (and DC) map.

Next in line to get crossed off the bucket list: Arizona in January!

image

dear santa

Dear Santa,

How are you? I know this is your busy season and all, but I was hoping one of your elves could read this letter to you before you pack up the sleigh for good and start your chimney plunging in New Zealand. It's my understanding (which is very poor when it comes to geography) that New Zealand is the first place a new day starts, due to the International Date Line. So those little New Zealand kids get their presents hours before everyone else... luckies.

I was very happy to wake up today. The world didn't end this morning, so the Mayans were wrong which is great news. I should clarify that I didn't wake up "very happy". That NEVER happens, unless I wake up at 10am. But now that I've been up for a few hours and had one gingerbread latte, things are looking good.

This year, my name should be on the nice list. If that's the case, I still really want a puppy. I know, it's been on my list for the past 16 years and there's never been a puppy under the tree. Maybe it's because your elves can't make puppies in their workshop? If that's the case, I have a great solution for you. There's a nice little shelter just down the road from my place, where I'm sure it would be OK for you to make a pit stop to pick up an orphan pup before heading over to my roof. If that is not in the budget this Christmas, I figure persistence will lead to a puppy one of these years....

pleeeeeeeaasssseeee.

Other than that, I just really want a safe holiday weekend. My family of four will be touring the upper Midwest (brr) the next four days. I must say, this is not nearly as exciting to me compared to how the fam spent last Christmas. Wow, I used to have a lot of exclamation points in my posts. Yikes. Sorry about that. I will miss Blue Eyes like crazy while we're away, but I'm sure the family will figure out something to pass the time in the car quickly. If it comes down to it, I plan on singing Justin Bieber at the top of my lungs until Dad lets me drive so we can go 20 mph faster. I'm excited to add another state to the "visited" category on my bucket list while we embark on this holiday road trip: Wisconsin. I plan on eating lots of cheese and playing in the snow with my cousins while we're there. I hope they're not too old and cool for that.

I feel like you have a pretty good relationship with Jesus and God, so if you could give them a heartfelt thank you from me, that would be awesome. It's been a very good year. Even with it being a great year, I failed at all of my new year's resolutions, so I have that to work towards in 2013.

Well I think that's all from me this year. I hope you enjoy lots of cookies and milk this Christmas Eve.

Love, Monica

PS: I'm being serious about the puppy. :)

images // 1, 2, 3

accidental twinsies

The fall wedding season is upon us, and while organizing a packing list for last weekend's wedding, I found myself with zero cool-weather dresses. In previous years, I would repurpose a summer dress with a shawl and closed-toe shoes, but this year I wanted to invest in a new, sleeved garment for the Wyoming wedding, and a St. Louis wedding in November. I headed to Nordstrom and went home with a beautiful navy lace Adrianna Papell dress. 

About a week earlier, someone else went to nordstrom.com and bought a pretty purple lace Adrianna Papell dress for a wedding in Wyoming.

accidental twinsies

entertaining our family with twins pics

that's the face of a thrilled daughter

That "someone else" was my mom. As previously mentioned, she's pretty fabulous and has killer style. I was taught (by her) at an early age not to buy a dress right before a special occasion, because there's a good chance someone else will be wearing it too. And then there we were, in the Rock City Holiday Inn with the same dress and no other options. Breaking our own rule really caught up with us this time. Luckily I styled mine with a pair of boots and gold jewelry while she wore pumps and hose. It was a source of much laughter at the family wedding as you can imagine. 

Moral of the story, shop weeks before a special event if you're wanting a new outfit. Or else you might be twinsies with your mom.

bucket list: visit all 50 states: utah

I'm sure you're all checking this list daily.... but in case you missed it, the number of states visited on my bucket list ticked up to 27. If you hadn't guessed already from Monday's post, I went to Utah for the first time last weekend.

Does anyone else love taking pictures out of the plane window? 

 We did some touristy things like go to Temple Square in Salt Lake City. The architecture is beautiful and I learned about the Latter-Day Saints religion, which admittedly I knew little about before visiting.

Bro and I outside of the Salt Lake Temple. rose gold sweater // jeans

The Tabernacle at Temple Square.

Salt Lake Temple from the front.

The flowers in Utah were like nothing I've ever seen before.

I had to get a picture of this flower since the color oxblood is so popular this season.

After about an hour in Salt Lake, we hit the road towards Park City.   

Olympics ski slopes.

Utah has some interesting laws when it comes to boozing, like draft beer is only 3.2% alcohol unless you're at a microbrewery. So we went to a microbrewery.

A Porter, Pumpkin ale and Apricot ale. The pumpkin was, in one word, delicious.

Our favorite bar/beer garden on Main Street in Park City.

Mom and I enjoying our favorite beers at No Name. She got Coors Light (with a few ice cubes - weird I know) and I got Kansas City's own Boulevard Wheat.

There you have it. My first trip to the beautiful state of Utah. It was quick since we were en route to my cousin's wedding in Wyoming, but we packed in as much as we could. September was a wonderful time to visit, but I made a promise to myself to come back for ski season. And bring Blue Eyes along next time!

tradition

Something to know about my family: we LOVE the 4th of July. Like so much that I was the Statue of Liberty and my brother was Uncle Sam one year for Halloween. Side note: find that picture and post it.

When I was younger, the annual celebration of the red white and blue included a flag cake (like this one, but where you see fruit, substitute more icing), silly old school Americana music blaring throughout the house, and a neighborhood firework show in the middle of the street. The master of ceremonies (aka man with the lighter) was my Dad who had a special "fireworks" outfit. (Again, wishing Facebook was around in the early '90s so I could quickly find a picture of said outfit.) Some years we'd even have a shaving cream party and run around in the sprinklers afterwards. Is this normal? It was for me. 

When my parents bought a lake house in 1997, we started a new tradition of celebrating the 4th of July at the Ozarks. The first four years we would invite family members or a small group of family friends. Then in 2001 my parents had the brilliant idea of inviting three families that would change what the 4th of July means to me for good. It's still a holiday spent focusing on celebrating this country I'm a big fan of, but for our families, it's also a holiday rich in tradition.

What kinds of rich traditions? Let me enlighten you....

The first night dance party 

Healthy eating

Family competitions

An occasional alcoholic beverage

You didn't really think I'd write two sappy essay-posts in one week, did you?

Love these families, love the memories, and love celebrating America! Thanks to these two for getting the party started back in 2001, I can't wait for this year!

cutest rents <3

What is your 4th of July celebration like? Do we share any of the same traditions? 

weekend recap

I can't believe it happened, but baby bro graduated college this weekend! He made it through two 20 hour semesters his Senior year while bartending and remaining involved with his fraternity. This was clearly cause for celebration in the Ahrens household, so my parents and I left for Manhattan early Saturday morning to watch his commencement. I'm so proud of him, and excited that he's moving back to Kansas City to start his career.

the relieved grad

The early morning road trip meant I needed to lay low Friday night, which I didn't mind doing at all since it was Big Trash Day in Prairie Village. If you don't have one of these (I just learned about them two years ago), it's a day when the city makes a deal with the trash companies to pick up any large items they normally wouldn't accept. Mattresses, furniture, carpet rolls, you name it. The night before the garbage trucks come by, scavengers drive through the streets to see if there are any pieces that can be salvaged. One man's trash is another man's treasure, right? We sat 10 feet from the street in Blue Eyes' drive way with a cooler between us and, naturally, created a BTD drinking game. One drink for Missouri license plates, two for a truck with Big Trash in it, three drinks for a towed trailer with Big Trash in it, and an additional drink if the vehicle stopped in front of a neighbor's house to search through their loot. I was hoping to see Trish Moore, the genius behind Good Ju Ju rummaging through the neighbor's stuff, but no such luck.

After the excitement of graduation day, Sunday was spent outside, sipping red wine with my wonderful mom while my dad grilled rib eye steaks. All in all, a wonderful May weekend!