another year older

I apologize for the major blogging hiatus, but I have been seriously busy!

Last Thursday there was Thanksgiving with family and friends, and then on Friday Joe and I rushed off (quite literally, I got a $175 speeding ticket on the way-boo!) to spend an amazing weekend with his family in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. (Pictures to come!)

No sooner had I unpacked from Idaho (okay - who am I kidding? I still haven't really done that yet!) then I had to leave bright and early Monday morning for Kansas City for a tradeshow for work. I got home late Wednesday night and spent the evening catching up on blogs...
...and yesterday was my 26^th Birthday!!!


The day started as any other day. I didn't feel any older... that is, until I noticed four little gray hairs on my head!! Fabulous. Where are the tweezers??? Yup, I plucked 'em out. I realize I can't go on doing this forever, but I have never dyed my hair before, and I would really NOT like to start now.

When I got home from work, Joe had a few lovely presents waiting for me. It was quite clear he had wrapped them himself :-) The wrapping gets an "A" for effort.

Side note: I always feel so awkward opening presents - is this just me?

Anyway, Joe got me this amazing Helly Hansen Baxter Bomber Hat:

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alternate view. HOT BOY.

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What a sweet boyfriend... to replace my favorite "Idaho Hat" I traded for a veggie dog... remember?

I have to say, this new one is much nicer than my $4.95 Value Village steal!

I also got some sexy Victoria's Secret shtuff... but umm, no pics for ya! I'm thinking I'm going to be getting Joe some sexy Victoria's Secret stuff for his birthday... since that makes more sense to me ;-) JK... sorta.

After presents time, we were off to The Pink Door, a cozy gem in Pike Place Market's Post Alley. We had 8:30 reservations, but weren't worried when we arrived around 8:40, since there were still at least three open tables in this quaint dining room:

 

The annoying hostess - she was actually annoying to me before she even spoke (I feel this way sometimes) - tried to seat us in the loud and crowded lounge, where we wouldn't have been able to have any semblance of conversation. We asked why we couldn't sit in the dining area and annoying hostess said they had only 2 servers with 8 tables each (never mind there fact there's no way there are 16 tables in the tiny dining area).

Say whaaat?? This is a 4* restaurant. Maybe you should hire another server?? Then annoying hostess told us if we had been there at 8:30 she could have seated us in the dining area, but because we were late we'd have to sit in the lounge. My "you're a dumb ass" alert went off... because I'm pretty sure if we had gotten there ten minutes earlier, we'd still be having dinner with one of the servers that apparently was too busy for another table at 8:40. Whatever.

Joe is such a problem solver, though. He suggested we get a glass of wine across the street and come back at 9:15 when some of the tables had cleared out. Annoying hostess said, fine.. great.

Except... when we came back at 9:15, annoying hostess said in such a non-sincere apologetic voice "Sorryyyy... our dining room is closed. We're doing renovations tonight so you'll have to eat in the lounge." WTF. No thanks.

So we left and went to one of our favorite local spots, Cutters Bay House:

 

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We had lovely food, drinks and conversation. Then we went home and watched Private Practice (one of my favs!) and that was that.

Now I'm 26. With gray hairs.