Sitting in the hospital

*********UPDATE************
11:30 pm No surgery needed! The CAT scan shows enlarged lymph nodes, which is what is likely causing this issues. The doc thinks it is some sort of viral infection...we're going home for the night. If anything changes, we will have to come back in the morning. But for now, good news!!

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Travis and I are over at St Francis Hospital right now (yay for wireless internet!) because Travis has been having stomach pain for the past 30 hours or so. Because the pain was mostly localized in the lower right part of his abdomen, we were concerned that it might be appendicitis.

We've been here for about 3 hours now and Travis has had a few tests done. They have definitely not been able to rule out appendicitis, and indeed, all signs point there.

If it is appendicitis, I will be here for the night, as they will do the surgery tonight.

Anyway, I will keep you posted...think good thoughts for Travis!!

-SKH

Moving in two weeks

I changed my moving date to Friday, August 29 because Travis and I are going to be in Seattle for a few days at the beginning of that week in order to make sure everything is in line with the house on which we are making an offer.

Yes, we found a house that might work for us! It's an enormous (3700 sq ft) place in Kent, which is actually closer to downtown Seattle than Federal Way. We would need to do a lot of cosmetic work on the interior as the previous owners just trashed the place, but it's bank owned and looks to be priced right. We'll see how our offer goes; Travis likes this place a lot, and I think it would be a great place for us to build some value.

I'm working on finishing up our paperwork for the financing on the new house, and we need to pick a realtor to sell our existing house here very soon.

I cannot believe that I am moving in just two weeks. Nearly every day and night is packed full of stuff to do, people to see and going away parties to go to. It's insane, but good. We have so many people here that we are going to miss desparately, and it will be nice to hang out with the Minnesota peeps before I go.

Get ready for a crazy time - moving across country is scary!

-SKH

Michael Phelps might as well be a god

So...Michael Phelps just won ANOTHER gold medal. Seriously, this man is unstoppable. That makes a perfect 7-for-7 record at the Beijing Games. One more relay race to go, and he should beat out the whiner Mark Spitz for a grand total of 8 Olympic golds in one Olympic.

Best Olympian of all time.

-SKH

Olympic Fever!

I will start off by saying that I LOVE the Olympics. I will happily watch any sport. I love that there are literally hundreds of hours of coverage on over the two week period - God bless NBC. To demonstrate how much I enjoy everying Olympic, take this example: I am moving approximately 1500 miles away in just 16 days, and what am I doing? Sitting on the couch, watching Michael Phelps make history.

My favorite parts of the Summer Olympics are the swimming events, diving events and gymnastics. During the Winter Olympics, I like to watch a lot of events...skiing, skating, hockey, snowboarding - the list goes on and on.

MICHAEL PHELPS JUST WON HIS TENTH CAREER OLYMPIC GOLD MEDAL! That was awesome. I am excited to see his next final tonight. Can he really continue his sweep? It's really incredible. Has anyone noticed his incredible abs, back and shoulder muscles? It is just insane. Wow.

Anyways, I think I will work on getting some clothes packed up for donation while watching some Olympics on this Tuesday evening. Who's getting excited for the Vancouver 2010 Olympics? :)

-SKH

Chicago's delicious food weekend

Mmmm. So I spent the past 4 days in Chicago for Terminus with Hava, and we ate really well during our trip. :) We ended up having several kinds of Italian food during our stay. Chicago really is known for awesome Italian food.

On Thursday, we met up with some friends at Carmine's, which is a Rosebud restaurant. I had the square noodles with arriabiata sauce...yum. Of course, they gave me far too much food (the bowl of pasta they delivered to me could have fed my entire family) but let me tell you, it was wonderful. The company at dinner was also great. :)

On Friday, we ate lunch at a place called Mercat, a Catalan-inspired restaurant. I'll be honest with you: I didn't like it. I had this ham sandwich thing that had too much aioli on it, and then it came with paprika fries that we simply doused in paprika aioli. Gross. Anyways, that's where we went.

On Friday night, we actually decided to order pizza (Chicago-style deep dish, yum) and watch the Olympic Opening Ceremony. This was a very good plan by us! We ordered from a place called Giordano's that we had both had, and really enjoyed our pepperoni, mushroom and spinach pie. The opening ceremonies were incredible...China really put on a fabulous show for the world on 08.08.08.

On Saturday afternoon, we went to this cool deli sort of near the hotel called the Eleven City Diner. We decided to do salads as we were thinking that we might do pasta that night. They chop any salad for free, and I find that a chopped salad is way easier to eat. My chef's salad was good, and had a LOT of turkey chunks and ham slices. Yum. The place was crazy busy, and the owner was very abrasive to his staff, but all in all, plenty of fun. Hava got hit on by the cute diner at the table next to ours. I have a pic of the Deli and another of the two of us at the deli that I am posting.

On Saturday night, we went to a fun Italian place called Gioco - Hava wanted to carb up with some pasta prior to her race on Sunday morning. (Hava signed up for a half marathon on a whim once we got into town...impressive!) She was able to get them to make her spaghetti and meatballs, while I had their mushroom and pork risotto special. I couldn't believe how good the risotto was - I think I may need to learn how to make risotto someday because it is so dang good!

On Sunday, I headed to brunch at North Pond up in Lincoln Park with my best friend Stacy, her husband Cory, and her parents, Bob and Nancy. This was easily the best meal I had in Chicago. Wow. We picked our prix fixe items from this menu (well, a similar menu, they do their work based on what food is locally available). I had the citrus french toast as my first course (it was awesome, with sour cherries on top rather than strawberries...must be what they had fresh), the halibut dish as my second course (it came with a creamy polenta and cucumbers rather than beets), and a peach/blueberry tart for dessert. Heavenly. Top it off with a peach mimosa, and you have heaven in a restaurant.

Our drive home had no eventful food. We ate at a Taco John's (gross, there's a reason I hadn't eaten there in 10 years). I also had a McFlurry at one stop, which are generally tasty.

So there you have it, folks. I had a great food weekend. :)

-SKH