Hardcore Grilling

Another day stuck at home. All Alaska Airlines flights flying out of Sea-Tac were cancelled today because they ran out of de-icer. Hopefully they get some more before we fly out tomorrow!

Here is Joel at the grill....look at those snowflakes! Don't you like the pants Christy got him for Christmas - and did you notice his shoes?


Our neighborhood doesn't look quite so trashy with all the snow!









But oh yeah - our house is still orange.

The Best of 2008

UPDATE:  Pictures deleted as part of my flickr clean-up.  Will add back at a later date.

Snow Day - Tic Tac Toe, Three in a Row

UPDATE:  Pictures deleted as part of my flickr clean-up.  Will add back at a later date.

Stranded at the house again....this is the third day in a row that we haven't been able to go too far away from the house (can't get the cars out of the neighborhood), and the 4th day this week! I worked on sewing a bag, played some Wii tennis, and made some treats for the neighbors.

Here is one of the plates I put together for the neighbors - snowball cookies, chocolate chip cookies, and almond toffee.


Funny story on the toffee....I left the spatula in for too long and when I pulled it out I realized that half of the tip melted into my toffee! I had to dump the entire thing out and start again.


and just for fun - below is our cute little Christmas tree. My dad asked if we were going to get a real Christmas tree and said ours is sad looking - thanks Dad =( ! It isn't sad looking - its cute! We got it for Christmas last year, it is a live Norwegian Pine, and left the lights and the stars on it all year. I'm so glad it lasted this long!)


I didn't get very many decorations out this year since we are in the middle of the remodel, but I did put these on the tree:

Snowed In....

UPDATE:  Pictures deleted as part of my flickr clean-up.  Will add back at a later date.

We are STILL snowed in. There have been horrible accidents around the greater Seattle area all day...I guess it is probably lucky that we can't leave the house! They are forecasting another huge storm with snow and wind coming in tomorrow.

I still haven't gotten around to sorting my Panama pictures yet, so here are some pictures from the Mile High Flea Market in Denver from our trip over the Halloween weekend.

The flea market would have been the perfect place for Christmas shopping...too bad I wasn't thinking that far ahead!

I could have gotten someone a "cheep cheep" birdhouse


Or gotten any number of things for a $1


How about a Bimbo outfit?


Or some Avon products?


Jackets or socks anyone?


Snow boots would come in handy right about now. I could have been the most stylish person on my block.


The chili roasting stands actually smelled amazing...


Maybe next year I'll head the the flea market just to do my Christmas shopping....or maybe I'll just buy myself a whole new wardrobe while there!

Did anyone notice my new FESTIVE blog design? I'm posting my old blog header below, only because otherwise I'll lose it forever!

Go Dolphins!!!

Joel's Our favorite NFL team is the Miami Dolphins, but sadly we live across the country from them. We saw they were playing in Denver this year and decided to make the trip out there over Halloween weekend to see them play. We were able to meet Joel's parents and our friend Goode and his girlfriend there for the game. We were to happy to see not only see the Dolphins play - but we got to see the DOLPHINS WIN! While that has been a rare occurrence over the past several years, it has become much more common this year...yippee....and we are hoping to cheer them all the way into the playoffs.

We saw a few other Dolphins fans:


And watched them make signs:


Before making our own signs:






Joel's dad, Greg, was cheering for the wrong team:


The game (and the Mile High Flea Market) made for a GREAT Halloween weekend!

Snow Day!

The snow from Sunday finally melted off completely yesterday....but we woke up to several more inches this morning. The bridge we have to cross to get into the city was closed and the news was reporting bad road conditions so I decided to work from home today. The snow has slowed down now, but we have 6 inches on our driveway. Joel and I went out this morning to see the neighborhood and saw two cross country skiers, one snowboarder, and several sledders. We also watched a red Jeep slide all the way down the hill - after the driver did a full circle on the hill and Joel and I helped push him out of a ditch.





This is after our trek to the grocery store for crab and asparagus...it was literally uphill both ways =)...but it was fun to see everyone out and about enjoying the snow.

Happy Birthday Joel!

Today is Joel's birthday. Unfortunately, it snowed in Seattle last night, and while I love snow - this silly city doesn't know how to handle it. The road to our house is a large hill which just becomes a sheet of ice when it snows....so we were stranded at our house all day and Joel didn't get the birthday we had planned. We were planning to grab lunch at Red Robin (using the Birthday club coupon for a free burger), head to Best Buy and Sears to pick out a camera (my b-day gift to Joel), and then stop by the store for clams for his birthday dinner.



We worked on the house most of the day yesterday - I was painting the office and Joel was prepping the plumbing for our bathroom remodel. We turned on the news last night and it was mentioning snow accumulating downtown. Since we live 10 minutes from downtown, we opened our curtain and sure enough, saw this accumulation of snow at 11:00 last night - it hadn't even started when we had looked at 9:00pm.



Speaking of this city that doesn't know how to handle snow - since we can't get our cars down the hill, I still need to figure out how to get to work 30 miles away tomorrow....maybe I'll just walk to the bus stop and head to the office downtown (10 minutes away) instead.

I hope everyone had a great weekend. Mine was way too short!

I Made a New Friend In Panama

More pictures from Panama coming soon!

Alaska 2008

Joel and I were able to travel quite a bit this year. At the end of June and beginning of July we travelled to Alaska and spent our time there road-tripping and camping throughout the state. We had a great time and got to see so much of the state. Here are just a few pictures from the trip.





Snow at Mclaren Summit


Brown Bear (Grizzley) Fishing on the Russian River


Black Bear and a Fisherman on the Russian River


Horned Puffin at the Seward Sealife Center


Halibut Fishing

Welcome Baby A!

UPDATE:  Pictures deleted as part of my flickr clean-up.  Will add back at a later date.

I got to take pictures of M's new baby in June. He was so cute and was such a calm baby!

this:


turned into this:

John and Laura - Engaged

Laura is a good friend of mine from work and I had the pleasure of getting to spend time with her and her wonderful fiance, John, while shooting their engagement pictures in August. I LOVE the outfits Laura picked out!!