Eat it up Obama lovers!

We've figured out the key to Obama's success....PIZZA! As if we all need another reason to eat pizza, this is the reason Obama won last night. No, we're serious! So, if you noticed in our first Obama kicks butt post, you'll see the pizza box on the floor where we were watching the CNN coverage on the internet. Last night, we were watching MSNBC to watch the final results roll in and again, Obama wins! Now we gave some serious thought to this coincidence and we truly feel that coincidence it is not. In fact, we didn't actively think about it until after he won and Emily casually joked, "it's the pizza." But the more we thought about it, it makes sense. Here's why:

Point #1: We were not eating pizza when Obama lost any of those ridiculously stupid places that call themselves states, but are in fact cesspools of ignorance.

Point #2: Compare and Contrast the two awesome states that have actual intelligent life.

Iowa
* watched via the web
* coverage by CNN
* sat on the floor
* ate Sal's Supreme Pizza

South Carolina
*watched via cable TV
* coverage by MSNBC
* sat on the couch
* ate Sal's Supreme Pizza

And the only comparison is: Sal's Supreme Pizza!

So, although there are no Sal's by any of you, we implore you to eat a supreme pizza on Super Tuesday in support of Obama. Please, for the love of all that's good, eat pizza!

Obama Victory Speech in South Carolina

Obama Endorsement

Today Obama was officially endorsed by The State, South Carolina's widest-read newspaper. The editorial endorsement can be read here.

We'll keep our fingers crossed and hope to see a different outcome from Nevada.

On a side note we really hope Huckabee can stay in the race on the Republican side as we'd love to see McCain try to take on Chuck Norris. Now that would be a fight worth watching!

Cowboys and Veggies

Let me break my silence with giving you breaking news.... I have experienced my first celebrity sighting! Yes, I know you all may be jealous, especially Tiffany's boyfriend Nick, when you hear my story of an ordinary girl crossing paths with none other than Troy Aikman.

Let me first give you the details leading up to the big event. Chris and I were enjoying a rainy afternoon sitting among the pleasurable aroma of coffee in the local Highland Park Village Starbucks. In the drizzly afternoon air, Chris suggested we take a stroll around the square, to which I complained a little but ultimately gave in because that's what happily married couples do sometimes (rolling eyes). Anyways, as we just begin our jaunt, my eyes behold a sight unlike any other...Troy Aikman, in person and looking quite normal in his green fleece and faded jeans. Of course, given his proximity to us I couldn't exclaim "Oh my God! That's Troy Aikman!" So I did the next best thing I could do which was squeeze and scratch the hell out of Chris' hand as we walked towards him. Now, I don't know how, but it took Chris a good 15 seconds to register what I was seeing. In fact, he looked at me like, "What are you doing to my hand?" But, alas within the last 5 feet Chris set eyes on him too, right before he entered a store. Finally I could let my excitement out since I didn't want to make an ass out of myself in front of the famous man. And of course, I had to brag that he actually made eye contact with me. (That's how I recognized him in the first place.)

So, we nonchalantly continue our way around the square to Tom Thumb, a grocery store way too overpriced, but one in which sells my favorite frozen veggie combo of green beans, edamame and mushrooms. Anyways, back to my story...

Amidst the veggies, Chris realizes we forgot our recycled, reusable shopping bag in the car and heads back outside. I continue perusing the aisles. I then go in pursuit of Chris since he's likely returned and instead of coming to find me went to the wine section (sad, but true.) As I walk along looking down the aisles, BAM! who do I nearly collide with?....Troy Aikman! To which he said to me "excuse me." In my blubbering stupidness I could only reply with a nod of my head as if I was royalty and he should be excused for running into ME! When in fact I just didn't want to act like an idiot who had never seen a former famous person shopping in a grocery store. I mean, what would you do?

I scuttled off and found Chris (in the wine section) and we headed off while I told him of my encounter. Now, hear I am with new found excitement to share myself with all of you and to end my apathy of the blog.

Song of the Day...appropriately titled:

Family, Frosting and Foliage

I know this is long overdue, and I'm sure my family is probably thinking they rate pretty low on my to do list, but I'm finally getting around to their visit from December. I know, I'm a lazy POS, but, hey, I've been working overtime on the weekends, had a bachelorette party to plan and attend, been sick with a sinus infection all while completing my wifely duties of cooking, cleaning and laundry. (Just joking Chris, you help too) Ugh...too much to do and too little time!

Enough whining.

So, in true Iowa fashion, my family headed out bright and early (well, maybe not so bright since it was 4:30am) on Friday, December 28th in the middle of a snow storm. Let me tell you this is testiment alone for their love of me if they were willing to drive 30 miles per hour for over 300 miles instead of heading back home. Barry at the wheel and the women riding shotgun (and no doubt telling him how to drive...a horrible trait we all possess) they rode in the "ghetto rigged" Sante Fe decked out with my mother's gardening box bolted to the back. If only there was a picture to include of this fabulous piece of art.

After many long, long, long hours, they entered the land of mega churches and knew they were close to their final destination. Chef Christopher, waited anxiously to serve his famous Bill's Balls to the pack of hungry travelers. I drove home from work that day to find my family safely inside and waiting to dive into the great meal Chris prepared. We enjoyed some catching up and laughs as they told us the story of their journey through 2 states of blizzard like conditions. Mom and Barry headed to the hotel early since they had been up all day driving. The grrlzz and us shared more laughs and finally set up house and settled in for the night.

(As a side note here, let me tell you that my parent hotel was in the"adult" section of Dallas, complete with barbed wire fence surrounding the place and a porn palace as their neighbor)

The next day, we did our christmas gift exchange (not very interesting on their part since we got them all gift cards.) We then headed out for the Dallas Arboretum to learn about making chocolate and take in the sites of Dallas in winter. We spent several hours enjoying the nature trails and exhibits as well as driving around White Rock Lake. In fact, Chris found one of his specimens for his photo sequence at the arboretum. That evening, we ate my homemade spagetti and I made my favorite childhood cookie...oatmeal with butterscotch chips. Yummy! We watched a movie and then headed out for some mansion perusing and christmas light sightings. This was made especially exciting when we began to imagine we were being followed by the cops due to our lowriding, rigged up SUV that scraped bottom and totally sounded like a gun going off. Keep in mind, we were in Highland Park and could probably be cited for disturbing the peace. I'm laughing now just thinking about it...guess you had to be there...

Now, for our game night! Yes, finally someone to play Cranium with! We set up the game and played for probably 2 hours, laughing ourselves into a "silly session" which ended in some hilarious pics...

Sunday we drove downtown to show them the sights of Dallas. We visited the Farmers Market and then walked around the West End for awhile so they could find some souvenir Texas goodies. Then we made the long trek (long by Sara's standards) to Victory Park and had the best thing made by man...gelato. A first for the fam and a definite hit.

We spent the evening relaxing and eating enchiladas before we made the worlds worst sugar cookies. Never again will I make my own dough! How pathetic am I that at the age of 27 I need my mom to come over to figure out how to get the damn stuff to stop sticking to the counter? Finally, after numerous attempts and even more numerous curse words, my mom made the cookies and I baked them. We frosted the darn things then decorated them to our liking with plently of frosting. suuuuuuugaaaaaarrrrrr!

We chilled out and visited some more. Yes, good times...too bad they had to leave the next day...

Monday, we gorged ourselves on leftovers and watched Hot On! Our local real estate home show for the Dallas area. Of course the gradual turn of events lead to watching Jerry Springer and the numerous judge shows on TV (we didn't have cable at the time...which on a side note, I figured out how to tap into just yesterday). That afternoon my family packed up to leave, we said our goodbyes and they were on their way, back to the frozen tundra of the midwest. Did I mention it was in the 60's when they were here? Anyways, it was great seeing family and made me realize how much I miss having family close. *Tear*

Click on the picassa web album slideshow once to play, and double-click to be view the album directly (and download the full-size pics if you so desire).

Emily the apathetic blogger

We apologize to our wide readership for our lack of interesting posts lately. There are however, a few reasons for this...1)We've been busy on the weekends...doing what you may ask? When we get the time we'll tell you, 2)Chris has been busy networking and figuring out job/fellowship opportunities for next year, and 3)We've just been plain tired.

Mostly however, our lack of interesting blog posts has been directly tied to Emily's laziness as a fellow contributing blogger. Most of the interesting things happening (worth posting about here) have been regarding her family (visiting over the holidays) and friends (Johnette's bachelorette party). Has she bothered to document these activities, of course not, at least not yet.

Though they lack in number, they abound with comments, something Chris' posts lack.

I just asked her if there was anything else she wanted to include in this post, and she said "no". Such apathy becomes hard to deal with...but then again no one said marriage was easy.

So tonight I find myself with mixed feelings, on one hand, excitement for our potential future, and frustration with the fact that Clinton narrowly defeated Obama in Nevada, now the second straight victory for her. Can we not do better than Bush-Clinton(♂)-Bush(W)-Clinton(♀)? Time will tell.

So keep an eye out in the coming days for some decent posts, as Chris has monday off for MLK day, which is a welcome break after the past three days.

Song of the day:

Keeping her day job

We realize its been a while since we've posted anything on here, but we've been a bit busy the past two weeks (Emily re-living her college party-days in Austin at a Bachelorette party, and Chris busy with patients and the job search), however we'll have some entries to follow later this weekend to fill in the gaps. While we're busy doing other things, feel free to check out another (perhaps more comedic) story Sarah did about trying out for the local Peoria football squad.

Song of the day:

More stories from Sarah

Song of the weekend:

OBAMA WINS!!!...BUT WHAT'S WITH CHUCK NORRIS?

Elation fills the Barwacz household this evening as our computer-live feed of the Iowa Caucus has verified what we here at Chris & Emily have known for a while...that Obama is clearly the best candidate for the next president of the United States. It was so refreshing to hear an eloquent speech (even if just from a candidate) we had to remind ourselves that we still have almost a year left of the usual stammering of our current ummm, uhh, President Dubbya (Hey, it's "hard work").

All we forgot was the beer

We have remained fairly quiet up to this point on the blog about our political leanings, but feel it necessary now to give our full public support for Obama. As such, our readers will find a new link on the right side of the page (under the heading "Links") to Obama’s campaign website. We hope that you will use this webpage to better familiarize yourselves with Obama and his stances, and if you're so inclined, to help fund his campaign.

So read it (or watch it) and weep you Edwards/Clinton lovers....we won't name names here (i.e. Wadle/Schoen people).

On a side note, we were seriously disappointed with the Republicans in Iowa. We understand and share your desire for a non-establishment candidate, but in all seriousness, why must it involve Chuck Norris? We were laughing so much during the Huckabee victory speech that Chris became Homer-esque and Emily couldn't breath. For those of you who didn't see it (which may be just about our entire readership...we know because Texas didn't cover a lick of the Caucus...) as Huckabee yammered away, there was good ole' Chuck Norris in the background with his giant head over the shoulder of Huckabee. Not Huckabee’s wife, but Chuck, Chuckie, Texas Ranger, whatever you call him. We ponder whether a victory for Huckabee will also mean a victory for the Total Gym (only time will tell).

At any rate, we were glad to see Obama pull off the victory and will be avidly cheering him on in his bid for the New Hampshire primaries next Tuesday.


We were wondering what happened to Chuck Norris since Texas Ranger went off the air

Hmmm...we're starting to see a pattern here...Chuck Norris 2012 anyone?


The Obama speech, spoken in complete sentances and sans the
stammering we've all become accustomed to the past 7 years

Seeds for a New Year

This whole photo series started spontaneously last week as Emily and I were killing some time with some friends at a local Starbuck's before taking them to the airport. There weren't enough seats inside, so we decided to brave the elements (low 50's) outside and enjoy our coffee alfresco-style. This is when I spotted this weird hanging shell-thingy (technical name unknown - see left) off of one of the trees. So I reached up and grabbed it, examined it, and thought "hey, this would be awesome for macro photography"...I know...I'm a dork, but hey, this is what happens when you get addicted to photography.

So I brought this "shell-thingy" home and came to the realization that I was going to need a way to properly light and isolate this cool object so as to let it speak for itself. That's when I started doing some research on the net (I've come to realize lately that you can find just about anything you need to know on the internet) and came across a webpage that demonstrated a how-to on building a light box. And so the next morning, as Emily was at work and I was on vacation, I went ahead and built it (without a voice ala Field of Dreams instructing me to)...and the rest was pure fun.

The last two objects were found on another separate day during a trip to the Dallas Arboretum (and no, no beautiful plants/flowers were sacrificed in the making of these photographs).

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!