Thanksgiving and Other Opportunities to Eat and Drink Too Much...

In case you missed the news last week, Seattle got hit with quite a snowstorm! It started Monday afternoon and the snow shut down the city through Thursday... Here are some pictures from outside our apartment on Thursday--this is after it's started to melt, so there was plenty more. Now Minnesotans, before you laugh at the piddly amount of snow you see, remember there are big hills in Seattle and no snow plows! :)


Kitten's not sure what to make of the snow


Picture out the front door


View from out the back door

We went over to Aunt Cathy & Uncle Sandy's for Thanksgiving. Here are some pictures of us preparing our dishes: we made a baked potato casserole and a sweet potato dish with brown sugar & walnuts on top, yum! Thanks for the recipe, Ash!

Chels in the onion goggles :)
Lucky girl, I was crying!

Cousin Miranda & Matt

Yum! Though the picture does not do the food justice...

Here we all are at Aunt Cathy's

Cousin Claire & Sean

Friday night Chels and I had some friends over for a little cocktail party. Five of us girls (and Todd) used to work at Crate together and we still get together to hang out when we can! It was me, Chels, Todd, Marit, Courtney, Karen & PJ, and Erin & Ashod, fun times! I made pomegranate martinis that turned out pretty tasty :)

Marit & I setting up the snacks

Pomegranate martini, pretty and delicious!

Cheese and crackers is always a crowd-pleaser!

Sean and Claire came over today to play "Settlers of Catan" with us and help us eat the leftover cheese and crackers (we really had to twist their arms to help out, ha ha)...

Here's a picture of Kitten "helping" with the clean laundry :)

PS: Happy birthday to my Mom yesterday! My sisters thought it would be funny to actually put a candle per year on the cake and said she's up to three boxes this year--sounds like a fire-hazard! :) Mom said you could feel the heat radiating off of the cake, and that the candles were melting the icing, ha ha... Love you, Mom!

Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas...

That's right, folks, I've been listening to Christmas music already! This is new for me--typically I DO NOT listen to Christmas music at home because I hear it at work during the holidays (starts next Friday!), but this year I actually wanted to listen to it and I've already started. Chels and I downloaded some albums from Itunes and I've been thinking about getting the classics we used to listen to with Mom: Alabama, John Denver, the Carpenters, etc. Not sure if I'm ready yet for Anne Murray Christmas, sorry Mom :) I still cannot stand the little drummer boy, don't think I'll ever like that one!

What have we been up to lately? Well, we went up to Uncle Sandy and Aunt Cathy's cottage on Camano Island a few weekends ago, which was lovely. It's only an hour north of Seattle but it feels like a whole lot farther because it's so peaceful. It's nice to get away from the city sometimes... Earlier this week Chels and I celebrated 4 years together :) It feels longer in some ways and then surprising it's already been four years in other ways. We seem so young in our college pictures together. Funny!

Otherwise, we've been working a lot and trying to spend some time with each other and our friends. Busy time of year! There's a rumor Seattle is supposed to get snow this weekend, and I'm secretly hoping we get some. I LOVE the first snow of the season! One of the things I miss most about Minnesota, besides my family and friends (of course!). It's just so fresh and quiet and beautiful to see the first snowflakes falling, hopefully I'll get to see some this weekend (sorry Chels, I know you hate driving in the snow...) Then again, I'm one of the only managers who can still get to work when it snows because I walk to work, so maybe I shouldn't wish for snow. Oh well! :) I'm excited for Thanksgiving this week, yum! I'm planning to make 2 dishes--one is a sweet potato dish, and the other will be some sort of delicious potato and miscellaneous other item main dish that Chels will eat (that's Aunt Cathy's stipulation!). I wanted to make sweet potatoes the way we make them back home, with melted marshmallows on top, but everyone balked at that idea. So plan B is boring but still delicious brown sugar on top. I'll let you know how it goes... Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Lastly, I wanted to say goodbye to my sweet older cousin David. He passed away last week. We love you, David, and miss you. You won't be forgotten...goodbye.

Good Times!

A week ago Saturday we went to a hockey game for the local Seattle Thunderbirds team and it was awesome! It's the first hockey game Chelsea has ever been to and she had a blast. For 2 years in high school I was one of the girl's hockey team managers--I was convinced to quit basketball and join by some of my friends on the team. Glad I did, what a fun sport! Bonnie was also captain of the cheerleading squad for the varsity boy's hockey team, so we spent a lot of time at the arena. I tried to help Chels learn the ropes of the game, but even for those who don't know the rules, it's still awesome to watch. The fights are especially entertaining! :)


We actually had pretty good seats! It's good to see all of the ice--too close to the boards and you lose sight of the puck...


That face says she's excited!


Face off!

Definitely makes you want to go ice-skating (and watch D2 again)

Refs breaking up a fight--boo!

It was great to be at a game again--can't believe it's been 8 years since I've been, yikes! Maybe this winter I can teach Chels how to skate at Seattle Center :)

With Halloween just around the corner, we thought we'd get some pumpkins. Chels picked out a pumpkin that looks like each of us, including one for Kitten.

Here she is hard at work

She loves digging out the pumpkin guts!

She was the master carver, meanwhile I decided to bake the seeds with some seasoned salt, yum!

Here's Kitten's pumpkin

Spooky Kitten

Not sure about it... Maybe she doesn't see the resemblance!

Good News!

I have good news to share--I got a new job! Well, sorta--I'm still at the C&B, but I just got a new position, design trainee! :) I'm very excited! It begins in January and I will be training under our 2 store designers, with the ultimate goal of being designer of my own store someday. The training process takes a few years and I will be learning design for both sides of the business, housewares & furniture. The designers do the product merchandising at the store, create floor plans & execute seasonal floor changes, create & change window displays, choose color palettes for areas of the store, and teach the department managers & other staffers design concepts & merchandising for their areas. And a bunch of stuff in between :) Whew! It's a big job but it's lots of fun and lots of hard work. I'll get to practice hanging on to a 12 foot ladder with my feet, while I have both hands over my head, power drill or spotlight in one hand, screw or sign in the other. YAY! And one of the perks? Weekends off!!! Woo-hoo! It's a M-F, 8-5 job in retail, can you believe it?! Wish me luck, I can't wait!

Way to go, Mama!

My Mom is building houses for Habitat for Humanity this week in Minneapolis, yay! She works for Lowe's, who is sponsoring the project and are paying their workers to volunteer with the organization. How awesome! She's having a fun time--Mom is no stranger to hard work, having been raised on a farm and having raised three girls :) Today she worked on re-siding a house. Another awesome thing about the project is that at my Mom's site, it's an all-women team! :) They have experts on-site and the volunteers get to choose what projects they want to be on at the house, they get trained on how to do it, and then get to try their hand at it. Very cool! I did a project similar to this in college called Rebuilding Together Seattle and it was great! I highly recommend this type of volunteer work to anyone who hasn't tried it--it's very gratifying to see your hard work amount to a new/remodeled home for a family in need. Way to go, Mama!!! I'm proud of you! :) Learn more at: www.habitat.org or www.rtseattle.org.

Ho Ho Ho!

Home from work a little early today, yay! That gives me the afternoon to do laundry and dishes! My favorite pastime = cleaning...oh wait, not really :) But I DO want to re-organize the closets and clean them out. I need help from cousin Claire to tell me what's hideous and absolutely must go! And then we can make a trip to Goodwill, which is always fun. I'm still doing a little work from home--I have to "tweet" about the goings-on at the C&B (our handle is CBUVillage for those of you who use Twitter), which is not usually my job but our assistant manager is on vacation (jealous!) so I'm the new "twit" at work, ha ha. Twitter is a little funny because I'm not too interested in what every one is doing every minute of the day, but I can see how it's good advertising and great for people who are into social-networking and are more social than myself. I'm in charge of the wedding parties at our store and we have an event this Sunday morning which is why I got to leave a little early today, which is a blessing on a busy Monday! And guess what? The holidays are here! Okay, well almost here... Those of you who did not know, I feel it is my duty to tell you: Christmas ornaments are arriving at the C&B daily and will got out onto the sales floor next week! Yesterday someone told me that it is only 12 weeks until Christmas...do I hear jingle bells? PS: Stay tuned to see my favorite ornament this year, I already know which one it's going to be (hint: it's an animal in menswear)!


Here's a picture of me and Todd with our favorite ornament from last year. Since one of his many nicknames is teapot, it just seemed so fitting! Though technically, I think it's a teakettle...

Day at the Dog Park

Today is a rare day for me--having Saturdays off, that is. Kind of fun! Especially since Chels has this weekend off, too :) I do have to work tomorrow, which is okay because today is a beautiful fall day in Seattle and I'm sure the weather won't hold up for two days in a row. We rarely get to experience fall in Seattle--usually summer ends abruptly and the rain comes, bringing winter and no sun for months. So a rare sunny, cool autumn day is awesome! We brought Marley, a Shar Pei mix dog Chelsea has been dog-sitting for this week, to the dog park. My first time at the dog park! There were many cute dogs and it's fun to see them all run around and play together. We even got to see a few puppies, a black lab puppy and an Australian Shepard puppy. Marley was pretty good, except for the times when he tries to be "the biggest boy at the park" and jump all over the rest of the dogs. That's a little embarrassing...Chelsea wants to say "He's not mine!" when he acts like that :)

It's been a pretty lazy Saturday and I love it! This morning we went to get hair cuts and then went to lunch. There was even time for a nap :) Chelsea starts another dog-sitting job on Tuesday and this one is for two weeks! Kitten is going to miss her! Me, too :) Here's some pictures of Chelsea weeding around the flowers she planted and Kitten "helping". We let her go outside and now she tries each time we open the door, oops! So we came up with a solution: we're the crazy cat ladies who got her a leash & harness and thought maybe we could bring her out with that on. Yeah, right. She's terrified of it, and terrified but curious of going outside, so we'll see what happens... Oh, what will the neighbors think? :)