Back in the Game

Despite the radio silence on the ol' blog the last few months, I really do have a lot to say.

For starters ...

• We're expecting a baby this November! How's that to start off with the big one? 

• Flight benefits continue as Evan passes the one-year mark - we have recently added Phoenix, the Black Hills and California to our non-rev travel destination list. Oh yea, and he's still a chemistry teacher as well for the majority of the year.

• House projects demand attention, especially the office-to-nursery switch and a big basement renovation (need an official guest room and bathroom before Baby P arrives!)

• Pearson parents are leaving New Jersey after 25+ years and venturing four hours north to central Massachusetts. This weekend will be my last trip "home" for a final beach day and helping pack up boxes. Yea, it's kind of bittersweet as one would expect, but it's an awfully exciting adventure as well! {And I've never been one to label one singular place as "home" anyway}

• Speaking of bittersweet, the Pierson parents just had a big change in their life, that also falls in that category of "moving." Only their home remains in place, firmly planted on the farm just outside of Lake City. When you live on a farm, the definition of home is a complex thing, spread in part between the bodies of 200 dairy cows. Earlier this spring Sapa Ska Farms held an auction and sent their herd out into the world. This event deserves a write-up all its own and I have pictures and video to help tell the story. Don't worry, it has a happy ending, in which the farmer now has time and flexibility to spontaneously visit the cabin, attend a full wedding reception or help his son finish off the basement ... what?

I've been missing this part of my life where I sit down by myself in a quiet room and send my thoughts out into the void. For a good two months, being in front of any screen made me motion sick so I let go of any extra activities that involved screens for a while, and then one gets accustomed to other evening activities (like sleeping, for the most part). Sometimes you realize that you have to slow down a little bit, let life catch up and tend to other things for a while, even if that means pushing pause on your favorite hobby. Now that I am through that early stage of pregnancy, I'm looking forward to bringing the Tales of E and C back to life (although perhaps it is due for a name change?). We have some big adventures ahead and what better fuel to light my creative fire than a year of change and new beginnings? 

As Frank Costanza once said ...

I'm BACK babyyy!

Evan's Weekend Highlight

Winning his eighth-grade girls basketball tourney!

He's a coach, not a player ; )

Congratulations Mr. P!

(Somehow his trophy girl managed to lose an arm on her way home from the game)

Halloween!

Evan and I enjoyed staying home on Halloween and passing out candy to the lil' trick-or-treaters. It was our first halloween where we could enjoy this tradition (or at least this end of it), as our apartment left us disappointed on Hallow's Eve these past two years. We were excited to have roughly 30 or 40 guests stop by! (I think. Evan knows the exact number). Enough to gobble most of our candy but not so many that we had to run to the store again.

We had been delinquent in our pumpkin carving this year so Halloween night we went at it, carving a face out of the pumpkin that had been sitting on our steps, ripening, for most of fall. ... And ripen it had. I do believe that was the first ROTTEN pumpkin I have ever carved! What a slimy halloween treat for us ; ) Needless to say, we forwent the pumpkin-seed roasting part of the tradition! We actually had two pumpkins but since we were pressed for time we decided to team up -- E carved the left side, I did the right. I think they turned out pretty similar actually.

No halloween is complete without a little costume fun! So Evan and I both gave ourselves just about three minutes to come up with costumes. As you can see below, I was a cowgirl. Evan was either some sort of god or a pimp. Perhaps next year we'll have to work longer on our costumes, but I think we did pretty well for just throwing things together!

Enjoy the photos below!

Fall, fall, fall!

Fall on our street is quite beautiful -- burnt oranges and golds bedeck the ground and squirrels scurry about preparing for winter (I think we are the only ones who pay attention to the squirrels on our block!). I just finished my first round of leaf raking at the new house and think there will be more in the near future as the big tree in our neighbors yard still carries quite the load of leaves (which is surprising considering the thick carpet of leaves it has already laid down!). I was tempted to jump in the big pile at the end, but settled for simply lying back, nestled in the crinkling pillow of leaves, and looking up towards the darkening sky. Ahhh, I love the sounds, smells, and colors of fall.

I finally got around to taking some indoor photos so you can see the progress our house has made these past weeks. But of course I couldn't stop there on a nice fall day, so I ventured outside to snap a few of the street.

... and we're back in the game!

Yes, we're alive! Just very very busy. I cannot believe it has been 2 months since my last post! Oh well, I guess that's what happens when you get tied up in moving and working on a new house. For a while it seemed like every weekend our main focus was on something house oriented, whether it was finishing big projects like our shower, or smaller things like hanging blinds, organizing, and tackling some yard work. Just recently we have started to feel a bit more settled and can start taking time to enjoy some of our favorite hobbies -- like blogging!

And now for a quick summary on our life since my last post in July. As you probably know or realized from my previous posts/photos, we bought our house beginning of July but were still living in our apartment for a while. We didn't actually move into the house until July 31st... then we were off to an out-of-town wedding for the weekend, the following weekend was another wedding, and then we flew to New Jersey for 2 weeks of fun with my (Pearson) family! Back to Minnesota for the final week of August, which was spent with college friends in town, at the State Fair, another wedding, and driving my sister Karrin up to her new job/school experience up North. So.... we were basically living out of suitcases and boxes through most of August, and worked on our house intermittently. Evan did a great job on the shower, but it took (much) longer than we first anticipated. Luckily we belong to a gym which we frequented to use their showers... come to think of it, I think that's all I did at the gym for a few weeks ; )

Now Evan is back in school (Lakeville North High School, Chemistry and Forensic Science teacher -- recent recipient of the Blue Ribbon award!) and I am enjoying getting into a routine. One of the biggest developments to my routine will be playing in an orchestra that starts later this week! The Cannon Valley Regional Orchestra is all the way down in Northfield, and I am a bit hesitant to commit to a long commute every Thursday evening, but I figure I'll try it out this first semester and just see how it goes. I know there are more community orchestras in the area, but I am kind of excited to tap back into my Northfield roots. I think I'll take advantage of my time down there this fall and hit up the old St. Olaf cross country trails a few times!

Before I head out on a run this afternoon to enjoy some of our first fall weather, I will post a few videos and photos to help recap the last couple months:

House Progress Interview #3: getting close to moving day! / Having fun getting some "yard work" done ; )

From left to right you get the general progression of the shower in its last couple stages. Of course before the cement board went up (as seen in photo at left) we had to tear down the old wall, don our plumbing hats and run pipes up to the shower -- this included soldering!, and prep the studs for the new cement board (I'm probably forgetting a few steps too). I am happy to say the shower is now up and running! Of course the rest of the bathroom is still a bit of a project, but at least we can shower in our own house -- what a luxury!

The next montage shows just a few snippets from our summer. From left to right, top to bottom you see:

Saying goodbye to Hearthstone Apartments, our first home; Visiting South Street Seaport in NYC; Sunfish Pond, the destination point on our hike in NJ where Max (dog) chased a bear and her cubs - and survived!; Evan 'stealing' eggs from the chicken coop at Howell Living History Farm, where Karrin was working in NJ; My favorite photo from our Pearson photo shoot; Kirst, Karrin and I on the chilly shores of Lake Superior in August!; E and I on our two year anniversary; E and I sharing some corn on the cob at the State Fair; Getting some yard work done...; Kirst and I up at Wolf Ridge, Karrin's new home for the year.

Many more updates to come, so stay tuned! I promise I'll be back before another 2 months have passed!

We're Homeowners!

Yes, we bought a house! We are really excited to be living in south Minneapolis, just a few blocks south of the Minnehaha Creek (which runs east/west through the city, partially accompanied by a bike trail, ending at the Falls), a short bike ride away from Lake Harriet, on a nice residential street, but still close to the Southdale Mall area and Highway 62! We closed on the house on July 1st and only had time that day to do a little cleaning and some electrical work -- but we did manage to lock ourselves out!! Haha, yes we did. Thankfully our house proved to be quite break-in friendly - exactly what you want in a house, right?; the basement windows are already hanging from their hinges in such a way that they have landed themselves near the top of our fix-it list. Today was our first day of really working on the house. We are grateful for all the help from both the Piersons and another Pearson -- my dad! Instead of explaining the events of the day here, I'll let these guys fill ya in:

As mentioned in the video, we did find ourselves stranded at the house. Here's how it happened: Evan drove up to the house early this morning in our Focus. My dad and I came up later in his rental car. The Piersons drove up in their truck from Lake City. Later that afternoon we let Riley and Mary take our Focus so Riley could get to work (1.5 hours away in Lake City), forgetting I had come with my dad, who also left in the afternoon for his destination of Sioux Falls, SD (4 hours away). After finishing up on installing the front door, Denny took off for Lake City in his truck. It wasn't until some time later that we looked outside and realized there were no cars left!!! Hahhaa. So, in the past 3 days we have managed to get ourselves both lock out of and stranded at our new house. I hope this is some form of good luck! In case you were worried, we did manage to get home to our apartment in Apple Valley thanks to Tessa (E's other sister) who is now living in St. Paul. We are planning on fixing up the house a bit throughout July as we have our apartment until August 1. This will provide for a nice, easy move -- or so we hope!

Tomorrow is the 4th of July so we plan on taking it a bit easy. Although Evan still seems to have plans of installing basement windows? ... oh boy.

Evan's Choir Concert

Evan had his first concert as a bass in the Minnesota Valley Men's Chorale a few weeks ago. They sang a variety of sacred and secular pieces -- including an arrangement to Charles Dickens' poem Things That Never Die (now one of my favorite poems), and Randall Thompson's The Pasture (poem by Robert Frost) which my dad's choir is singing out in New Jersey sometime this spring! My dad is a tenor and Evan a bass, so they'll have to sing it together sometime. Mary and Denny (Evan's parents) drove up to hear him sing -- it was nice having company to sit with in the audience and I'm sure they enjoyed listening too. Here are a couple pictures we snapped (just on my little Sony) after the concert.

Proud Parents!

Me and my Choir Boy : )

I am testing out different ways to show video clips on the blog. Below you will find two methods: the one on the left was uploaded directly through Blogger and the one on the right was first uploaded to YouTube and then linked to the blog. Which one looks better? I think YouTube is the winner! Agreed? Note: it sounded much better live. My little camcorder can't quite capture the sound as well as our ears do... but this will give you a taste. The one on the left is "They Call the Wind Maria" and the other is "The Pasture" (mentioned in blurb above). Enjoy!

   

Happy 2009!

Well it's about time I make another entry in our little blog! What a busy couple months it has been, filled with family, friends, laughter, good times, and sugar. Ha. Seriously, I am plump full of sugar (but I hope not too plump!) and don't think I'll have another craving of that sweet stuff until March... or April. But that's part of what Christmas is about: enjoying all the sweet things in life! Here's a little recap of our activities this past month:

After venturing out on our own to a local Apple Valley Christmas Eve church service, we cozied in at the Pierson farm with some grasshoppers, games, and then some late-night gift opening -- I think we were up until 1am! We braved the arctic-cold Christmas morning and went to church then off to the grandparents for a noon feast. We then headed back up to Apple Valley to pack and prepare for our flight to Jersey!

Our week in New Jersey went by quickly as we packed in lots of hiking, dog-runs, seeing high school and even grade-school friends, a trip into NYC where we saw the Lion King and enjoyed a great Italian dinner with my family, and a New Years party at good ol' 10 Holly lane. I'll post pictures once I get a few other projects done that have been taking precedence (this post being one of them!)

The new year has been finding us well thus far. Thanks to my friend Marit, I have had the opportunity to test my skills at cross-country skiing! I am a fairly experienced downhill skier, so I was surprised to find that cross-country skiing is HARD! I fell down twice! But this afternoon I tried it again and I felt much more at ease. There is a park near here (Lebanon Hills Regional Park) that has great groomed trails surrounding a spread of lakes. It was absolutely BEAUtiful tonight -- so idyllic and peaceful. It has been snowing all day so by the time we hit the trails at 4:30 there was a nice fluffy pillow-top for us to play on. This park has the perfect combination of landscapes: we wove between birch trees, trucked up hills in fields of lonely stalks, and flew under the dense evergreen canopy of a snow-covered forrest. I loved it. Sometimes, when the wind blew, a shower of snow fell from the trees -- once I got a mouthful of it! Time got away from us and before we knew it we couldn't see our tracks very well... when we came across a sign we realized we were a ways from our cars. But we got back on track and booked it home. What a good workout. One of the gifts of cross country skiing is driving home with your mind still on the trail you left behind, while everyone else on the road is just trying to fight the traffic and make it home so they can get out of the wintry mess. If you are going to be truly happy living in Minnesota, you have to embrace winter : )

Christmas Decorations

We got our tree this past Sunday and had fun decking out our place. Last year we walked to get our tree in the snow, and we could have repeated that fun tradition this year since we have our share of snow, but alas, it was freeezing. We ended up driving to get our little tree at a local farmer's market-type establishment. I wanted to go to a tree farm to cut one down, but once again, just a little too cold for that this time. 

The 3 poinsettias were purchased on Black Friday at the Home Depot just up the road... at 6am! That's right, we were the crazies out and about that early morning. But we weren't at Best Buy stocking up on electronics... we were picking out $1 flowers, haha! You can see Evan... er.. Mr. Pierson sitting at his desk grading tests! What a good teacher. After doing the tree we had some leftover lights so I just kept going and decorated the whole living room... perhaps a bit over done? Hahha... but you can only do this once a year! Evan whipped up some banana bread tonight and I baked a gingerbread house so it is smelling oh so festive in Apple Valley tonight : )

Gearing up for Christmas!

Hello! Wow, I think this is the longest I have gone between blog entries. 

I am not one to push the Christmas season and usually roll my eyes when I see Christmas paraphernalia in stores before Thanksgiving hits. Although this still holds true and there is no way any Christmas decorations will light our walls and shelves before the turkey is gone, my excuse for lagging in the blogging department is that I have secretly been busy busy busy with Christmas prep projects! I am like the undercover Christmas enthusiast just waiting to burst forth. I just finished with 3 projects/gifts and am so excited to see the designated people open them! I like my projects, but I do have a tendency to overload myself... I feel like I always have 5 or more projects on all burners at once! But I guess that's what I love : )

We will be spending Thanksgiving with the Piersons and their extended family this year. After Turkey dinner with the grandparents Evan will help his dad milk cows and I will whip up some yummy cookies with the women! I hope to take some fun pictures that day... so look for those to come!

Well, I'm off to write our first Christmas card and figure out how to make a real gingerbread house -- I'll try not to turn on the Christmas music... yet!

CP

Evan turns 25!

Evan's Birthday Flowers

The Birthday Boy!

Trying on his new shirt from Mama Sol!

Riley, Evan, Denny, Mary

Evan turned 25 on Monday November 3rd! Sunday evening the Piersons drove up for a celebration - we went out to dinner at Enjoy and then back to our place for gifts ... but we didn't eat the cake because we were all too full (and had received a free dessert at the restaurant)! If we had done the cake we would have realized that E is now into a double pack of bday candles! What a milestone! We'll just save those for my bday in a month!

Hamline Update

Good morning! Last night I finalized something I'd been thinking about for a while and officially withdrew from my Hamline MFA Creative Writing class. There's a long list of reasons that I don't really feel like typing out here.. but what matters is that I am significantly happier now that I ended what was becoming a big stress in my life. In fact, I venture to say, I am even happier than before I started the class because I learned things about myself in the whole process. I am looking forward to spending my free time working on photography projects, writing (for myself and the blog!), perhaps taking a low-key writing class at the Loft (in downtown Minneapolis), running (hopefully train for a few races), spending my weekends with Evan and friends, and of course updating my new Blog! Perhaps I'll post one of my recent poems later today... until then, aufwiedersehen!

CP

Hello, we have arrived!

I decided it was about time we get a little blog going documenting the activities and happenings of E & C Pierson, also known as the Piearsons, Evalyn, Carevan.. the list goes on. Right now Evan is cooking up an Egg C-Muffin as he likes to call it (since I don't like referring to a homemade snack with the word Mc in it!) and we are about to settle down for a relaxing evening - much needed. Evan is a busy high school chemistry and forensics teacher at Lakeville North, and spends his after-school hours coaching adaptive soccer. I am a copy editor contractor with Thomson Reuters  spending my days editing the ads, catalogs and websites in their creative department. I am also a student in Hamline's MFA program for creative writing so stay busy with that all weekend long (a little busier than I'd like to be actually). I've been missing my photography/website creativity outlet, and after visiting a few friends' blogs I decided to jump on board. So here we are! We are off to St. Olaf for all of the homecoming festivities tomorrow and to see sister Sarah of course. Hope to take some fun pictures I can post up here. Well, looks like my eggy is done, so I better run!