Summer School...

While others were having some summer fun this weekend, I started summer quarter at school. I wasn't really looking forward to school again as the last quarter kind of kicked my butt. I knew when I started graduate school that my program would mean I would lose one summer, but things like this always seem so far away in the future. Going into this weekend there were a few positive things. I no longer have school for 4 days in a row. Yay! I now have Saturdays with no school. I kind of wish all of my classes were in a row though, but one less day is better than nothing. Plus I knew that I would now be taking classes specific to my program which I was sure would be awesome.

Classes have actually been pretty great! So far....all the content in classes has been pretty fascinating stuff for me! Sadly I really do get excited learning about Conflict Management. I'm such a geek! The other cool thing is that I am getting the chance to work with people that I haven't worked with in the past but wanted to and working again with people I only got to work with for a short amount of time. Let me just say though...that it was nice to have such a good experience considering how my week started with medical drama.

A brief recap of my medical drama:

• Lost hearing in left ear last weekend that began to get sore
• Made an appointment and went to new doctor
• New doctor used water irrigation that fixed hearing
• New doctor is crazy because I also made to go have lab work, EKG, and chest x-ray done even though I came in for ear issue
• Lost hearing again a few days later and had intense pain in left ear
• Skipped crazy doc this time and went to ENT doctor
• ENT doctor said I developed severe ear infection from what crazy doc did earlier in the week and I now needed antibiotics

Other than school and ear issues I've had a quiet last week or so. Friday was Katrina's birthday so I headed down after class to celebrate with her Kent style. Saturday I spent studying and then decided to give myself the night off and did a movie and wine night with Anna & Sarah. We were celebrating the start of Anna's new life and new condo.

A funny thing happened though. Anna had discovered a box of old highschool stuff in her move and found a box of memories I had made for her. Sadly there were a couple of things she and I couldn't even remember why I had put in the box. I guess I should have put labels or a note. Who knew our memories would be so bad!?

Happy Birthday America...

Once again...the 4th of July was upon us and this time we even got a 3 day weekend. The last week or so has been pretty busy. Gina was in town from NYC so I spent some time hanging out and catching up with her. I took a half-day off of work so we could do the total relaxation day with manis and pedis followed with happy hour and hanging out at Madison Park. It was so good to see her! I really miss her being across the country!

Well as for the 4th of July itself. Mine started down at Steve & Airi's for some BBQ goodness. Kim was in town from England so it was good to see her and catch up! Got to hangout with baby Mia and baby Lauren who are two of the cutest babies!

Afterwards I headed out to the Cababtits for more 4th of July festivities. Joe was in town from NYC for the holiday so it was good to see him! Had the usual relaxed hanging out...BBQ...fireworks...and just a good time all around as is the norm at the Cabatits.

Back Again...

So it was brought to my attention that it may have been awhile since I've updated the blog. I guess that is true. Welp...it's now summer and life has been a blur.

I am enjoying the last of my break before I start summer quarter. I am about at the half-way mark with school with 1 more year to go. Woohoo! Work has been....well....work. Never anything that exciting on the work front. I did start doing some volunteering with the Metrocenter YMCA with their career mentoring program for at-risk youth. Other than that...have just been enjoying catching up with people and hanging out. Oh...and enjoying the fact that we actually have been getting somewhat of a summer. Yay!

Spring Fever...

So I think it's been quite awhile since I updated the good old blog. I'm actually just getting over an awful cold of some sort that I picked up at the office. What a way to bring in the Spring season, huh?

Well as you probably imagined...I didn't really have that great of a Spring Break from classes as I was passed out on cold meds for the couple of weeks I had off from school. I guess it's better than being sick during school.

I started classes again this weekend, but it was actually a pretty good weekend. I have some amazing classes with some instructors that are also quite amazing so far! I'm pretty excited heading into this quarter. The reality of getting to work in a field I love seems to be a little more real now. There is a light at the end of the tunnel!

Other than being sick, going to work, and going to class....I've mainly just been trying to catch up with people. Not very exciting. I had a little reunion with my Argosy friends out in Monroe and had to dig out my car beneath an inch or so of snow. Gotta love that Global Warming huh? I also ended up finally getting to go to Bahama Breeze. I went with Anna to celebrate her birthday. She's one of my BFF's from highschool and we've been friends for about 20 years. Anywho...Bahama Breeze has some mighty fine drinks! The only weird thing was the guy they had playing music in the bar. It was a little cheesy. It was one lone guy with a guitar with steel drums synthesized into his music. He took us on a little trip while we were there. We went to Jamaica with One Heart, then to Kokomo, Key Largo, and even journeyed to Hotel California. See what I mean about cheesy?

Anyway....I think that's it for now. I so need to get some sleep tonight! I stayed up way too late last night and fought sleep all day in class today. This was even after a Full Throttle Fury energy drink and a quad-shot soy latte. We're talking...needing toothpicks to keep my eyes open!

A Funny Thing Happened...

So I thought I'd share a funny thing that happened to me. A few days ago, I had plans to meet a friend for dinner. We agreed that we'd meet at Cedars Restaurant after work. Now I'd never been to Cedars, but vaguely remembered passing by it during one of my excursions to the U-district. So after work I headed north to the area around the University Ave. thinking that I would easily find the restaurant. Okay so the restaurant wasn't on the street corner I thought it was on. My next thought was maybe to find parking and then plan my next course of action. Bad news...parking sucked that night! During one of my various circlings of the area, I finally spotted the restaurant on 43rd. Now all I needed was parking still. I do a time check and realize I was going to be late. I was just about to call my friend when my phone rang.

My friend was calling to say she was having parking problems as well. She asked if I saw parking. I said...no and asked if she saw anything...she said no, but she thought she saw something by Safeway. Okay so this totally puzzled me as Safeway was on the other side of 45th from where I was so in my mind...she was still far. I asked if she was still on her way. She said she was circling the restaurant. Now I was really confused. I asked if she was still by Safeway. She said yes and I said she was not where she was supposed to be. This exchange went on for awhile. We both stated that we were by Cedars Restaurant near Brooklyn Ave. Eventually I made my way over to my friend as she'd been to the restaurant and thinking I'd been confused.

It turns out there are two different locations for Cedars. Neither one of us had realized that there were more than one of them. My friend only knew the location on Brooklyn Ave by the Safeway and I only knew the location on 43rd Ave.

The moral of the story is to make sure that everyone is on the same page when making plans to meet. Oh and check that you are actually going to the SAME location.

Procrastination...

So I've noticed a pattern that I have lately. It seems that I tend to procrastinate during times when I really need to not be procrastinating. This is one of those times. I've got a huge assignment that needs to be done, but just seem to try to find things to distract myself from doing it. I've searched the web, checked all my email accounts, channel surfed, worked my way through calls I needed to make, and now it's time for updating my blog.

Well...I survived yet another residency weekend at school. It feels really good to have a few things behind me like our presentations. There was one negative thing that came out of this weekend. This was the loss of Jackie from our program. I know this was a loss that was felt by my whole cohort, but it was one that was very personal for me. When I entered the program, the first people I met were Jackie and Cindy as we were assigned to carpool together to our retreat in Seabeck. My whole experience has been one that has been shared with them so it is difficult moving forward without Jackie. She's an amazing person who truly cares about everyone and was one of those people who always made you smile or laugh. I'm sure we'll keep in touch, but I'm sad that I won't get to share the rest of my experience in the program with her. Despite this negative factor, I am feeling good about my classes. I feel that we are finally moving to a place where we are gaining a lot of applicable knowledge and experience. At least for my program and goals anyway.

Due to the tight deadlines and incredible amount of time I've had to spend on school the last few weeks, I haven't had time for much else. Well...even less time if you consider how much I have to work.

I did take a break for a nice night out to dinner and movie with Katrina and Laurie a week or so ago. We checked out this really great Thai place down the hill from my place. I'd heard it was the best Thai place in Issaquah. It was really good, but to be fair...there are only really 2-3 Thai restaurants in Issaquah overall.

One other thing I did was go to a presentation in a Global Issues series. The speaker was a Sustainable Business Consultant. Okay so I had no idea what that was but it sounded interesting. What I found out was that the speaker works with businesses that are trying to be more green and helps them implement processes or gives suggestions on how to improve the Ecological Footprint. The speaker also provided background information on Global Climate Change and its impacts on businesses. There were some scary statistics he shared about what's going on in the world. I won't go into details on this, but overall it was an amazing presentation.

Well...I think that's it for now. I think I should probably do SOME of my work so hopefully the procrastination bug won't bite again.

Some Random Thoughts...

Well this new year has gotten off to a hectic start! We just started the new quarter last week and this one seems to be jam packed with work in a short amount of time. Since our quarter started so late this time, we have major deadlines that have to be met in like 3 weeks instead of the 4 or more weeks we'd usually get between in class time. The strange part is that I feel a lot more calm than I did last quarter despite the pressure we're under. Maybe I'm just used to it all now.

So my latest frustration in all the chaos of school...has to do with my laptop. While I love the laptop itself, I'm still struggling to get used to Windows Vista. On top of that...my laptop came with Microsoft Works. Okay so I don't even remember the last time I had to use a computer with Works on it. Yes..it's been that long. The only problem is...all of my homework has to be posted online in Word. So I've been having to do all my assignments and then converting them so I can post them. While it may not sound like it's a lot of work, it tends to get annoying. I have 3 classes which require weekly postings of assignments for each class. I decided I couldn't take much more of this so my brother is going to install Microsoft Office on my laptop. So yay for computer/tech savvy siblings!

Other than working crazy hours and school...I haven't been up to much else. Laurie and I did go check out XXX Rootbeer Drive-in down the hill from us in Issaquah. Okay if you like Rootbeer or Rootbeer floats...you totally have to check this place out! I got a "regular" size Rootbeer float and the big old frosty mug was ginormous! I can't imagine what the bigger size was like. Anyway...they have like the really good old fashioned Rootbeer with soft serve vanilla in it that is like really thick and creamy. Seriously...it was REALLY good!

I think that's it for now. I'll leave you with a few facts that I learned about Brazil in the last week or so because I just feel like sharing.

Random Facts:

- Brazil has the largest population of Japanese people outside of Japan.

- The most common language spoken in Brazil is Portuguese which makes it different from most South American countries that speak Spanish.

- Shares common boundaries with every South American country except Chile and Ecuador.

-The only country to have played in every World Cup soccer tournament.

-Has more species of monkeys than any other country.

Another year done...

Well a new year is upon us once again! The last few weeks went by way too quickly! There were so many things to do and so many different people to see. Unfortunately, I didn't get to do everything I wanted to or see everyone I wanted to. That's the problem with the holidays...you try to fit in so much into such little time. Fortunately, I did get to see a lot of people I hadn't seen in awhile and got to visit with folks that came out here for a visit during the holidays.

Christmas was pretty low key this year. Well part of the reason for that was that I ran myself ragged from all my activities and wound up getting sick on Christmas Eve. I always have such great timing! Had a lovely dinner at Steve & Airi's and felt so bad at how sickly I felt and ended up eventually just heading to mom's for a nice night's sleep. Was going to visit Anna & Sarah's parents on Christmas day, but was pretty feverish and I didn't want to expose the little ones to my germs. So Christmas mainly involved a lot of laying around and relaxing with the fam.

With the passing of Christmas it usually means that New Year's and my birthday are right around the corner. As I was still sick...I really hadn't been looking forward to either. I decided to pass on the parties this year. I ended up having a nice relaxing evening with Anna and Sarah for a wine, cheese, and movie night. Perfect for my sickly self! After midnight, they brought out some champagne, presents, and the cutest little cake for my birthday.

The next day I had another lazy day with the fam. We did eventually get our butts in gear though and my mom, my bro, and I ended up heading to Seattle for dinner. My mom had just bought a new car a few days earlier so we were taking it for a spin. We ended up actually hopping the bridge and going to dinner in Bellevue. Yep we went to good old Crabpot which I love when I crave seafood. It was a pretty good day. Oh! One of the best things about the day was that my mom and brother bought me a laptop for my birthday! I couldn't believe it! They thought it would be easier for me for school. That was pretty awesome since I'd been saving up and looking for a laptop for myself for a couple of months!

Not much else has been going on. Still trying to fight this cold and just get back into school mode as we start in another week. I have an insane amount of pre-reading to do so hopefully I can get it done! To quote one of my classmates..."Nothing says Happy Holidays more than 700 pages or so of pre-reading for class!"

It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas...

I can't believe there is only a few days left until Christmas! I feel like I am so behind this year because of school. Christmas cards went out late...Christmas baking was late...and Christmas shopping was delayed. Man! At times I kind of felt like a hamster or gerbil in one of those little wheels they run in...just running and getting nowhere. I do love this time of year though so it's all worth the stress for me!

As you can imagine....the last couple of weeks have flown by! Nifer and I did our usual Holiday Stockings for Homeless Children volunteering again this year. I did another donation box this year for the program and had a lot of coworkers donate this year which was very cool. The volunteering was a little frantic as usual, but I still love doing it and seeing all the kids coming out to make sure other kids have a great Christmas. It's very inspiring! Oh and this year I ended up having to deliver to a shelter out in the b00nedocks in North Bend. Boy was that an adventure! I got to venture way east into a part of North Bend I'd never been to before through dark wooded areas with icy, windy roads. I was determined that my little Corolla would make it to deliver the stockings for the kids though. Not sure if I ever want to visit that neck of the woods again, but mission accomplished.

Another Christmas related activity I took part in was a concert at Benaroya Hall. Anna & Sarah (my two closest friends from highschool) bought tickets to take me to The Coats Christmas concert this year. This was an a capella group that we first saw way back in highschool when they were fairly new. Now these guys are winning competitions, playing at Benaroya Hall, and even have songs play on WARM 106.9 during the holiday season. The concert was amazing and so much fun! I think the best part was when the entire audience broke out into song and sang a lovely round of Silent Night. It was quite beautiful actually.

Last weekend, a bunch of school friends took out a few classmates who are fairly new to the area. We met up in the International District to hang out and have lunch. It was a lot of fun just hanging out and sharing the newness of the whole International District with people who haven't been there before. We realized just how big Uwajimaya really is as we continued to lose eachother in the store. All in all it was another good time had and we even finished our day with some roasted chestnuts. You can't get more Christmasy than that!

School Daze...

It seems like I've been in a daze lately where I was living and breathing just school. I've been awful at keeping in touch with most friends and have only occassionally seen my family. The only people I see other than school folks are my coworkers and that's just because I have to see them everyday 5 days a week. That's pretty sad! Since I finished my last essay in the wee hours of the morning earlier in the week....hopefully I can rejoin the real world.

One very cool thing happened a few weeks back when we got hit by some snow in Seattle during class one weekend. Our classmate James is from Indonesia and just moved to the U.S. back in October. He'd never seen snow before so some of us dragged him outside to play in the snow a bit. It was amazing to experience someone's first experience with them!

Despair Humor...

A couple people told me about this website for Despair, Inc. (http://www.despair.com) so I thought I'd share because I thought some of these were pretty funny.

Changes...

Okay so...It seems that time just seems to slip by me lately and it's so hard to catch my breath and catch up. The last month or so has been a blur of activity.

As far as my move...I was able to find a place, get myself packed up, and get moved. I had an awesome moving crew that consisted of Nifer, Jeff, and some of my work buds. They were so awesome and I so appreciated everyone taking time out to come out to help! I ended up moving to the Issaquah Highlands which is a bit farther than I had wanted to move, but I'm slowly getting used to the commuting and distance from everything.

It's so weird being in a house again after being in condos and apartments for so long. The first night I was here I couldn't get over how quiet it was. No sounds from loud neighbors upstairs or next to me. It helps too that it's a huge 4 bedroom house with only 3 people living in it. The only weird thing about this house is that it totally causes me to be sleepy. No..seriously! I used to be this person that went to bed on average like at 2am or so and now I rarely stay up past 1am. Not sure what to make of this. Maybe the place is too quiet and relaxing.

On the school front, I am going into the 2nd month and am officially halfway through my 1st quarter of Grad School. Balancing school with the move and with work has been somewhat of a challenge. I've never taken 4 classes at the same time while working full-time. There have been some bad times trying to balance it all, but some not so bad times as well. It helps that I absolutely love the people in my cohort, really like the instructors, and am really interested in the classes.

The one thing that has emerged from school that I wasn't expecting is how connected I feel to all my classmates in my cohort. I mentioned before how I had even felt connected during a short week with them, but now that feeling has grown over the last month or so. A short time back, I was having a tough time and I was just blown away by how much support I received from everyone. These people are some of the most wonderful people I have ever met. I can not express how much all their support means to me. I feel very fortunate to be part of such a wonderful group of people!

I think that's about it as far as updates and changes. Well we did end Daylight Savings time and I was happy to get my extra 1 hour of sleep. So yay for that!

The Real World - Seabeck...

I arrived back from my little Seabeck adventure last night. I was very happy to see my bed again as I feel like I haven't slept in days and days. The retreat was mentally, physically, and at times emotionally draining. However, the entire trip was fantastic and so much better than I could have ever hoped for!

When I set off on my adventure Monday morning, I had no idea what to expect. I was assigned to a carpool with a couple other students. That first day felt oddly like the begnnings of an MTV Real World or Road Rules episode. My carpool arrived to pick me up...then we picked up someone else on our way down. Really Real World/Road Rules like sort of scenario.

Anyway we arrived at the conference center and let me tell you....it gave me the creeps a little. Think haunted campgrounds! It didn't help that my room had an old picture of a woman staring at me from the foot of my bed. Plus, one of the girls in my carpool had been talking about campground hauntings on the way down so that didn't help. We met up with all the other students as well as the faculty members so I felt better. Strength in numbers and all that so I was a little less freaked out.

We had very long days while we were out there. Our days were pretty scheduled for us and filled with activity after activity. Some of them were just mentally draining and others quite physically draining. Fortunately, we did not have any kumbaya moments or activities which I was quite happy about. For the most part, the activities were good and some even fun. However, I feel like we were all quite overwhelmed by the amount of things we did, the amount of information we had to process, and the amount of time we had to constantly be together.

In the end though, I think it was a wonderful experience and quite a unique one at that. It's hard to explain all that we experienced to someone, but it's something I am glad I got to experience. I met some of the most wonderful people, spent time with my future instructors who are fabulous, and am really excited about starting my graduate program with all of these wonderful people.

Kumbaya...

So it's been about a week since I got back from NY, but here I am packing again. Tomorrow I'm off toward the Kitsap peninsula to the little town of Seabeck to attend a new student retreat for students in my program. I don't know all that much about Seabeck other than the fact that my brother's ex-girlfriend was from there.

The retreat is 3 days long and we will be staying at the Seabeck Christian Conference Center. From what I can gather...the grounds will most likely resemble the location of many 5th & 6th grade camps. The only problem is that I'm not a very outdoorsy sort of gal. Which was shown by my aversion to camping over the years. I'm hoping it won't be too bad as we will be in cabins (I think & hope) and there will be bathrooms/showers.

Not sure what it will be like, but hopefully it will be okay. I've had visions of them making us hold hands around a campfire singing Kumbaya. Let's hope that doesn't really happen because I don't think I could handle that!

Blog On...

Okay....I've finally got a bit of time for the good old blog. The last few weeks have gone quickly and I believe as of last Friday we have officially transitioned from Summer to Fall.

A few weeks back we had a wonderful Girls' Night dinner at the Melting Pot. Fondu is so yummy!!! I love myself some cheese! Oh and the chocolate of course!

Last week I ventured across the country to New York to visit Gina and to get away for a few days before I started school. I had such a fabulous, fabulous time! Gina actually didn't have all that many rehearsals while I was there so we did get to spend a lot of time together. She was also nice enough to do some of the touristy things with me like the Empire States Building. We did the Chinatown thing and even had time to hit a Festival in Little Italy which was awesome!

I found out something awesome on my trip! The bars in NY stay open until 4am!!! So needless to say... it was very rare that we would go to bed before 5am. I'm actually still a little tired from so many days of that.

The only real bad thing was that on the flight home, we had a 3 hour delay. It seemed that the pilot for our plane was stuck on another plane due to bad weather. They couldn't get any other pilots because the new regulation stated that pilots were limited as to how long they flew in a day and all the pilots available had flown from the westcoast so they couldn't fly us back. They did try to make it up to us by buying everyone on the plane pizza so that was nice. The only thing was that I didn't get home until 2am.

The day I got back was the day of Kim's Farewell Thanksgiving Dinner over at Chez McCarthy. The dinner was fabulous thanks to the wonderful chef Nifer and her assistant Jeff! It was a great dinner and we were even fortunate enough to have Henry join us!

The next few weeks will probably end up zipping by as well. I will be in full school mode beginning with orientation this Friday and the 3 day retreat next week. Classes will also start next week. In the meantime, I'm filling my time with packing, cleaning, and combing through ads to find myself a new home. Hopefully I'll be able to juggle everything and keep my sanity!

I Need a Little Time...

Okay...so I keep meaning to do a nice little blog update but haven't gotten the chance. Right on the heels of getting back from NY I found out that I have to find a new place to live in 30 days on top of school starting next week. I'll be away most of next week on a retreat for school so this does NOT help my situation. I'm a bit stressed at the moment, but will update more on NY and other things as soon as I get the chance. Until then...some of my NY pics are up on my flickr in case anyone is interested.

Back to School...

For the last few months, I've been pretty preoccupied with the idea of going back to school. So I did some research and found a great Graduate Program I was really interested in. I went through a long drawn out application process which included getting old transcripts from schools, getting referrals from previous instructors, several writing sample submissions, and an interview with the faculty of the program I was applying to.

I finally received my letter in the mail the other day. I was accepted into the program and I'm due to start school again the first week of October which is coming up fast. To be honest, I'm looking forward to having classes again. Plus, it's one step closer to being able to do something I love.

Other than the school stuff, life has been pretty mellow. My friend Darryl came out for a visit from Maine. We ended up having a mini reunion dinner with one group of friends while he was here which was really fun. We ended up at Wild Ginger downtown. I'd never been there before, but I really loved the ambience.

I just realized my trip to New York to visit Gina is coming up quick. It's the one last trip I'm allowing myself before school starts. I'd actually been so focused on school that I'd almost forgotten about it until my buddy Dave reminded me the other day. We have some tentative plans for when I'm in New York, but we're leaving some time open. That way we can have some time to just see where our mood takes us.

Working the Days Away...

Last week I went down to Portland for a few days to attend a sort of conference for work. My division has all the staff from all 4 states (Idaho, Oregon, Utah, and Washington) come together once a year. This year a few coworkers and I decided to take the train and stay in the hotel the night before the conference. Usually we have to get up early the day the conference begins and drive for 3 hours or so to then sit in meetings all day which is quite exhausting.

The train ride down was not the greatest due to many factors, but I won't go into that. It was really nice to go a day early this time and relax the night before. Most of us had dinner together at this wonderful Wine Bar & Bistro called Thirst. We decided to be experimental and I tried a lot of things I don't normally. Afterwards, we went back to my suite and met up with some other coworkers. The entire night was very fun and relaxing which was much needed after the last few weeks we've had at work with pressure deadlines.

The next day we met up with the rest of our coworkers who drove up that day and the staff from the other states at our Portland office. That night we all went to dinner which is usually arranged so that we can all get to know eachother better and network. This year it was arranged that we go to a place called Brazil Grill. It was a very unique experience! The restaurant had roaming gauchos that came to your table offerring different types of Brazilian grilled meats off their swords. They would serve it or slice it right off their swords. There were things like bacon wrapped chicken, sausage, prawns, and grilled pineapple with brown sugar. It was a very fun atmosphere!

After eating an all meat meal, we needed some exercise so a group of about 10 of us decided to walk to Powell's Bookstore which is always a must anyway when in Portland. We got to witness an interesting car chase that came up the sidewalk near where we were standing.. Kinda scary! Then we all decided to walk back to the hotel afterwards even though it was hella far. It was fun walking through the city and the waterfront at night with everyone though. I realized during this trip that I am very fortunate to have a wonderful group of coworkers who I really enjoy spending time with.

Anyway...it's nice to be back home. It was a fabulous few days away in a wonderful hotel suite, but there's nothing like being home.

Summer Days Drifting Away...

I knew summer was quickly coming to an end when I received ads in the mail for Back to School sales. I was wondering how on earth that could have happened since I swear they JUST let kids out of school for the summer. I guess it's true what they say...time flies as you get older. Anywho...life has been like a blur of motion. It's especially been a jam packed last couple weeks.

Spent time with my friend Heather who was out here for a visit from Illinois. She is one of my closest friends from highschool. We don't keep in touch as much as we'd like to so it's always nice that we get to spend time together whenever she's here visiting her family. She's one of those people I always forget how much I miss until I see her.

I've also been keeping myself busy applying for a Graduate Program. I've had a nice year off, but I think it's time for me to go back to school. I am giving myself one last trip before cracking down with school again though. I'm heading to the Big Apple for a few days near the end of September to visit my friend Gina.

This last weekend I took my first Argosy theme cruise with some friends from work. It was the Movin 92.5 Party Cruise or whatever. I didn't know quite what to expect, but it was pretty fun. Then again I do love the music. They have awesome 80's and 90's music as well as current songs you can dance to. There was a huge age range of people there, too. You had your older older people all the way down to the just over 21 youngins. We sailed from Kirkland City Dock around Lake Washington and stopped near Mercer Island for a fireworks show. The only problem with the fireworks show was that it was on one side of the boat. I swear that I could almost see the boat tipping when everyone ran to one side of the boat to watch the fireworks. Haha!

Other than that I've been busy catching up with people, movies, and reading. I think I've started to overdose on movies actually. In the last couple weeks I've been to the movies 5 times. The sad thing is that I'm not even caught up on all the movies I want to see. That's how far behind I was.

Welp...hopefully this week will be quiet because next week will be crazy busy. We are going to Portland for our annual All-Staff Divisional Meeting with people from all 4 states next week. A small group of coworkers and I were planning on going via Amtrak so hopefully they have that train and/or train track situation sorted out and have service so we can go.

In the Good Old Summertime...

It occurred to me today that we're halfway through July.
Where has this summer gone? It seems to be zooming by in a flurry of activity!

Quite a few things have happened over the last couple of weeks. First off...I actually went camping. Can you believe that?! Those who know me well have probably already fainted from shock. Anyway...this was my first camping trip since the disastrous one my family made me go on when I was back in Jr. High. I'm not a big fan of the great oudoors mainly because of the bugs and the possibility of run ins with raccoons...which I have an odd sort of fear of.

I decided to put all that aside and joined everyone so that we could spend some time hanging out with Kim and her brit. I discovered something great...camping is not nearly as bad as I thought it was. It was a lot of fun! Good peeps and good times! Best of all...I didn't see a single raccoon!

Right on the heels of camping was the 4th of July. I spent it down in the southend with the Cabatit clan again which always ensures a good time is had. Sarah's brother flew home from N.Y.C. so it was nice to see him. It was a very relaxed and fun day. The fireworks this year were amazing! I swear that almost every house in the neighborhood had their own huge firework shows going non-stop.

My friend Laurie's bday was just around the corner from the 4th. I completely forgot to warn poor Trina about Laurie's parties. She had one of her usual awesome Filipino bashes. You know the kind where there's miles and miles of food and you know to wear loose clothing or you'll just hurt yourself. There was all the usual good stuff such as pancit and lumpia. There was even a nice gelato cake. Unfortunately, they forgot that gelato needed to go in the freezer so the cake had been in the fridge for a few days. After throwing it in the freezer for awhile, we ended up with an interesting sort of gelato soup cake. It was pretty funny.

Pretty much since then I've been running around visiting with friends from out of town, catching up with old friends I haven't seen in awhile, enjoying great BBQ's, and just general hanging out enjoying the summer and the amazing weather we've been having.