My Memory? Apparently belongs here.

Andrew and I apparently have awful memories. Saturday he asked me what we did the previous weekend. I could not remember, neither of us could. That's pretty sad. When I was regularly writing here I could go back and look to see what we'd done so I'm thinking I need to get back into that habit. So here goes nothing.

Let's see, it's Monday and I am struggling to recall what we did Saturday. That's only two days ago. I know, it's sad.

Alright, Friday night: Ah yes, Friday night, exciting as always. Andrew's uncle came over like usual and needed help with his email. Andrew messed around with it for over an hour and that was about it. Like I said, exciting as always.

Saturday: We planned to go on a (small) hike in the morning but woke up to rain. After a while the sky cleared up a bit and we were on our way out the door when my grandparents arrived to pick up my dad to go to a car show/museum and we followed along. Basically it was a bunch of old cars which Andrew likes. Afterwords we went to the golf course close to our house and had lunch at their new restaurant. They of course had the Huskies game on which we (Andrew) just had to watch. They won in the last 7 seconds luckily because I don't think I could have sat through overtime. After lunch we came back home, didn't do much and went to get pizza for dinner. It seems like there was more, but I cannot remember. My gosh.

Sunday: We went back to the golf course where Andrew hit a bucket of balls at the driving range then we grabbed a few of those balls and went to the putting green to work on that. We came back and watched the rest of the Nascar race with my dad then watched the second half of the Seahawks game. They lost unfortunately. After the Hawks game we went outside to hit some golf balls in the field where I promptly got fed up because I just can't seem to hit the ball. We got out Andrew's mitts and played catch for a while which was a lot of fun. Until one of us throws the ball over the fence on accident... Then we got out the bat and played two person baseball for a little while which was fun too. I think it's something we might try to do a little more often. We came in and watched two episodes of Bones afterwords (Andrew got me the first three seasons on dvd for our anniversary) then made dinner.

Overall, not an overly exciting weekend, but it was fun for me. I love being able to spend that much time with Andrew and being able to do things we really want to do on our own schedule. Next weekend we have a private golf lesson scheduled (my anniversary gift to him) so that will be interesting being as I cannot even hit the ball. Guess I'll need to practice a bit so I don't look like a complete idiot!

Anyways, I think I will be back to posting somewhat regularly even if it is just to document my days. And yes, I realize no one really cares about what I do all day or during the weekends, but I'm not asking for readers or comments, although both are nice. I just need a place to document my memories.

Weekend Re-Cap...From Weekend Before Last

You may have noticed that we have horses. And what do horses do after they eat? Well, I think you know the answer to this. It wouldn't be a problem if my horses could learn to step outside first. But, oh no. That would be far too much effort for them. Alas, I clean the stalls on Friday and Sundays. This particular weekend though it was gorgeous and I of course had my camera out so Andrew cleaned for me so I could take photos. He probably wasn't betting on me taking photos of him though. Then again, if he wasn't he should have known.

Anyways, here he is with his on lookers asking where dinner is.

And Star, as always with her head in the wheelbarrow "helping". Ha. And yes, she really does look that small, but she is only 3.
Done!

I really like this one. My human love in front and my horsey love in the background.

Molly was just so happy to have some sun I had to get this shot.
In addition to Andrew cleaning the stalls for me we got quite a bit done in preparation for the graduation celebration my parents are having for me next weekend (next weekend, I can't believe it). We have a flower garden that goes all the way along our driveway (you can see part of the rockery above and to the left of Molly) the needed to be edged and weeded so we got that done and some bark put in last weekend.

Things are coming together for the party and I'm busy finishing my last week of school. I have only today and tomorrow of regular classes then next Monday thru Wednesday for finals and that's it. Well, graduation that Saturday, but then that's it! I've also been sending out resumes so please keep your fingers crossed someone thinks I will be a good fit for their company. There are three in particular I'd really like to get so I am hoping for those.

Hope everyone has been doing well while I've been taking my little hiatus. I have a few photos for the photography blog as well and might even get those up today. Shocking!

The Weekend

I haven't done a weekend re-cap for sometime so thought now might be a good time. And, I was actually able to experiment with my camera so wanted to share some of those photos.

Saturday afternoon my dad and Andrew thought it would be good to put the shredder to work so cut up the limbs of some of the windfalls we had recently. Here they are sawing away.

And into the shredder it goes.

I, meanwhile, was "documenting". My code for actually just taking pictures while everyone else is working. Louie was helping me document and being a subject.

I was trying to be a little creative here and this was the result. I really like how it turned out and am happy to have actually used my camera to some to some of it's full potential.

Another creative angle.

Growing out of an old growth stump. Andrew liked this shot. It's the same old growth stump from the last picture, just showcasing a little more of the actual texture.

Can you find the hiding creature in this photo?

I sat down with Louie for a minute, because we all know that "documenting" is exhausting and I was a bit surprised when something jumped! It was a little baby frog.

Here he, or she, is up close.

And of course, all the while Star was standing at the fence observing.

Overall the weekend was quite nice. The weather was much better than it has been the last few weekends and we actually got to see the sun, a nice change! Andrew and I didn't really do anything, but we got to spend time together so which is always lovely.

How was your weekend, did you do anything exciting?

Flying a Jet Plane

This past weekend my parents, Andrew and I had a chance to fly a Boeing 767 jet. Not to worry though, you won't have to be looking out for us on your next flight! It was actually in one of Boeing's simulators.

My aunt raises Guide Dogs for the Blind and every year my parents go to the charity auction. At the last one my mom won the raffle to pick out any one of the items available that she wanted before the auction started. She ended up picking 4 passes for the simulator.

We went to one of the Boeing buildings in Renton and were escorted into the building, name badges and all, and taken to like a giant room that had 6 or 7 simulators on each side. It was kind of like a warehouse really. Now, keep in mind that these things cost between $15-20 million a piece. There's a bit of money sitting in that room. They are the ones the pilots learn to fly on so that's pretty neat.

We were all supposed to be able to fly once, so we got into the simulator with the instructor and off we went. It's hard to explain what it looks like, but similar to a giant egg I suppose. It sits up on hydraulics and there is a ramp that's lowered to walk across to it. Once inside it's just like a cockpit expect there are 3 extra seats in the back for onlookers.

Andrew went first and did very well. He flew around Seattle and did a flyby of the Space Needle. It's amazing all the controls that are up there, it's an exact replica of a real plane. The computer animations were amazing as well. Where the windows are were screens that showed in real time exactly where you were going. From the runway, all around Seattle and back. He landed very well too!

My dad went next and by this time my mom and I decided we were going to chicken out and let the boys go twice. I was getting a little sea sick! The simulator makes it feel so real and moves like the plane does. Even going down the runway feels like you're actually doing it and has the little bumps that you would feel if you were taxiing (not sure how to spell that...) down the runway.

Anyways, my dad was in the Air Force for a while so was sort of familiar with the controls and such so did well too. His landing was a but rougher, but neither one of them crashed! After my mom and I decided to let the guys go again the instructor put us at the San Francisco airport. Andrew went first again and he got to fly under the Golden Gate Bridge. It was crazy! When my dad went in SF he got to fly through a hanger which was also pretty weird!

Overall, it was pretty fun and no one crashed so that was a plus! My mom asked the instructor and he said they could simulate just about everything. Even something like the crash on the Hudson can be simulated. Turbulence, thunderstorms, just about anything you could think of. I was happy to get off though, I will admit. It didn't make me any more excited to get on the plane to Hawaii. Not looking too forward to that!

Weekend Re-Cap & Don't forget to enter the GIVEAWAY

Post 95: Drawing at post 100 open to anyone who leaves a comment with a valid email address (only so I can email you if you win) for a $10 Starbucks giftcard.

Happy Monday! The weekend went by pretty fast, didn't it? Then again, I guess it always does. I really didn't do much mostly because Andrew left Saturday morning to spend his weekend in the library studying for exams this week.

We were able to make our flight reservations for Hawaii(!) and look at some more thing we're interested in doing. Thank you to the anonymous commenter who suggested going out to see the wild dolphins rather than the ones at Sea Life Park, but I'm pretty set on actually interacting with them and being able to do the foot push and all that. We might still go out as you suggested depending on the cost of the other activities we have planned.

I'll be talking about our trip more as it gets closer and will be asking for any suggestions from those who have been to or live on Oahu. I've only been there once before and Andrew not at all, so we have some ideas, but any from people more experienced with the area would be great.

Hope everyone has a great week and don't forget to enter the giveaway!

Weekend Re-Cap

Hi!

How was your weekend?

Mine was kind of a blur. It actually started Thursday evening as there was no school Friday for a study day. Unfortunately, I had to take Molly to the vet Friday. She had gotten another cyst/abcess on her tail and it needed to be taken care of. This had happened a few months ago and the vet just drained it and we went on out way. He said it's common in older dogs (she's 12.5) and that if it happened again just to bring her in and he'd drain it. So, I took her in and this time it's much bigger and he wanted to keep her to do some tests since it wasn't clear liquid like last time. She ended up having an overnight visit and a bath. We'll know what the diagnosis is this afternoon or tomorrow morning when he gets the results back. So that was pretty much Friday.

Saturday Andrew had his financial accounting final and came out afterwords. We went and got Molly and brought her home then hiked down to my uncle's tree farm which is on the property below ours. We walked around for a bit, but I didn't see anything that really "spoke" to me and since it's just for in front of the barn, we weren't too worried about getting one. I think Andrew may have been a little more disappointed than I was because we were looking forward to getting our second tree together, but for one that's not going in the house I like to find one that's a little "off". You know, not perfectly round or straight, one that no one else would want. That's what we had last year and I named it George, weird, I know, but no one else would have taken it. So, no tree. But Andrew's aunt and uncle came down for a little while and we had a fire in the evening. The just got a new french bull dog puppy named Blu. He's really cute! I'll post a couple pictures tomorrow.

Sunday was mostly spend studying. Not much fun there! I have a final everyday this week and Andrew has one Tuesday and his last on Thursday. We're both looking forward to Thursday! So, I'm going to wrap this up and start heading up for my cumulative (eek!) business math final! I'm obviously not looking forward to it, but will be glad to have it over as the rest aren't as difficult.

Hope everyone has a wonderful week and you're all getting in the Christmas spirit if you aren't already!

Weekend (and some of last week!) Re-Cap...Really a post about food.

Gosh, are you as stuffed as I am? How was your Thanksgiving and hopefully for most, long weekend? Do you still have any leftovers? We actually don't because we didn't cook! We went to my Aunt Judy's house for "dinner". I used quotations because it was at 1:30pm. More like lunch! The food was wonderful, we had the usuals: turkey, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, stuffing and of course Andrew's favorite, gravy. In addition to the usuals there were also deviled eggs (my favorite), coleslaw and the picky stuff like pickled asparagus and carrots, green olives and spinich dip as an appetizer.

After our dinner there Andrew and I went to his family's Thanksgiving. We were still quite full by the time we got there so opted out of a second dinner although he did have some cheesecake for dessert. I had never met this side of his family so it was nice to be intorduced to them. He really only sees them once a year so I'm hoping I'll remember some of their names in a year! Afterwords we went back home and by that time, around 9pm we were a little hungry so we made scrambled eggs, doctored with some cheese, hot sauce, bacon bits and chives of course and toast. It was a good filler!

Andrew got up early Friday morning and left for the weekend to spend it with his father. Friday I spend pretty much decorating. We have a very long fence on either side of our driveway that we put lights on every year and I've found that it's usually just easier to do it myself so I put them up. Not easy, not fun. I endured many small shocks (this is Washington, it was raining) and found that many of the strings that were brand new last year only half worked after I layed them all out along the fenceline. By the time I figured that out I was frustrated and fed up so I ended up wrapping the sections that didn't work around the fence then continuing on when I got to where they started to work again. Tacky, but unless you're standing a foot away and it's daylight you can't tell. It's beautiful as always, but also a pain in the butt as always.

Saturday my mom and I put up our Christmas palm tree. She is vowing next year to have her traditional tree again because I'll be gone and she's sending the palm tree to live with me. I didn't take a picture mostly because I was tired of decorating by that point and didn't care too much, but I will over the weekend and post it. It's quite pretty and unusual which I love. Leah and the kids came over and Koleden wanted to watch the Grinch so he was enthralled with that while trying to help decorate the tree.

Sunday was pretty much studying. Then cleaning the stalls and getting the horses' grain set up for the week. Oh, and then more studying. I had a math test this morning and my word there was a lot of material and stuff to know. I'm not too confident with how well I did, but I'm hoping I did well enough. Guess I'll know Wednesday!

Anywhoo, this week is going to be full of getting loose ends tied up as it's the last week of classes for the semester and next week is finals week. At least one of my finals is Thursday of this week so that helps out. One less to worry about next week.

Hope you all had a safe and Happy Thanksgiving!

Weekend Re-Cap

The last few days have been pretty uneventful, which I truly don't mind!

Saturday Andrew and I went to my friends daughter's 2nd birthday party then off to the mall to browse a bit, have dinner then to a movie. We saw Role Models which was pretty funny! There were a lot of hidden jokes that depending on your type of humor kept you laughing through most of it. I also got some of my gifts wrapped that morning which is nice so that I'm not trying to get them all done at one time. Wrapping isn't one of my most favorite things to do.

Yesterday we pretty much both did school related work most of the day. Oh, and my mom and I colored my hair. I usually go dark for fall and it was about that time so I'm now a brunette. It's still kind of a shock to see myself in the mirror, but I always like my hair dark. Let's see, I know there's something else...Oh, I finished Twilight! It is so good, you must read it. It's a bit of a love story, but it's still a very good book. I gave it to Andrew and he's going to start reading it too, when school is over.

That's about it. Like I said, nothing too exciting. The next two weekends will be full of studying for both of us as we have about 2.5 weeks to go and the semester is over! It's gone by so fast and it's crazy to think that I only have one more. I start to get a little nostalgic about it sometimes, that this is my last fall on campus, but at the same time I am excited to move on.

Hope everyone had a great weekend!

Weekend Re-Cap!

Hi Everyone,

I know I haven't been posting too much lately and I may write about why later on, but not right now. This weekend went by pretty quickly as they usually tend to do!

Friday night my neighbor Leah and her kids Koleden and Addison came over and were here for a while. Unfortunately Andrew was at dinner with his mother who was in town and the kids were missing playing with him. I, apparently, am not as much fun anymore! Oh well, we still had fun. Andrew got home late, but we still had time to chat for a little while after not seeing each other all weel before we headed to bed.

Saturday he had to go back to his apartment to study for a big exam in his accounting class Monday morning. Fun times as always! He did change my oil before he left which is always much appreciated. Let's see, that early afternoon my mom and I went and did some Christmas shopping and while we were on our way to the last stop and on an off ramp we were rear ended. Luckily it wasn't too bad and we're just a little sore this morning, but it could have been much worse.

Sunday we ventured out again after I cleaned stalls and got everything ready for the week for the horses. We went to Southcenter, our local mall. My plan was to go to a store there (I would be more specific, but I don't want to give anything away) to get Andrew's Christmas gift, but was very disappointed with their selection and had to go somewhere else to get what I was looking for (again, I can't say what his gift is...! Any guesses? Leave them in the comments and there may be a prize for anyone who guess at least somewhat close since it really could be anything when I'm not able to give any hints!). But that's alright, I got what I was looking for! And stocking stuffers! I love stockings, they're my favorite part with all the little things that can be stuffed in there! After that we pretty much just came back, wrapped some stuff, had dinner and here I am.

Hope you all have had a wonderful weekend!

Weekend Re-Cap, Late

The weekend re-cap is a little late this week as you can see. Do I have a reason as to why? No, not really. Mostly because I just didn't feel too much like I had anything worth reading to post. Not that I do now, but you know. We didn't do anything to terribly exciting, lots of studying (on Andrew's part). We did manage to fit in a ride which was fun. Sunday was Addison's birthday party and we did have a lot of fun there. Here are some pictures of the events:

After our ride. This was just taken with my little camera that I can stuff in my pocket so the quality isn't that great. Plus the fact that it was dusk, so that didn't help much. I still like the picture though. My old boys did well on the ride, Dusty of course screwed around when I asked him to go past the barn again when we were finished, but I don't expect anything else from him. Boston did well as always and when I got on him afterwords I managed to get him to side step correctly (basically he crosses his front legs and moves directly sideways) which I haven't been able to do for a while.

Andrew on Boston. Again, dusk and little camera. The little blond blob on the right is Molly trotting along.
As I said Sunday was Addison's birthday right across the street. This is Leah Addie's mom and I. We've known each other for almost 20 years now. Her parents bought the house and property across the street from ours so Leah, her sister Courtney and I have grown up together.

The birthday girl!

After everyone left we were playing with the kids downstairs burning off some of their cupcake high! Here's Andrew and Koledon after some pro-wrestling moves!

They really liked this and of course had to do it at the same time. Taking turns, what's that?!

Each of the kids had these rubber balls and we were tossing them back and forth to begin with, then it got a little rougher which was fun too!

That was about it for us. Hope you all had a great weekend too! And hey, it's Wednesday, we're halfway to another one!

Weekend Re-Cap!

So, how was your Halloween? Mine was pretty good. We went to my Aunt Lisa's house like we used to when I was little and had pizza, punch and decorated cookies. They don't get as many trick-or-treaters in the new house, but it was still fun!

Here is Cody in is coustume at work: Mardi-Gras Dog!

Me going for a ride on the blow up cat.

We call these the gay ghosts. Can you see why?

Uncle Monty's mask.

Andrew and I in one of our self portraits.

Aunt Lisa decorating away!

Cody waiting for any crumbs under the table in his other costume, Safety Dog!

Andrew and Cody relaxing afterwords at home.

Saturday: paper writing (with an audience) and a movie!

Saturday, after Andrew was mostly finished with his paper we went to see Zack and Miri Make A Porno (not as good as I thought it was going to be, but still pretty funny) then to dinner at Red Robin afterwords. We both stuffed ourselves with the Royal Red Robin burger, it has a fried egg on it, then headed home and went to bed.

Sunday Andrew finished up his paper then he left to see his father then head to school. Before he left I cut hos hair for him. I've done it a few times and it turns out pretty well.

That afternoon my mom and I went shopping and I got a few things. I love Halloween decorations, but am too cheap to pay full price...I know. But, this super cool Halloween bell wreath was regularly $20 and was 75% off...$5!

And this hat. What do you think? It was originally $25, then marked down to $17 with 30% off and rang up for $8! I really do love a deal!

Sunday night my dad saw this little bunny in the cow stall snacking away on hay. It's just a tiny little thing and isn't afraid of much including the cow moving around.

Anyways, that's about it. Hope you all had a fun Halloween and a great weekend!

Weekend Re-Cap...With Lots of Pictures!!!

Hello! How was your weekend?

Mine was pretty great. Andrew and I went to get our pumpkins and to a corn maze Saturday afternoon (and so did everyone else within a 10 mile radius it seemed!) and had a lot of fun.

Here is the entrance to one of the mazes. There were actually 2 of them! The one we did was 2.3 miles and the other was 2 miles. It took as about an hour to wind around and get all the punches!

My fearless leader!

I thought this was a really pretty shot and shows how tall the corn was!


Here we are in the maze...and still smiling! It was getting pretty long towards the end!


Andrew getting a punch at the second stop.



Me too!



Picking our pumpkins!

Andrew hauling off our loot!

Cleaning away! It was 10:30 and about 36 degrees out when we started...cold!

Luckily they didn't seem to have too many guts!

We eventually had to go in because we were freezing and finished Sunday morning!

Our finished products! Andrew's on the left, mine on the right.

Saturday afternoon we went down to check out Andrew's blading he'd done on the bulldozer a few weekends ago. He did a pretty good job!

Oreo came down with us and got some beer!

Andrew looking handsome as always.

Oreo and I posing.

This is the lone maple tree in the pasture. I just thought this would be a pretty picture.

So, this was out weekend, at least what I thought were the highlights!

Check back tomorrow for a post about how to 'properly' clean and carve your pumpkin!