Wonderful Trip

I haven’t blogged in a while. Partly, because we were out-of-town and I suddenly felt very self-conscious about telling the world our house was unoccupied.

We just got back from a 12 day trip to the Northwest. We had a great time with my parents, brother & sis-in-law, and had the joy of meeting up with several of my friends.

Here are some of the things we did:

*visited Mt. Rainier (69 degrees, sunshine and 20 feet of snow)

*Olympic National Park

*Point Refinance, Chambers Bay

*Seattle (Safeco, M’s game & underground tour)

*Ferry ride into Seattle at night

*played 2 games of Settlers (one game had 6 people, my brother came in last place with 8 points, four of us had 9, and the winner got to 10 first!)

*learned a new game “Dominion” which we really enjoyed and will probably be purchasing

*had a Memorial day BBQ

*Went to the Tacoma Glass Museum, Tacoma Art Museum, and WA State history museum

*ate at the new Ivars in Puyallup

It was a jam-packed trip – but we also had a couple of days to lay low, enjoy the cloudy, drizzly weather and sleep in.

wow. burnout?

It’s been a while. I don’t know if I have had a longer ‘no post’ time in the last 5 years…

Not too much happening here. Or rather, too much happening here.

Lets see. Here’s a list of what’s been going on:

*Search for the Shake ended for 2010. We’ll pick it up again in 2011

*I’ve been playing lots of games, Settlers, Speed Scrabble, Ticket to Ride, Puerto Rico, and just learned a new one today Carcassonne. Oh, and I purchased ‘Bang!’ (a mafia type card game) on ebay.

*Got two new tires for the front wheels of my car.

*Enjoying the final season of LOST.

*My roomie & I planted a garden. Tomatoes, Jalapenos, Snow Peas, Dill, Chives, & Basil. (also strawberries, but no luck with them yet).

*Went to two Dallas Stars Games.  One happened to be an Oilers game, and we were 12 rows up from the glass.

*Started up the grill. Corn, broccoli, chicken, salmon, steak, hot links, brats, potatoes, green beans, kabobs, peppers. Yummy!

*Started a one month trial of Netflix. 2 weeks, four movies watched.

*A friend from Wa State came for a visit. We took a road trip to San Antonio.

*Saw the Alamo. (3/6/1836 – & 10 years later Texas became a state.)

*Said Friend from Wa State, myself, and my roomie went to see the Mariners play on 4/11. They got beat pretty badly, but it was fun to see them play during opening week.

*Also on 4/11 we celebrated “Happy to be Alive” day – the 27th anniversary of my open heart surgery.

*Tried Nutella.

*Accidentally left the sun roof of my car open just a crack all night – while it rained. I was fortunate to not have any water in the car the next morning.

*Learned that people like to talk about PB & J on facebook & twitter

*Learned I’m a “terrible tour guide” which resulted in a driving tour of my neighborhood and surrounding area.

*Stayed up way too late past my bed time on numerous occasions (tonight being a prime example)

*I’m sure there is more but because of the item right above this… I can’t remember. 🙂

Settlers and Pennies?

I might get to play Settlers of catan later this week… Whoo Hoo.

Also, Pennies for Debra is now at 833. Please consider Contributing all Pennies you find while doing spring cleaning.

Finally…. 6 days until opening day!

I still love November

Thursday already?

So it’s been a busy, but good week.

On Saturday, I got to celebrate my birthday with my family. Seriously, there is nothing that makes you feel young like celebrating your birthday with a 3 and 5 year old.

On Sunday afternoon, I headed back up to play Settlers of Catan.

On Monday, I got a new couch! Someone at work was giving away a sleeper sofa so I really lucked out.

Yesterday, I bought a new vacuum. I purchased one at a garage sale a couple of weeks ago, but it was not cutting it and I really needed to vacuum, so I got a new one.

Tonight I am heading out to see my niece in her thanksgiving school program.

And to top off the week, tomorrow I have friends from work coming over to eat pizza and play Settlers. -the reason for needing to vacuum 🙂

Busy, but good.

Blowing out a candle on my b-day cupcake with the “Birthday Princess” hat.

news bulletin

Found an apartment. Applied and was approved today so I will be moving in Oct. w00t!

Apparently a game is on the docket for this evening. Settlers of Catan!!!!!!!!! I like that game and I haven’t played in a long time.

There is a large storm approaching. It’s arrival in DFW might coincide with the Grubers attempt to leave.

I was wrong about my prediction several months ago. I thought for sure McCain would pick Huckabee as his running mate. Nope.

My wood block came in the mail. It will hold my new Ronco knives. My new knives coming in the mail.

I don’t have to wake up early on Monday.

The M’s are in town in a couple days.

That is all.

Yep

I still haven’t given this thing an overhaul, but I though this visual change would be refreshing.

If all goes well tomorrow, I will be turning in an application for an apartment I would like to live in. The move would take place, early October.

Looking forward to this weekend. 1. Labor day is nice. 2. The M’s are in town. I am not planning on going to a game because it is a bit too hot, but maybe it will be on tv.

The Grubers are here visiting. Perhaps we’ll get in a game of Settlers of Catan.

Lastly, I decided that once I move and have my own coffee table, I will use my “Where’s Waldo” books as coffee table books.

Check another off the list

I got my Luther paper done and turned in. I think it turned out ok. It was a little too long.

Next I think I will work on reading Dante before I read the book by my Prof.

I also bought my tickets to fly to WA for Christmas today. Let me see…..I will have just shy of 20 days in Puyallup. What a nice long break. I am looking forward to it. Although…I wonder if I can get any of my text books for next semester to get a head start on reading assignments…Or maybe I’ll just read some “fun books.” I will have a couple of days after finals here so it will be nice to maybe hang out with people when we have our homework done. Perhaps I will finally get a chance to teach my roommates Settlers of Catan.

I hear there has been a lot of rain in the Pacific Northwest. Today we had a beautiful fall day. Sunshine and a high of about 65. Even had the sunroof down on the car for a while. Looks like it will be nice tomorrow as well, but then rainy Friday and cooling off for my b-day.

Pirates 2

Ahoy maties!

Ok, so to say I liked Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, would be an understatement. I am SO EXCITED for Pirates 2, which starts playing tomorrow. I picked up 2 tickets today for a showing tomorrow. Only bummer is that I did not know it is 155 minutes, so it will probably be 1am before it finishes.

Also some great news on the Home DVD front. Probably about a year ago, I bought a copy of Mary Poppins. It has been missing for several months ago. I thought I may have lent it out, but I could not remember to whom. I asked around to a few of my family members, but no luck locating it. Well on the 4th of July, I decided to reorganize my Settlers of Catan game. (The pieces were a bit mixed up from hurriedly putting it away on two previous occasions.) I unzipped on pocket of my carrying case, and POOF! There was my Mary Poppins DVD, along with a pair of slippers. And to think all this time I have been carrying it around, yet sad I could not find it.

Fantastic! What you may wonder? My Pirates 1 soundtrack that I am enjoying right now as I type….Hey …**thought popping into head**… Maybe I’ll go watch it this evening.

What say Ye? Aye!

Happy Independence Day!

I imagine most have big plans filled with BBQs, fun, & fireworks. Don’t blow anything too big up. Be very careful with those Sparkler bombs. Yes entertaining, but also very dangerous. My favorite is the annual “Saturn” firework that tips over shooting 24 whistling balls of fire in the direction of the crowd instead of into the air. I have experienced this once and have heard of it happening several times.

Settlers of Catan the other day turned out to be lots of fun. It took us 7 hours to play 2 games. Congrats to Troy on winning both games.

The Council of Catan (our little democracy that votes on rules decisions) has overwhelmingly agreed to not play with “interbuild.” It is much less chaotic (and fun to watch John role 7’s and lose all his cards right before he is going to win the game) when you are only allowed to build on your turn. It also gives you the time you need to play strategically.

On Sunday night, I played again with two of my brothers. My older brother had to water his lawn, so we set up a card table in the driveway and played for the two hours. I won that one, but by the end, it was getting dark, cold, late, and the bugs were getting us. I think all three of us were just glad the game ended when it did.

32.5 degrees

Celsius that is, in Fahrenheit, 91. That’s the temperature high according to my car yesterday at 3 in the afternoon. The weather people projected it to be warmer today, but I don’t know if it actually was.

During this stretch of beautiful warm weather, I have had been able to enjoy some nice time outside. On Saturday, I hung out with some friends from church and we had a lovely game of Settlers of Catan. Using a board for our table and sitting on blankets, we were able to play the game on the lawn. On Sunday evening, I helped cheer on my church’s softball team to their second win.

Yeah for small amounts of sun so I can tan slowly without burning! Tomorrow is also going to be in the mid 80s.

The only downer to the heat, I think my light sensing, self-dimming, rear view mirror is totally falling apart. First the darker coating crept to the side of the mirror. Now there is something that appears to be an air bubble in this brown liquid that is making the mirror distorted. I read on line that this liquid has the tendency to leak out on hot days, so I put some cloths down to protect the rest of the car.

I was not going to get the mirror fixed when the dark part stopped working, but I might have to rethink that if the mirror continues to be distorted.