hello, december!

Wowzas, November was gone in the blink of an eye!

We spent last week with my family in Cabo, narrowly escaping the blizzard 4" of snow that shut down Seattle.

Seriously... schools closed, cars abandoned on the freeway, city on lock down. Yeah, we don't get a lot of snow in these parts...

When we touched down in Seattle on Monday night, sun burnt and clad in shorts and flip-flops, I was greeted by freezing rain. To offset this major kick in the ass, I had to immediately do a switcharoo to Christmas mode.

So I was very productive Christmas shopping online at work on Tuesday and Wednesday, and then yesterday my computer got a nasty virus, requiring me to take the day off.

So while my computer was being poked and prodded by the computer doctor, I was playing domestic diva, shopping for Christmas decorations, tidying up the house, and even shaving my legs!!

Oh, and Bondi and Homie and I picked out our very own Christmas tree!!! (This certainly beats last year, when Joe tried to pass off a Rosemary Bush as a Douglas Fir... Now, I'm no Martha Stewart, but when after dinner half our "Christmas Tree" was gone, I started to wonder...)

Once we got the tree into the house, though, the pups and I had to have a little discussion. I told them:

IF you lift your leg on mama's tree, 
you're getting COAL in your stockings.

Good talk.

Today, the pups were very sweet to me...They obviously must know it's my birthday (woohoo... more grey hairs) because they got me the BEST PRESENT EVER.


The gift of humiliation.

Oh, pups. You made my (birth)day!!!

Before I go back to refreshing my Facebook wall every 2 minutes to see if anyone else has left me a birthday message work, I want to leave you with something I heard on the radio this morning:

• 25% of women say their dog is a better listener than their spouse
• 13% of women would rather talk to their dog than their spouse

Thoughts? :-)

happy freakin bday

It has been forever and EVER since I've really shared.. and I have no clue where to start! So how bout something that I'm not particularly excited about has nothing to do with me...

It's my lil sissy's 25th birthday Friday and we're she's going to *Vegas* . YAYYY!!!

Without me.

I don't know why she didn't want me to join her entourage in Vegas?? I  mean, with my gambling prowess and peer pressure abilities combined with my affinity for strip clubs and tipsy VIP haggling skills, I'm a no brainer choice for the invite list.

But whatever, I'm going to San Fran this weekend anyway...

*Trying to convince myself that San Fran trumps Vegas. MEH.*

Still, I'm a good sister so I got the birthday girl a lil' sumpin sumpin today. You likey??

This card (so appropriate):

This scarf: 

And some Bling (not to be confused with Blog Bling):

This bottom necklace I got at Macy's for $34.95 - 65% off of $100. Score!

I may or may not have left the $100 tag on. Boy will she be surprised when she tries to bring it back with the gift receipt!!! mwahahaha ;-)

Anyway, Happy Freakin' Birthday Sister.

I love you, and hope you lose all your money and dignity have a great time in Vegas without me.

better late than never.

OK. Here is a review of my last three weeks (yes - I know this is ridiculous) that I haven't yet blogged about.. but (mostly) in pictures. Minus the crazy airplane lady story... which I WILL DO SOON. Really, I will.

Anyway, without further ado.... in chronological order, dating back to before Thanksgiving!!!

Weekly Wednesday Trivia... we have yet to win, but damn... we have a good time!

Thanksgiving at my folks house. Joe and my orphaned friend Zach came, and my mom cooked for 21 people!!!!

Pre-Thanksgiving chaos (aka when the rest of the fam showed up)

Joe and I enjoying some red wine...

My aunt Terry (left) and my mom (right) shared the chef duties...

You know they say about too many cooks in the kitchen!!!

My amazing grandparents Leo and Marge.

I know it's weird, but that's what we've always called them.

... Not grandpa, grandma, or anything like that...

Just sister Kenzie drinkin some white wine in the sink.

Totally normal at our house :-)

After the extended family leaves...
Thanksgiving turns into Karaoke Jam Fest 2000.

Here's Joe and Zach looking for songs/singing along.

Thanksgiving Weekend... it's Off to Idaho!!! Joe's folks live in Couer d'Alene, Idaho so we drive out there often for some pretty wonderful weekends. 

 

Joe's folks and us at a local bar for a "night cap" as it's called.

Bondi and me in the cabin of Joe's folks' fishing boat.

Yes, Bondi comes with us!! 

We went on a cruise on the lake.

Here's some of the Christmas lights we saw..

..my camera doesn't do them justice!!

Trade Show for Sutherlands in Kansas City... my mom and I went to sell some bad-ass mailboxes :-)

Here's our Mail Boss display in "Pallet Alley"

BTW Kansas City is cold and windy. BRRrrr!!!

My Birthday Party at the Tulalip Casino!!! ...or as Joe calls it, "Vegas's home-schooled half-sister that's living with creepy uncle in the woods of North Seattle." We rented out two totally posh (shocking- I know!) rooms at the Tulalip Resort, stocked them with adult beverages, invited some close friends, and had a grand ol' time!!!! BTW they have an amazing pool that we definitely took advantage of... and although there are no pics to prove it (no cameras at the tables- duh!) we definitely gambled our little booties off!!! I won't say how much I did or did not win...

Jen and I... a little pre-game action in the hotel room.

Stay classy!! Oh yes, we will :-)

...and thanks to Joe for being so resourceful with this...

Apples to Apples. 'nuff said.

We had a pool party, oh yes we did!

We also had a hot-tub party. 

Lil' awkward thanks to all the irresponsible parents lil' kids 

overhearing and witnessing inappropriate stuff... 

...and probably peeing too!!! Anywayyy...

Sister Kenzie tells Joe she loves him (for me) 
over poolside Apples to Apples :-)

Late (like 4PM!!!) Checkout = AWESOME!

This meant Mimosas, CatchPhrase & the Hawks game...
...plus more time to Gamble!! 

Yes.. I am wearing BOXERS with cards and dice on them.

Yes.. I wore them in the casino, with UGGs & my bday hat.

Nobody even gave me a second look :-)

Anyway... this pretty much brings y'all up to this weekend... which I will try to post about before Christmas!!

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:

image source.

alternate view. HOT BOY.

image source.

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:

 

image source.

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.