I Just Pratt Myself

We're back from sunny, but cool, Orlando, FL. Our flight landed this afternoon around 4:30pm CT. You can't really be jealous of us though. Dave and I were there for a Maximized Living chiropractic conference (www.maximizedliving.com), so we didn't make it outside much at all, especially not during the day. Plus, it was freezing down there as far as Florida is concerned. We arrived on Thursday, where there was a county "winter weather advisory" in effect where some schools were closed and they even cancelled an evening prime time TV shows to air weather warnings for -- get this -- 35 degree weather. Yeah.. It apparently frosted the grass that night. Ha! Brrr for all of our group, though, who barely brought long pants, let alone sweatshirts and jackets with us! It did get into the low 70's on Saturday, but otherwise it was in the 60's and felt quite chilly.

We had a G R E A T experience at the three day conference though. We learned so much about our mission in chiropractic and cannot wait to continue saving lives and helping families here in the Cities!

So without boring you all with the details of the seminar, we of course got some pics and video of the night time fun that we had in Orlando. This was a national-level conference, so all of our friends and doctors from all over were there with us. We had fun going out with everyone and reconnecting since we're all up to so many different things.

On Thursday night we had most of our gang with us for dinner at an Irish pub in Disney World:

Left front to back: Vern, Nick E., Dan; Right front to back: Jake, Mikala, Dave, Elise

A toast to the night!

On Friday night we had the opportunity to go out to dinner with a doctor from Forrest Lake, MN. No pics of that night, but the guys had a great time talking and getting to know the doctor on a more personal level. Then on Saturday night, our favorite new docs were able to come out with our entire Northwestern University group -- Jay and Heather! They just graduated from Northwestern this past fall and are down in Florida training to open up their practice soon in Madison, WI. We don't get to see them enough anymore. It was such a treat for Dave to visit with them for a few hours!

And I have to put this on here... Okay, so Nick E., Dave and Vern were not in any way intoxicated during this. It happened one night while we four were waiting for the other guys to come down from their hotel room to go out. They were bored, it all started so fast..I was lucky to have my camera for this, because there were so many other funny moments that we wished we had caught over the weekend. Enjoy. :)

And here are my three oh-so-tired travel buddies while we waited to catch our first flight this morning. The seminar really wiped them out! First pic is Nick Pratt (the title of this post is dedicated to him) and Shane trying to gain energy from unhealthy sources.. And then there's poor Dave attempting to wake himself up.



That's a basic sum of our trip. If any of you want more info about Maximized Living, what it's all about or how you can get care from a chiropractor, just let us know. We're always happy to help!

Still waiting on Dave to get his "skinny" posted...the weekend kind of snuck up on him, but hopefully he'll have the time early this week between exams. We'll also be busy this week, besides our school and work schedules, planning our birthday party. We're acutally throwing ourselves a party this weekend -- cannot wait! For those who might not know, my birthday comes on the 29th and Dave's on the 31st, so we're two days apart. We're having a combined party on the 30th with a lot of our friends that live around here. I'm working on a menu right now. It's going to be so much fun! We're hoping to turn this into a yearly thing.. :)

Well bedtime for me now. I'm wiped after all of the flying today and lack of sleep over the seminar weekend. Dave is still out studying, but will hopefully be home soon. He needs his precious sleep the most!!


- Elise

Happy Birthday Brother Phlap!

Happy 21st Birthday to MATTHEW tomorrow!

We'll be traveling all day tomorrow, so we wanted to wish you a great birthday today while we have the chance. Hope you can take a break from classes, work and studying to relax a little bit, Matt!

So tomorrow morning we're leaving for a chiropractic seminar in Orlando, Florida. We'll be back Sunday evening. We cannot wait to get out of this cold weather for a long weekend! Now I just need to get about 5 loads of laundry done and pack our suitcases! :)

What's Our Skinny?

First of all, happy MLK Day! Tomorrow we will have the first African-American president in Barack Obama. New times are ahead of us! We make history tomorrow!

And I also want to say THANK YOU to Alanna, Kristin, Levi, Lia & Teija (and Alanna's aunt Trisha and family) for taking the time to visit with Dave and me on Friday night. And HAPPY 1st BIRTHDAY to miss Teija Marie Hokenson! Alanna and her mom were down here for a cousin's wedding and even though they were only in town for a little more than a day, they were so nice to work us into their schedules and invite us over to Alanna's aunt's house for dinner, up in New Hope. It just so happened to be Teija's first birthday. It was wonderful to meet even more people who live around here. We had fun visiting with Teija, looking at wedding pictures and playing with ALL of other kids. Hope we can do it again soon!

Now, I've titled this entry as so because so many people have been emailing, calling, and facebooking asking us what we're doing since we got married and moved to the Cities. SO, we decided it's about time to give you the "skinny" on US! Dave's going to post his own life summary in his own post a little later today. (he's at the school right now studying)

For those who have asked, no, I'm not going to culinary school right now. After many discussions, Dave and I decided it's best for us and the future of our practice if I push it off for now. We agreed it's my job to work and keep us financially set while Dave's in school. Even before our wedding, I was applying for countless jobs in the Twin Cities. I've probably applied for close to 150 corporate jobs, and yes I've gotten many interviews from them. But unfortunately this economy is not helping me land my dream job within a Fortune 500 company. I'll get in for the interview and in the end, the interviewer calls to say they chose to hire from within. Companies are doing that more and more because it's a heck of a lot cheaper and easier for them to do. An entry-level employee is way too much time and money for them to bother with now days, sad for me. I did get one job offer out of my rounds, but that story is much too long for today's post. If you want the story, drop me an email...Let me just say that if you ever get called back for a second interview and they tell you to "wear sneakers because heals will kill your feet after the all-day 'interview'," don't take it. That was a very disappointing waste of my time..

After about two solid months of going to interviews, I finally decided to broaden my scope and look for smaller businesses. It turned out that our chiropractor was looking for a new assistant to help around his office doing secretarial work and some help with marketing. I was interviewed, offered the job and worked there for about 3 months. I chose to leave it at the end of December because another chiropractor offered me a similar job at her office. I'll get to do even more marketing work for her as well as be her Chiropractic Assistant. These are two main roles I will play in Dave and my chiro office once we open in about 3 years. Another perk is that this new office has just opened in October, so I'll get to see first hand how start-up works. Can't wait! It's turned out, however, that this doctor doesn't want me to start working until the end of February or mid-March. So, as far as a full-time job goes, I'm unemployed at the moment.

But that doesn't mean I'm just sitting at home every day. I've taken it into my own hands to bring in extra income. After settling into our apartment in September, I immediately began looking for part-time work on top of my regular job in the chiro office. I got online looking for babysitting, housekeeping and any other odd-jobs that I could do for families all over the metro area. I primarily use a website called Care.com, http://www.care.com/, where I'm able to join for free and search for families in need of my services. I highly recommend this site to anyone who's either looking for this type of work or even families who need help with babysitting, house keeping, pet watching, etc. Check it out! (Becky -- this is the site we talked about last weekend! Just type in your zipcode and go from there!)

I now have about 12 families that I regularly babysit/nanny for, including meal prep in most cases. And I usually get a call or email from about one new family a week, so my network is growing. And housekeeping definitely brings in the most money for me. I have 5 homes that I clean for on a weekly basis, mostly on Tuesday and Thursdays. That network is growing for me, too, off of referrals, but it's getting to the point that I need to start turning people down because I don't have enough time in my days to help everyone. Another idea I had was to hire someone else to help me and take on twice the work load, but...eh, it'd just be too much for when I do start my next office job.

Besides all the day-to-day work, I'm still keeping busy cooking at least one new recipe every day. And Dave and I are reading into the winetasting books we got for Christmas (thank you Joel and Matt!!) and have discovered a few bottles that we really like. Sometime we'll do a post about our faves. :) I'm still into scrapbooking and hope to start working on our wedding scrapbook soon. I just need to get all our pictures printed out first! I've got all the papers, inks, glue, etc to make the book with...I just need to get all our pictures printed out!

That's the skinny on Elise. Next up is my husband!


- Elise

New Baby!

This past weekend didn't start out so well. We basically didn't see each other Thursday thru Saturday. When Dave wasn't at school, I was working and vice versa. I was screening for a doctor in Minneapolis Thursday night when Dave got out of school. We got to eat a late supper together at least, but had to move right along to Friday. Then, right when Dave got out of school on Friday evening, I was heading out to babysit for a family in Burnsville. We literally passed each other driving on the highway. When I got home, around 11:30pm, he was sleeping already. Then Saturday morning, he had to get up at 7:00am to screen for a doctor in St. Paul. When he was finished up there, I was getting ready to head out to babysit for another family, this time close to home in Bloomington. I didn't get off work until about midnight, and guess what...Sunday morning we were leaving early, around 4:00am, to get to WI for Becky and Nick's new daughter's baptism. Well, when that alarm went off just a few hours later, it was Dave who actually struggled to get up the most. Then I fell back asleep, too, and somehow we luckily woke up at 7ish. We scrammbled to make it out the door, and while we didn't make it to WI in time for the baptism, we did make it in time for the party and to see everyone who was there.

Here's a video clip from our drive up to Wausau, WI. (It was my attempt to get back at Dave for his Christmas trip video clip. :)

Before I ramble any further, I should introduce the newest Wagner GIRL!:

Graciana Marie Wagner
Born on December 19, 2008
6lbs 6oz

She has three brothers and one sister. We're so happy Nick and Becky could welcome another girl to the family. Helps to even things out. :) Here is a picture of Graciana with her brother Kevin and sister Melissa. All of Graciana's siblings were so proud!

Me with my newest niece!

And here is the proud mom, Becky, opening some baptism gifts.

After arriving at the Wagner home, Dave and I were welcomed by, now second youngest, Xavier who had just celebrated his birthday around Christmas time (yup, that's right, they've got two in December now). He took us down to the basement to show us his gift -- which he was VERY excited about. We had no idea what to expect since it was in the basement... Well here's what he got:

-- The Birthday Boy, Xavier

They got him a blow up castle, you know..those things that kids can bounce around in. So cool!! And the other picture is Xavier using his blow up punching gloves -- hilarious to watch a two year old beat up uncle Dave and uncle Chris with those things!

During our visit, we watched the kid's Sunday School Christmas Program on DVD. Melissa had her eyes glued to the screen the whole time. She loved all the songs and dances she got to do. So toward the end of our visit, we asked her to sing one of the songs for us, which her brothers Kevin and Dominic also learned for the progam. Here's her adorable performance! And sorry it's sideways...I stupidly turned my digital camera.. :

It was a great weekend after all. From Thursday to Saturday we never guessed it would have been such a fun weekend, but getting to see everyone again and just relax with the kids on Sunday really made it a fun weekend. See, we're still smiling!

More later,


-- Elise

Picture Links

Hi All!

Just finished posting all of our wedding pictures online. So here are the links. I've also included a link for this year's Christmas photos. If you want any prints of any of the pictures, please let me know and we'll mail them to you. Or we can get them emailed to you, too.

All of the professional photos were done by our cousins Laura and Scott Haraldson. They are professional photographers who specialize in weddings. They are stationed in the Twin Cities, but travel all around Minnesota to shoot weddings year round. If you like what you see and want to be put in touch with them, please let us know.

Wedding Reception: http://picasaweb.google.com/ejvertin/WeddingReceptionSnapShots?authkey=ngYfpWV7KkI&feat=directlink

Wedding Snap Shots: http://picasaweb.google.com/ejvertin/WeddingSnapShots?authkey=fpD9cJXestY&feat=directlink

Professional Wedding Photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/ejvertin/Wedding?authkey=2NtN0qcGndU&feat=directlink

Christmas 2008: http://picasaweb.google.com/ejvertin/Christmas2008?authkey=3dBHrt_lJLk&feat=directlink


Enjoy!


- Elise

Back to Normal

Hi everyone! Figured I'd get a post in from myself before I've got my head buried in books again. School starts up for me again tomorrow. It will be my fifth trimester out of 10, so I'm about half way through the program, half way to becoming a chiropractor! This semester will be an interesting one. I'll have my first set of Boards exams sometime in March. There are a total of four Boards I'll need to take total over the next two years. I'll keep you all posted on here as to how well they go and when I'm (finally) done with school! Anyway, I have a mixture of excitement and dread for this semester. I'm excited to learn more adjusting methods and techniques, but am not really looking forward to having to study so much for the endless amounts of exams and Boards. But just like my past four semesters, I just have to push through it. Time to get back to our normal life, normal routine.

Our New Year's club outing wasn't as exciting as we had hoped. Like Elise said in our last post, we went to a club in downtown Minneapolis called The Lounge. It's right across the street from the Target Center. We were not impressed with the club at all. The drinks were amazing, but the club atmosphere was not what their website said. They claimed to have three different floors/rooms for dancing with different DJs in each room. Well, we only found two of the three rooms and they were tiny..music wasn't the greatest either. We didn't really dance at all and neither was anyone else. With the admission, we had been told a champagne toast would be included at midnight. Well that didn't happen and there was barely even a midnight countdown. So we were pretty disappointed and left at about 12:30am. Here's basically the one picture we got from the night. Sorry, no night time city pictures yet either. It was hard to get some clear ones while driving on the freeway.

Elise and I hope you had a great New Year's experience this year! Happy 2009 everyone! Let us know what you did to celebrate by leaving a comment at the end of this post. We'd love to hear what you were up to. More from us later!


- Dave