Thanksgiving-Grandview or Bust

This past weekend was great. i ate TWICE on thanksgiving day-i played ultimate frisbee all morning (it was a beautiful sunny fall day)--i'd like to think of it as preventative healthcare before the gorge began-ha! so the first meal was with my friend megan's family over in bellevue.
then i came home and took a nap and went to my second meal with laura, andy and janelle. we had a great time and it felt very grown up to make the whole meal ourselves :)
friday morning-well, it was really mid-day by the time we walked out the door-laura and i hopped in the car and headed to wine country! central and eastern washington are known for the amazing wines they produce and Grandview just happened to be perfectly in the middle of boise and seattle. laura's family from boise came to meet us half way. we stayed in a cute, kitschy bed and breakfast for the weekend; among my favorite memories are sitting in the two person hot tub 3 times in a day and a half, tasting 29 wines in one day-ha, and trying to get a llama to kiss me :) enjoy the pictures of this random weekend that turned out to be adventurously delightful!

mt. rainier
the weather during the drive was pretty amazing-here are some shots of the scenery






our little house for the weekend-note the two seater hot tub on the left...

living room

that sofa was a rather comfortable pull out bed

bedroom

butterfly stencils on the wall-priceless

dining room

kitchen

sisters

kinda creepy-kinda cool

this is Chocolate

this is Stubborn

yucky matted fur

the owner suggested we try getting kisses from the llamas-and i'm always up for random things like that so here is my first attempt with Stubborn-he had none of it

then i actually crossed into their pasture-yikes

same offerings to Chocolate-he would have none of it...

enough with the llamas-onto the the wine tasting!

with rebecca (laura's little sister)

sisters!

i actually learned quite a bit about the process of making wine-fascinating!


i hestitate even putting this one up b/c of the assumptions about my state of being considering the context...but honest to goodness, the girls (mrs. crumly, laura and rebecca) and i were taking posed pictures, and laura caught me mid-laugh...there is nothing else that contributes to the sillyness of this photo other than my weird personality (in case anyone was worried)



look at my white Washingtonian skin-ha! those darn clouds-they're always around...

i prefer mine fresh from a market but if you're into the aged fruit-this is the place to get it!

extremely dense fog on the way home

it made me think of carrie underwood's song lyrics "It's so easy to get lost inside; a problem that seems so big at the time; it's like a river thats so wide; it swallows you whole; While you sit around thinking about what you can't change; and worrying about all the wrong things; time's flying by; moving so fast; you better make it count 'cause you can't get it back"

space needle

for the first time in the 5 years that i've lived here, i went to the top of the space needle!! although i've been to the top of the eiffle tower, and absolutely nothing will ever compare to that, it was a grandiose experience none-the-less to see this city that i'm enraptured with from a bird's eye view!
megan, jason, kevin, blake

it normally costs $16 to go to the observation deck-who is made of money?-not me, hence why i've never gone-but a coworker of mine got free tickets and gave me a few! i LOVE free stuff!

elliot bay
the ground FAR below (605')
le girls
le boys
downtown
the seahawks game was going on-so we used the telescopes to check the score-hehe-we WON!!!
lake union
gasworks park is at the top end of the lake (the big green spot)
the e.m.p. (experience music project) is a music museum originally intended to be dedicated solely to jimmy hendrix. it was designed after the architect smashed an electric guitar-that's why it's all metallic and weird. it has rotating exhibits and although the entire things is not jimmy hendrix, he does have a permanent wing of the museum.


the space needle was built for the world's fair in 1962.
the original color scheme had colors that played into it's galactic appearance, such as: orbital olive, galaxy gold, reentry red, etc.
the foundation of the building goes down 600' into the ground making it's center of gravity only 5' above ground (b/c it's only 605' tall).
this means that it's one of the safest buildings in our city to be in when an earthquake hits!
the restaurant-which sits right below the observation deck-rotates slowly so that you can get a panoramic view of the city while enjoying a delicious meal.

broomball

i played last night-wiped out a couple times-sore today :)
(didn't have batteries in my camera-so no pics-sorry)

Morning Glory...

There are two reasons that this morning has been particularly wonderful…
I have been taking the bus, you know, and have actually really enjoyed it! It’s fun to see regular faces each day; I feel like a better urban citizen when I take the bus; and although I have to get up earlier and plan my day a little better than usual, the bus allows me to have programmed in ‘think time’-I have 20-25 minutes each way (to and from work) to just think-[and we all know how I love to do that]-or to read-[I’m in the middle of a riveting book right now]…
Because I have to get up earlier than usual, I end up seeing the sunrise-if there are no clouds :) As I walked out of my house this morning and glanced east, my breath caught in my throat. 90% of the sky was covered in gray clouds but there was a section right on the horizon that was ablaze with oranges, purples, pinks and reds. I couldn’t believe it! The richest hues of those colors spilled over the houses into the vast sky above. I didn’t have much time to linger-seeing as buses don’t usually wait-so I started walking hoping to catch a glimpse of it between houses about a block away. By the time I got to that gap, the colors were significantly faded and I thought, “I caught the tail end of a spectacular moment-I’m so glad I didn’t walk out that door even 5 minutes later. I would have missed it.” It was as if the Lord had just gifted me, a lover of color, with this luscious display to say “good morning and I love you!”
So I practically skipped down to Market Street, knowing that once I got down, there a peppermint latte from Starbucks awaited me-yum!
Many times I wonder, as I sit on the bus, what people’s stories are and who they really are; what do they value? What do they spend their off-time doing? And most often, I wonder why men don’t offer seats to women who end up standing if the bus is crowded? Well, this morning a young man, who looked like Matt Damon, made me so happy. He had been sitting for the majority of the trip and a woman with two bags got on; he unplugged his ipod and offered her his seat-the chivalry, the valor-I was so proud of him and so grateful to know that there are polite young men out there in this world. Way to go!

all i want for christmas...

i miss him

favorite lines from letters i've received:
"tell him i'm getting more dangerous by the day!"
"dealing with some of the turds in my platoon has taught me patience like i've never know-it's a good thing."
"HAPPY BIRTHDAY!"
"Things i miss the most: Driving, coffee, the radio (even when i can think of song titles, i can't place a tune or words to it because all i have running through my head are the cadances we sing), late mornings, females-i've seen 3 women in 8 weeks, talkin' on a cell phone, having alone time, making more than $400 a week, being around high calibur people, etc."

blah

this is not me whining-just being real about how life feels right now;
that's what blogs are for-to tell about life-the good, the bad, the ugly;
-my car won't be fixed for another week-blah
-sooooo overwhelmed at work-blah
-haven't gotten enough sleep this week-blah
-a boy that i don't like keeps calling-blah
-soooo ready for a vacation-blah

new house stuff!!

laura and i made some significant progress in adding pieces of furniture to our house-we got a tv armoire with fold-away doors and artwork for our crazy bathroom!

isn't it beautiful!!!
yep, i'm definitely watching the PBR bull riding finals-go Wiley Peterson!
norman rockwell's "runaway" print
the other print is rockwell's "flirt"-it's really cute but my camera ran out of batteries-i'll post it later. it's hangnig above our towels.

dinner with girls

there's a group of girls that i only get together with about once-a-month and all our birthdays happen to fall within a month and a half-so we went out for a dinner celebrating all of us!
afton
liz

catlyn
-i seem to be missing aleah's photo but she's part of the group too!

it was great to see them because two of our ranks had been married since we'd last seen each other-aleah and liz. and the restaurant gave us 4 free appetizers too! yum.