the grill isn't the only thing that broke saturday

friday night we went on the 2nd bass pub crawl (notice it wasn't the second annual just the second). we started at cj's (home of the best burger in the bend), then went to oyster, walked to backstage grill and then ended up at the new rum runners. it was a good time, there were a lot of people there i hadn't seen in a while. the funniest part of the evening was either us relentless teasing jacque (did you know she is engaged??) or us making fun of scott for not coming and then he walked in...oppps! it was all in good fun though. jacque along with george, alisa and john all got called up on stage at rum runners i can only imagine how much we are going to torture jacque before the wedding actually happens!! love ya girl :)



ah another saturday during college football season, used to be my favorite day of the week...now it is another day. we all gathered at scott's (we returned the favor of hosting the party) to watch another ND game. we should have known it was going to go well when scotts grill fell apart. destroyed could be the understatement of the day actually at half time when the score was 23-0 we all went outside to mourn the grill and the game. but the remaining food was good (josh's meaty mexican magic that wasn't sexually spicy was the biggest hit of the day) and good people (did you know alisa was a member of the vegetarian political party) were a support group for yet another nd loss...although there were signs of brilliance (ok signs of progress is probably more accurate) in the second half the end result was the same. i don't think we quite have the right karma set up yet, although when alli left and scott was in the bathroom things started looking up...not sure YET what that means. one of these days we should have something to celebrate, and i can't wait! after i got home last night i watched charlie's press conference and drank some more koolaide and am now ready for next saturday!! go irish and go jimmy c :)

after the game i left to join alli, jacque and their mom to go look at wedding dresses (you know she is engaged right?!) ok so i arrive at david's bridal they already have a dress ready for me to try on. easiest process EVER! the dresses are adorable, no i am not *ever* going to wear it again but they are not pepito bismal pink with puffy sleeves so for that i am grateful!! we "changed" the color of the wedding to cornflower, so the dress i am wearing is the new wedding color


i also have pics of jacques dress to and if you name isn't mrm i will send them to you to look at :) otherwise they are saying in the top secret vault!!

last night after all the excitement and a trip to the martin's salad bar and opening a bottle of wine i attempted to watch some good college football i was torn between cheering against ty willi and cheering for usc...after some convincing i decided i wanted usc to lose, so they won...brilliant...love being an irish fan! there is always next week in the life of a dilusional notre dame fan.

channeling nicole

while we were tailgating with some of our friends i overheard one of the guys say that his buddy was tailgating with jeff samardjia. i paused for a second and tried to decide what to do with this information. so after about 1.5 seconds i ran to alli (she was about 2 feet away and yes i ran) and told her about this interesting piece of information. after debating for less than 30 seconds we were off. we asked ben to go with us, he agreed as long as we promised we wouldn't do anything to embarrass him. we assured him we just wanted to see him and nothing else and set off to poll #12 in the parking lot.

we got there looked around and he was nowhere to be seen. we were about to give up when we realized we were on the wrong side of the poll (being directionally challenged it is difficult to figure these things out). we crossed the road and there he was. alli calls magan to tell her what is going on and ben handed me his phone so i could take a picture (he promptly runs away so we don't embarrass him any more).


finally alli convinces me we MUST go get a picture, ben is a rock star has come out of hiding and agrees to take the picture. i told alli i would go but i would not talk. so alli goes and asks jeff if we can get a picture and he said he would love to. then i suddenly get courage to talk and said something along the lines of we left you alone the entire time you were our neighbor...then he apologized for everything that happened while they lived there. honestly we never ever heard them but if we lived in 1b we may have had a different opinion. so anyhow ben, the greatest photographer EVER, took our picture.



as we were leaving alli wished jeff luck with baseball (she is much better at this stuff than i am) and i tell him that i don't like the cubs (hey somebody in the organization should know) but that i am cheering for him to do well. so all and all i think it went amazingly well. we called about everybody we knew and nobody was as excited as we were well until nicole called but we have been through this all before. thanks alli and ben i never would have done it without you guys! below is the picture after the picture with our photographer (i wonder what jeff would have thought if we asked him to take it maybe next time!)

evansville all hail to thee....

jacque sent me this classy youtube clip from our home for four long and amazing years. i know i tend to give elkhart a hard time with the arrests that happen in my parking lot and for their crazy one way streets but this is by far the craziest thing i have seen in a long time...



in no way do i think this wasn't staged, but anybody who saw the vote for borries commercials knows that stranger things for happened in eville :)

all that being said i am actually going to make the trip down there for our 5 year reunion...how has it been five years already?!

at least the bean dip was a hit....

well people have been asking when i was going to update the blog so here we go...last away game nothing noteworthy happened. although alli beth and i impressed the guys we watched the game with for knowing things so that was something good. but this week we had high expectations. michigan hadn't won a game, we hadn't won a game, michigan has a freshman qb we have jc THE freshman qb, the away team had won the last 4 years, and fr moreau was beatified, mrm and mark went up to the big house for game, we broke out all of nicole's irish gear(so nicole as always was with us in spirit)...we were sure to win right?

we through together a quick gathering amy, charlie, crystal, josh, sally, scott, alli and myself gathered together to cheer on the irish! everybody brought something to share and one of the biggest hits as always was nicole's famous bean dip :) if you haven't made it yet you will LOVE it here is the recipe:

Pour 1 lb. frozen corn on cookie sheet & toss with 2-3 tbsp. oil (any kind of cooking oil is fine) Roast for 18-22 minutes at 450 degrees

Mix together the following:

3 roma tomatoes, seeded & diced

1 red bell pepper, diced

2 jalapenos, seeded & diced (I only use 1/2 or 1> jalapeno)

2 15 oz. cans black beans, rinsed & drained

2 tsp. garlic, minced

2 large avocados, diced

1/2 cup red onion, diced

1/2 cup cilantro, chopped

Dressing:

2 tbsp. cider vinegar

1 tbsp. salt

3/4 tsp. cumin

6 tbsp. lime juice

5 tbsp. oil (I use olive oil)

Add corn to vegetable mixture and toss with dressing. in true nicole fashion we add a little bit more of everything but it is so good and remember it is good for you "it is all vegetables"

anyhow back to the game, we tried a LOT of things to change the karma...we moved seats, added beads, added socks, removed shirts and even in a last ditch effort chocolate cake shots all the way around (have you ever noticed we always eat to comfort ourselves) in case you haven't had a chocolate cake shot here is the recipe:

1/2 shot Absolut® Citron vodka

1/2 shot Frangelico® hazelnut liqueur

1 lemon wedge

Mix equal parts Absolut Citron and Frangelico into a shot glass. Drink the shot, and follow it immediately by sucking on a sugar-coated lemon wedge. you make think how in the world does it taste like chocolate cake, i don't know how it just works...imo, adam at corby's makes the best ones but the ones at home aren't too bad either.

but nothing could help, NOTHING, our only choice was dulling the pain. to be fair most of the michigan fans i know personally were not that bad so thanks for that at least. it could have been worse i had a premonition of 59 to nothing and alli had a dream that we were losing 35-0 so at least we were overly pessimistic. if you weren't able to make this gathering please feel free to join us next time!!

so charlie is sending the team back to training camp i hope it will help...it better i cannot stand msu...cannot stand them, stupid flag in the middle of our field oh heck no! so i hope we are ready to go. i can tell you at least 2 girls that will be screaming our heads off sporting some new lucky (i hope) shirts on saturday who will NOT leave before the game is over!! as always go irish!!

ps i won't even touch dd or whatever he wants to be called. he thinks he should have handled it better, yeah so do i. in the words of the great tommy z, "But if you're not going to be behind us 100 percent, it's best that you not be on this team." amen!

jc the people's choice

well today charlie announced what the nd faithful were all hoping for...jimmy clausen will be starting against penn state. the results of the blog poll were for the jimbotron and charlie listened to us (i am sure he has spent hours looking through the blogosphere for opinions like that of mine and nicole's). so he is the chosen one, i have been a fan since the beginning and can't wait to see what he can do. at the very least we will have a quaterback with experience going into next season. here are some picks of the newest "golden boy" from the fan practice and blue and gold game

charlie said today that jimmy was the clear leader after spring practice (before the pesky surgery) and that he wasn't medically cleared to go full out until september 1 but now it is september 1st and he is ready to roll...also interesting enough he would not disclose what he said to jimmy before he went in on saturday...my thoughts are something along the lines of take over your team boy you and i both knew it was going to happen. no quarterback has started so early in their freshman season, brady didn't start until game 4.

i need jimmy to do well so he can save the season and my liver (huge embarrassing nd losses make me drink too much) and while i don't think we are going to go 13-1 i do have hope that i didn't have halfway through the game on saturday.

stephanie's friend jen had the following thing to say and i just had to share, she sums it up into one neat little package...

Well, this football season is shaping up to be a dandy. It's going to be like 2003 again when Brady was a frosh taking his lumps. Evan has already proved in mop-up duty that he can't move an offense, and the college game doesn't support the option or running the QB anymore, so D-dawg is out. I really thought Charlie would throw Clausen in there sooner, but he had to give the ND faithful a real look at the more "experienced" quarterbacks. That way, when everyone's yelling for his head because the froshie is throwing interceptions against USC and Michigan, we all know there ain't nothin' better to fall back on. Charlie is truly a genius.

so here is to hoping to the future (and beating msu, usc, bc and u of m, maybe not this year but next year would be nice)...go irish!!

ps it took nicole until last year to shake brady's hand and she has already shaken jimmy's i think that is an excellent sign! check out the video if you haven't yet!

join the club

well this weekend was one for the ages...nicole called me about 4 pm on friday to say she was coming home for the weekend. i couldn't have been more excited i think my co-workers thought i was nuts! she has only been gone for a few weeks but it seems like an eternity, so the scene was set...nicole in town, finally the answer to the qb question and tailgating all seemed right with the world. let the long weekend begin.


saturday morning we did some power tailgating, maximized the amount of people we saw in a limited amount of time. we still managed to see the team walk into mass, see yesterday's entry for the video. after seeing amy, brian, sarah and randy we heading back to watch the game.


nicole, alli, brett, christa and myself settled in at our apartment with snacks, drinks and good company to enjoy the irish kickoff. the overall mood was excited about dd starting (the winner of last weeks poll) but weren't two minutes into the game and many of my expletives later nicole assured us it was going to be a long season and that we needed to just relax. we took a break in the first half to watch miss south carolina and then dove back in for more. evan went in for the two minute drill and nicole was so excited to see a forward pass we declared it was time to make tshirts (christa suggested "evan almighty").

during halftime we saw the video nicole was telling us about the haiti program, it put things in perspective. you can check out the video here.

we charged through the misery that was the 2nd half and then a bright light shown from the sideline...his name jimmy clausen...he was throwing...i screamed nicole and christa stopped talking about the miracles of the human heart and hope was born again! something about seeing our third quarterback of the day brought joy, he could throw, he seemed to know what he was doing, he smiled from the sidelines and most importantly nicole didn't break his hand when she shook it earlier today!! we celebrated the small victories and enjoyed the end of the game (even a fan from southern california who will remain nameless even admits now jimbotron might be the best option).

so the score was bad, the game was bad...but there appeared to be light at the end of the tunnel. but at the end of the day one thing still hasn't changed....

don't forget to vote in this weeks poll and make your voice heard!

highlights from charlie's press conference...charlie promises that the team will be better or worse next week but not the same, i guess that is good news. charlie also said that jones and sharpley were both disspointed with their performance but he told them to join the club, couldn't have said it better myself. but it was still a great irish weekend...



i am watching the braves game right now, talk about knocking a girl while she is down but the commentators just said john smoltz wasn't sure if he was going to be able to start today because his sides hurt from laughing too hard at the michigan loss. that is some funny stuff. now they are talking about how maybe notre dame would have used a 4th qb if he was available, not funny.

on a bright note leroy dixon from sb anchored the 4x1 relay for team usa yesterday and they won the gold. while i haven't seen leroy in YEARS i played softball with both of his sisters for a long time at chet waggoner and am so proud of him!

well it could have been worse....

well we suck...but so did michigan right?! i will post pics and highlights from this weekend tomorrow...

but in the meantime you can check out my youtube premiere...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1yqhbfx1-s

so we are 1 for 1 in selecting the correct starting qb...not sure that is a good thing. but PLEASE vote in the updated poll....go irish!