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 :-)

Rainy Sunday

It was supposed to be nice all this weekend, but it's rainy and overcast today. Good day to study for my midterm on Wednesday.

Yesterday was nice though, and we had a pretty full day. Kelsey and a friend went to the movies - Saw 3 - on Friday afternoon, then a sleepover at our house Friday night. Yesterday we planned to see The Prestige, but thanks to me we went to the wrong theater in Lynnwood, and we couldn't find the one it was actually playing at. So we went to Barnes and Noble and got some books, then we went to JoAnn's and got some quilting thread. We came home and walked the dogs, then Jason took us to his new office since we haven't been there yet. Then we dropped Kelsey and Ayla off at Ayla's boat so Kelsey could spend the night there.

Since Jason and I had a free evening, we decided to do something grown up. We decided to go out for drinks and tapas, and I knew just where I wanted to go. I kept passing this lounge place when driving around the U-district, so we headed there. Except we didn't know exactly where it was. We parked on the Ave, then walked south, then north, then south again, then north again. We could not freakin' find this place. We probably walked for a good 45 minutes, and then we got in the car and drove to where we thought it might be, and lo and behold there it was...we had been less than 50 yards from it on one of our side street excursions, but we just didn't go far enough!

The place was really cool, and we had some drinks (mojitos and buttery nipples :-), and some tapas (spinach and artichoke dip, and a plate with cheese, nuts, and crackers with a variety of spreads). I thought it was called the University Lounge, but turns out it's actually called The District Lounge, so no wonder nobody knew where it was when we asked. We decided that the next time we get a visitor from out of town we'll take them there. Then we came home and watched The Wire on HBO and went to bed.

Today is just a study/work day since it's so icky out. The Halloween Beaglefest is today, but I don't think we're going to go. Although as I'm writing this, the sun is coming out, so who knows....maybe we will. As ever, I'll keep you all posted :-)

Work issues

My computer died at work. It actually died yesterday, when it wouldn't let me on the network at all, and since I do most of my work on network programs, I went home early while they worked on fixing it. Which was good, because it let me study for Anthropology....oh, and make another bag :-)



I won't bore everyone (like there's a lot of readers) with all the pictures, but for anyone that's interested, they're here if you want to see all the angles. I posted them for Meg so she could decide which one she wanted. She went with the red one, which means I get the pink one.

So anyway, today I go back in to work, and my computer has supposed to have been fixed, but I still get the same error, and can't connect to the network. Luckily for me, there's an unused laptop in the server room that they decide to set up. I say luckily because this one is smokin' fast compared to the one I've been using, and I don't feel like bashing my head against the window of my cubicle quite as often. But now I can't get on Internet Explorer. I can use Firefox, which is fine, but I can't use Messenger either which I think is tied in with the IE error, so I'm out of touch with the rest of the office. You'd be laughing right now if you knew how small our office is :-). But I'm also out of touch IM-wise with Jason. No big deal, I can still text message him, but I'm much faster on a keyboard than a cell phone.

All of my recent crafting has injured me. I have lost most of my right thumbnail. Ouch, yes it hurts. And it's damn inconvenient.

Boo-tay

The weekend weather here was beautiful, so we took advantage yesterday and went to Fright Fest at the Six Flags Enchanted Forest. It's about 25 miles south of Seattle, and we went with Kelsey and her friend. The girls had a great time, and so did we - but Jason and I couldn't help but feel the park was a little lacking in the ride department. They had two roller coasters, and the rest of the rides were the kind you might find in a carnival somewhere. We didn't make it to the haunted house because the line was sooooo long. And by 10:30 we were soooo cold. It was fun though, and I'm glad we went.

Today was craft day for me. I finally got all the pieces together to make the Bootie Bag. So this is my first attempt, and since it's not perfect, I'll keep it for myself and make a better one for Meg :-)



I picked the jeans up at the Goodwill in Harrisburg...girls size 5



The handles were the most expensive part, because I bought most of the nice beads from the bead store. The rest of the beads I took off a thrift store necklace.



The inside fabric was stuff I had left over after making bibs for Ripken



I bought the belt at a thrift store here in Seattle

I must say, I love the way it turned out. I can't wait to start another one. But not today, I have to study for a quiz in Anthropology tomorrow.

Sore

Whoa. It's amazing how much your body can hurt when it starts moving. My legs are hurtin' baby. But not as much as they did over the weekend. We had our second session with Mark on Monday. I seriously thought I might puke at the end of it, but only because I was really pushing for the last part of the workout. You know, end strong, give it 110 percent, yada yada.....blaaaaggghh. We found a bunch of workout videos on On Demand which is awesome considering that the Fall is definitely starting here in Seattle, and I hate to walk in the rain.

Sticking to the calorie limit isn't too difficult right now. The hardest thing is not having Pho. I think I might be able to have it for lunch if I have it on the days we workout with Mark, and I don't have breakfast and then I just have something light like Subway for dinner. But I think my favorite lunch, Banh Xeo, is completely out for now. Which might not be a bad thing, because it gives me a little bit of a headache after I eat it. But it's oh so good, and I'll miss it.

I don't get the whole flap about Madonna adopting an African boy. Isn't it better that the boy is going to have a good home and lots of opportunities rather than face a bleak future in an orphanage? If I was an African boy, I'd sure rather be adopted and have a house and clothing and food and college and all that jazz, even if the adoptive parents are a white couple. Maybe I don't see the whole picture because I'm white myself, but I think the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages.

The Property

Kelsey's friend called her yesterday and asked if she wanted to spend the weekend at "The Property". Apparently, they have a cabin or small house or something like that on a piece of land in Hoodsport, WA. It was just the friend and her mom going, so they invited Kelsey to join them. I'm so glad she's doing more stuff with her friends here. I talked to her this morning and it sounds like they're having a nice relaxing weekend.

I, on the other hand, woke up with a raging headache this morning. Jason woke up with a neck pain so bad he can barely move his head...although his has been getting progressively worse the past few days. So we made an appointment for him to have a massage - he's going to take off in about 45 minutes for that. I remember when Mom tried to find a place for a massage in Harrisburg and all she could find was erotic massage places...Seattle is loaded with massage therapists. So many it seems a miracle that you could go a day without being massaged by someone. Which is fortunate, seeing that we could get Jason a last minute appointment for one.

Oh yeah..the personal trainer. It was great. He made it pretty fun and interesting, and he says he'll switch up the workout everytime so we don't get bored. And we definitely worked...it felt really good to do something besides sit on my butt :-). We're going for a Monday, Wednesday, Friday schedule, with brisk 30 minute walks on the off days for now. He'll increase our off day stuff as we go, but right now he wants us to get on a daily exercise schedule. Kelsey said she'd walk while she's at The Property. Jason is going to walk with me when he gets back from his massage. It was a great start, and I'm excited to keep going. He also put us each on a 1400 calorie a day diet, and we have to journal every day what we eat. That's the one thing I hate, counting calories. It's such a pain in the ass. But perhaps with diligence, it will be a relatively smaller ass eventually.

Time to get in shape

Stephan said yes to the beagle sitting! What a relief. We're going to give him $20 a day - of course, his mother said that wasn't necessary but I insisted. It is a pretty big obligation after all, especially our December trip.

Speaking of the December trip, I made the reservations at the Sheraton today so we'll have a place to stay, and won't be crowding anyone. Right down the street from Mom, which is excellent, and a gym so Kelsey and I can keep up with our program, which is also excellent.

Today we have our first home visit from our new personal trainer. Kelsey and I will be working with him 3 days a week. He comes to the house and brings everything with him....how cool is that? We're both very excited to start, even though today won't be fun because it's weigh and measure day. He's going to take all of our measurements and work up a plan for us, and he says he does this every 3 - 4 weeks. It's kind of like The Biggest Loser without the embarrassing fact of doing it in front of millions of people on TV. I shall keep everyone informed of our progress, but our goal is to be down 8 - 15 pounds each by Christmas. So now I must go put on my sexy workout outfit (HA!)