Come on in, Assholes.

Somebody broke into our house Friday, in the middle of the freakin' afternoon. I was at work, and Mike just packed the car to come get me so we could go to Wichita for the weekend. About 10 minutes from the house, he had this gut feeling he left the under cabinet lights on, so out of fear of burning the house down, he turned around to make sure they were off. When he got back to the house 20 minutes after he left, he found our door kicked in and the window panes broken.

There wasn't much damage in the house, only the door and a broken lamp. They stole our ipods and our earbuds (which are really expensive noise canceling ones), $60 and my work laptop. They rummaged through our bedroom, our nightstand and closets.

Considering all the things that could have happened, it's a minimal loss and everything is OK. Still, it feels gross to know some stranger was in my bedroom, touching my personal belongings. And I'm pissed off to think someone was able to take advantage of us - it kind of feels like someone undermined our intelligence for not taking better measures to secure the house.

Here is the only good thing - he/she cut themselves on the glass and left blood in a couple places, and they brought a lab van out to take a DNA swab.



So Asshole, if you're reading this, I hope your cut gets infected with Tetanus, and I hope you live in fear that we have your DNA and we will catch you.

P.S. I would appreciate it if you brought our stuff back. And Mike is really pissed off at you.

Chapter Two: Why Did I do this to myself?

For reasons not worth mentioning, I ended up trekking home from San Francisco via train. Kelly did the smart thing, got on a plane and made it back to KC in four hours. But Kristen, the nut job you've all come to love, turned her return trip into a 48-hour Amtrak ride. (I did get an extra day in San Francisco. Trade-off?)

My schedule went a little like this:
Sunday, leave San Francisco on a bus at 7 a.m.
25 minutes later arrive in Emeryville, Calif.
4-hour train to Bakersfield, Calif.
2-hour bus ride to L.A.
2-hour layover at L.A. Union Station (get hit on by security guard)
36 hours later, arrive at Union Station in KC Tuesday morning



For two days I had a lot of alone time. As cheesy and cliché (ugh, saying cliché is so cliché) as it sounds, I spent the entire time en route to L.A., soul searching and in emotional thought. The remaining 40 hours I spent reading a lot of magazines and completing a word search puzzle booklet a guy gave me on the train. Though it was with hesitation before I decided to accept the book; he weirded me out a little. I think it was because of what he randomly started pulling out of his backpack – a very used cordless phone and a pair of spurs that got tangled in his earbuds that were connected to his SpongeBob Squarepants mp3 player.

Show and tell time aside, many thoughts ran through my head and the time spent alone was not as painful and drawn out as I anticipated. Though I was really stretching for ideas to keep myself entertained, I decided to take inventory of my internal commentary over the next 24 hours to share with you.

~A Twitter account would have come in handy on this trip.

~Why am I so terrified of getting trapped in the bathroom on this train?

~Apple juice over ice is absolutely delicious.

~I’m so lonely.

~Oh no! I’ve had my contacts in for three days.

~I have never heard anyone snore as loud as the man across the aisle.

~I’m moving to San Francisco.

~I think I may have lost weight on this trip. Who loses weight on vacation?

~I think I’m being followed…

~I seriously thought I saw Zachary Levi in L.A. It wasn’t him.

~What is a polliwog?

~Was it considered racist that I said “Sitting Indian Style” out loud while I was in New Mexico?

~I am becoming a hat person. I received a million compliments on my hat.

~I wonder how annoyed my friends are that I keep constantly texting them? I’m lonely people, talk to me!

~What in the hell?! I didn’t know there was a secret leg compartment under the seats. That would have made my first night of slumber on the train a bit more comfortable.

~Can I pull of red lipstick?

Yes, people, I took notes on my thoughts, how lame am I? Especially when I had my brother’s dvd player and I never once turned it on. What is wrong with me?! (That was part of my soul searching, to figure out what in the world is wrong with me.)

Chapter One: Kristen Hearts San Francisco

Along with Kelly, my college roommate, I trekked out to San Francisco recently. I'm going to try my best to stick to the fun details, but do not be surprised to read numerous mentions of my love for this great city.

We stayed with my friend Bill at his Russian Hill apartment. From outside you could look down to the water and had a perfect view of Alcatraz. Sadly, we didn’t buy our tickets quick enough and all of the Alcatraz tours were sold out. This was a huge disappointment for me! But to cope, the three of us walked down to a neighborhood video store that seemed to resemble the record store from High Fidelity, and rented The Rock from their San Francisco video section.

We took in as much of the city as we could. Our goal was to wake up early each morning to have maximum sightseeing time. We never left the house before 10:45 a.m. Needless to say we left without exploring the entire city – a perfect reason to go back soon. Very soon.

Neither Kelly nor I prepared for all the walking we did. The second day on our trip ended with treating ourselves to foot massages near Fisherman’s Wharf. The only problem was that we had to walk back to Bill’s apartment. His apartment was on the corner of a streetcar stop, and to our relief, we walked a few blocks and hopped on a streetcar to get back.

We picked the wrong day on our trip to visit the Golden Gate Bridge. It was an amazing site nonetheless, but there was lots of fog in this area and it was freezing! We walked almost half way across and decided to turn back because it was so cold. It was on our walk back that two guys on a tandem bicycle ran into Kelly.

And I think this is a perfect time to talk about the weather. I was shocked at how cold San Francisco is in August. I had no idea! Apparently, it all depends on where you are in the city; obviously the closer to the water you are, the colder it is. Maybe it was just shocking to go from 110 degrees in Kansas City to 50 degrees a couple days later. Doesn’t matter, I love snow so this weather had no negative effect on me.

We mastered the MUNI bus system and made our way over to the neighborhood I yearned to live in when I was a child – the Painted Ladies, or to every 90s kid, the Full House street. Not surprisingly, it’s nothing like I imagined for the past 20 years; it’s a block with five or six houses and that’s it. I pictured this park in the middle of a neighborhood and each side of the park had houses that looked like this famous row of homes. This was not the case.

And there were lots more excursions and fun happenings that occurred. We got a little lost trying to find a donut shop one morning, we went to Ghirardelli Square and even had a cab driver who reigned from KC. We ate lots of delicious food, and ate at a restaurant called the Stinking Rose where Bill’s side dish was simply three roasted garlic bulbs. Oh, and I never saw Bush Man. We rode the streetcars a million times, visited Chinatown, climbed Lombard Street and more that I’m forgetting to mention.

(That's Bill, serenading us over a garlic-infused dinner)

I’m writing too in depth about our trip and this is becoming a very long post! But it’s because I had a fantastic time, this is by far one of the best cities I have ever visited. We had multiple people stop us and talk to us, give us suggestions on how to visit their city, offer us their unused subway passes and point us in the right direction. The people were friendly, I loved that the city wasn’t populated with chain stores, the weather wasn’t humid and I LOVED that we didn’t have to rent a car. I will be moving to this city soon; I absolutely loved it. You can click here to see the rest of my photos from the trip.

Stay tuned for the second chapter of this story (seriously, this isn’t the end of my trip).

Mikey = Daddy???

(Let's just start this post off by saying that I'm more than a month behind on posting this. Obviously.)

Right around Father's Day we received a Father's Day card in the mail. Mike didn't want to open it because he thought it was meant for someone else, but somehow the envelope magically opened and out came the card, letter and photo. Luckily, I didn't break any laws and the card was meant for Mike.



Here is what the letter said:

Dear Michael,
I don't know where to start, but the upcoming Father's Day prompted me to reach out to you. It's been a long time since that crazy freshman year at K-State (insert rapid heart beat on my end). Although it has been a struggle, I have been blessed with your son. Jerome Michael Williams Junior was born on Nov. 11, 2003. I am attaching a picture to show you what a handsome boy he has become. He has your eyes!!!! Little Jerome was really excited when he found out that he does have a daddy. I hope you don't mind that I let him sign this card for you. Maybe kids will let up on the teasing at school once they know that Jerome's father is in Independence, Mo. Hopefully you will meet him some day.

Your Baby Mama, LaShawnda

P.S. He really wants an iPad for his 7th birthday this November.




WTF?! So I started freaking out a little thinking Michael had some floozy on the side before we got together, and then the 'LaShawnda' brought up the red flags. It took us a while but we looked at the envelope and noticed it was stamped in OKC. LaShawnda and baby Jerome were Chase and Elena - Mike's BF and his wife. Impressive my friends, very impressive. It is understandable why I got a little nervous, right? The kid did have Mike's curly hair, so you do the math.

Let the prank war begin...

Attachment Issues

Michael has been adding grown up clothes to his wardrobe recently which forced us to go through his closet and purge. We ended up finding this old jacket that was his dad's from 1988. I remember Mike wearing it all the time in college when we would go for walks around campus at night. As you can see, it's very discolored, and what you can't see are the rips and tears on the back. It looks like he pulled it out of a trash bin or took it from a homeless guy. He just informed me that we will be delicately hand-washing it to see if we can get the yellow spots to go away so he can keep it.

I have this hot pink cardigan that I bought in college one year. I'm sure all of you have seen me wear it at one time or another. Mike gives me crap about it and tells me I need to throw it away from the numerous holes in sleeves and around the collar. I would even wear it to work and someone would always come up to me and say, "You know you have a hole in your shirt?" DUH! But it's still in my closet and I still wear it. I cannot get rid of it. It's one of my favorite articles of clothing and I've been shopping for a replacement for two years now. Nothing comes close.

PETA would be so pissed at us if they knew

We had an unwelcome guest joining Snickers in the garage for about a month. It would come in late at night and eat all of her food. So we killed it. There, I said it. We killed a raccoon. We tried the PETA way of trying to catch it without harming it and it didn't work out so we took matters into our own hands. Don't judge us.

We were going to put pictures on here and Michael had this funny idea to make the post look like a CSI: Miami crime scene thing, but then we realized the pictures were too graphic and we didn't want to be arrested for animal cruelty.

So if you ever need to get rid of a raccoon in your garage, you know who to call. We'll get the job done.


(We'll give you one guess as to what's in the target bag/kitty litter container.)

The worst 'blogger' ever award goes to...

Me. I'm lazy. I'm going to try and update more often.

We have a roommate

Scott is in KC teaching a class at the Med Center for a few weeks and he will be staying with us while he is in town. He's been hard at work helping Mike with house projects.



The three of us actually spent the day working on the front yard, drinking cold beverages and cooking with our new FireWire flexible skewers. Quite fun! I think having a roommate has been good for us - we get up and are ready for work on time (which rarely happens). We'll see how long it lasts.

Yellow isn't so bad

These bloomed in our backyard. Other flowers currently in bloom are tulips, irises, hostas, lamb's ear, lilies, hyacinth and A LOT more we don't know the names of.

We just spent yesterday ripping out dead rose bushes and throwing them in our neighbor's yard. He told us we could. Hopefully by the next time you see our front yard it will look completely different. We're not mentioning what we're doing to it, but it shall be pretty.

A Sam-Style Easter

What would Easter have been like without Sam? We can't even imagine. Of course there was visiting with family...





and an Easter egg hunt...



but really, is Easter truly Easter without the presence of Sam? Let's see what we would have missed out on if he wouldn't have saved the day:

For starters, Easter would have been ruined if he didn't make homemade ice cream.



There would have been absolutely no robot impersonations during dinners, or no one to eat all the marshmallows out of the cranberry salad (So you can't tell he is a robot in this photo, but how cute does he look?!).



The family wouldn't have been able to pull together to clean the kitchen floor after Sam deemed it important to stain his arm and the floor blue from Easter egg dye. (Most of it was cleaned up before the photo)

She must have said yes...

...because Nathan looks pretty excited in this photo.
We're super excited for Nathan and Katie! We already have their wedding gift picked out: his and hers ShamWow!

We're still here

We haven't updated the site in a while. Sorry. And even sorrier for how uneventful this posting is.

We got a head start on spring cleaning over the weekend. We cleaned out the garage, rebuilt the staircase to the attic and cleaned out the extra closets in the house. Two good things came of this:

1. We have uncluttered by donating or throwing stuff away that I can't believe was in the bottom of our closets (cell phones inspired by Zach Morris, makeup from when I was a teenager).

2. I found one of my favorite childhood stuffed animals (probably second after my Memaw doll that tragically perished in the '94 basement flood of our house).



The bad thing: a new house project. The guest room's closet needs a major makeover. Why, oh why, was wallpaper ever invented???

We Have Joined the Others

We did it. We joined Costco, and with our fellow members will be buying in bulk more often than we should. We spent our Sunday afternoon getting our pictures taken for our cards (enjoy Michael's actual membership card below) and roaming the aisles. Our first stop: the liquor section. Michael immediately turned into a five-year-old running towards the Christmas tree to open his gifts when he saw the 18-pack of Guinness for $20- which we bought. I was excited to see the five-pack box of toffee chocolate chip cookie dough mix- which we bought.

While we packed the car with our essentials (and yes, we did buy essentials, like paper towels and KC strip steaks), we realized this card might spell T-R-O-U-B-L-E for us.

Christmas Travelers

This was probably the busiest Christmas for us (granted it's only our third Christmas together, but still). We celebrated all over the place!

In Kansas City, we enjoyed a ham dinner with my grandparents accompanied by some of the best homemade peanut brittle we have ever tasted. We gave our Motor Home Christmas care package to them before they set off on their annual four month voyage to Arizona so my grandma can escape the cold.



The next night we drove to Hutchinson to celebrate Christmas with the Ball family. Michael got up early Saturday and had a boys day hunting with his dad and brothers while Becky and I stayed inside where it was warm and made a bunch of Christmas cookies. I LOVE those cherry wink cookies! Sunday we did our gift exchange as Sam merrily passed out - and tried open - everyone's gifts.





Three days later on the 23rd, we stuffed our bags into my brother's Xterra for our first road trip to- and our first Christmas in- Montana. Jim, his girlfriend Rhonda, Michael and I hit the road at 10:30 at night. The driving to and from is a paragraph all in its own.

The weather was fine from Kansas City to about Hays, Kan. Then all hell broke loose! The roads IMMEDIATELY turned to ice and there were 40 mph wind gusts and snow drifts that caused white outs at times. The roads were rough through the rest of Kansas, eastern and northern Colorado and even the first part of Wyoming. From about Cheyenne, Wyoming, to my mom's in northwestern Montana the roads were fine. Our trip ended up being about six hours longer than expected due to the weather but we made it to Heron, Montana, just before 3 a.m. We unpacked, said our hellos and hugged, scarfed down some chili and went to bed. The thirty hour trip wore us out! And I think that was the first Christmas Eve any of us spent on a road trip.

Interesting note: We leave Kansas City and it snowed eight inches. We arrive in Montana and there are just a few spots of snow on the ground. I think it was last year my mom sent me pictures of the six feet of snow they had up there! Here's a picture looking out onto my mom's front yard. The mountain range in the background is Idaho.



Christmas Day we had a big group of people over for dinner and gift giving. We got a Costco membership which we're very excited to start using - Michael mainly wants to stock up on their Guinness deals; I want to roam the aisles for free samples. Mike got a micro multi-tool thingy (yes, that's what I am calling it) that he utilized on the car ride back to KC. That is a Reese's Piece he is putting in his mouth.



Since we were there about eight days, we took it easy. My mom made some darn good food; food that if she didn't make I wasn't leaving until she did! Potato soup with homemade noodles was on the list, along with a roast dinner, biscuits and gravy one morning and of course a plethora of peanut butter balls!

It finally snowed the last couple days we were there. Michael and I took out the four wheeler a few times and trekked up and down the mountain roads and pulled each other on the sled. If only I would have captured on film the air he got when I pulled him over the mound of ice and snow. Don't feel bad for him; he got me back.

Here's a Montana portrait of my mom, Rhonda, me, Ed, Jim, Michael and Danny. Oh ya, and Moose and Cookie.



We left News Years Day. We went a different route home, traveling across the entire state of South Dakota. Luckily, we never ran into any bad weather or roads. The only problem we encountered was the temperatures. Jim's car had an outside temperature reader so we could see the temperature fluctuating outside. We left my mom's in the very northwest corner at about 30 degrees. Once we got to the passes in southern Montana, the temperature dropped rapidly, stopping at about 12 degrees, I think. By the time we got to the middle of South Dakota around 3 a.m., the temperature dropped a lot more. It got into the single digits, it read zero degrees for a while, and got down into the negative temps. Bitter, freezing, frigid, NONE of those words can truly describe to you how cold NEGATIVE 28 DEGREES FEELS! The floor boards were so cold, there was nothing we could do to keep our feet warm. Once we reached Council Bluffs, Iowa, the temperature sky rocketed back to a warm seven degrees and pretty much stayed there even when we got back to Kansas City News Years Day in the afternoon.

Now we're back getting into the groove of things again. Happy New Year!