A Snow Day!

First I would like to apologize for the extreme tardiness of my last post. Life gets in the way sometimes and I get easily distracted. I started writing that post back in the beginning of November! Sheesh. But we can just glaze over that and pretend it never happened.

As I am sure many of you have seen that the state of Washington, particularly the region around the Sound has been a pretty popular news topic. Mother Nature decided to have a snow party in our area and has been dumping snow on us this week. And when I say dumping, I really mean it! We have had 8 inches or so fall in just one day!
Needless to say this has all been quite the adventure. I had my first experience driving in ice early Monday morning and then my first experience driving in snow later in the same day! It was so weird and a little bit scary. Thankfully I don't have too many places to go and I feel like I am a pretty safe and observant driver.

Since Jeff and his friend Jason had been staying with us since last Wednesday (Jeff is now a permanent resident) I decided I would take them out to breakfast on the last full day here. We made the trek out to Denny's in what seemed like a blizzard of snow to me.
It was crazy and fun all at the same time. I still can't get over how weird everything looks all covered in snow!

On Tuesday Glenn ended up taking a snow day because the streets looked pretty gross and not safe to drive on and he worked from home. It was nice getting to have him home all day, even if he did have to work!
Wednesday morning we awoke to an amazing amount of snow outside. It was piled everywhere! Glenn took another snow day, but this time he just took the day off. I called in to work and I was told not to come in today and to enjoy the snow. How fun! I've never had a snow day before!
Jeff and I decided to brave the snow and get donuts. It was pretty funny crunching around in the snow. We saw some people go by with cross country skis and some with snow shoes! You can see how deep the snow if you look at where Jeff's feet are supposed to be! Later in the day though, we were getting a bit stir crazy. Normally we are perfectly fine not going anywhere, but just knowing that we actually could not leave the house gave us a little cabin fever.
Today (Thursday) was supposed to be a little bit better but the streets still looked pretty bad. Despite the worst of the snow having passed the next stage was here in full force. Ice everywhere. All the piles of snow were solidifying and icicles were forming everywhere.
Even the plants were covered in ice, some shrubs even being frozen solid! My work called me around noon and told me that my shift for the evening was canceled and to stay home. I'm not complaining.
Glenn ended up working at home again today as well. Around lunch time we just HAD to get out of the house so we all suited up and made our way over to Southern Kitchen for a delicious and filling lunch of catfish and fried chicken. YUM!
I should also mention that before we walked to Southern Kitchen we attempted to drive so we could get lunch and take Jeff to a credit union. Once our car made it off of our driveway and partially into the street we came to a definite halt. The tires whirred around to no avail. Jeff got out of the car while Glenn accelerated and steered us back into the garage. Guess we weren't going anywhere by car for awhile.
We've definitely been having a lot of fun experiencing all the crazy snow and learning how to deal with it now that we have a big ol' house to take care of. Things have certainly been interesting around here. And if you are wondering if I still like the weather around here, I have to answer with a resounding YES! This stuff doesn't happen everyday after all.

An Evening With Britney Spears

Now, I didn't actually interact with Ms. Spears but I sure did get to watch her up close! I have been a Britney fan ever since she burst onto the scene with "Baby One More Time" in '99. I even remember asking my mom to buy me the CD while she was out, and she did, and I listened to it nonstop while we were painting a room in our old house. Anyway, I loved her then and I still love her now, even through all the craziness.

I spent most of the day doing whatever it is I do all day and listening to the most recent Britney Spears album "Femme Fatale" on repeat. I really do love this album, I think it's her best yet despite what my mom says ;o) When Glenn got home we fed the dog and left shortly after to go eat at the Harmon. The food there was really good, I had crab mac and cheese. YUM. We had paid for an hour of parking, a whopping one dollar bill, and so anything after 6 was free. After dinner we jumped on the streetcar (or whatever you call it) and headed over to the Tacoma Dome.

It wasn't too crowded yet so we were able to get through the merchandise line pretty quick. I got a t-shirt that I thought was pretty cute, and not obnoxious. After that we walked over to the customer service area because the ticket checker told us to. Since the show was not a complete sell out they decided to close off the upper level, where I bought tickets at about $30 each. The cool thing about this was now that our seats were basically non-existent, we were getting upgraded. How upgraded you ask? Well, instead of being on the upper level, far end of the dome, we were moved to practically floor level, 6th row on the left of center section. I kept asking Glenn as we were getting closer and closer to the floor if he was SURE these were where our new tickets said we were. I have NEVER been that close to Britney Spears and it was awesome. I checked to see what comparable tickets in that area would normally cost... about $150-200!!!! CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT?!?! We got a serious upgrade and I was in heaven.

The first opening act was a girl duo from Australia called Nervo that basically just did DJ stuff. They were pretty good, and I enjoyed their music.

The second opening act was a girl and a couple guy dancers called Jessie and the Toy Boys. She was pretty much just a Britney Spears/Lady Gaga wannabe, but not the worst thing I ever heard.

The third opening act was the worst thing I ever heard. Nicki Minaj is a pretty popular (right now) female rapper. She was on for 45 minutes and I literally hated every second. Her show was cheesy and gimmicky, her dancers were all over the place, and her music is terrible. I was so glad when it was over.

About 45 minutes after the opening acts, Britney Spears took to the stage and owned it. She is such a fun performer to watch. She had a really varied setlist, taking tracks from every album since the beginning of her career and putting some fun twists on the classics. She even did a Madonna cover at one point and a cover of a popular Rihanna song. The show itself really was spectacular. The set was big, bright and elaborate. She had a bunch of costume changes that allowed us to watch clips of the ongoing storyline. It was like if Britney Spears did an episode of 24. I really enjoyed the lights and the pyrotechnics of this tour, they were way more a part of the show than they have before. Obviously, I really enjoyed the show. I had a blast. What made it even more special was that I had to have Glenn by my side and he actually seemed to be enjoying himself too. Aside from that awful Nicki Minaj crap.

Love to all!!!

A Found and Rescued Puppy

In case you weren't aware, I am kind of a sucker for animals - especially dogs. So I am sure that you can imagine that when a stray dog with no collar was standing in front of our gate staring at Rally with a happy tail, I had to do something.

A few weeks ago I was home inside doing who knows what when I heard the dogs across the street going insane. Now, these dogs bark all the time (they're gone now) but this time it sounded different so I went to investigate. Standing in front of our gate with her tail happily wagging was a small Pitbull or maybe an American Staffordshire Terrier. Either way, she looked very thirsty and hungry so I got Rally inside the house and I let her inside our yard. I'm always dutifully wary of stray dogs so I made sure to use all the tactics I knew so that she wouldn't get riled up. Silly me, she just wanted some love and attention. I sat down and she quickly showered me with kisses.
I got her some food and water and watched her eat and drink before I decided it was safe to let Rally out. It was a little tense at first because they were both very confused and this was the first time Rally had ever shared his "territory" but it turns out they get along fantastically! Sheepishly I got on GTalk and shared a quick message with Glenn - ummmm... we have a pitbull in our yard. She has no collar." I'm sure he was thrilled to see that message. I supervised the dogs playing for the rest of the day and then Glenn came home.

It was ridiculously cute watching the dogs get all excited when they saw the car pull up. When he got out of the car they were both jumping at the gate, dying to get his attention. Later we discussed what we were going to do with the dog. We decided it would be best to take her over to the Humane Society. ***Quick detour here - I tried volunteering at the Humane Society in Phoenix, I even went through orientation and everything, but when it came time to actually go into the shelter, I just lost it. I quickly ran to the car and spent the next 20 minutes crying my eyes out before driving home and vowing to never go in there again. I just can't handle all the sadness and the cries from all the animals.*** We brought her there and registered her and as Glenn was talking to the intake person, I lost it and ran out to the car and bawled my eyes out. It was really more just from being in that awful place and thinking about the dismal life we were dooming this poor dog to than it was actually giving her away.
We brought her home and decided we would adopt her out ourselves if no one came forward for her. We posted a few found ads on various places on the internet. We had no one come forward but many many people showed interest in adopting her. We made it very clear that she was not going home with anyone before she got fixed, vaccinated, and microchipped. The world does not need another litter of unwanted puppies. We took care of all of those things out of our own pocket and said that we would adopt her out to the right home for free. I figure it is our way of donating to the shelters.

We set up a few meetings as soon as they were convenient. I did not get a good feeling at all for the first girl who showed up. She seemed disinterested in the dog and paid a lot of attention to Rally. As she left she offered little more than saying she "loved" the dog and couldn't wait to adopt her. Yeah, right. I think she pet her maybe once. I was not giving her up to that lady. Plus she was two hours late and only lived like 15 minutes away! Rude. The second meeting was fantastic. A couple came with their friend from 2 hours away! They drove in rush hour just to come see the dog. As soon as they came in the gate she was all over them, giving them lots of kisses and there was plenty of tail wagging to be seen. They even brought treats for her. It was clear from the second they came in that they were the family we wanted to give her up to. They were kind, loving, and couldn't get enough of her. They were even taking pictures.
We took her in for surgery on our anniversary, which actually worked out great because we actually got to get out of the house and do stuff. She did wonderfully and acted like nothing happened when we brought her home. We tried our best to keep her calm and resting, but it was driving Rally crazy. The next day we couldn't keep them apart and it was very difficult to keep them from playing. We decided to take her to her new family that day. We drove all the way up to Shoreline (I even got to make a few purchases at the Salt Store - Yay!) and went to her new home. They were so excited to have her, it just reaffirmed our decision. I had mentally prepared myself for this, after all I really want to foster dogs in the future so I figured it would be good training. However, Glenn did not and he took it pretty hard. It was actually really sweet.

I was really proud of what we did that day and all that we did for the dog. She was really sweet and deserved to have a loving home. Wherever she was before, I am glad that she is far far away from that now.

More Tulips

As promised, here is the slideshow with the photos that Glenn took while we were in Mt. Vernon. It's always interesting to see how we see things differently through a camera lens. You can also view the photo album here:

Glenn's Tulip Photos

In other news, I started painting my cabinet pink. I think it will be more fun to do a big dramatic reveal when it's all finished being painted, so you will just have to wait until I am finished painting for now.

Love to all!

Tulips

Last Friday we had the pleasure of visiting Mt. Vernon which is about an hour north of Seattle. Glenn had enough overtime that he was able to leave work a few hours early and we were able to beat the traffic leaving the city.

The first thing we did when we actually got into town was drive around trying to find where all the fields were but it seemed like we kept finding daffodils instead. I think daffodils are still beautiful so we parked on the side of the street for a few minutes and snapped some pictures of the sunny yellow field of flowers. They're such happy looking flowers, aren't they?

Anyway, instead of posting a ton of pictures I thought I would share the album of photos that I took here:

Tulips Album

I'll upload another album of photos that Glenn took a little later.

Love to all!

PAX '10

So I know Bri already had some things to say about PAX but I thought I would put some pictures up.

Here is Bri at the EA booth playing Need For Speed Hot Pursuit. She got First Place.

This would be the EA Sports booth that featured NBA Jam for the Wii. Just like the old one but using the Wiimote controls. Very cool. Bri and I got killed by some dudes.

This is Settlers of Catan on the Microsoft Surface platform. It is basically a multi-touch table that allows multiple users to interact at the same time. You roll these fake dice and the table recognizes them as dice and displays the numbers rolled. Those little shields that are on the table are used to hide your cards. It is really impressive gear.

This is us waiting in line for Bri to play Gran Turisimo 5. She can't wait for this game.

Here is a giant Ticket To Ride USA board. This thing was huge! Very cool.

I didn't take any pictures of the crowds or anything but some of the lines were crazy. The last day was actually a great day to go because the lines were shorter and we got to do a ton more.

Anyways, that's all for now.

PAX 2010

You might be wondering what PAX is. For the un-informed, or rather the non-nerd crowd, PAX stands for Penny Arcade Expo. The expo was created in 2004 and is held in Boston and Seattle. It's basically a big giant nerd-fest where gamers of all types (video, PC, and tabletop) come together and check out the latest and greatest their chosen outlet has to offer. This year, since we are conveniently living in Seattle, Glenn bought us tickets for one day.

I have to say, it was a lot of fun. Unfortunately I didn't bring my camera with me, so I have no pictures to document the experience. Glenn probably has some on his phone. The first place we stopped at was the Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit booth. There were ten or so stations set up so you could try your hand at the new and improved, and very good looking, NFS:HP. The last time I played this game was back when I still had a PSOne, so that was a really long time ago. I loved the new version of the game, and it's graphics are really nice. I might even say it rivals the hotly anticipated Gran Turismo 5. I even got 1st place.

After that we checked out the NBA Jam on the Wii. I wish I could say I liked it more, but basketball is just not my thing, and the two other guys we were playing with were playing dirty so it stopped being fun pretty quickly. Glenn really liked it though, so I guess we'll have to add that to the ever growing list of video games we want.

We wandered around some more and got to see all the cool things that Sony and Microsoft are working on and the main battle between the two is who is going to have the cooler "Wii-Like" gaming experience. Microsoft has the Kinect and Sony has the Move. Kinect seems to be the winner though, especially because it doesn't require controllers. Glenn played a demo of the Kinect and really seemed to enjoy himself. Honestly, anyone playing Kinect seemed to be having a great time, whereas people using Move mostly seemed confused.

I also got to play Gran Turismo 5. I absolutely cannot wait to hold my very own copy of GT5 in my hands. I can do that on my bday :o) The graphics are stunning, the cars are awesome, and the courses are complex. It is definitely a racer gamer's heaven.

We also checked out the tabletop gaming portion of the expo, but I really wasn't impressed with it. This is very much a PC/video game heavy expo. It terms of board games, there weren't any new exhibits, just stores with booths selling you their stuff. We did however see a giant version of Ticket to Ride, and that was pretty cool, but again, nothing else new.

I definitely had fun at PAX, but I'm not entirely sure I would go again. It was a cool experience, but the majority of the booths were just not my thing and most everything else I had already seen or demoed myself before. Now we just need to find a board game expo to get our nerd on in some other way :o)

Lake Tapps

Over the weekend we were invited out to Kali and Eric's lake house at Lake Tapps. It was absolutely wonderful up there! There was a tennis court, basketball hoop, shuffleboard, a dock with a diving board, and of course the beautiful lake setting. We basically just enjoyed the lovely weather and hung out in the sun while all the pups ran around ALL DAY LONG. If someone got into the water or threw something into the water, Rally was sure to follow. That dog just loves the water.
Speaking of water, we also brought some watermelon and thought it would be funny to feed it to the dog. He was mostly confused, but nibbled some off and seemed to enjoy it!
There was also a floating dock (or whatever you call it) further out to the lake and Rally and a couple of his new friends went out there and hung out for a bit. Once he realized that we were back on dry land, he got really confused. It was kind of cute!

Unfortunately, due to Rally's excessive playing and not really knowing his limits, he injured his front paws pretty badly. He started limping a lot when everyone was starting to settle down so we had to take a look. Apparently from all the rough housing outside, the skin on both of Rally's paw pads had been completely scraped off. We had to carry him a lot the rest of that day.
The next morning we were pretty worried about him so Glenn ran to the grocery store first thing in the morning to get some bandages. We wrapped up poor Monstah's feet and he pretty much hated it. You gotta do what you've gotta do though.
He pretty much rested all he could to recover. Walking was just too much. We tried to lay with him as much as possible so he would feel comfortable.
As you can see, he is all back to normal now. He's perfectly fine and his paws are healing nicely. Next time though, he's wearing shoes.

Olympia!

Well, our trip to the Olympia Farmer's Market happened over a week and a half ago and I am just now posting the pictures. We've already determined that I am a little bit lazy, so you can't say I didn't warn you. Anyway, a couple weekends ago we thought it would be fun to go visit last year's summer stomping grounds and see what they were up to. It turns out that they're up to about as much as we are, not much!
We decided to stop by the Farmer's Market and pick up some of our beloved giant asparagus, along with some apples.It's kind of amazing how many different kinds of apples there are. I swear, every time I turn around up here, I see a name of a new apple I had never heard of before. I found two of those at the market. One of them being an Opal Glow. They were so bright, they almost looked fluorescent! They were also really tasty. If you have never had the chance to eat one of these, they are moderately sweet with a subtle tartness. The fruit is really firm and crisp and the skin gives easily.
Another apple that caught our eye was the Pacific Rose. I didn't really like these ones. The skin was very resistant and bitter and the fruit itself was a little sweet, but mostly bland and kind of mealy.
I got a little sad when we walked by all of the beautiful green plant booths. I just wanted to take home every baby herb and vegetable and plant them right away. Unfortunately, when you don't have a yard or a proper window box, planting becomes fairly difficult.
Maybe one of the hardest parts of going to the Farmer's Market here is resisting the urge to take home a car full of potted flowers and hanging baskets! The colors in all of these plants is breathtaking! It must be really nice for people to be able to surround themselves in color when the skies are being a little too gray.
Glenn didn't know he was in this picture :o) I just love all the pretty wooden beams inside the market. The majority of this market is actually indoors and completely covered, so you can still shop when the weather isn't cooperating. It's a really cool atmosphere, kind of like a mini Pike's Place Market. If you ever get a chance to visit Oly, you'd be missing out if you didn't stop by here.

On the road...Day 2

When I think back to my decision to leave I-5 in favor of US-101 I can't quite figure out what I was thinking. I guess I figured it was better to be on the road an extra day than to impose on our friends for another day in Washington. Whatever I was thinking, I should have gotten us going earlier...MUCH earlier.

We were probably on the road some time between 10:30-11AM. This drive took us through Oakland, across an (pictured) expensive toll bridge, and up past Napa, the drive-thru tree, & the hill people of Northern California. We were starved as we went through town after town in search of something not named McDonalds or Burger King. Around 4pm we found a Subway in some one-horse town that was part of a gas station/CS. Strange employees & customers did not deter us & we were back on the road in 15 minutes.

As we neared the coast and the Oregon border things started to get a bit tense. Hairpin switchbacks ascending and descending, around 300-year old redwoods with semi-trucks approaching every oncoming encounter with a little more reckless abandon than their predesessor, only to be made worse by a rolling fog from the sea - this was to be our final hours in California. By the time we reached the boarder it was almost 9 and the sun's light was being stretched across the sky by the light cloud cover above us. We had two options: 56 miles up the coast to a Motel 6 in Oregon or 106 miles through the forrest to Grant's Pass and the (safer, wider) I-5. Fearing the fog would get worse along the 101 we headed towards Grant's Pass hoping for a clearer route. What we found was a beautiful river-lined passage where we only encountered 10 other cars in an hour. It was extremely dark and I was on the lookout for wild animals darting into the road. By the time we reached Grant's Pass I thought for sure the power grid had failed. We hadn't seen a streetlight or electric sign in over an hour. The glow of the town was enough to make our eyes hurt.

As we pulled in to the motel, I had never been so happy to be in Oregon in my life. What I thought would be a scenic bypass with a couple additional hours drive time turned into an all-day stress test. I've driven from Tacoma to Salinas in 12 hours...I covered half that distance today in the same amount of time. Disgusting.

I was determined to make day 3 end in success.

-- Sent from my Palm Prē

On the road...Day 1

As you can see...the dog blocked more of my rear view than any of our stuff did.

Driving up was needlessly complicated. The normal boring PHX-LA trip didn't see much action. We stopped in Valencia for lunch. Then stopped outside of Bakersfield at the Murray Farms for (pictured) Rainier Cherries & boysenberries. We finally stopped in some farm town a few hours south of San Francisco.

The entire place smelled of fertilizer & there were bugs everywhere. The motel was nice and it was surrounded by food options but ultimately the town was uninteresting.

Day 1 went off without much complaint.

-- Sent from my Palm Prē

Leaving...

If someone asked youto pack all of the important things that you would need into a car...could you do it? What if your car was a compact hybrid? Well that's what this is...every "essential" item in our family's life. It was a tight fit but our run-through last summer helped us figure out what we really needed to get by.

No real furniture. A lot of clothes, some kitchen gadgets, a couple laptops, a fan, a house plant, and a bunch of board games all came along as our supplies. The dog had just as much stuff: 8 toys, a bed, food, jacket, harness, and some bowls. He packed just as much as we did.

Are there things I wish we had brought? Yes. Are there things we didn't need in retrospect? I'm not sure...doesn't feel like it yet.

-- Sent from my Palm Prē

The move

Well we're starting to get settled in here in Seattle. Since things have been crazy, I thought I'd take a few minutes to update with some pictures and comments. So keep an eye out for those throughout the day.

Love you all!
-Glenn

-- Sent from my Palm Prē