Kingdom Crown Qualifications

Saturday November 1st we went to Elko, Nevada for an Amtgard event.  I wasn't in the mood for taking photos, so I don't have many.  We went for the Arts and Science competition and Fighting Tournament.  Then later that evening they had a masked ball for feast and court, with the feast being catered.  It was way yummy food and the company was superb.  We didn't have masks because I couldn't find ours from Halloween 2006.  But that was okay.  We still dressed up fancy.  It was sort of Halloween, but not, since we dress up for Amtgard all the time.  The person we had snap the photo got this photo and then a blurry one of us full length and a full length one with Dave's eyes closed and I'm not smiling.  So this is the best we had.  But I wanted people to see the beautiful dress.  A good friend of mine, Sindari (Michelle), made it and loaned it to me for the event.  I needed something I could wear being pregnant, and it worked great.  So yes, we both look goofy, but at least you can see our outfits.  It was a good weekend.  We both really enjoyed ourselves.

Halloween Time

So Halloween was weird this year.  I ended up not dressing up on Halloween.  And I didn't get to see any of my nieces or nephews.  Which was odd.  I had a Dr appointment in the morning and then went to work.  But every year there is a Downtown Trick of Treat.  And since the Transcript is Downtown, we get to participate in the trick or treat and get to see all the little trick or treaters.  So a few employees and ex-employees brought their kids down to do the trick or treating.  So I snapped a few fun photos of them all.  

Melissa and Zoey 

(Melissa was the tree for the monkey to climb-CUTER!)

Chelby and Connor (another cute monkey!)

Shawn's cute boy, Ben as a Scary Ghost!

Heidi's Girls McKenna and BrookeAnne  (A Princess, and a Snow Tiger Princess)

Alaura, Kelly's girl as a pretty witch

(she didn't want her photo taken, so this is the best I had that wasn't blurry)

That night we passed out candy and played games with a group of friends that didn't have kids, and therefore needed somewhere to go that night.  It was a good day, but not my typical Halloween.

Serenity Character Quiz

I found this quiz on a friend's myspace account (Thanks, Mirrim!)  I know I am a total dork with these geeky kind of things, but I love Serenity or Firefly as the series was called.  It was so sad that this show was canceled.  It was seriously fantastic and very well done!  If you are into this sort of thing like I am please feel free to take the quiz and see which character you are.  It's just a fun thing if you are into it.  Here are my results.
Your results:
You are Zoe Washburne (Second-in-command)

Zoe Washburne (Second-in-command) 85% Kaylee Frye (Ship Mechanic) 75% Inara Serra (Companion) 65% Dr. Simon Tam (Ship Medic) 65% Derrial Book (Shepherd) 60% Wash (Ship Pilot) 50% Alliance 50% Malcolm Reynolds (Captain) 45% River (Stowaway) 30% Jayne Cobb (Mercenary) 10% A Reaver (Cannibal) 0%

Dependable and trustworthy. You love your significant other and you are a tough cookie when in a conflict.

Click here to take the "Which Serenity character are you?" quiz...

The Tummy

Since I am 28 weeks along and just starting my 7th month.  I thought it would be a good time to show off some tummy shots.  They are always fun to see, even if not that fun to do.  I also discovered last night in the store that I can't hide the fact that I am pregnant anymore.  I ran into a woman I hadn't seen since I was in high school.  She looked directly at my belly and said "So, anything new going on with you."  Which I replied things to the effect of my job, and Dave, mom and dad, etc.  And after seeing her sweat for a bit, I finally gave in and told her "oh, and I am pregnant and due in January."  Dave thinks that was mean of me, but I am just not used to having to bring that up with people that I know, but don't really know.  She was my Youth City Council advisor.  Its not like she was someone I was incredibly close to.  She of course, congratulated me and confessed that she thought so, but didn't dare come out and ask.  Which I can understand as being taboo, because if the person isn't pregnant...  However, I think that I am looking pretty obviously pregnant these days.  You can judge that for yourselves.

UFC 90

Ultimate Fighting Championships!  I LOVE them!  This Saturday we had the chance to throw a UFC party at our house.  We had some good friends from Nevada come out.  Vexx, Nidalap and Sunflower (all amtgard friends), and my brother Blaine and Sani came.  And of course, James, Dave and I were there.  It was a good time had by all.  Not to mention incredible food.  We had dutch oven chicken wings, smoked pulled pork, artichoke dip, queso and chips, and apples and carmel dip.  It was all way yummy!  Thanks to everyone who brought something.  Anderson Silva fought versus Patrick Cote as the main event.  Anderson Silva is one of our most favorite fighters.  It was a somewhat disappointing fight.  In the third round Patrick pulled his ACL in his knee and the fight ended.  Anderson won by default, pretty much.  It was sad, and looked very painful.  The other big fight was Thiago Alves vs Josh Osh Kosh B Gosh Koscheck (as we like to call him).  Diego Sanchez was supposed to fight, but due to an injury Josh stepped in.  This fight could have gone either way.  It went to decision.  Neither could finish, so that's what happens.  There were some other good fights though and it was still fun to get together.  Jim and Marianne usually come, but were in Vegas, so weren't able to attend.  We missed them and hoped they had some fun in Vegas, even though it wasn't a trip for pleasure.  I hope they had some time to do something fun.  Our projector worked great and it was a blast.  I just can't wait until GSP fights again.  He is my all time most favorite fighter.  George St. Pierre.  Here's hoping for his next fight to be sooner, rather than later.

George St. Pierre (GSP)

The Last Nielsen

The only Nielsen to never have tied the knot is engaged.  Blaine Andrew Nielsen, my baby brother, is going to be getting married.  He proposed to the beautiful Sani Scott and she said yes.  The date is set for November 29th.  I am so excited to have a new sister!  More women in the family, yea!!  We have a lot, but you can always have more women to sympathize with.  Sani is amazing and I love her to death.  I am so excited that Blaine found someone that I love so much.  I was always worried about who he would end up with.  Being so close to him, I really wanted him to marry someone that I got along with as well.  And he surpassed my expectations.  As my sister Marianne said "If there was a girl version of Blaine, its Sani."  Welcome to the family Sani!  Dave and I are incredibly stoked!

Sheds Update

So this past weekend on Saturday the 18th of October we finally got around to taking care of the sheds so that they can withstand the winter.  We had one dilapidated shed that we took down and used the spare parts to fix up the remaining shed.  It was quite the feat to get them on our property to begin with, so now we had to get them fixed up, which was a different kind of feat.  Luckily we had a lot of great friends come and help us out.  Since we will be storing a large majority of Amtgard supplies in the shed and crafting will commence in the shed as well, we asked our Amtgard family to come help us.  We fed them hot dogs and chili and worked and painted and had a good time despite the working.  Here is the dilapidated shed that sat lopsided on my property before the big day.

Here are a few photos of what is left of this shed.

Here is the good shed that needed some repairs.  Here you can see that this side is a big hole with a damaged frame

And here is the shed after they fixed the side and added a door.

And here it is painted up real nice.

I can't even believe its the same shed.  Our friends were great and worked really hard.  Here they are painting.

One of the amazing things was how carefully they took apart the one shed to use the parts to fix up the other one.  I don't feel so white trashish now with the nicely painted shed on my property instead of two old crappy looking sheds.  Here is a picture of some of those who came.  By the time we thought to do a group photo we were missing a few peeps.

Left to Right: Lireal (Angie), Fitz (Lance), Sable (Matt), Tess (Laurie), Ceowulf (Dave), Rolgrim (Nick), Ausway (Jim), Cindy, Loptr (Evan), and Chour (Thomas) Not pictured: Sindari (Michelle), Pancakes (Cullin), Roisin (Gala), and Westerric (Mark)

Thank you all so much!  We couldn't have done it without you!