‘Tis the season!!

We’ve decided to take our Christmas letter online this year. This webblog is updated about once a week and is used to share pictures and updates of what we’re up to with friends and family.

With a flash, 2006 is nearly in the history books... looking forward to a bright 2007!

We’re still loving Seattle and all the excitement of exploring a new city. We’ve still got our day jobs: Rob continues analyzing the P-8A at Boeing and Allison still saves the Internet at avenue-a-razorfish. Both companies are doing very well and the projects are keeping us very busy. Most evenings you’ll find us meeting up after work for a fine Seattle dining experience. On the weekends we stay busy with our "project house" where we moved in mid-January. The year has seen several projects completed while still others remain. The rain in January, April, and May encouraged us to work indoors but we did break away and enjoy some fantastic Northwest skiing at Mt Hood, Crystal Mountain, and Snoqualmie Central in January and February. We hope to get in at least as many trips this season as we did last.

With the house in "almost presentable" condition in May, we hosted Allison's parents for 12-day visit. Allison's dad got right to work taking the lead by replacing the storm doors and the kitchen exterior window, as well as cutting out old / adding new wall outlet junction boxes and re-wiring the cable through the basement and first floors. This saved major time for Rob while he was at work during the weekdays. Fortunately they brought good weather with them and had a great tour of the Puget Sound & San Juan Islands. This included a ferry ride to Bremerton to meet Rob & Melanie for dinner, and a “not to be missed” tour of the Boeing 777 factory and Future of Flight museum in Everett. Rob's dad also passed through for a few days in the spring on his way back from east asia. While visiting multiple air museums and even fitting in a quick day trip to Mt. St. Helens, it was a productive stay!

The summer yielded outstanding weather where we enjoyed walks down to the Market, taking in Mariners games, meeting friends for happy hour, playing some beach volleyball, and enjoying the sunlight for the 4 months of fantastic weather in Seattle. The only apparent casualty was the grass in the front yard, due to the lack of rain. Since we both commute to work by bus, we said farewell to the beloved MINI that was sleeping in the garage. Now we even notice ourselves "storing" the Jeep in the garage since our house is near three buslines.

We celebrated our third anniversary on Vancouver Island (British Columbia). Stops on the safari included the surfer town of Tofino, a three-day kayaking-camping journey along the Johnstone Strait viewing the Orcas pods, and a visit to Campbell River vacations. What a nice introduction to camping via kayak! Rob's brother visited in early August to attend and present at a statistics convention downtown, allowing him to witness good weather in Seattle (sans the humidity he’s used to in D.C.). He was here during Seafair when the Blue Angels flew their show over Lake Washington, which was amazing.


September started an exciting football season as we cheered on the Wolverines from Rocksport Bar in West Seattle. Between that and following the Detroit Tigers along a great season finish (almost) in the World Series, the fall kept us busy. Despite the final score of an outstanding game with Ohio State, and the blot from several questionable BCS votes (or lack thereof... yes, we're pointing in your direction, Jim Tressel!), Michigan football gave us a great season. We’ll cheer them on again from Pasadena where we’ll finally watch the Rose Bowl in person on New Years day with Rob’s brother.

Allison's sister visited us this fall, which was great fun that included shopping and live music at the Crocodile Cafe. With the new roof being installed during her visit, we were forced to navigate around all the debris in the yard and asked her to imagine how charming our house would look like without the mess and the dumpster.

We had two Thanksgivings this year. The first was a week early with Rob’s parents in Florida. A long weekend with sunny weather was just what we needed. We had our friends over for the second, on Thanksgiving day, where Allison cooked up a nice spread. We’ll be spending Christmas with Allison's parents and family in Michigan's U.P., and look forward to seeing the rest of the family and take a few days off before heading down to California to ring in the new year!

By the way, the Flickr menu on the right will have our pictures stashed for you to view. Stay tuned for more pictures and updates to start off next year. Pictures from the Rose Bowl will be followed by our escape from the rainy early spring while spending a week in Praiano, Italy. If ever in Seattle (you should visit in May-September, and we’ll visit you in the other months) please drop us a line! We have extra rooms & beds, and we love visitors!

We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!!

Love,
Al & Rob

We’re Safe in Seattle

If anyone is wondering, we are fine. We had a heck of a windstorm on Thursday night. I couldn’t believe that the winds by us were only 55 MPH. Can you imagine what it must be like to be in a hurricane? Yikes. I didn’t get any sleep because I thought all of windows would blow out. My lovely husband, who can sleep through anything didn’t seem to care as much as I did, since he was sound asleep.

We lost power on Thursday night and ended up just going to the gym to get ready on Friday morning. Here I thought I just donated to the gym, now I actually can use it to shower. When we got home from work the power was back on. Thank goodness, the cats were freezing!

Now we have no cable. Which is not the end of the world, except I had a lot of Internet related activities that I wanted to work on today. I am now at my favorite coffee shop using their Free internet, listening to John Mayer on my ipod and waiting for Rob to call. That’s a lot of Technology!

Keep your eyes open in the mail this week for our Christmas Card. Sorry we’re so late!

Thank you. Thank you!

I used to really enjoy my birthday. My parents spoiled me and led me to believe it was my day. I would say, it’s still like that to an extent (Rob does a great job of spoiling me). But as the years go on… I just feel older and I hate it.

So thanks to everyone who sent a card, email, gift or otherwise on my birthday. This year was not just a birthday but a birthweek. For my bday, we tried a new restaurant called Café Lago in Montlake. It was awesome and I highly recommend it. Get the Lasagna, you won't regret it!

Aside from that I’ve been trying to get a lot of knitting done for the holiday. I have 3 gifts that just need finishing touched before I move on to my new project – Lady Eleanor from Scarf Style. I will be using Paton’s SWS in Natural Earth paid for by a birthday gift from my mom (Thank you) - I'm behind schedule as Liz has already started hers.

I also was meaning to post about this for a while. While in Florida my Mother in law went crazy knitting things for me that she gave to me as birthday/christmas gifts. It was wonderful. She made me a really great sweater jacket, tank top, and felted bag. They're all awesome and I have already worn the sweater several times and recieved tons of compliments. Thank you again! I love them all.

Rose Bowl Bound

We felt pretty ripped off that Florida was able to sneak into the BCS Championship Game and Michigan was out. That said, now they are in the Rose Bowl and will be playing USC. I was very impressed with USC when they played Notre Dame a few weeks back and I think it will be a good game.

Rob and I have never been to LA and always wanted to go. This will be a very quick trip and we’ve decided to drive from Seattle. Yes, I said Drive. I LOVE road trips! This will be 18 hours in the car in an undiscovered area for us. We’ll be staying with Rob’s family friends in Newport Beach. Rob’s brother will meet us there and it’ll be a really great time.

We’ll know on the 12th if we actually got tickets, since you need to enter a lottery, nothing is for sure. I’ll update then and will be sure to have pictures too.

This weekend was a lot of fun. Liz came over to have a knitting day while Adam and Rob left to go to the Museum of Flight for a while. Then we all went to dinner then bowling. It was a lot of fun!

If you’re wondering, today is my birthday. I’ll update later with a full report!

Note to self: Seattle shuts down when snowing

Besides the Monday Night Football game that started during rush hour, there was also a snow/sleet storm that started promptly at 5pm. When I found out that my ticket for the Seahawks game was not in suite, I decided not to go. I know, I’m a snob, but I wasn’t dressed for it at all! Turns out I would have been better off at the game and avoiding the traffic. It never snows in Seattle and apparently when it does, it’s a real mess. You won’t get sympathy from me. After spending 5 years at the end of the earth (aka Houghton) and snow from October to mid April, I’m ok with getting 1 inch and my world doesn’t shut down.

In other notes, Thanksgiving went off without a hitch and it was the most fantastic meal ever! We had a good time and played games until 11pm or so, even though we were in a monster food coma. We’re finally done with the leftovers and I made a huge batch of turkey salad (with grapes) to get us through the week. Needless to say, I’m on a diet.

The rest of the weekend was wonderful. I started decorating for Christmas and we also spent a lot of time cleaning up the baseboard trim and laying down new quarter round. You don’t think that is a very time consuming job, but it took forever! It looks great now though and Rob is so glad we did it. So I guess that is all that matters.

Just got back from Florida

By way of Newark. The longest flight (within the US) ever. We flew Continental Airlines and it was actually quite comfortable. A new 737-800 plane and I always feel better flying on a new plane thanks to this new website I found that answers all my scary flying questions http://www.askcaptainlim.com/

We had a nice relaxing few days down in Bonita Springs with Rob’s parents. The weather was nice and sunny. We played some tennis and some golf and then came home to the rain.

Today is Thanksgiving, so Happy Thanksgiving! We are having a few friends over for dinner tonight and the menu consists of:

Cheese and Crackers
Maple Glazed Turkey
Gravy
Cornbread Stuffing
Garlic Mashed Potatoes
Sweet Potato Casserole
Jalapeño Cheese Spinach Casserole
Fresh Green Beans
Cranberry Sauce
Fresh Dinner Rolls
Double Decker Pumpkin Cheesecake
Fruit Pie
Lots of Wine

You only do this once a year, right? I could be making the biggest entertaining faux pas of my life by using my Christmas dishes for Thanksgiving dinner! I will show pictures when the table is set.

Ang's Birthday Gift

I'm really proud of this bag I made because it was really hard at first, but I stuck through it and now am in love with how it turned out. I can't wait to finish my own. I sent this to Ang for her birthday, but it was about 2 weeks late!

It's called the Brea Bag by Berroco. I used Knit Picks Wool of the Andes and doubled it up for a total of 4 skeins. After you get the hang of it, it's really easy. I bought the handle from MJ Trim. I havent heard from her yet to know what she thinks of it.

Washington is under water

Our blog is NOT intended for complaining about how busy we are, I promise. It just so happens that I forgot about it the blog and to update it and that's why there has been no activity. This is obviously a really busy time of year. Work is busy, we're traveling a lot, holiday shopping to do, etc etc.

Just an update on what's been going on with us. We leave next Wednesday night for Florida to visit Rob's parents for an early Thanksgiving. If the weather holds up, it should be 85 and sunny. A nice change since the whole state of Washington is apparently under water. The following weekend we'll have Thanksgiving dinner at our house and have some friends over.

We've been staying busy and doing some fun things around here. Last Wednesday we got some surprise tickets to the Sonics season opener, that was fun. On Thursday night I had the guys from my office over for a party of Mario Kart on Nintendo 64 and Rainier Beer. So fun! Friday night, we met some friends at 88 keys. On Saturday we watched the football game at Rocksport, then went to see the Bodies Exhbit (amazing), then went to dinner at LaFontana, THEN went to see (my fav) Stephen Kellogg and the Sixers at the crocodile. It was amazing.

Needless to say, I didn't leave the house on Sunday. This week, I've just been trying to get home before 7pm. After a long week at work this past week, I am hoping to again not leave the house.

Finally a new posting

I’ve been really busy knitting for the Holidays and for just for myself. The blue scarf is for me. The white scarf is for me. The red scarf is a Bday gift.









I'm happy to report that the roof is finally finished. Rob and I agree: The job they did = good. The Customer NO Service = Bad. It's a wonder they stay in business. To tide you over, here are some pictures of the living room, until we get pictures of the roof. It's our new TV, the first fire for fall and the general living room.









This was an exciting weekend. Michigan won again and it was also games 1 and 2 of the World Series, go Tigers!
On Sunday we went over to Liz and Adam’s and carved pumpkins. I don’t think we realized what we were in for when we saw that they were such serious pumpkin carvers! We had a blast and had a super yummy dinner! All of our pumpkins turned out great and it was rely really fun. Rob's is bat and mine is cat. I can't wait for next year.
We’re both going to be busy at work this week, but we really need to get busy on the cabinet shuffling we have going on in the basement. Rob is fixing the cabinets that he taking out of the garage and re-fitting them to go in the basement. We’re in a painting process now and then we have fancy new handles to install too. I’ll show pictures when it’s finally done.

So much time...

I just realized it’s been a while since I last posted. Things have been really busy. My sister came to visit us last weekend. I love have guests in town, but it just always makes me sad that she doesn’t live closer. We spent all day shopping on Friday and I don’t think that we are very good for each other’s pocketbooks. While Rob says “Al, do you really need that?” she says, 'That's cool, you should buy it.” It’s nice to have someone other than your husband to shop with.

Believe it or not the roofers are still not done. Real classy, I know. Sure a day and a half job is now looking like a week and a half. No problem. I don’t think we have the views that we had hoped for, but it could be worse. I'll ppost something when the skylights finally get installed.

In more exciting news, if you are interested in FREE HDTV you may want to read on. Rob and I have been looking at LCD Tvs for a long time. We wanted something slim that would fit in our living room and look sleek and not take over. Not doing the research that we should have, we decided to buy a 32 inch Phillips LCD Tv. Note: when a tv says that is it is HDTV ready, it means that you still need to plug it into the fancy set top cable box. If you want to bypass fancy cable and get the HDTV over the airwaves, you will have to have a separate tuner. So we take the HD ‘not so” ready tv back and order an off brand 32inch LCD with an internal tuner (turns out, I think a 32 inch is too big). I am now watching the Tigers game in HD for free!

Also, did you see that Google bought youtube? It’s great that google wants to buy that lawsuit waiting to happen. I also read last night that the google brats bought the garage that they started their search engine in to preserve it for their legacy. In Rob’s words. “shouldn’t someone else be responsible for preserving your legacy? Can you really do that yourself?”

We are also both sick. And so is my sister. humph!

Seriously Starbucks, Mitch Albom? – Rant for the Day

I go to Starbucks for these reasons and these reasons only.
1. I have no cash and need to pay with a credit card.
2. I have a gift card that I am trying to use up.

If you put a Charbucks next to an independent coffee shop, I will go to the ind shop hands down, every single time. I like the taste of the espresso better, I like the level or service better, and I love how they put the froth on the top of my latte and make a leaf design in it. It makes me happy. I can’t stand the people who order the most difficult drink just because they can. Double Maple nonfat 200 degree Chai Latte with one squirt, – Get Real and Get over yourself!

This morning I had a gift card to Starbucks so I stopped for a pumpkin spice latte. Right there in the center aisle was a display promoting the new sappy, Oprah walrus clapping book, For One More Day.

I’ve read Mitch for a long time in the Freep (I started in 1999) and I always liked him. I even liked “Tuesdays”. The book and the movie. But when I had heard about his fraudulent column in April of 2005, that was it for me. DONE! He had claimed in his column that two ex MSU basketball players were at a NCAA final 4 game (MSU v. NC), when in fact they had changed their plans last minute and didn’t go to the game. Yes, he wrote his article the night before based on what he “thought” would happen. He wrote an apology later, but that’s only because he got caught. He’s not the only one to blame as I am sure there are editors involved too. It’s the whole “walk on water” mentality that really bugs me. I boycott things for a lot of different reasons and this is just one of them.

In other news, I saw Dr. McDreamy today in person. They were shooting Grey’s Anatomy in Pioneer Square and we heard about it and rand own there. It’s only a few blocks from my office and was worth a shot. He walked right by me. So HOT! He is one of those guys that gets better looking with age. Ronnie Miller the lawn boy? Not so hot.

Attention: Failure

Well we did not get to run in the Brew Ha-Ha 5k as originally planned. There is no good excuse for it, so I won’t even try. We worked the Token/Ticket booth of the Oktoberfest Festival on Friday night. On Saturday morning, my hair was more important than sports and I went to get my hair done at the Aveda Hair Institute in Capital Hill, which was awesome. I highly recommend it. I saw it called a “hidden gem” in a magazine once and I agree with that. Saturday afternoon - back to the Oktoberfest to use up our free admission and Tokens, met up with some friends and then went down to Dave and Tammy’s for some games.

Rob is working on his garage today. He claims that it needs it to be cleaned up and his tools organized in order for him to work on any more projects in the house. We get our roof and skylights done next week. I (hopefully) will be posting some pictures of our skyline/mountain view from our imaginary bedroom to be completed at a later date.

Congrats to our friends, Liz and Adam ,who are getting married in Vegas on Monday. I’ll be cheering them on via webcast. What a great idea! Can’t wait to hear about it when they get back, wish we were there too!

Brady Quinn falls as Michigan moves forward

I'm just as surprised as you are. We still can't get over the game. I think we had all lost our voices just in the first quarter alone. Yeah, I know, like anyone can hear 200 people from West Seattle, but still. It was a great game and this just means we now are one step closer to the possibility of the RV down to Pasasena!



We bought a chair last night. We found it on Criagslist, it was going to be a Christmas present, but furniture items are probably better as joint purchases and not gifts. It's an authentic 1930s Arts & Crafts style rocker from some guy's farmhouse in Colorado. Has always been in the family and he's trying to downsize. We'll take it! It fits in perfectly.






All day I email and Instant Message, for the past few weeks I've been knitting at home ... all night (FYI - Christmas and Birthdays are coming and everyone knows they are getting an Allison original). I think it is finally starting to catch up with me and now I have a major case of sore wrists. Possibly the start of carpal tunnel. Great. Tomorrow I am going to see an Acupuncturist. I think that my regular general practice D.O. could help me as well, but I am interested in the alternative, just to see how it works. I also tend to have back pain too. Gosh, I'm not even 30. I know that I need to change some of my habits (the way I sit, stand, walk, etc), hopefully this will get me on the right track.


The nerd in me would like to pass along this info. It's about the 747 Large Cargo Freighter that landed at Boeing Field last Saturday that is going to be used to transport some of the big sections of the 787 Dreamliner. I wouldn't normally care about this type of thing except, well it's an occupational hazard for Rob, and that Boeing Field is right by our house, so we were hoping that it would have flown by and we would see it. 747 are not easy to miss, especially when they fly right over your house. Unfortunatly at 8:08am, I was still in bed. However, we did see it sitting outside on the way to the bar. That's a pretty funny looking plane! Love or hate globalization, transporting parts via plane is really an intersting way to assemble your product.

Great Marketing: Free concert via webstream

It really worked out. Liz has an obsession with John Mayer. I have one with Mat Kearney. To have these two talented musical acts in one show was a treat. Streaming live from Webster Hall in New York City – Wow! Liz called me to tell me that it was going to be on and I am so glad she did. For the next hour and a half I had my laptop and was jamming to Mat Kearney and John Mayer live from NYC. Awesome! Promptly after the concert, I downloaded both of their cds from iTunes as a “thank you” for the free entertainment. I love concerts, but barely go to big concerts because they are too expensive. Rolling Stones – forget it! Pearl Jam – Sorry.. too expensive. Take me to

Tonight I was building a cabinet that will be installed on the other side of the refrigerator. Currently we have a little cart there. I've always thought it looked like something was missing. I call it feng shui to irritate Rob. But really, it just looks stupid without it. Rob should/might install it tonight or tomorrow and soon we'll have a tall 12 inch wide cabinet. I just can’t believe how much storage we’ve been able to pack into that tiny kitchen.

We’ve got to get up early and get to RockSport for the game Saturday. We are trying to get a seat right up front, but the bar is going to be packed with Michigan fans. I’ll try to take pictures. Go Blue! If there is one game all season that I hope we win, it’s this one.

Cloudy Saturday

Fall is near. The days are shorter, the mornings are foggy and yesterday it rained! It hasn’t rained all summer long, so I’m sad to say fall is just around the corner. With it will be more clouds, more rain and more fog. We have to try to take full advantage of whatever nice days we have left. While yesterday we laid on the couch and watched football. We attempted to go watch the Michigan game at RockSport, but came home after breakfast since Rob and I were both too sick to hold our heads up. After wasting yesterday away, today we have actually accomplished something.

This morning I tried to clear up the ivy in the back yard. We borrowed our neighbor's, Mike, hedge trimmer last weekend and it has really worked like a charm. I was thinking that it would be nice to thin out the ivy in the back, since we would like to put a new fence in this spring. I got about a quarter of the way done and gave up. Rob spent the whole morning thinning out the fig tree in the front that is also home to about 5 million birds. After that I moved inside and started on the chores that I know best, laundry, vacuuming, dusting, cleaning up, knitting (I know that’s not a chore!)

It’s important that I point out that about a week ago I noticed that a new coffee shop is in Beacon Hill! Yeah! It’s not a starbucks, but a cute indy shop called, Galaxy. I haven’t been in there yet, but it’s really exciting to start to see a change in the area. Rob and I are so proud to take a chance on this up and coming neighborhood and we welcome and are excited to see any new business that pops up.

On Friday night we went to Happy Hour at the Met with some of my co-workers, I then was able to drag to the central (our favorite dive bar) and then to 88 keys, dueling piano bar. There is also a new bar/restaurant that just opened down by Qwest Field that is part of the Elysian Brewing Company, I think it is called Elysian Fields. The place looks really swanky and has windows that open to the sidewalk. I can’t wait to try it.

Additional Pictures:

Cabinets with finished trim

I'm proud to present Rob's clients from the hornet's nest above our side entrance.

Pictures I meant to show earlier

I meant to post these pictures before. I always have a hard time uploading images from home. I think it has something to do with our seedy internet connection. Anyway, here they are.

New bedroom mirror. Bonus Second Use find for $25

Also from Second Use, this cabinet that now holds my yarn stash

New mirror in the Dining Room

Labor for Labor Day

This weekend we decided not to go anywhere and just work on projects around the house. The ones that we have been putting off and putting off. Well, I should say Rob mostly, since most of this stuff I can't do.

Saturday morning kicked off the start of College Football season. Rob and I had Dave and Tami over for a full out breakfast. Blueberry Pancakes, bacon, sausage, fresh fruit and yummy brownies for after halftime. Dave and Tami brought the mamosas. We even did something that I would almost never do, we actually tivo'd ESPN Gameday and the game so we could get a late start and not miss any of the game. We make a point to NEVER tivo sports events, but for this we made an exception. We start this season again with the following conversation.

Allison: "Rob, if Michigan makes it to the Rose Bowl, can we go?"
Rob: "Sure, that would be fun."

After the way they played Sat, I don't have my hopes up. At least we will be home from the UP by then... just in case.

We also took some time to plan out what we want to go for the basement and the bathroom downstairs. We have made an appointment to get the roof done starting sept. 20 and I also really want to start to get a move on in the basement and the bathroom. This way, our guests will have a bathroom and we will have a chance to save some more money for completling the bedroom upstairs.

Here are some of our ideas so far for the basement and bathroom:
Cork Flooring - Environmentally Friendly and softer than ceramic tile.
We'll clean up the current cabinets in the basement and then build a table around the current sink. This way, I'll have an area to fold laundry. We were at the Environmental Home Center this weekend and found a great idea for a table top. I forget the name or else I would post it.

In the Bathroom we have a lot of ideas floating around, but I think we have decided on the most important ones.
Picture This (Sofia Patrillo style) - Royal Blue walls with white beadboard. White Hex Floor with Blue accent around the edges, white Hex shower floor with blue accent tile and subway tile on the walls with a glass door. A white rectangular pedestal sink and white toliet. For faucets, I picked This and This.
Here are some pictures we used for inspiration. I like the blue color in the bathroom in these photos, but it happens to be the same blue as the bedroom, so we've decided on the dark blue instead.

Another Busy & Beautiful Weekend

I hope this isn’t the last nice weekend. I am thinking we may have 1 more month before it starts to rain. It’s getting darker earlier and you can tell that summer is dwindling away. This weekend we had game night at Dave and Tami’s. We are trying to turn it into a once a month thing. Rob did exceptionally well compared to how he usually performs at game night.

On Saturday we worked in the yard all day. I got beat up by the rose bushes, but the yard looks so much better. My camera is out of batteries otherwise I would have added some pictures.

On Saturday night Adam and Liz came over to hang out with us and then we were able to plan a trip to Bainbridge Island for Sunday. So, Sunday morning we headed over to Bainbridge to hang out for a while. Liz and I were able to get to Churchmouse Yarn and Teas. It’s a really well known yarn store. They did have nice stuff, but I still like my LYS the best.
Liz and I split some yarn to make the MultiLayered Tube Shawl from AlterKnits. It was a fun day and Bainbridge Island and the ferry ride over there was beautiful. I love to take the ferry, it’s such a great way to get out and see the beauty of this area.

Below is a pic that Adam shot of Rob and I.

Gadget Geek

I like things that are new. Especially any gadgets. Rob and I have a joke that if anything says "new" on the package I'll be the first to buy it. This weekend, I had Rob take me down to the NikeTown to get the new Nike+Ipod. After reading a few other blogs out there, I found that you don't need to have the fancy nike shoes to make it work, you just need to have a swift way to put the bluetooth sensor in your shoe. I was able to tape my sensor under my laces and it works like a charm. If you only run on a treadmill, this is probably not for you. But, if you run outside sometimes and always wonder when you finally meet your goal or how fast you are going... or in my case how far I have gone because I want to stop running. It's a cool gadget. I am still hoping to run in the Oktoberfest Brew HaHa in September, so I need to get going since a 5K is NOT my specialty.

In the last post, I mentioned that we bought a cabinet and a mirror at Second Use in South Park. Convienently located right next to the dump, for obvious reasons. One we got the cabninet home, Rob allowed me to use the sander to sand all the marks out of it so I could restain it. It is now in the 2nd bedroom and it holds my yarn stash. When I can, I will also include the new mirror that we have in the bedroom from Second Use and also a mirror that I got at Cost Plus, which fits nicely in the dining room. I'll get pictures up as soon as Blogger stops crapping out on me.

The Week

Last weekend and this week was incredibly busy for us. It was great to have Rob's brother,Will, in town for a conference. It gave him a good excuse to come out here and us a chance to hang out and show him around. I have a feeling that by the time he left we all needed a vacation from our vacation, so to speak. Here is a quick run down of what we did.

Friday - We took Will To Stellar Pizza in Georgetown. Luckily he didn't feel like crashing when he flew in direct from DC. We had some pizza and beers.

Saturday - We had tickets to the Mariner's game, so we got up and I cooked breakfast. We went down FX McRory's before the game for some food and drinks.

Sunday - After the previous day, we were pretty lazy in the morning. We went down to Mount Baker to watch the Blue Angels, who were in town for Seafair. I have never seen the Blue Angels before, so I wasn't sure what to expect. Needless to say, the pictures I took don't do it justice, it was super cool. After that we hit Ray's Cafe for some food and views.

Monday - We all met after wook to hit happy hour at Fox Sports bar. I haven't been there before, but the happy hour was good. There, we watched the Tigers game and hang out.

Tuesday - We met up after work to go take in a showing of Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby. I am not a NASCAR Fan, but this movie did have Will Farrell and Gary Cole, two quality actors. It was worth a watch. Very funny.

Wednesday - Real Madrid was in town. I had tickets through work in the smug suites. Rob and Will were down in the stands. First time at Qwest field, nice stadium. Bad exit control.

Thursday - Smarty Pants Happy Hour.

Friday - Just when we thought we had the night off, Dave & Tammy asked us to meet up after work at the Elephant & Castle, so we did. I had not been there before either, but they also have a nice happy hour.

Saturday - Today we hit up Second Use a junk store that sells used items that is placed right next to the dump. I found a little cabinet and a mirror for the bedroom. A big win! Other than that, I think I am just knitting and hanging out for the rest of the day.

I added some pictures! Enjoy.
Oh Yeah and congrats to our friends, Greg and Julie who are tying the knot this weekend in Minnesota. Wish we could be there to help celebrate. :(