Leavin' On A Jet Plane

Tomorrow morning, we're getting in a cab at 6:30AM (John is going to be super pleasant, let me tell you) and heading to JFK to head to the West Coast for nine days!

I'm excited for the Space Needle in Seattle (so touristy, I know), Powell's Books in Portland and Alcatraz on Halloween! And we get to see my Twin, Tammy AND we are driving through the Redwood Forest! AH!

I'm also aiming to get a super great picture of me and John for us to use on our Christmas card this year. Is that incredibly vain of me? I love Christmas cards!

I'll see you when I get back...I'll miss you!

Once My Parents Took Me to The Bermuda Triangle

Back in July, we went on a cruise to celebrate my Dad's 60th Birthday! John is MIA from all of these pictures because welp, he wasn't there. He doesn't get many vacation days (I get basically 100) so he stayed home with Dilly and Zula so that we could use a bunch of his vacation days next week on the West Coast.

My parents had gone a cruise last summer with their friends and they loved it! Alyssa was less sold on the idea because she "doesn't like boats." Really I'm think she was uneasy about being stuck with us for a week with nowhere to go but over the edge and into the ocean :)

Turns out, I love cruises! You get to read tons of books, the ocean is mezmerizing and you are literally unable to check your work email unless you want to pay for the internet...which we did not. So, no email for 5 whole days!

Our cruise was basically what you would think it would be: pool, nap, eat lunch, nap, lay in the sun, nap, get in a screaming match with your sister after your paddle boat breaks and you're convinced that you're stranded forever, forcing your sister to jump out of the boat and pull you to shore.

BUT THEN our parents took us to The Bermuda Triangle! "A Night Cruise", they told us..."we did it last year and it was beautiful," they said.

They may have mentioned to us that we were going to The Triangle, but frankly I don't remember. We got on the boat though, our Captain (who'd I'd like to mention was Alyssa's age) announced that we'd be to The Triangle in less than 40 minutes. HA HA HA I thought...WHAT A JOKE! Not a joke. We were actually going AND THEN we were going to park ourselves there so that we could look through the glass bottom of the boat. REALLY GUYS? That's what we're doing? Alright, fine.

It was beautiful and we had so much fun but then it was dark and we were still in The Bermuda Triangle and I thought to myself that we had tempted fate enough and we should really get back to the ice cream machine and the cruise ship that it was on. In case you haven't realized it yet, I didn't disappear into The Bermuda Triangle, but it was a close one, friends. It really was.

I've got about 20 pictures of my Dad like this. He loved that balcony!

On our last day, the ocean was pretty rough. Thankfully, we all had seasick patches on so no one even thought about vomiting, but Alyssa was feeling it in the afternoon.

And then we had our last dinner on the ship and headed home (after waiting in this ship's ice skating rink for our disembarking time...that's a thing, in case you've never been on a cruise). 60th birthday cruise, you were so fun! PS-on a cruise you have the same waiter at dinner every night? Alyssa actually loved ours and I think that if had asked her to stay on the cruise ship with him forever she would have overlooked the teeny tiny showers and done it.

The End! Sorry about the million pictures (but not really). 

Weekend Miscellany

This weekend was a good one, boy oh boy! I know a weekend is going to be good when I have a 3:00 Friday meeting with my friend Teress and we get a milk tea before it. There's a great place near our office, Kung Fu Tea, and the line was literally out the door when we got there. I'd recommend getting a large milk tea, "less sugar". The "less sugar" is important, because if you don't say it there is so much sugar in it, you get a headache and will bounce around your office with the jitters.

ALSO our one of our administrative assistants ordered me the clickable version of my favorite pens. These new versions are so great and I want one million of them.

Friday night me and Stephanie had date night at a super cute Greek restaurant near her apartment. A word about Stephanie's apartment: it is the apartment I would like to live in when I am a full blown adult. Its got three bedrooms and a dishwasher and a washer AND a dryer and my most favorite thing in the world: cement floors in the kitchen. I love that apartment.

Saturday John worked the high school's Homecoming and I spent the day at Nanny's with my Mom and Alyssa. Then I went to babysit where I promptly put a three year old to sleep and then started watching Call the Midwife. Do you watch Call the Midwife? My Mom and sister have watched it for years but I never wanted to because who wants to watch a show about British midwifes in the late 1950s who ride bicycles all over the East End of London to deliver babies? EVERYONE is the answer to that question...EVERYONE should watch this show. I'm only three episodes in and its SO good! I'm now watching entirely too much television, but I say why the heck not, am I right?

Then I took my third cab ride over the Manhattan Bridge in one week...I know I say it all the time but taking a cab to my home is my actual favorite thing in the world (after Call the Midwife, guys).

On Sunday John worked again (this time with the High School Robotics Club) and I spent the day with sixteen cats. Sixteen is not an exaggeration...there were actually sixteen cats (five kittens) at our adoption event!

This is Tito and he's the coziest!

On Sunday night I returned home and then held our cats all night. It was a day full of cats AND Leo McGarry's funeral on The West Wing (I told you I was watching a lot of television). It was the saddest thing ever UNTIL I Googled it AND HE DIED IN REAL LIFE. I can't even. AND now Josh and Donna are awkward and in love? I wait six seasons for them to love each other and they're this awkward? I'm super disappointed.

I hope you're Monday isn't terrible (you know, some people have super serious distaste for Mondays). We're going to the West Coast in four days! VACATION!

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Its Friday and that means that my weekly ! post is back! I love the ! posts because it means that I can use ! at the end of all my sentences and not feel bad about it!

Last weekend my brother-in-law got married and my in-laws and I took these great pictures! John isn't in any of them because he had best man duties, but the rest of us sure do clean up nice!

It rained like the end of the world on Wednesday night for about ten minutes! Luckily for nine of those minutes I was in a cab after a super fun dinner with my Aunts! Nothing in the world makes me feel more lucky than a cab ride from Manhattan to Brooklyn! Also, my aunts bough me new house moccasins! They are purple and I love them!

A week from right now we will be almost to Seattle, part one of our three part West Coast trip! I cannot wait! 

Happy weekend to you and yours! I plan on hanging out with my family on Saturday and hanging out with adoptable cats on Sunday! COME ADOPT A CAT! PetCo Unleashed! 7th Ave and Union Street in Park Slope! CATS!

A Bucket List Item We Didn't Even Know We Had

In June, John and I went on a mini-vacation to Windsor, Vermont where we stayed at the Snapdragon Inn. We had pretty minimal plans for the trip: go into town, sit on the porch at the Inn and read a million books, go out to dinner.

About two weeks before we left though, I saw online that The Quechee Hot Air Balloon Festival would run the same weekend we were in town. "Hot air balloons sound fun" I thought, we should probably do that.

On Saturday we accidentally got stuck in a parade while we were in town (apparently it was Homecoming weekend), ate some ice cream and went to the General Store (I know!). Then we got to the Festival and bought tickets for both days because why the heck not. We found a spot on the lawn, got totally excited to see some balloons and two hours later were on our way back to the Inn because it was too windy for them to launch.

We woke up at 5:00 on Sunday morning to get to the site for the 6:30 AM launch, drove all the way there and you guessed it! Turned around to go home because it was still too windy. Later that day we went for a hike at the Quechee Gorge (I use the word "hike" super loosely here), got back in the car and debated for a full 30 minutes about whether or not we should drive back.

"Does it look too windy?" I asked. "I don't know, what do they measure in, knots?" John said. "What does a knot equal anyway?" I asked. In the end, we braved the Balloon Festival traffic, drove over the covered bridge and arrived again in what had become "our" parking spot. We waited for a full 90 minutes and when the launched the tiny black balloon to test the wind, we all looked up and held our breath. "READY FOR LAUNCH" someone yelled and all of a sudden there were pick up trucks speeding across the field and balloons were getting laid out.

John and I both thought that when the rolled the balloons out there would be a lot of rules about how close you could be to the action. But there were NO rules! Ordinarily no rules make me super nervous, but this was so neat!

Here I am with some balloons mid-inflation, look how excited I am!

We were both looking forward to seeing the balloons, but I'm not sure that either of us really realized how incredible the whole thing was going to be. As they inflated and started launching, we just kept staring at each other, beaming and saying over and over again "This is incredible!"

You should know that what's below isn't even a quarter of the balloon pictures I have. But I'm sure there's a super scientific pictures per blog post formula, so here you are...I didn't want to overwhelm you.

Conclusion: John and I love hot air balloons. Like a lot more than we anticipated liking them. I didn't even know that "see hot air balloons" was on my Bucket List until it was over. I kind of love that.

While we love hot air balloons, we are both of the opinion that we don't think we actually want to go in one. Because its literally a tiny basket with a giant flame, and I don't like to be near anything too hot. Stay tuned for further balloon chasing...think I can convince John to take me to New Mexico next Fall to see the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta? I think the answer should be yes because its a Fiesta and John loves Mexican Food!

Hey, Friends!

I'm back?

After a summer of trips, cats, tattoo getting (I know!), Happy Hours and an arthritis flare to end all arthritis flares (I have arthritis, didn't ya know? More on that later), I've returned.

Also since the end of September, I've watched a full three and a half seasons of The Good Wife on Hulu. Its been a very productive use of time and I want my eyebrows to look like Julianna Margulies' but they just won't grow that beautifully...harumph.

We've had three weddings this Fall, and we've got another two coming down the line between now and Christmas! And we're headed out to the West Coast for vacation in two weeks on a trip we've been planning so long, it feels like we're never actually going to go.

And now a new paragraph because I haven't written in months and transitions are hard for me....

I made that scarf in that picture below! Want one? I may have an option for you to get one...stay tuned!

I'm hoping to get back into the swing of things here (with maybe a little re-design?) soon. I've missed you guys (Dilly and Zula have, too!).