COMPLETLEY SURPRISED!

Friday, 1.27.12

At 8:30pm Friday night there was a knock on the door. Darin didn't move. I told him that I didn't know who would be at the door at this hour and I wasn't going to answer it. So he goes and answers the door and someone walks in. I turn around and there is Kirstin. I really can't comprehend it. Then she is saying to me, "Go pack your bags, I'm taking you away." What?? I'm just staring at her. I can't really wrap my brain around what she is saying. She tells the kids that she's kidnapping their mom for the weekend for my birthday. And she tells me again to go pack my bags. Just normal clothes except for Saturday night we are going to Teatro Zinzanni, so pack something a little nicer. I go upstairs and start packing. It is hard to pack when you haven't really had any time to think. :-)

FYI....Kirstin loves to do this. She loves to completely surprise people out of the blue.

February was going to be a crazy busy month, so she decided to celebrate my birthday now. It happens to be exactly one month until my FORTIETH birthday.

What's "funny", is that I had been literally freaking out about my birthday all week. What were we going to do to celebrate. Was any one (Darin or Kirstin) planning anything. I didn't want to be surprised. I needed to know what was going on. I needed to "prepare" for it. i.e. I needed to be in control. I was being a little or maybe a lot crazy. Darin and Kirstin were more then a little exasperated with me. :-)

So Kirstin and I headed out the door. Due to the fact that I had been freaking out, she gave me the full agenda while we were driving. We were head to the hotel Vintage Park in Seattle for the weekend. There were no other plans for tonight. Saturday we had appointments at Julep for mani's and pedi's and then dinner at Teatro Zinzanni's Saturday night. Otherwise we were just going to shop or see a movie.....whatever we wanted. Sounds like a perfect weekend to me!

We checked into the hotel and then went to the Cheesecake Factory. I thought starting the weekend out with cheesecake sounded great! :-) We slept in Saturday morning, made our way to Starbucks and then over to Julep for some pampering.

My nail color is a navy/purple.

It was after 1pm when we were all done, so we were ready for lunch. We contemplated trying a new place, but ended up at our favorite - PF Changs. Then we headed to Macy's to do some shopping. We shopped until 4:30pm and then headed back to the hotel for the free wine hour and to get ready to go to Teatro's.

I can't tell you how many times people asked if we were sisters. We got that a lot in our 20's - even twins sometimes - but not so much the last few years. Probably more because of the fact we don't get to spend a lot of time together.

The show we saw was Bonsoir Liliane! This was the last weekend of this show. The star of the show was Liliane Montevecchi. When the show started and she came out and started singing I told Kirstin that she looked and sounded like the lady in "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days", Mrs. DeBeers. Then Kirstin was talking to the woman next to her and told her what I said and she told us that it was the same woman. Then we read the play bill and it confirmed that she was in "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days" - one of our all time favorite movies. That was kind of cool! Liliane came around later and I was able to get her to sign my play bill. I told her that we were celebrating my 40th birthday and she told me that she was 80. Crazy! She did a great job.

We were lucky to be seated with some fun people. They were 3 sisters (older then us) and their husbands. They were really nice people and we had a fun time eating and watching the show with them. I guess we were having too much fun because the lady in the next table over thought that we were being too loud. She kept on shushing us - I didn't hear it, Kirstin did because she was right behind Kirstin. Then we suspect she asked the waiter to ask us to be quiet. I honestly don't think we were being overly loud. Oh well, we had fun. :-)

It was a really fun show, though I would NEVER want to be in the premium seats where you can become part of the show. They picked on the guys this evening. They made them do really embarrassing stuff. The conductor of the show came by me and pointed and then he stopped and talked to us and rubbed my arm and winked - I was sure he was going to come back by and bring me into the show. I was scared! Thankfully, it didn't happen. I may have fainted if it did. LOL!

The show was over at 10pm. We decided to go to The Purple Cafe for a late night snack and drink before going back to the hotel.

It was a fun and memorable evening!

Sunday we slept in late. It was so nice! We checked out and had them store their our bags so we could do some more shopping. We had a yummy egg sandwich at Specialty's and then shopped, shopped, shopped. I got great deals - thanks to Kirstin - at White House/Black Market. So excited to wear my cute stuff!

Kirstin, I am so thankful for you and our 20 years of friendship. You can't replace all the ups and downs we have been through together which have made us more like sisters. Definitely sisters at heart. As we get older we realize how special it is to have our type of friendship. It is such a blessing to know *without a doubt* that you will love me no matter what happens and I you.

Thank you for a FABULOUS birthday celebration weekend!

I already have ideas on what we are going to do for your Fortieth! :-)

The Clean Up

Saturday, 1.21.12

Of course, Darin gets started right a way.

He had to go to his Dad's first. We store our trailer and little aluminum boat there under nice framed tarps. We had heard from the guy house sitting that the snow had buckled the tarps. There may be damage it our trailer. Darin dug it out and only the tarps and frames were damaged, which aren't cheap to replace. It looks like the trailer and boat are fine. He moved them under his Dad's nice trailer structure since they are gone and we'll have to figure out what we are going to do to protect them for next Winter.

Then he came home and got to work on clearing out the trees. This is what it looked like at the end of the day.

Darin heard chainsaws and a wood chipper going down the road, so he went and checked it out. It ends up that there is a guy on the island with a business cleaning up this kind of stuff. Darin had the guy come by our house and quote the clean up. It was just too much for Darin to do himself. They agreed on a price and they could come on Sunday.

Sunday, 2.22.12

There were 5 guys with their chainsaws at our house first thing in the morning. They got it all cleaned up in a few hours. It looks like our trees will survive. There is just one by the drive way that may be too far gone. We are also thankful that the hedge was not damaged. We really enjoy that privacy. Having the trees severely thinned has already opened up our backyard a lot.

Here is the new look.

I hope this is my last post about bad Winter weather!

I seriously would take any opportunity Darin had to move to the Arizona area. I would much rather stay inside the 3 months it is really hot and have all the rest of the year to live outside, then have the opposite here. I love the NW and it's beauty and relatively mild weather, but I could use a lot more sunshine in the latter years of my life. :-)

Fed Up Friday!

Friday, 1.20.12

Severe cabin fever!

The kids and I had been in the house since Monday. We played in the snow on Monday. Tuesday it was more wet and Zach just wanted to stay in, so he & I stayed in all day. Wednesday we went out for some more snow fun. It wasn't as fun even though there was a lot more snow because it was raining a snow/rain mix. It was a long day. The kids were irritated with each other and Elissa's friend next door was sick. Then Thursday we woke up to ice everywhere! The trees splitting as the day went on, so it was too dangerous for the kids to play outside. So another inside day. Then no power from Noon on. So on Friday I was ready to get out of the house!

This is what our house looked like before we left.

You can see more of our house now.

The ice was still crazy on the trees, but the roads outside the neighborhood were passable. Our power was still off and we all needed a change of scenery. I searched for a local hotel with an indoor pool and was pet friendly - La Quinta, Auburn! I called and their power had come on at 2am and they had availability. I booked it and we got there about Noon. We put our stuff down and went straight to the pool. :-)

Newman thought it was really cool.

We left the pool to get a late lunch. Jack in the Box was next to the hotel, so we went there. I guess it was just one of a couple of restaurants open. The line was long. It took about 40 minutes to get our food. Zach was almost falling asleep at the table while we were waiting. And Elissa was standing outside the door with Newman. She wasn't very happy. We went back to the hotel to eat and chill out for awhile. The power went out for about 3 minutes. I was scared for a minute that we had come down here just for the power to go out, but it came back and stayed on. Then we went down to the pool again. Amazingly there were no other kids there. I had heard that the hotel was completely booked. Mostly with people that had no power. I enjoyed the free coffee & tea in the lobby.

Nana came by and dinner with us. She had been without power since Thursday morning and got it back Friday afternoon. She brought pizza. We hung out in the room and Zach fell asleep. It had been a long day. But not too long......he woke up and we went down to the pool for the 3rd time. :-)

We stayed up in order to see Daddy at 9:30pm. His flight wasn't delayed thankfully, so he was able to come home from Virginia. He just stopped by the hotel to see us and then headed home. My neighbor had texted me that the power had come back on that evening and he was anxious to go check on our house. He took Newman home with him. The kids and I stayed so that we could have the free waffles in the morning. hee, hee

Saturday morning at 7am Zach is wide awake and hungry. So we decide to go down in our PJs and beat the rush.  We have our waffles and then the kids took one last dip in the pool before we headed home.

I don't regret this little get-a-way a bit! :-)

A Night w/o Lights

Thursday, 1.19.12

We lost our power at Noon.

I was hopeful that it would come back on soon because it had been flickering since Wednesday evening, but no such luck. Though I have to say, it was a very short time (30 hrs) compared to a lot of people.

During the day I rounded up all the flashlights & lanterns, brought down pillows & blankets, and closed all the upstairs doors to keep the heat from the gas fireplace downstairs. I was preparing for us to spend the night on our sectional couch.

Elissa and Zach had a cheese, cracker & turkey lunchable for dinner. I had a tuna sandwich with hummus & chips. The kids were not thrilled about their dinner. I called a couple of pizza places, but they were all closed.

This is how we slept. I'm in the far end, Elissa in the middle and Zach on the short piece closest.

I got out our little portable DVD player and we watched a movie.

I couldn't get the right setting on my camera to get the ambiance without a flash.

While I was preparing things during the day, I had come across light bracelets that I had bought for camping and never used them. I pulled them out for the kids to have fun with tonight. While Kendall was still over, the girls came up with light dances and Zach jumped in too. :-)

Enjoy!

It was a long night. We went to sleep about 9pm. I tossed and turned, then got up around 3:30am making a plan for Friday if the power continued to be out - get a hotel! :-) Then I went back and laid down for an hour and got back up at 5:30am to do some BSF. Zach got up shortly after me and then he woke Elissa up too. Zach said he fell off the couch a couple of times and that I was asleep. I'm very surprised he didn't wake me up. Poor guy! :-) It was a long time until the sun came up!

Historic Ice Craziness

Thursday, 1.19.12

This is what we woke up to Thursday morning.

This was at 8am this morning in our side yard. All the branches are splitting due to the weight of the ice on the trees.

Then here are some pictures at 10am.

The trees continue to split.

The damage to the trees is crazy to me. We needed to thin & prune the trees, but never thought it would happen this way. They are beautiful pink flowering plum trees.

Then our power went out at 12pm. Bummer!

Snow Fun Repeat!

Wednesday, 1.18.12

Today is day 3 of snow and the most snow we have had. It is also day 3 of the 3 of us being house bound. [Darin doesn't come home till Friday evening.] We are going a little stir crazy. Yesterday Elissa was playing with friends all day and Zach & I just chilled in the house. Today friends weren't available so it was the 3 of us hanging out. The kids could just not get along. Even when we went outside to play in the 4-5 inches of snow we had. Bummer. But we made it through the day. Tomorrow we are going to have to find something to split up the day. School has already been cancelled for the day. I'm really praying that the roads become driveable by the afternoon so I can go grocery shopping (have a babysitter come over & get away for awhile). :-)

I did manage to get some pictures of the intermittent good times we had.

The birdie is covered in snow today.

Newman was so excited to get back into the snow and open golf course.

My angel girl.

They are getting ready for a snow ball fight. Their sleds are their shields.

Elissa went in for the kill. Zach was not happy.

We went home after this. It was pretty wet out. A mix of snow/rain was coming down. That makes it not so fun to be outside. We never did get around to making a snowman.

Here's to the snow going away on Thursday! :-)