CORY TURNED 30 on Dec. 16, 2010. We had a small get together at the bar in Carroll with some friends and family. The picture above is of Ellie "Icing" him. Its a thing people do with a Smirnoff Ice. If someone surprises you with one, you have to get down on 1 knee, point your finger in the air and chug the drink. No one is a big fan of it, but it is funny to see from time to time. HAPPY BIRTHDAY brother. Enjoy your 30s.
Well I havent really updated everyone but I have started a new position with a new company. Right now I am in Kansas City training. I have one more week here, then head back to Iowa for a week, then head back down here for one more week of sales training. The position is an Educational Sales position with Walsworth Publishing. They publish high school/middle school/college yearbooks. They were looking for a permanent salesperson in Iowa, so I applied, had a few interviews and got offered the job. I am having a blast learning all I can down in Kansas City. I will be in charge of the whole state of Iowa, and parts of South Dakota and North Dakota. I am very excited to get started and to work with high schools. Hope and I had many discussions about me taking this position and we both agreed it was a no brainer. I will be traveling a lot during the school year helping schools with their yearbooks and trying to sell to new schools each year. So if anyone has any ties to any high schools in Iowa, I would greatly appreciate any help I could get. It has been a long week by myself in KC. Being away from Hope and Lola is a lot harder than I thought, but I only have a few more days. One thing I have loved about being down here is meeting up with friends I dont get to see a lot. Carlos and Melinda and Hannah P have been great hosts. I have had dinner with them a few times and the places they have taken me to were amazing. The picture above is from the Italian restaurant we went to one night. I will really need to get on a workout plan once I return home. Seems like all I have done down here is eat big meals.
So thats a quick update on me and my new job, I will back-track here to review the past holiday season.
Hope and I stayed around Carroll again for New Years. We just didnt feel like going anywhere since it felt like we have been traveling every weekend in November and December. We ended up going to dinner and getting drinks with Cory and Allie. The night got better once I ran into this guy at the 529.
Its always a pleasure seeing Mr. Franey. Hope and I ended up testing out our bartending skills later that night. Thanks to everyone at B&S's 529 for showing us a great time. I cant believe I didnt update anyone over the holidays. I was getting calls from both of my Grandparents asking why I havent updated anything in the past month or so. I will take us all the way back to Thanksgiving. Hope and I were super busy this year with Thanksgivings. We started on Nov. 14 with the Henkenius Thanksgiving. This year Hope, myself, Pud and Molly decided not to go out the night before since last year we seemed the get over-served the night before and then barely ate anything the next day. Once again the food spread was amazing in Arcadia. The next Sunday, Nov. 21 Mom, Marc and I made a short trip up to Estherville to see the Hempstead side. Greg and Abby made the trip down as well. I tell you what as crazy as Virgil is I always come away with some knowledge from my visits there. Part of my main course there was the pumpkin bread, which I thought Grandma Hempstead made so I was complimenting her all day while I was stuffing my face, but then I found out later on the ride home that my mom had brought it up there. Ohh well, hahaha. Grandma's cringla (spell check) were still amazing. This year we hit up Estherville again on Thursday Nov. 25 for the Zeigler Thanksmas. We celebrate both Thanksgiving and Christmas since Big Z and Grandma Z like to take their talents down to South Texas for a few months each year. One of these days Hope and I are going to come with you. We enjoyed a great meal which is always expected at the Zeigler house. Hope even assisted Grandma with her hair that morning. Nothing like having the stylist come to your own house to get you ready for the day.
I am still working on Big Z to let Hope and I borrow the RV for a trip, but I think I may need to ease into it. He just finally let us stay in it over night with out his supervision. That only took 26 years and me to get married to happen. I am expecting to be able to use it for a trip some time in my 40s. One big task I was assigned over this trip to the Zeigler's was to help Grandma Z with Facebook. Wow was that entertaining. HAHA. Grandma I love you and you will be a pro in no time. I have tried to post messages on her wall to get her to respond all winter, but havent seen any replies. Hope and I dropped by the Hempstead household Thursday morning. Grandpa always showing me more and more of his coin collection and family tree information, showed me this. 
It is the Hempstead "Coat of Arms." I have never seen it before, so I snapped a quick pic. Next time I am up there Virg is going to go in detail with what everything means. I am looking forward to get up there soon. We finally ended our Thanksgiving feast at the Ulveling's on Saturday Nov. 27. It was great to see everyone and Sandy never disappoints me when we show up for meals in Breda.Christmas was great as well. We were able to spend time with both sides of the family again. We started off the Christmas season at Hope's parents place a few weeks early. Boy did I score big - they surprised me with a weed eater. Got to love getting thrown a curve ball on Christmas, the surprises are the best. I was alittle disappointed that I registered for a weed eater for the wedding and no one purchased it for us, but Darrell came through. I just hope he doesnt borrow it too much, haha, just kidding Darrell anytime you need it, you know right where it is. We had a great gathering of friends and family again this year at our house. I didnt take any pictures from that night, but Hope, Jennie A and TDub really stepped up their cooking skills because we had so much food. Thank you to all that made an appearance that night. Christmas Day was spent at the Ulveling's, that Sunday we split time between Arcadia at the Henkenius' and at Mom's with the Grandma & Grandpa Hempstead. Holiday season was super busy for us, and as much as it was great to see everyone I am glad things are attempting to calm down now.
One monumental event that happened between Thanksgiving and Christmas that definitely needs to be recognized was Marc graduating from Iowa State. We are all very proud of him and wish him nothing but the best in the future. Hope and I drove to Des Moines to celebrate this event with Marc, Ellie, Mom, Cory and Allie. Marc wanted to go to The Royal Mile for dinner then hit up a few bars after that. Him and Ellie decided it should be an "Ugly Christmas Sweater" party. We ended up having a great time. Here are a few photos from the night.
Steve Gute and Dan Lengeling also met us out this night, but I was unable to get a picture of either one of them. Cory's sweater was definitely the ugliest probably because mom dressed him, and the glasses werent working for you brother. Sorry.
One night while we were having dinner over at Hope's parents house my lovely wife put her artistic abilities to work. Her third love/passion (ME being #1 of course and doing hair #2) of decorating was very busy. She started rearranging her parents front living room. I must admit Hope does have a creative eye for decorating because our house looks great. After she had moved the furniture around, added a few candles from another room, moved a mirror and what not, Darrell and I started to get worried about where the TV was going. After Kerry and Hope pointed out the new resting place of their current TV Darrell and I came to the conclusion that it just wasnt a big enough TV for that location, so we said we needed to get atleast a 50 inch flat screen. Kerry then found a TV stand with an electric fireplace in the bottom of it online and it was on sale - even better. Once we figured out that the coupon expired that day at 8pm and it was 7:56pm, Hope had Darrell on the phone calling to purchase it. I know a lot of people dont think I can build things, which is partially true, all I wanted to do was post the picture above to show everyone I can put things together when they come in a box. But if I am building tables with Fuzz (Andy Stevens) we usually have to do it twice since we do it backwards the first time.
One of our new favorite places to eat and drink at in Carroll is B&S's 529. Brian and Steve have opened the old Clubhouse/Don's Place back up for business. The best part of the bar besides the company is the menu. The picture above is the first burger I built a few weeks back. I just started saying random things off the menu and ended up with that masterpiece. Cory beat me to it and topped his burger off with a fried egg. I see many nights at B&S's in our future.
DOClassic Update
I have been slacking this month. I will hopefully get an email sent out today to everyone that participated last year. Goal is to get the date set for the DOClassic 5 then start worrying about all the little things. The venue will be the Harvester and we are trying to have it on a Saturday for the first time, I just hope we can get the discount we are used to. One new idea by Johnny Larson was to have a "Live Draft" the night before. Everyone is on board with that and it should make for an eventful Friday evening.
That is all for now. I hope everyone is having a great 2011. My goal is to update this a few times a month. I am looking forward to seeing my wife, mother, brothers, Ellie, Fuzz & Janelle at the ISU Wrestling meet this coming Friday night in Ames.
See you all in time. Cheers.
BH
