31 on the 31st.

As many of our readers may already know, tomorrow is Matt's birthday.  We've decided to really make a weekend out of it. Last night we went to the racetrack nearby with some friends from the biology department, in order to bet on the ponies. The horse we bet on for Mom, Bastille Lad, unfortunately didn't manage to come through. However, the horse we bet on for Tex, AJ's payday, won big in the last race. Tonight we're off to the St. Louis greek festival for some very delicious spanakopita (and whatever meaty things Matt might eat) with Beth and Ram. Tomorrow, we're going out to the Drunken Fish for sushi. Monday, Matt is going golfing with some friends who go to school with me. So, it should be a pretty full and fun weekend. 

On tuesday, while we were out at the baseball game, I asked Matt what kind of cake he wanted for his birthday. He told me he didn't want to be pampered for his birthday, mistakenly thinking that if I didn't pamper him on his birthday, he would be off the hook in February. After clearing that up, he finally told me he would like an angel food cake with chocolate frosting. So this afternoon, I started baking my first "from scratch" cake following a recipe from my Williams-Sonoma CAKES book.

It came out looking pretty good. Let's just hope it tastes wonderful too!

With that, I encourage you all to leave Matt a little birthday love in the comments. 

Happy birthday, honey. I promise that I tried my hardest on this cake and if it turned out badly I wasn't trying to poison you. After all, I haven't taken out that extra life insurance yet. ;) 

Love,

Courtney

Baseball Blitz & Other Tidbits

The biggest and best news of the day is that Courtney turned in her last prelims question today as she gets ready to start Year 2 of her PhD program. Everyone keep their fingers crossed as she waits to hear back on the results of her prelims, although I'm very confident that she did fine.

The highlight of our weekend would have to either be the rousing game of Clue we played on Saturday night or our trip to Busch Stadium for the Cardinals/Braves game on Sunday afternoon. We're headed back to the ballpark Tuesday night thanks to some half-price tickets to watch the Cards take on the Brewers as the two teams battle for the NL Wildcard slot.

Sunday's game was fun, with Pujols hitting a home run and the Cards winning. Also, both Courtney and I won some random Cardinals items in some pregame festivities for having a library card and a picture of a family pet (Chester on the credit card). When asked to introduce ourselves, we both said we were from Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and when the guy asked me how it was going to be a Cardinals fan in North Carolina, I said "Not well."

As for the Clue game, well, I thought I had it won, but I guessed wrong on the room in which Ms. Peacock used the rope.

Friday night was a Wii evening, with the previously posted Wii Fit video and also some Wii Sports being played, where I found out how to hit a really hard serve in tennis. Courtney's friend Keefe, also a PhD student, is staying with us for a few weeks while he finishes up his research (he's since moved from St. Louis to California with his wife). Keefe actually won both in Wii Bowling and Clue, so he's not really a welcome addition to the house at this point. I did destroy him in Wii Tennis, though.

Between seeing some Braves fans yesterday and the band "Dixie Authority" playing in the park across the street last night while I was walking the dog, it almost felt like I was back in North Carolina.

Fun with Wii Fit

So Courtney and I bought a Nintendo Wii a couple of weeks ago, and we got a package deal that included Mario Kart, a bunch of crappy games and ... Wii Fit. For those who don't know, Wii Fit allows you to exercise using a balance board, with a whole bunch of games such as Slalom skiing, Hula Hooping, yoga, and acting like a penguin on ice.

To show you exactly how much fun (or how funny) Wii Fit is, I present these videos of Courtney, performing some sort of step class or playing Dance Dance Revolution, I'm not sure which.

In the sake of full disclosure, I would look just as, if not more so, ridiculous, but she was the one on the balance board and I was the one with the camera.

Pimp My Ride

So while my car is in the shop, I have the pleasure of driving this beauty of a car around. That's right, it's the Neil Kennedy special, a PT Cruiser.


For those who don't know, the rear passenger side of my car got backed into when I was at a drive-through ATM. Not a big deal, but it did about $1,000 in damage.



Theoretically, I'm getting my car back on Thursday.

The PT Cruiser combines a surprising lack of power with an exciting lack of handling. It's really the perfect automobile. Plus, you look and feel like an idiot in one. No offense to anyone who might be reading this and owns one...

Matt

Welcome to St. Louis

Hi everyone,

Courtney and I have been talking for a while now about starting a blog just to keep friends and family periodically updated on our life in the Midwest, since we don't get to talk to everyone as often as we should or wish we could.

We can't promise it's going to be exciting, and we can't promise it's going to be updated on any kind of a regular basis except when we have time and feel like it, but hey, at least it's been created!

So here's the current situation...

We were married June 7th in Winston-Salem, at a great wedding with lots of family and friends. If we haven't done so already, we want to thank you very much for attending and being a part of the event, and we hope you had a great time.

We spent five days in St. Lucia for our honeymoon, and it was fantastic. It was relaxing, and we got to spend time not only on the beach, but riding a zipline through the rainforest, touring a plantation and water-skiing (neither of us fell, amazingly enough!)

Since we've been back, it's been back to real life, with work and school. We have gotten our wedding pictures back from our photographer, who did a great job, and you can see them here.

Courtney is in the midst of her written exams and starts her second year in the next few weeks. We've got a really busy September planned, during which we'll both be headed to Texas for our friend Tex's wedding, I'll be going back to North Carolina to play in a golf tournament with Sleepy; Sleepy, Carl and I will be attending the Ryder Cup in Louisville; and Courtney will be traveling to Baltimore for a family wedding.

More soon.

Matt