Pearl Harbor day

Last night we took a walk around the area near the hotel, which is full of really expensive upscale shops. We wound up finally at the International Market, which is full of really inexpensive kind of junky kiosks, where the owners jump at you the minute you stop and look at something. We wandered around for quite a while looking for a place to eat, and finally found a 50's style diner that had a fun atmosphere and Trivial Pursuit on the tables, but the food was kind of lacking.


This morning we got up pretty early and had breakfast at the Shore Bird, the restaurant here at our hotel that's right on the beach.


Oh my god, that was so pretty. We sat right at the sand, and they had a really nice buffet. We got free breakfasts with our package, so it was not only lovely but also we didn't have to pay :-). We had to meet our tour bus at 8:00, so we got to breakfast around 7:10. We were done by 7:30, so we know how long it takes to eat for next time.

We were booked on the City/Pearl Harbor tour. Turns out it was mostly Pearl Harbor, as the City part existed mostly of driving through Honolulu while "Cuz Cliff" pointed out various places he used to play as a child. No, he did show us other stuff, but the only place we were allowed out was the Ioloni Palace, and that was only for 10 minutes. Apparently tourist busses aren't allowed to discharge passengers at the Punchbowl National Cemetery (we only drove through), and Chinatown is only a couple of blocks so not worth getting out. It was only worth Cliff noting how much they were asking for pineapple.

Speaking of which, we also drove past where the old canneries were. Did you know that Hawaii doesn't produce and can pineapple anymore? It got too expensive, so they moved the operation to the Phillipines. They turned the old Dole cannery into a yuppy looking shopping center. The cannery is NOT the same as the plantation though. At the plantation, they still grow pineapples but it's just for sale to the tourists, not a worldwide exporting industry. They're really good though, we had them at breakfast.

Pearl Harbor was really busy, so we had to wait about two hours after we got our tickets until the tour. Here's me and Kelsey waiting in line:



After we got our tickets we went back to the bus for the city part of the tour, and then back to Pearl Harbor in time to do that part of the tour. That was pretty cool, and very moving. I had no idea that the USS Arizona was so close to the surface, but I didn't know that Pearl Harbor was such a shallow body of water.



Tonight we're going to take it easy, I'm going to study, and then early tomorrow we go on our hang gliding adventure.

Aloha

We're here. The hotel is really pretty and our room is very nice. There's a HUGE balcony that overlooks the central courtyard and pool. And if you look to the right, there's the ocean :-). It's not supposed to be an oceanview, but I think if you can see the ocean, then it's an oceanview room.

We were all very hungry after the 6 hour flight, so we ate as soon as we got here, which was fine because our room wasn't quite ready. The hotel restaurant is literally right on the beach, so we watched people frolic in the warm Hawaii sun while we sat broiling in our cold Seattle clothes.

Now we're changing, and off to the beach for us. More later.

Off to Hawaii

Tomorrow at 6:30 am we leave for the airport for our trip to Hawaii. Unfortunately, as it stands right now none of us are sitting together on the flight. We have two window seats and an aisle. I'm hoping we can get that changed, but I'm not counting on it as it looks like the flight is completely full.

For our East Coast friends, remember we are now going to be 6 hours behind you until we get back to normal schedule next Tuesday, so keep that in mind when you call :-)

We'll try to post pictures as we go, since I'm taking my laptop and there is supposed to be free wireless at the hotel. The weather for our trip looks like this:

Thu Fri Sat Sun

86 86 86 86 High

73 73 72 72 Low

So yeah, we're stoked. Can't wait for the hang gliding especially...we'll be doing that Saturday morning.

I had a weird dream last night that I ran into Lori and Tom at a bar here in Seattle. And neither one of them were that suprised to see me.

Aloha!

Sick...again

Last week was a quick week for school. The instructor was sick on Thursday so she cancelled classes, which means I had 5 days off. My liver test on Wednesday went great, I think. She hasn't handed back the tests yet, but I'm pretty confident I did well. It felt much better than the brain test, that's for sure.

So last night we had Kelsey's guitar teacher over for dinner, and for dog-related instruction. She'll be staying here as the beagle's primary caretaker while we are in Hawaii. Ayla is going to act as the beagle's secondary caretaker, covering lunch and after school duties. For dinner I made rouladen and garlic mashed potatoes, and we had a really lovely bottle of red to go with it. Almost immediately after Bronwyn left I started getting symptoms of a urinary tract infection, and it continued to get worse throughout the evening. Jay ran to Whole Foods and got me cranberry juice and cranactin pills, and I doused myself with those, lots of water, and some water mixed with baking soda. Around midnight I felt kind of better, and by morning (after about 10 trips to the bathroom)I felt almostly completely back to normal.

I decided that it would be best to see the doctor however, since we'll be away Thursday - Monday. And I was not relishing the idea of suffering from this while on a 6 hour plane ride. It turns out that I just had a "tiny" infection because my home remedies last night flushed most of the infection out. Dr. Daniel gave me some antibiotics anyway to take for three days, just to be on the safe side. Hopefully I'll be completely well by Thursday - which I fully expect to be.

Okay, quick update is over, I'm back to studying the heart for the test tomorrow.

My brain's no good

The test today was HARD! First were multiple choice, but like the kind where it says to circle all of the answers that are true, so it wasn't an easy multiple choice. And then the diagram part was not looking at images and labeling the different parts, which is kind of what we were all expecting based on last week's test - no, this week we had to draw our own images. So she says, draw a coronal view at the level of the third ventricle and label all the structures you would see - yuck! Criminy - I was just trying to remember what the third ventricle would look like when it came up on a scan, and here I have to draw it myself with all the other junk around it. Results on Thursday, I'm just hoping I pass (which is 78 or above, anything less is a failing grade here).

I was on the way to pick up my carpool partner this morning, and sitting at a red light. I glanced over to the car next to me, and this chick is smoking with her left hand, talking on the phone with her right hand, and has an open laptop in the passenger seat, screen facing her. Holy distraction batman! I'll be the first to admit talking on the phone while driving, and I occasionally also sip coffee, but I sure don't do them both at the same time and I also don't type on my laptop while doing ANY driving. She must have some mad drivin' skillz. Or else she's a dork.

Sick

Sorry I haven't updated for a while...I've been sick with Kelsey's cold. I'm just now getting to the point where I can breathe through both nostrils again, but just barely. Kelsey got over her cold, then I caught it, and then Jason did something bizarre to his neck and he could barely move all day Saturday.

Kelsey had her guitar lesson Saturday at 1, and then she went to spend the night with Ayla, so Jason and I spent the rest of the day/night on the couch. I went to Bartell to pick up a heating pad and some Ben Gay for Jay, and some Afrin for me. We were totally pathetic. Yesterday we both felt better so we did the grocery shopping for the week and then I studied while Jay played Bioshock.

I have a test again tomorrow. Every Tuesday. My last test I got a 33 out of 36, but the instructor only gave me a 31...she added the points wrong. I told her about it and she said she'd fix it, but she didn't write anything down and I honestly don't think she'll remember, but I don't want to be lame about it and remind her. So I guess I'll just take a wait and see about it. So test on the brain tomorrow and then a test on the liver Wednesday night. Whoo hoo!

I talked to Mom today and she said it's still in the 80's back in PA. It's long past the 80's here. This weekend was cold and rainy, and we've got the heat on. We'll be ready to head to Hawaii next week!

Book Sale Finally Over

It was a long three days for the volunteers, but the September Book Sale is finally over and apparently was a great success. The girls and I were there from 4 - 9 on Friday night, the Jason joined us for 8:15 - 1 on Saturday (I stayed until 3), then we all went back yesterday from 10:15 - 4. It's totally exhausting. Physically you're standing/walking on a concrete airplane hangar floor all day. Everyone's feet and legs were just aching last night. Also, I did a ton of walking, Jason was moving boxes and books all day while doing bulk counting, and Kelsey and Ayla helped with box cutting and book clean up. I'm glad it's over, and after a few hours on Wednesday I get a vacation from my library work until we get back from Hawaii.

But despite the fact that the weather was really wet and cold for the sale, it was PACKED and we were totally picked over by the end of the day yesterday. I don't know what the final tally was, but I'm sure we were somewhere near the 100K mark. Not bad for books that cost between .50 and 1.00 each!

Done with week 1

First week of school is done...it was kind of short. Class on Tuesday was supposed to be from 11:30 to 5:30, but we were out at 4. Wednesday night went from 6pm to 8:30 pm. And today was supposed to be 11:30 to 5:30, but we were done at 1:30. So it went pretty fast. First quiz is on Tuesday. My plan is to study most of the day tomorrow because this weekend is the big Book Sale at Magnusson Park and I have to be there Friday night, Saturday 9-1 and Sunday 11-4. Ugh. Then I have to work Monday for several hours too. So it doesn't look like I'll have a lot of time to study for Tuesday's quiz, but the classes were so short and we didn't go over that much, so I think I'll be okay.

It's cool being back into the school thing again. I think I'm the oldest person in my class though :-). This class is so different than when I took my prerequisites. Half the people in those classes didn't care how they did, but I can already tell this class is going to be really competitive. Not that we have to compete anymore...we're already in the program. I'll just do my best.

School Days

My last day at work was yesterday....so now I'm just going to be working at the library a few hours a week, but mostly concentrating on school. I was supposed to start on Monday night, but got an email from the director of the program the other day and it appears the Monday night class has been switched to Wednesday night, so school schedule for the first 6 weeks is Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. I'll work at the library on Mondays and Fridays I guess. I finally got my last textbook yesterday, so now I'm all set. Time to get my mind back into studying and homework :-)

The Wheel turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend

For those of you that know my reading habits, you are probably aware that I have spent the last...oh, 15 years or so... reading and rereading The Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan. The series is up to 11 books in total now, 11 of probably some of the most enjoyable books I have ever read (book 10 was never one of my favorites, but still infinitely better than a lot of stuff I've read). The last book came out in 2005, and the next (last?) book in the series was due to come out in 2009.

Alas, yesterday the WoT community lost Mr. Jordan. He died after a battle with a rare disease, Amyloidosis. Still working on his newest book right up until the end.

My cousin Robert gets the credit for introducing me to the Wheel of Time. I can remember his exact words..."hey, have you ever read this book called The Eye of the World?" I picked it up at the library a couple of days later, and I was totally hooked. I think Jordan was on his third book by then, because I remember that I devoured the first three books back to back over a series of almost-no-sleep nights. At that time he was still putting out a book every 12-15 months or so, and each one was purchased with great anticipation and ended much too soon after it was started. While the series was still "manageable" I used to reread the entire series a month or so before a new book was scheduled to drop so I could be fresh and and ready for the story to continue.

Jason and I had the pleasure of meeting him in King of Prussia a few years back at a book signing for the 9th book. I schlepped the first 8 books of his with me, bought the 9th there, and he signed every one of them. It's the first and only time I've waited in line to meet anyone, and he was gracious and accomodating and more than willing to talk to those of us that hung around after, wide-eyed fantasy book geeks in the presence of The One, our Dragon.

So today I am sad, and spending some time at Robert Jordan's blog, reading over 1000 comments from fans on his passing. Then I am going to start the series over again tonight, and I will read each page slowly with the knowledge that this is probably goodbye, and I will thank Robert Jordan at the end for 15 years of delight.

Lesson Learned

Yeah.....don't order food samples to be sent to your home address when:

A) you have a mail slot in the door instead of a mail box outside and
B) you have dogs who are home alone when the mail comes

Although your dogs may try to convince you otherwise, this particular combination = no sample and lots of ripped up packaging when you get home. The only good part of this story is that I keep thinking how the dogs must have been absolutely ecstatic at food coming in through the door, and it makes me laugh.

Less than successful

Jay and I decided to take the dogs and go do some geocaching today, since it was such a beatiful day outside. We found four caches located within walking distance of the house, so we set out for our first geocaching outing since we got to Seattle.

The first cache we had to skip because there was some guy and his dog hanging around the cache location and we couldn't search very secretly. We headed off to the second one, at the Roosevelt Pea Patch. No luck here either, and it wasn't a great idea to have the beagles in other people's garden patches anyway. So on to the third....

This one was located in the upper level parking lot over Whole Foods. But we still couldn't find it! You would think that a parking lot wouldn't have a lot of places to hide a cache, but we must be way out of practice, because we couldn't locate anything. We met another geocacher here who noticed us searching bushes and asked if we were by chance looking for a cache. We talked to her for a little while about caches in the area, and shared our coordinates for the four we were hunting that day with her. Then we gave up on this one, and decided to head for the fourth.

Well, the geocaching gods definitely were not on our side today, because we couldn't locate this one either....it was somewhere in a big field next to the highway support wall, but we could not find any trace of it, and by now we were getting kind of upset. We never had such a hard time geocaching before, and these were all supposed to be pretty easy! We headed home very dejected. By the time we got back we had been out for over 2 hours, and had walked 3.5 miles, and the dogs were ready for a drink and a lie-down.

We decided to head back to the first one by ourselves, because it's pretty close to the house and we felt we could find it better without the dogs along. HA! We couldn't find that one either, and we really tried. So it was a very less than successful geocaching day. But it was beautiful weather and we enjoyed being outside and seeing more of the neighborhood.

So cute it hurts

Not much going on this week. Kelsey's getting back into the school routine, and I'm into my last two weeks of work before school starts for me. Although I don't have much to write about, I do have a ridiculously cute picture to share:




Awww..yeah, you're welcome.

Happy Labor Day Weekend

I hope everyone is doing something fun this weekend. Here in Seattle we're taking it slow and easy. Kelsey and her friend Ayla went to Bumbershoot yesterday. They got there really early, like an hour and a half before the gates opened at 11, so they could make sure to get Mainstage passes to see Panic!At The Disco at 10 pm. And then they hung out at the Mainstage all day. Kelsey said highlights included Crowded House, The Shins, Gymclass Heroes and a local Seattle band Schoolyard Heroes. She had a really good time, but had nothing to eat all day and barely had anything to drink. She drank like a camel when she got home last night.

Meanwhile, Jay and I took the dogs for a walk around Greenlake, then he played Bioshock for the rest of the day while I lazed around watching movies and napping. We're hoping to be a bit more active today. Hoping. It remains to be seen.

Kris is having a big family picnic at her house, and I wish we could there. I guess we'll make some hot dogs here and pretend.

Watch out Seattle drivers

Well, we took the plunge today, and Kelsey bought herself a car. At least, we put a deposit down on it because the owner is going away tomorrow for a long weekend, and we need time to get to the bank and get a cashier's check together. I hope we'll have enough time to do that, since the money has to come out of Kelsey's fund in Pennsylvania. I should probably go research that on the Washington Mutual site, about how long it takes for the money to actually transfer.

Anyway, it's a nice looking car. Here's what it looks like (this is not the exact car, but it looks just like this one):



She got a 2005 Scion XB, and I think we got a pretty good deal on it. These babies seem to really be holding their value, and the prices are all over the map. I've seen them as low as 11K for one with really high mileage all the way up to 26K for a "first edition" (WTF?) low mileage snazzy orange colored one. Freakin' yuppy colors.

So, another Wyld child takes the wheel.

EwwwwwWeight Watchers

Anyone who knows me and my family knows that we're pretty much constantly either on a diet, or are about to start a diet. Since both my sister and mom have mentioned that they're about to start (after their fabulously fun and food filled shore trip), I wanted to share with them some Weight Watchers Recipe Cards from the 70's that I came across today.

What's that? You need some kind of sample to show you that clicking that link is worthwhile? How about these two:




Make SURE you look at all of them - there's a convenient TOUR link at the bottom of the page. You may never eat again.

Make SURE you look at all of them. (There's a convenient link to a slideshow tour at the bottom of the page.) You may never eat again.

Geeks Rule...Part Deux

Jay's been working hard on his deadlines all week, but today he got to go to the Penny Arcade Expo on the company. While I cannot report on this adventure first hand, Jay will report through these text messages he sent to me:

1. We're in line

2. It's amazingly nerdy in here

3. Seriously. Some of these people are dyed in the wool hardcore nerds. It's hard to look at some of them.

4. Wil Wheaton keynote at 4.

5. I just heard the end of a joke that had the punchline "so I guess you have to reinstall your operating system" HAHAHAHAHAHA

Of course, I couldn't answer because I was too busy playing Bioshock all day.

In non-geek news, my last day at my part time job is Sept. 20. They decided that 6 hours just wasn't enough. I am totally relieved. I still have the Library job, and they are super flexible...they'll take as much or as little time as I can give which is totally the kind of job I need while I'm in school. So now everything is in short time mode at work and I'm just trying to mentally gear up for school again. I have to start studying my Anatomy again because it's been about a year since my class and they hit the ground running in the Ultrasound program.

Next week I'm getting my hair cut. I'm thinking about going back to bangs.

Geeks rule

Today was an odd weather day in Seattle. Beautiful when I got up (at a shameful 9:50), overcast and drizzly by the time Jay got up (an even more shameful 11:30 - but to be fair, he didn't get home until 2:30 am). I really wanted to clean the house today - or to be more truthful, I really wanted the house to be clean today but I didn't necessarily want to be the one doing the cleaning. When Jay mentioned seeing a movie, I was all for it. Especially when he showed me the trailer - The King of Kongs: A Fistful of Quarters - a documentary about two grown men both vying for the world record in Donkey Kong. One look at Billy Mitchell and my only question was "what time is it playing?"

We're both documentary fans, especially ones that honor the geek. I mean, come on...have you see Trekkies? Absolutely.Brilliant. The first one anyway.

So the movie was playing at an independent theater near the UW. Turns out that one of the main geeks in the movie is a local boy, from Redmond. He was actually scheduled to appear live at the evening screening of the movie. The movie had previously played in Seattle during the Seattle Film Festival but we totally missed it. So glad we got to catch it this time though, because it was very enjoyable. I told Jay that I must have some kind of weak personality, because documentary filmmakers are ALWAYS able to make me feel exactly what they want me to feel. I'm so easily manipulated. Anyway, if the movie is playing anywhere near you, and you're in the mood for something light and fun, go for it.

Well, after stressing about it for almost a month, I finally broke the news to the company today that my school schedule is going to be horrendous, and it looks like I'll only be able to give them 6 hours a week, 2 each on Monday, Wednesday and Fridays. It took me so long because for much of that time I was convinced that I was going to tell them that I would not be working at ALL once school started, that it would just be too much and I have to quit.

Then I felt really calm this morning, and I knew it was time to tell them, but I also knew I decided that I would offer the 6 hours and see if they agreed. It's not that much that I think it would really stress me out, and I wouldn't feel like I was really leaving them in the lurch. I figured we'd do the 6 hour thing for the quarter and then re-evaluate the situation next quarter.

So I very casually brought it up this morning and said that my schedule was going to be really intense (which it is), with a full 17 credits (12 is considered full time), and laid out the 6 hour option.

Doesn't look like they're going to go for it. But I don't feel bad about that option either :-)

***********************************

I've also been spending a lot of time putting together our itinerary for Oahu. Normally I am not a plan everything out kind of gal. I just like to make note of things I don't want to miss, and then fit it in somewhere along the way. However, for this particular trip I decided that it would be better to have stuff pre-planned because we're there for such a short time, and because Oahu is pretty small, and if you want to make sure you get to do something you'd better make reservations ahead of time.

After much discussion with the other travelers, we've decided these are the "Must Do" things:

Hang Gliding
Pearl Harbor
Diamond Head (Kelly and Jason)
Movie Sites and Lost Sites tour
Snorkeling

These are the "want to do" things":

Parasailing (Kelly and Kelsey)
Honolulu city tour
Drive around North Shore

We don't care about going to a Luau, the Dole Pineapple Plantation, the Polynesian Cultural Center, swimming with sharks or dolphins, the aquarium, the zoo, and any number of other things available to us.

So I've made reservations for all the Must Do things, combining Pearl Harbor with a city tour so we get all that done at once, and combining the Hang Gliding with a drive around the North Shore on the way to the Movie and Lost Sites tour. We're gonna be freakin' exhausted when we get home.

We're losers

Went to euchre night again at the Spectator last night. This was our third night going, and even though we split up and didn't play together all night we still managed to lose every game we played between us. One game my team was even up by 4 points, we only needed 1 more to win, and we still lost. Well, at least we still have fun even if we can't win to save our lives. I'm thinking that soon people will not want to partner with us, scared that they will be stained with the stink of our losingness.

I hear there's a big heat wave that the rest of the country is going through right now. Hmmmmmm. Except for the week that the Austinites were here, we haven't had a warm summer at all. In fact, the last couple of days were downright cool. It was only about 64 today, tomorrow is supposed to be a high of 69. I think we've been ripped off this summer. No wonder we're all Vitamin D deficient.

Good news on the furniture front. They have finally located our couch...for those that aren't informed, we custom ordered a piece from what was originally a sectional, and they sent us a loveseat instead of a couch. Maybe. It only has 2 cushions, which is usually what the loveseat has, but it's as long as a couch. The whole thing is very confusing. Anyway, the replacement couch was unmarked and sitting in the warehouse unclaimed since nobody there knew where it was supposed to be going. (I am picturing the last scene of Raiders of the Lost Arc) But it's finally been located and will be delivered on Sunday. I sure hope it's the right one, and we don't have to go through this all over again.

Oh, and watch Damages on FX. Glenn Close rocks. Check your local listings.

Thinking of Grandma Flo - all of our good thoughts and love are heading your way.

There's another deadline for Jay at work, so they've been doing the dinner thing for the employees this week. Last night was California Pizza Kitchen. Of course Jay decides he has to screw with the guy that places the order, so he asks for a Jamaican Jerk pizza, extra croutons.

This is what he got:



Don't mess with California Pizza Kitchen, and don't mess with the guy that orders the food.

D'oh!

Our family, officially Simpsonized:



And yes, I'm bored. Come home safe family.

Tuesday night card game

Since our Austin visitors got us so interested in Euchre, we thought we'd try to find some other people around here to play with. Interesting task in Seattle, since most people we asked had never heard of the game. Trust craigslist though to hook us up. Turns out there's a group of transplanted midwesterners that get together at the Spectator in Queen Anne for a few hours to play every Tuesday night.

Jay and I showed up last night to check it out. Although there's a revolving group of about 50, only 8 people (including us) were there. That's okay, since that let us have 2 games going. About half the people there were also new.....and of course not one person was from Seattle. We were actually some of the "oldest" Seattle transplants there - with 2 years, we handily beat the crime lab toxicologist who's been here 2 months, and the wine delivery guy who's been here 7 months. The group "leader", a freelance marketing and advertising guy, has only been here 5 months.

We wound up playing 3 full games, and lost all three...but we were tough competition, everyone said so :-). We had a lot of fun and really enjoyed meeting the new people, so we plan on going again - next week hopefully if things work out. How cool is that?

It's over

Well played, J.K. Rowling. Not at all how I expected the series to end, but nicely done at that. Kelsey, feel free to call and discuss.

Boy will I sleep well tonight :-)

Delicious

Went to the QFC earlier to get ziploc baggies, and discovered they were selling Harry Potter books at 12:01 am, same price as B&N - 40% discount. Wanting the new book asap, but not wanting to stand in a line for an hour at the bookstore when I have to take Kelsey to the airport at 4:00 am, we took full advantage of this discovery.

We got to the QFC at 11:53 and had paid and left the store with a brand new oh it smells so good copy of the book by 12:07.

Coffee is brewing, dogs are settled, I'm all ready to start. Talk to you in a few days :-)

Seattle's "finest"

Tonight Jay and I were running errands and stopped by the Starbucks before heading home. Shortly after we ordered, some policemen (and woman) came in and got in line. We moved over to the drink waiting area and noticed that these were no ordinary police...these were movie police. There were two young guys and a young woman, all three model-pretty. The policewoman was perky, blonde, and workin' that uniform. The two guys were crisp, clean cut and oh so cute. Then an older police guy came in, and he was movie cop good looking too...tall and authoritative, you could tell he was the captain they all turned to for advice.

I don't know if all Seattle police look like these 4, but if you're around the Roosevelt Square Starbucks around 7 pm, stop by and maybe you too will get to enjoy some eye candy with guns.

Everyone's gone

The Neibert clan headed back to Austin this afternoon, so for the first time in about a month it's just the three of us again. It's so quiet, and we're exhausted. I forgot how much energy it takes to keep up with a 2 year old, and Rip is a whirlwind. We had such a good time, and I will post pictures soon and write more in detail but right now I'm just too tired.

Highlights of the trip included the Fire Truck bed, playing in International Fountain, boating on Lake Union, the Mariner's game, the Zoo, and of course Day Out with Thomas. I don't think we had a single day where we weren't doing something. We won't see Kirk, Kristin, or Ripkin for a while so we tried to soak up as much Neibertness as we could while they were here :-). They'll be traveling for quite a while yet today so I'm sure we won't hear from the Neibert Diaries for a day or two.

Her hair's on FIRE

Kelsey got a new look for the summer. It took two days at the salon, for a total of about 7.5 hours, but we think it looks pretty cool. She's not allowed to wash it for 5 days, so we'll see how it looks after that :-). They were awesome at the salon...gave us tons of free product to keep it looking bright. The girls that worked on Kelsey took lots of pictures of their own to show off their work. When we went to the food court right after to get something to eat, the guy at Kidd Valley asked, "where'd you get your hair done like that? It looks like it's on fire!"





Jay's thinking about going blue next week.

Candy Red Buttons

Happy Fourth of July. Here in Seattle it's a lovely day, sunny and warm. We took Mom and the beagles to Marymoor Park earlier for a picnic. The dogs had a great time and the humans did as well. After we took the dogs home we went to the Uwajimaya Market in the International District to stock up on some Pocky and Japanese soda.

So we all know that the birthday of our nation is the most dangerous holiday of the year. We here in Seattle are doing our part. The Japanese soda that Kelsey likes has this cool opening where you screw off the top, and then use this plunger thing in the top to push a marble down through the opening into the bottle which allows you to then enjoy the tasty sugar beverage.

On the side of the bottle is a warning:

• Ask an adult to open the bottle for you.
• Do not try to remove the marble from the bottle to avoid injury.

CANDY. RED. BUTTON.



Out comes the pocket knife. 2 minutes pass. Out gushes the blood. A trip to the emergency room loomed large, but we settled for a butterfly bandage instead.



The patient is now resting calmly, although is still dreaming of getting the marble. We hope your Independence Day has less bloodshed.

Cruise update

Well, we're all back from vacation :-( The time goes much too fast when we're all together, and it seemed like we had just boarded the ship when it was time to leave everyone again.

We had an absolutely wonderful time. We met Carol (Hugo's sister) and her husband Fred - they were truly lovely people, and great fun. Also met Robert's fiance, Kristen. They make a great couple, and we enjoyed getting to know her.

The weather could not have been better the whole time we were away...calm winds and smooth seas all week. The ports were all very interesting, although my favorites were definitely Newport and Bar Harbor. Newport because of all the beautiful homes, including the two Vanderbilt "cottages" that we toured, and Bar Harbor because it was just so pretty. But we also loved Halifax and the Titanic Connection tour and Kennebunkport (the Bushes, elder and junior, were both in residence. I can't say much about St. John because I did not get off the ship that day. For the life of me I can't remember why though. I'm pretty sure it's because it was a short day, and we had the Pinnacle Grill lunch on the ship as well as the On Deck for the Cure walk that afternoon.

Pictures are up in the gallery. Here's a sample for those that don't feel like wading through all roughly 200 of them.







Beagles are in good shape, Mom came through and spoiled and pampered them. Although the way they carried on when we got home, you would have thought she had them locked in a closet all week. Oh how nice to sleep with a beagle again :-)

Off to Boston

So we leave tonight, on the redeye to Boston. Kelsey's done with school for the summer, Mom's got her bus schedules worked out for getting around town, we're almost all packed, and we can't wait to catch up with everyone on the ship. Beaglehaus most likely will not be updated for a week, but since the majority of beaglehaus readers will be on the ship, that shouldn't be a problem :-)

Boeing posted pics of it's new 777 in the Seattle Times today. Check out their First Class suite:



Definitely not what our seats will look like tonight :-)

Prairie dogs are cool

Especially when people mess with them.

Count your blessings

Yesterday afternoon was pretty much the first really nice day since Mom got here, so we went to Pike's Place Market to walk around outside and enjoy the sunshine. It was packed, since it's prime tourist season, but we were lucky enough to get a parking spot smack dab in the middle of the market walk.

We hadn't walked very far before we observed some lady, she looked to be around 40 I think, dressed in shorts and a t-shirt....start digging in the trash for food. She didn't look like the typical Seattle homeless person, she looked relatively clean and well-fed, but she literally dug through about a foot of trash before coming up with a paper bowl half full of lo-mein and then started eating it.

After I got over my initial revulsion, I started to wonder how you get to that point where you're DIGGING through trash for food...it's not like it was just sitting on top of the trash (ala George Castanza and the eclair), it was buried underneath a whole bunch of other trash, and she STILL ate it. Is that better than panhandling? If I was starving and those were my only two options, which would I choose? But there's also shelters and food kitchens galore in this city, so I can't imagine that one would be reduced to trash diving unless there was some kind of mental illness in place...right?

In any event, it made me sad, and it lingers in my memory. Seeing something like that really does make you feel lucky for what you've got.

Never mind

Okay, I got the letter today. It was a thick packet, so I knew right away it was good news. Yippee, the Ultrasound people want me too! So now I really do have to make a choice between the two. I'm going out with my friend Jason tonight to talk to him about Ultrasound, then I'm going to call my cousin's ex-wife to talk about Radiology. Then I'm going to throw darts while blindfolded at both letters to see which one sticks.

Mom's here, and we've already run her ragged on her first day. I think she's looking forward to bed :-)

I waited all week for this?

All week, I waited for this day. June 15. Magic time. The day when I'll find out if I get in the Ultrasound program. They promised. I actually checked the mail eagerly all week, just in case they were early. But alas, no.

So today is the day. A vague feeling of excitement mixed with dread all morning. Cleaning the house to take my mind off it. Then, while in the kitchen...that sound. The sound of the letters hitting the floor as they fall through the mail slot in the front door. No warning barks, because the walking door alarms are outside.

I hurry to the living room...there it is, I see the corner of the envelope from school. This is it! Huddled on my knees in front of the door, I can't even spare the time to stand up.

It's a bill. For summer tuition. Nothing else. What the....??? They promised! I'm checking my email again because they said they'd let us know by June 15! Oh...they said they'd send the letters on June 15. Damn. The AlphaFemale is not happy.

Happy Flag Day!

I love Flag Day, don't you? The flags in the yards, on the porches, the presents, the cake, the candles. It's all grand.

Not much is going on out here lately, we're just in waiting mode...waiting for visitors, waiting for the cruse, waiting for the trips back east. Lots of waiting. While we're all waiting, I thought I would share some images of the beautiful Pacific NW with everyone. The photographer is the owner of the company I work for, and his pictures are pretty good. Enjoy!

Bill's Pics

Here comes the sun

The sun has finally broken free for about the first time this week,and it looks like it's going to be a nice warm day. We've had a string of cold and rainy the last few days, which has been great for the grass but not so good for us. So today, I get to cut the grass and pull weeds. Don't you wish you were me? Then I meet Kelsey's guitar teacher at noon for a walk around Green Lake.

Oh, also, I asked her if she would be interested in dog-sitting for us in October while we're in Hawaii, and in December when we're home for Christmas, and she said sure...so I'm going to go over the specifics with her today and see if she's still interested. If so, great relief - as always when we have to go away and find someone to stay with the beagles. Yes, we could just put them in a kennel, but there really aren't any kennel kind of kennels out here. They're all "doggy camp" or "doggy spa" or something like that, and they cost a fortune, especially for two dogs...minimum cost of $55 per day from what I've found. So finding someone willing to come and stay with them at about $20 per day is a bargain.

One more week until Mom gets here. Gotta start cleaning :-)

Donkey!

Kelsey and I just finished watching Hell's Kitchen. What a sorry lot of chefs they have this year. I can't believe they have a line cook from the Waffle House on the show. I may never have worked in a kitchen but I find it hard to believe that there's any chance that a Waffle House line cook can run a multi-million dollar 5 star kitchen in Las Vegas. We want to know why Wayne didn't try out for this show? I'm sure he wouldn't have broken down in tears, like that one guy Aaron.

We're definitely all on cruise countdown right now. We haven't actually started packing yet (we do have almost three weeks, after all!), but we're mentally packing. I think we'll try to get all our clothes together in the next week to ten days so we know what we're missing, if anything. I can't wait to see everybody.

And though we didn't get too many suggestions, we've all decided we'd rather stay in a quieter area of Oahu instead of Waikiki beach, so I'm currently searching for condo rentals, since there really aren't any hotels anywhere else except Turtle Bay Resort, but that's super expensive so we definitely aren't staying there. But it's fun looking :-)

Happy Anniversary Mom!

Decisions, decisions

So let's say, hypothetically, that you were going to Hawaii, specifically Oahu. Would you stay in a downtown hotel near Waikiki beach or rent a condo on the North Shore?

Waikiki beach is crowded and touristy, but is right in the middle of everything. The North Shore is isolated and quiet, but beautiful (it's where they shoot Lost) Both cost about the same, so that's not an issue.

In this hypothetical situation, you have use of a car so you wouldn't be "stuck" at the isolated place, but you'd have to drive about an hour to get to the touristy areas. If you stayed at the touristy areas, you'd have to pay for parking at the hotel, and you'd have to drive about an hour to get to the pretty part of the island.

Let's hear it people.

Highly Recommended, Two Thumbs Up

Wow, what a great little overnight trip! We got up really early (5:10 am!), and got to the Clipper for check in with plenty of time. The Victoria Cipper was a really nice way to ride over to Victoria, and we wound up sleeping for a good part of the trip. When we arrived in Canada, it was a quick trip through customs and then out to the parking lot to meet our tour. Turns out that there were only 4 of us signed up to do the tour that day, so they brought the "small" limo:



The other couple on the tour was Annie and Storm. Annie is originally from Virginia, Storm from South Africa. They both work on a private 175 foot luxury yacht. The Battered Bull, based in Ft. Lauderdale, but they travel literally all over the world...France, Monaco, New Zealand, Tahiti, everywhere you can think of. They were such a great couple and we had a blast traveling around the wineries with them. Check out the link for the boat....man what a way to travel.

Our first stop was at a cidery called Merridale Cider House. Our guide was Roz, and she showed us around the estate, how they pressed the apples, and then we had a tasting of their hard ciders and apple wines. They were all delicious, and we bought the Cidre Normandie, a very dry white apple wine, and the Winter Apple, a fantastic dessert port that was wonderfully sweet and buttery, along with a bunch of smaller bottles of various hard ciders which we drank in the limo throughout the rest of the tour. Who could imagine that they could make apples into such yummy drinks! Here's Jay and I posing in front of some of the apple trees:



We piled back in the limo for short ride to the Oceanfront Grand Resort, where we had a lovely three course lunch that included a wine pairing with each course. It was a beautiful day, and we sat overlooking the water while we enjoyed our food and wine. We were a little late getting back to our limo because we spent so much time talking over lunch that eating took a little longer than usual I guess. Once in the limo, Storm opened the bottle of Normandie white that he and Annie had purchased at the Cider House, and shared it with Jay and I while we traveled to our next destination, Cherry Point Vineyards. This was a lovely vineyard with some truly wonderful wines. Here's our tasting host Thomas:



We tasted several whites and reds at this vineyard, all medal winners for them. We purchased a blackberry port, a really sweet dessert wine, and their Ortega, a slightly sweet white that we both really enjoyed.

Next stop was the Godfrey-Bronwell Vineyards. This is a relatively new vineyard, and the most "laid back" of all the places we visited. Bill, the owner, was our host for the tasting. Here he is with Annie and Storm:



We purchased the Colette here, a white that was a mixture of Bacchaus, Chardonney, and Pinot Gris. Not as dry as some of the others, it's a crisp light white.

Our last stop of the tour was Silverside Farms, where they make sweet wines made entirely from berries, no grapes. Bill and Jean Aten are the owners here and Jean was our host for our tasting. We loved this place, not only because of the delicious wines and the lovely location, but because Jean provided a great big bowl of dark chocolate buttons to enjoy with our wine tasting. We purchased a bottle of the blueberry wine, and Annie loved it so much that she bought 4 bottles! It was a nice place to end the tour, as everything was kind of like dessert.

When we got back to Victoria around 6, we made plans to have dinner with Annie and Storm at a restaurant right on the harbor. There was a yacht race the next day, so there were lots and lots of boats to look at while we drank mojitos and ate dinner.



After dinner we walked around the harbor for a little while, hugged Annie and Storm goodbye, and went back to the hotel. We were in bed by 10, tired from the tour, the food and the alcohol, but we had a fantastic day with great weather, great wine, and great people to hang out with. We were back home by 2:30 the next afternoon, so a short but absolutely wonderful little holiday.

Wine for everybody!

Tomorrow morning, Jason and I are taking off on a wine tour of southern Vancouver, and then spending the night in Victoria. We are taking the Victoria Clipper from Seattle to Victoria, which is about a 3 hour tour, a 3 hour tour. Then we'll board a chauffered "luxury" bus (haha) and visit 4 different wineries in Vancouver, have lunch at a resort by the ocean, and get back to Victoria around 6pm. We'll spend the night and come back on the clipper the next day at 11:30. So, just a short break, but one we are very much looking forward to. I'll post pics when we get back.

Kelsey is going to stay home with the doggies, since you have to be 19 to go on the wine tour. I think she'd be pretty bored anyway. Hopefully Ayla can stay over with her so she's not completely alone. The dogs don't talk very much and so are not great company.

Comp time

Jay gets to have almost the whole week off because of the absolutely insane hours they've been putting in at work. He had to work yesterday, but was home by dinner, and now he's off until next Tuesday, Monday being a holiday and all. Of course I put him to work right away on the bathroom :-). Right now, he's busy scraping the door trim. We might actually have a completely finished bathroom by the end of the week. I really did want to start on the backyard this week, but I don't think that will happen. There's just too much to do.

Kelsey is so looking forward to the end of school. One month from today and she's done. They seem like to they have to go so much longer than PA (I think they're done June 6 or something like that), but then again they get much longer breaks throughout the year, so it really does even out. She doesn't see it like that of course, she just sees that she has to go longer.

It's been kind of cool and a bit rainy here the past couple of days so we've been really lazy lately. I have to start cooking again now that the whole family will be home for dinner. Tonight is pork loin braised in milk. With mashed potatoes for the vegetarian.

Time for Meg to leave

I'm taking Megan back to the airport this morning, in about an hour. We really enjoyed her visit with us, but it was way too short. Last night at dinner she talked about how short it was and we had a difference of opinion as to why she didn't stay a week. She claims I only offered these few days, while I claim I asked her if she wanted to go home Wednesday or stay until Saturday, and she said Wednesday. Either way, it's too late now since she has to be back at work on Friday for a mandatory meeting. We all wish she was staying longer though. Oh well, we'll see her again in about 6 weeks when we go on the cruise.

The doggies are enjoying the lovely Seattle spring sunshine. Ignore the backyard, that's next on our list for fixin'.

Bathroom update

Okay, I finally got some pictures of the bathroom remodel to share. Here we have a couple of shots of what the bathroom looked like before we started. Note the very small space between the toilet and the tub....a knee breaker.

Construction time. We took everything out down to the studs, including the ceiling. Yuck!

Here's the finished product. Keep in mind that we still have to finish the trim around the floor and the door, but it's so much better, and we're happy we did it every time we take a shower.

Happy Mother's Day

To all the Mom's I know, I hope you have a wonderful Mother's Day. Both of the girls are home with me today, so I'm already having a great one. Megan was up very early today, no doubt because of the time change and the fact that she went to bed pretty early last night. When everybody else gets up and ready, we're going to the Rusty Pelican for brunch (mmmm, cranberry mimosas), then we're going to go see a movie. This morning is kind of chilly and damp, so a movie will be great today. It's supposed to warm up later so maybe we'll get to go to the dog park.

Yesterday we took Megan around to her old work spots so she could see if anyone she knew was still around. There was one at Zeek's and just a couple at Best Buy. I guess everybody is moving on. I still think she enjoyed talking to those few that she saw. I did get some batteries while we were at Best Buy, so now I can post pictures, so later I'll put up the bathroom picture, I promise!

Springtime in Seattle

We got our new couch on Saturday...but we think it's wrong. We specifically wanted three cushions, but there's only two large ones. Jason hates that, because he doesn't like anyone having to ride the hump in the middle when three people are sitting on the couch. So I called our sales lady from Dania, and she looked it up, and apparently, yes, we did get the wrong thing. She's supposed to let me know tomorrow when we can get a new one. Meanwhile, this was a special order, and she said to just use what we got until we get our replacement, dogs and all.

The weather has been so beautiful the last few days, and we're finally seeing the sun. I'm taking full advantage of that by working hard in the backyard. We have a nice corner lot, but the backyard is kind of not attractive...it's basically just a fenced in place for the dogs to hang out. But we'd really like to make it a nice little area for sitting outside, grilling, and enjoying the sunshine. We're planning on putting in a nice little brick patio, but we can't start until Jay is done working these crazy hours. So I started by digging all the weeds out of the one corner and laying some landscaping edging, planting grass seed, cutting and trimming the out of control tree that comes over the fence from the neighbor's yard, and trying to make a little rock garden thingy. I've been working all week just one the one corner, and it's starting to look much better. The patio is going to take some time, because there will be lots of digging to do.

Meg's here in two days!

Out to dinner

Tonight Kelsey's guitar teacher came over to the house to give her lesson, and then the three of us went out to dinner afterwards. It's absolutely amazing how much Bronwyn and I have in common. She's almost my age, and tonight we found out that we're both Star Trek fans, specifically Voyager and Janeway, both science fiction fans in general, big fans of dragons and dragon related stuff, like the same kind of books and music...it just goes on and on. She wants to start walking too, so we're going to get together a couple of times a week to walk around Greenlake. I've been wanting to do that, but I hate to walk it alone....it's so much more fun with someone to talk to.

I took some pictures of the bathroom to post before and after shots, but then the batteries died before I could get them uploaded. I promise to do that soon.

Go Blake!

Kelsey's new look

And now her friend is going to the same guy today to get it done. Nose piercings used to be out of the mainstream, didn't they? Now it's just like...eh.

And We're Back!

Beaglehaus has recovered from its unfortunate incident, and we're back up .... finally. I know all of our regular readers (both of you) have been just dying to know what's up in Seattle. Here's a quick update.

• Bathroom remodel is 95% finished...just some trim work to do. It is fantastic, and we love our new shower and tub more each time we use it. I will say, it will be a long, long time until I want to do another tiling project. I hated it. It looks pretty good for first-timers, but it was absolutely no fun at all.

• I got into the Radiology program! I won't hear from about the ultrasound program for another 6 weeks or so, but we can breathe a huge sigh of relief that at least I was accepted into one of them, so my last two years of school weren't a waste of time. I'm kind of leaning towards Radiology right now though, because it starts sooner, I can graduate earlier, and there's less of a chance I'll have to do clinical far away from Seattle. Lots to think about.

• Kelsey got her nose piereced. It's really cute.

• Jay has been spending outrageous amounts of time at work....I'm talking not coming home until 3 - 4 in the morning, and then leaving again at 7:30 the next day. Blah. One or two more weeks of this and then he should be done. There's so much to do around the house, and we barely see him so it's really tough right now. Now that the bathroom is almost done, we want to start working on stuff for the back yard.

• Meg is coming to visit for Mother's Day! Yay! We miss her terribly so we sent her a ticket. She only gets to come for a few days, but it will be great to see her.

• We're finally all moved into the new house, out of the old rental, got 100% of our deposit back, and we don't have to worry about going back and forth anymore. What a pain that was. We used every last second of the 6 weeks we had to move too....we got out just in time :-)

• I'm going to be an aunt again! My brother and sister-in-law are due sometime late November/early December. Kirk says that Krispy is feeling pretty bad these days, poor thing. Here's hoping that she's feeling better soon.

Hmmmm....after almost a month and a half of no updates, turns out I don't have as much to say as I thought I did. Have no fear though, I'll think of something soon.

Pictures

Well, if you've got a spare hour or two, the pictures of San Francisco are up in the gallery. There's a bunch, especially of Alcatraz.

Cleaning the old house most of the day, so I'm pretty tired and I have a headache. I'll let the pictures speak for the blog today :-)

Sweet sweet craigslist

Back from California, where we had a wonderful long weekend with lots of shopping and eating and walking, and the weather was gorgeous. Also got to see Mark and Keith again from TimeSink which was really fun. I will try to post pictures tomorrow, especially of Alcatraz which was way cool at night. Kelsey is pretty obsessed with that prison and the prisoners. She could probably tell you most of the worst offender's names and what they did, and I'm sure she could also regale you with tales of escape attempts.

In the meantime, we're back home. I saw somebody's craigslist ad today asking if they could come pick up any stuff you didn't want anymore, as they were trying to raise money for a down payment on a house by doing these yard sales of whatever they could get. I emailed her and they came over tonight and cleared the old house of all the stuff we didn't want to bring to the new house but hated to just throw away. So that's cool, they were really happy to get everything, and I think they're coming back tomorrow night to pick up the couch too. So there's not too much left in the old house to bring over, thank goodness. I'm so ready to live in only one place!

The beagles were great while we were gone, and very well taken care of by Ayla and her mom. They are so very spoiled, they don't even know what it's like to go to a kennel when we go on vacation.

Off to California

Kelsey and I leave for San Francisco tomorrow, to join Jay at the Game Developer's Conference, already in progress. It was so nice here today that I almost hate to leave just when the city is starting to come into Spring. It's supposed to rain by the weekend though, so we won't miss too much.

Ayla and her mom are going to stay with the beagles, so I have to write up a schedule for them tonight. We got the new dryer today, and I did my first load of laundry - it's so nice to not use that scary one that came with the house anymore.

I made mom's reservations to come see us in June, and I made Kelsey's reservations to go to Austin in April. Ray is coming to see us early April, and then I can't wait to go on the cruise in June with the Weilers and the Churchills. So much to look forward to in the next few months.

Talk to you from California - if I can find a wifi hotspot, that is.

Oscar thoughts

How cool that we're on the West Coast so we can enjoy the Oscars at 5:30 and not have to fall asleep waiting for them to be over.

I hate the pre-show. Everyone just seems so overly fake about everything. We skipped most of it.

Nicole Kidman's face looks totally frozen and plastic and scary looking. Way too much botox.

Jack Nicholson gets more bizarre every year. The shaved head, the sunglasses indoors....yeah, he's weird all right.

Good for Alan Arkin. I didn't see it, but I heard Eddie Murphy got really pissed that he didn't win and stormed out of the theater. Or maybe he just wanted to leave early. Whatever, he didn't stay for the rest and I think that's pretty rude either way.

Poor Peter O'Toole. The man looked like death warmed over, and I think his last chance of getting an Oscar before he's gone went by the wayside.

Forest Whitaker's eyelid is seriously creepy. Dude, have that fixed.

Ellen Degeneres was funny but seemed really subdued. I think she was nervous, but I still liked her.

Al Gore got big since his election. Tipper too. I think part of their global warming campaign consists of clearing every plate put in front of them. Good for him though for being there and being so personable. Too bad he couldn't show that side a few years ago.

Meryl Streep obviously goes for comfort over style. I still love her.

Gwyneth Paltrow looked fabulous. Reese Witherspoon too. Great dresses on both of them. Kirsten Dunst however looked like she hadn't washed her hair in three days. Kelsey and I both laughed at the look Toby Maguire shot her when she elbowed him away from the microphone.

Where was Brad Pitt? So disappointed he wasn't there.

Kelsey thinks Leo DiCaprio looks old...like in his 40s old. She was amazed to discover he's only 33. I think he looked and sounded very poised.

Yay for Martin Scorsese....I was happy he finally got his Oscar.

What the hell is wrong with George Lucas's neck?

I don't think little Jaden Christopher yada yada yada Smith can read. Love Will Smith, he looked great. Jada Pinkett Smith looks robotic.

I was happy for Jennifer Hudson, but Kelsey doesn't think it's fair that somebody gets an Oscar for their very first acting role.....says she hasn't earned it yet. I did feel bad for her doing the musical part though when her right boob kept threatening to escape. It made me very uncomfortable to watch her.

All in all, not bad...not that exciting, not horrible either. No terribly stand out moments. The best line of all the winners goes to Melissa Ethridge, who said the next morning on Good Morning America that the Oscar would be the only naked man to EVER be in her bedroom.

Gaming

Once in a while, we need a little break from the moving. (maybe it's not such a good thing to have so long to move...especially when your entire family is made up of procrastinators)

So, we got the Wii the other day (courtesy of Nintendo and a special offer to Midway employees). Jay also went and got Zelda to play on the Wii and Crackdown to play on the XBox 360. So now we officially have 4 game systems set up. Oh, the wires.....the wires.

Anyways, the Wii is pretty fun, 'cause it came with Wii sports and we've all been having fun bowling and playing tennis, and testing our "fitness age". I don't want to mention what my fitness age is, because I think Nintendo is smoking crack. (it's freakin' 68!!!) Obviously, I have some work to do on my reflexive gaming moves. Kelsey started out in her 50's but is down in her 20's now. Jason started out not far from his real age, so good for him. Too bad he has osteoporosis. (or so the lady at the fitness fair at his work told him the other day) I think he's just trying to get out of beagle-proofing the backyard by using brittle bones as an excuse. What a whiner.

***okay, really...that diagnosis was a little surprising and scary, so he's going to get a follow up by somebody who wasn't trying to push their alternative medicine services on scared, brittle boned people.****

The bathroom contractor was here today, and we ordered us a new tub. If all goes well, the bathroom should be done by end of March to mid-April. Mostly depends on us, as we're doing a lot of the work ourselves to save $$$. I can't wait.

Yay! Officially moved in!

It's been a busy few days, and we just got Beaglehaus back up and running so I can finally update everyone on the move.

The movers came bright and early 9am Friday, and worked pretty steadily through until 5pm. We couldn't bring the green couch from my old house, and we couldn't bring Jason's maroon chair, because we couldn't get either one of them up the stairs to the loft where we had the "lofty" goal (hehe) of placing them. So they went back to the old house. We were all in bed by 7:30 Friday night, utterly exhausted.

Comcast came right at 8am on Saturday (we had one of those sometime between 8 and 12 appointments). I had a touch of panic when the guy said he wasn't going to be installing any outlets, it wasn't on his work order. I told him I made it very clear when I set up the appointment that we needed three outlets installed, because there is basically no cable set up in the house. He made some calls and cancelled all his morning appointments, and he was at work from 8am until after 1 pm, even after calling in some reinforcement. Up on the roof, dropping lines, drilling through walls, and we were set up with our triple play :-) Cable, phone, internet all courtesy of the Comcast monopoly.

We don't have everything moved yet, but we're working on it a little every day. It's mostly books anyway, so it won't take that long to pack up. The NY professor is taking the house, starting April 1, so we still have all of March to get stuff out. The landlords will come over March 18 to do the walk through and start some painting, so our goal is to have most of the stuff moved out by then.

Whew....long post. I'll keep updating later.

Last night at the old house

Just finished taking the beds apart, so things will go faster with the movers tomorrow. They will be here at 9 am to start, and they've got 4-6 hours scheduled. I think that should be plenty of time, since we live so close and we're basically just having them move furniture. Kelsey and I moved all the kitchen stuff today, which fit a little better than I thought it would actually.

Things we need:
Microwave
Chest freezer
Throw/Area rugs

Things we have way too much of:
Furniture
Glasses
Coffee mugs
Books and bookcases
Knick-knacks
Spices
Washers (1 too many)
Computers and computer parts
Board games with missing pieces
Curtains/various window treatments
Crockpots
Dogs

Tonight we sleep good - tomorrow we work hard. It would have been awesome if we could have bought the house we're renting, then we wouldn't have had to move at all :-) Oh well - we'll miss this place but we're excited to sleep in the new house tomorrow. I'll post pictures as we get organized.

NY visitor

The professor from NYC came today to look at the house. We think it went pretty well. He said he had been looking at quite a few, and had some more to look at yet, but he said he really liked the place, and we were probably in the top 2 of what he had looked at so far. We should know one way or the other sometime Tuesday, so we'll still cross our fingers until then.

We've all been working so hard this past week. Jason has one gate almost finished, and he's going to start working on the second one tomorrow. Hopefully we'll have them done before we move in officially on Friday. We tried to go meet the neighbors today and ask about putting in some green wire fencing along the property line, but they weren't home. Kelsey and I painted the remaining two walls in her room, and we'll finish the second coats tomorrow. I bought the pot rack for behind the stove, so I'm hoping to put that up tomorrow too. That should save us a lot of valuable cabinet space, if we can keep the pots on the wall. We still have to find a small microwave somewhere, and would like to pick up a used chest freezer for downstairs if we can find one on craigslist. We're all exhausted, and I can't wait until we're all moved in and settled. At least the weather has been really nice lately. I sure hope it won't be raining on Friday.

Moving update

We got the keys and we've been busy moving stuff back and forth between houses. It's nice that we don't have to move out of the rental right away so we can take our time moving. The furniture gets moved next Friday, and the goal is to have most of the other stuff moved by then.

This past weekend Kelsey and her friends were busy painting her room while Jay and I took inventory and made a trip to Lowes. We were there over three hours, trying to make sure we got everything we needed so we wouldn't have to go back. Of course, we had to go back the next day to get outside wood screws for the gate that Jason is building for beagle containment. But now I think we're set.

The guy from New York is coming this week to look at the house and decide if he wants to take over the rental. Please please please please please please please please please. oh, and please.

The Signing

Today Jason and I had our signing. That's almost the same as closing in PA, except no keys are exchanged, and the seller isn't there. Just the buyers, the title company, and the buyer's real estate agent. We signed and signed and signed, then we handed over a freaking huge check, then we left. Next step is for the Escrow company to file the papers, the county records the deed, and then Monday we get keys. Official time is 9:00 pm, but our agent is going to see if we can't get them sooner.

So, it's almost official - just a few more days and we can start moving boxes! Thanks for the box suggestions everyone gave. I wound up asking at Safeway the other day when I was grocery shopping, and they hooked me up big time. I packed about 8 boxes of books that I'm going to donate to the Seattle Public Library. They have a huge book sale twice a year...and I mean huge...it's in an old aircraft hanger, and it's always packed. The neighbor and I are going to drop the boxes off tomorrow. She has a van, and she's going to go through her stuff too.

Kelsey registered for driver's education yesterday. She can go any time now and get her permit. Needless to say, she's very excited. Needless to say, I'm scared to death. Seattle is not a fun place to drive. Or park. I'm sure she'll be fine, but it's hard to think about.

Moving blues

As excited as I am to move into our new house, I just can't seem to get myself motivated to actually do any packing. Geez, I hate to move. I keep looking around thinking, this can be packed, that can be packed....but actually making any effort to do it seems to be beyond me. Maybe if I get some boxes, I'll feel ready. I tried Kris's suggestion and went across the street to the fruit stand, but all of their boxes were wet and soggy so I didn't take any. There's a craigslist posting today that someone has a bunch of free boxes in South Seattle - maybe I should call them.

Okay, people...motivate me.

American Idol - Seattle

Oh my goodness....what a bizarro collection of freaks that auditioned in Seattle. I did notice that the weirdest people were not actually from Seattle, but simply came here to audition. That does not prevent me from wanting to hide in shame however. Seattle just needs to pull the covers over its head and not go outside for a few days until the embarrassment goes away.

P.S. - someone from work sent me this link in case anyone wants to check out the MySpace pages of some of the more memorable Idol contestants:
http://deathbycamera.com/

Awesome detective work :-)

Oh.My.God

Umm...yeah. We bought a house.

Create a Free Slideshow

Can't talk too much about it, I'm still in shock. Closing is the end of January, so there's lots to get done between now and then. If all goes well, we'll get the keys on January 29. Thanks for everyone that sent good thoughts. More later :-)

Brrrrrrrr....

Wow, is it cold in Seattle. Yesterday I couldn't open the passenger door of Jason's car because it was frozen solid. I had to sit in the backseat. I was also the only one at work yesterday because nobody else could make it in on the icy roads. Whoever it was that told us it doesn't snow in Seattle was totally wrong. Kelsey had another snow day yesterday and a two hour delay this morning. Ick.

Jason is on a deadline this week so he's been working really late hours. Good news from his work though, they're covering his GDC trip to San Francisco in March, so all we need to cover is the airfare for me and Kelsey, and the extra two weekend nights at the hotel. How cool is that? Since that's being covered, we're going to look into some doggie ranch action for the beagles instead of leaving them alone again. The neighbor did a great job, but he'll be in school instead of on vacation so it'll be harder for him to keep to their schedule.

Oh, and we're looking at a house. But I'm not getting my hopes up so I'm not going to post too much about it. Just send us some really good thoughts the next few days please :-)

Holiday pics

Server has been down for a few days, so I've been unable to update. We're finally home and unpacked, and laundry has been done and things put away, so we're slowly getting back to normal routine.

Our holiday trip was fun, and it was so good to see all of our families again. I'm not going to post much, but I thought it would be nice to share some of our picture memories this time around.

Hanging out in Da'Burgh

We got to Pittsburgh Christmas day about 3:30, after a harrowing drive in the rain with a rental car that did not want to stay on the road. Jason's hands were in a death grip after 3 hours of trying hard to keep us all alive, while Kelsey and I slept. (me, fitfully...as I kept jerking awake every time we slipped to see if we were all about to die. Then I'd go back to sleep).

Christmas night we had dinner at Grandma Flo's house. It was the three of us, Mary and Hugo, Grandma Flo, Ron and Gail, and Robert. Lovely evening, and really good food. The next day, Megan and Robby arrived and Robby met everyone. We all dressed up in our finery, opened stockings in the living room, and went to the Duquesne Club for dinner. The same people, without Robert, met us there, and in addition was Ron's son Jordan and Mary's brother and sister-in-law from Colorado, Glen and Joanne.

Mary and Hugo had arranged a private room with a big dining room, a living room area and bathroom, so we all had some drinks and opened our secret santa gifts (I got a quilt kit!), then had dinner. As usual, it was delicious and I felt like I needed to be rolled out of the room. We then took Robby on a tour of the place, and went to the Men's Bar for a nightcap before coming home exhausted.

The next day Megan and Robby left and it was a pretty relaxing day. Jason took Kelsey driving while I hung around the house, then that night we went to see Ron and Autumn sing at a local bar/restaurant. There was a huge crowd of relatives there too, so many more people to see and say hi to.

Tonight there are about 20 relatives coming to Mary and Hugo's for a pizza party. Unfortunately, both Kelsey and Jason got my cold and are both fighting to breath right now. I think there will be many infected people after the party tonight :-(

Back in PA

After a very long day on Tuesday, we're finally back in Pennsylvania. I feel really lucky that our flight was Tuesday and not yesterday, because Denver had a gigantic snowstorm yesterday that closed the airport, and that's where we connected through. No problems on the flight except it just takes so damn long to get across the country. I can't wait until we can teleport.

We met Jonathan for dinner Tuesday night, he drove up from State College. It was really good to see him - he's lost 60 pounds since he started running, and he looks fantastic! I don't know why some girl hasn't snapped him up yet :-) We spent a few hours catching up, but he had to drive back to State College and work the next day, so it was a short visit.

Yesterday I spent the day being miserable, as I have a cold and had a raging headache most of the day. Kelsey spent the night at Pam's, so I was in bed by 7:30 at the hotel. I had a hard time getting to sleep though because of my headache, and then when we both were finally asleep, the phone rang. The hotel mixed up our 10:00 am wakeup call with a 1:oo am wakeup call. After a lot of tossing and turning and yet more aspirin, we finally went back to sleep. Luckily, I had set my phone alarm after the 1 am wakeup call, so it went off at 10, and I feel so much better. We're now off to take my mom to her eye appointment. Maybe I can finally enjoy being home today :-)

Christmas Party

Last night was fun. We mostly just ate and bowled...and had a few drinks (I had quite the headache this morning). No Wi for us, but Jason won a $50 gift card for Best Buy, so his winning streak continues. I said yesterday that I'm no Kris Kiner...but my husband is. I think this is the fourth thing he's won, and that's just when I've been with him. Heaven knows how much stuff he's been winning without me!

Kelsey is done with school for the year tomorrow. They have an hour early release, and then that's it for 2006. I think she's really looking forward to her break :-) She seems to like school a little better this year, but I think she'd still prefer not to go to school at all...she's just ready to start college. Three more years, after this one.

Terribly icky day today, so it was nice to come home and put on some jammies and watch the recording of The Biggest Loser...holy cow, the winner lost 214 pounds! That's amazing! He looked really good, as did all of them. Good for them for getting that done. Now getting ready for The Office and Survivor. We love Thursdays :-)

Busy times

Whew, it's been a while since I posted. Time has gotten away from me. I've been super busy these last weeks getting ready for Christmas....and I don't even have to worry about a tree, or decorations, or anything! But I've been doing a lot of shopping and even if most of it has been online, it's been time consuming. I think I'm done now though.

Tonight is Jason's company Christmas party. It's at some place called Garage downtown...it's like a billiards/bowling/bar place. They've booked a private room with 6 bowling lanes, some pool tables, and they're going to have some Texas Hold'em, Blackjack, and Craps tables set up. Same as last year, you use fake money to play, you trade your winnings in for tickets, and the tickets go into a drawing for prizes. Last year they gave away an X-Box 360 as their big prize. I'm no Kris Kiner, I didn't win anything. But it was fun anyway :-) Food, free drinks, and a bit of fun. Too bad it's just for adults, so Kelsey has to stay home :-(

Less than a week until we leave for PA and a whirlwind of Christmas activity. I'm not sure how much I'll be able to update before then, so Merry Christmas!

Oh, P.S. I got an A in Anthropology! I'm so glad that class is over.

Friday Harbor

Today we woke up rather early at the campground....I guess going to bed so early makes us get up early too. The girls walked around the campsite while I made breakfast tacos. We went and got some firewood from the office so we had mid morning s'mores too :-). We decided we would take the later ferry to Friday Harbor, and then have dinner there and come home.

The ferry was at 2:40, which got us to Friday Harbor at 3:45. It was so pretty there. Kelsey and I thought it reminded us of some of the towns in Alaska that we stopped in on our cruise last summer. There was still snow on the ground, and the stores were all decorated with lights for Christmas. It really is a pretty town. The only problem was all the shops closed at 5:30, and we had decided to eat before shopping, so we didn't have a whole lot of time to see much. Then we had to wait until 6:45 for the return ferry to Anacortes. Tomorrow I'll post a picture of the girls waiting to board.

There were only about 8 of us on board for the trip home, so it was pretty quiet. We got back to the cabin about 8:30 and everyone is in pajamas already. It's just too cold to sit outside, and we're out of firewood already :-) But I think the girls had a good time, so I'll say the trip was a success.

Birthday Camping

It's the first night of Kelsey's big birthday camping weekend. It took me 45 minutes longer to drive here than I had planned on, because the traffic was so bad on I-5. We couldn't leave as early as I would have liked because Elizabeth doesn't get home from school until almost 4, so we were on the road by 4:30. Got here at 6:15, the office was closed but the cabin lights were on, and the heat was on, so it was all good. The girls helped unpack, then put on their swimsuits and headed for the hot tub while I made dinner. I couldn't find where they keep the wood, but luckily I had picked up some charcoal today at the grocery store, so I made hot dogs on the portable grill. There are actually more people here than I would have expected for December.

After dinner we had ice cream cake - quickly melting ice cream cake - and then Kelsey opened her presents from Ayla and one from me and Jason. Ayla did a fantastic job on the presents. Kelsey got a Hanson book, a guitar pick necklace signed by Taylor Hanson, some knitting supplies from Ayla's mom, and a Wentworth Miller totebag. She was utterly thrilled by all of it. She got a video camera from me and Jason, and she says it's cute, so I hope she likes it. Seems pretty easy to work.

They're now in the other room of the cabin playing a game while I relax in bed. It's only 9 pm but since I can't find any wood we're not going to be sitting outside anytime soon. Hopefully I'll be able to score some tomorrow so I can make eggs for breakfast :-)

Snowy

Back from Austin, where we had a fantastic Thanksgiving trip. The Neibert Diaries does an excellent job in recapping the holiday, so interested parties can take a gander at that blog.

I got home to a new hard drive (thanks to my brother, Dell sent me a new one instead of a refurbished one), and after many many hours yesterday, I'm back online. Hoo-ray.

We got back in town just in time to experience the standstill that is Seattle when there's a bit of snow and ice. Woefully unprepared with salt or sand, and with Monday Night Football featuring the Seahawks, last night was a commuting nightmare. I'm awfully lucky that it only took me two hours to get home. The Seattle Times blog has some people traveling for over 11 hours. When I got to work today, only one other person had made it in, so I stayed for the whole day to cover. Kelsey had a snow day - and she thought those days were over when we left PA!

Supposed to get colder tonight, and another storm on Wednesday, then finally get warmer. Just in time for Kelsey's birthday camping trip this weekend!

Off to Austin

Seattle weather today:


Austin weather today:


Ummm...okay, we're ready to leave. Plane takes off at 3:45 pm tomorrow. It actually hailed today, along with thunder and lightning. That is a very rare occurrence in Seattle. The dogs were freaked. It's been raining for about 10 days now, and there's a bunch more in the forecast, so we are so looking forward to some sunshine.

We're all going to do the Turkey Trot 5 mile walk/run on Thursday morning, then watch Kirk deep fry the turkey for dinner. I'm anxious to taste deep fried turkey. I wonder if it'll look like deep fried snickers?

The boy next door came over tonight for dog instructions. I sure hope they behave while we're gone, but I'm not holding my breath. We put up a baby gate barrier so they're at least confined to the downstairs area, but they can still do a bunch of damage. Stephan is pretty responsible, so I'm not that worried. I just hope they don't drive him crazy enough to say he can't watch them over Christmas.

Don't know if I mentioned it to anyone, but my computer has died. I'm still waiting for the replacement hard drive to arrive, but in the meantime I haven't really been able to update. I'm using Jay's right now, but he's pretty protective of this bad boy so I can't take too long :-)

I'll post more from Austin. Happy Thanksgiving in advance!

Quick hello

Whew, the time is really flying. There's not too much to report, it's been pretty quiet here in Seattle. We're getting ready to settle into winter...the rain is definitely here for the season. It's been cold the last couple of days too. It makes you just want to hibernate.

Jason got his laptop back yesterday, so he's once again a happy camper. I hope this time there isn't anything wrong with it, because he's so lost without it :-). Luckily (or not) they were really in crunch mode at work the past few weeks so he's had little time to miss it. That's over for now though so he gets to come home at regular time again.

Yesterday was weigh and measure day with the trainer. After 4 weeks, the scale hasn't moved much, but we've both lost inches and that's the really important part. We worked so hard, I would have liked to see more progress in the numbers, but I know we're both wearing smaller clothes so I have to be satisfied with that.

I was thinking about Pam today, and wondering how she was doing with this being moving week. She must be really excited to be getting back into her own place with the girls. I hope everything goes well for her this weekend. I'm looking forward to seeing her new place when we come home in December.

Oooh, only about a week left to go before we leave for Austin for Thanksgiving. Hello sunshine!

R.I.P. Ed Bradley

I was very sad today when I saw that Ed Bradley died. He was one rockin' reporter. I always loved that this distinguished older guy on 60 minutes had a hoop earring. Can you picture Mike Wallace or Andy Rooney wearing a hoop earring? I don't think so. Ed, you will be missed.

Change in the training schedule this week. Mark came Monday, today, and then tomorrow. He couldn't make it on Wednesday. I missed the every other day training thing. Kelsey and I did some weight training on Tuesday, but I will admit we skipped working out yesterday. She had a ton of homework, I got home late from school, and it just didn't happen. I tried to make up for no workout by eating extra light yesterday. Monday is the big day, when we get weighed and measured. I honestly haven't seen that much weight come off...like maybe 3-4 pounds...but I definitely think I'm toning up. Someone at work today told me it looked like I was losing weight. Kelsey is definitely looking like she's toning too. She got into a smaller size jeans this week.

We both have a long weekend because of Veteran's Day tomorrow. Yay! We still have a workout scheduled at 3, but nothing planned the rest of the day. It's supposed to rain again anyway, so we'll just stay in and enjoy being dry.

Election Day

Time to rock the vote people. Take advantage of your freedom and go make a choice. Even it it's raining cats and dogs.

Many happy election day returns!

P.S. Oh wow...who would have seen this coming?

On Cultural Movie-Film for making Benefits of Us

Jay and I went to see the Borat movie yesterday. Holy cow, was that ever funny. The theater was packed, and I wound up sitting next to some guy who reeked of alchohol and kept swigging from a flask during the whole movie, but I still enjoyed it. Warning though, it's not for everyone. It helps to be familiar with Sacha Baron Cohen and the stuff he's done before, and parts of it is kind of ewwww graphic, but we both liked it a lot.

Afterwards we went to McGrath's Fish House, since Kelsey was sleeping on her friend's boat again. Then I quilted the rest of the night while Jay went to a friend's birthday party. I watched Saving Private Ryan while he was gone...I thought Band of Brothers was infinitely better. I think I'm in an anti-Tom Hanks phase for some reason.

Oh, and for those who have been expecting packages from me for like.....forever - I finally made it to the post office yesterday! The nephew is getting his in two pieces, mainly because of shipping box sizes and lack of packing material. Part two is coming with me on the plane at Thanksgiving.

Thanks yous, very nice, great success.

Second lifzzzzz

Yeah, I've been hearing a lot about Second Life lately, so this being a boring rainy Friday night, I thought I'd give it a try. Very unimpressive. On the surface it sounds really cool and fun, but in reality the lag is horrible, the character interface sucks, and it was a real snooze. I did like the flying bit, but the rest is pretty lacking. Maybe I just hit it on a bad night...I might try again if the circumstances all line up right. But then again, I might just take a nap.

Neil Patrick Harris is the latest celebrity to out themselves. Good for him, and double good for all the gay gentlemen out there, because that kid is cuuute. Now if Tom Cruise could only make an honest man of himself :-).

Bad timing

So I heard from my friend Jason the other day...he's in Ft. Collins, CO right now doing his thang. He'll be back in Seattle over Thanksgiving, and he asked if I wanted to go see Bodies with that Friday. However, we will be in Austin then so I don't get to A) see the exhibition or B) see Jason. I could still see the exhibition I guess, even though my very own Jason isn't really into seeing cadavers in various life-like poses. I'm mostly bummed about not seeing my friend Jason, because I haven't seem him since the summer and I miss him.

The Anthropology test today was way easier than I expected it to be. I'm pretty sure I only got a few questions wrong, so I'm expecting an A. The study guide that she passed out for the test was totally bogus, and barely had anything to do with the test. I'll be glad when this quarter is done. Next quarter I'm taking Medical Terminology online, with the same professor that I had for Anatomy, and she was really cool so I'm stoked about that one.

The trainer session was good today....more strength training with some more cardio in between. We almost felt like not eating dinner when we were done...almost I said. Instead, we rested a few minutes, and then had meatloaf muffins and mashed potatoes. Yummy :-)