Baseball, a Birthday, and Book Club

It's been a fairly busy weekend! The Boyfriend's birthday was on Friday, but since he and I both worked, we pushed celebrations off until Saturday. After I ran the Havelock 10K race on Saturday morning and then worked for a few hours, we headed out to his dad's farm, where the whole family had convened for a cookout. I didn't have my camera with me at that time (too many little grubby kids' hands, not enough sobriety to pay attention to delicate electronics), but I strapped up when we headed downtown to the Saltdogs game. A friend had hooked us up with tickets, so it was a cost-effective, super fun night!

We found out later that the mascot's neck-dingleberry made his ears flap.

The Boyfriend, enjoying an adult beverage at his birthday game.

The local bowling alleys sponsor a quasi-Zorb version of bowling during the seventh-inning stretch.

The boys went downtown after the game, but I just went home and went to bed--work in the morning, you know. Today, I worked until noon and then Boyf and I ordered pizza and watched Hardcore Pawn (boyyyyy am I glad I don't live in Detroit!) until I headed to Book Club at six. This was only the second Book Club I'd been to; I joined with my friend Amy, who is an old friend of the club's founder. 

This month, we'd read Sister, by Rosamund Lupton. Each meeting of the club, we bring food that pertains to the book; since Sister is set in London, with digressions to New York City, we decided to bring New York street vendor food: hot dogs, soft pretzels (with cheese sauce!), potato salad, and some delicious cherry cheesecake.

Strawberry lemonade and discussion

Phenomenal cheesecake

om-nomming all up on this cake

Roddy (the founder)'s dog, Stormy

A mini-garden outside of Roddy's

As I was leaving Roddy's house, a storm started brewing to the south and I tried to get some shots before my camera died (poor planning on my part, yes). I hightailed it to campus, where I knew of an open parking garage and made a beeline to the top. Unfortunately, I didn't get any epic lightning shots like I was hoping, but there were some pretty sweet clouds boiling above.

At the elementary school across from Roddy's house

right around the corner from the parking garage

atop the parking garage, facing to the east

and looking directly south. The phallus is the Nebraska State Capitol, fondly referred to as "the Prick of the Prairie." Those eagle-eyes among you may be able to see the one flash of lightning I was able to catch tonight in between the small tower on the left side of the picture and the apartment building in the center of the shot.

I hope my first post has been entertaining enough for y'all! I'm honestly very proud of myself for posting this so soon after the fact. Let's hope this is the start of a new trend!

Bis später!

Tory