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Vacation!

Okay so we're taking a break from the house for a bit. So on Wednesday we headed to rainy and cooler Seattle and Portland. After 13 hours in transit, five of which were unplanned due to tornados in Denver, yes our plane had to be rerouted to Colorado Springs making us the first plane to be a part of Southwest's newest destination haha, we finally made it to Seattle where we grabbed a cab with Shawn and Katy and finally made it to the hotel at 3 our time. Next day it was off to explore Seattle! Some random things we've done so far:

- eaten apples from pike place market
- ridden the ferry to Winslow where we turned right instead of left on the main drag and ended up walking down a nearly deserted road except for the one random kid walking ten feet in front of us, yes we felt like stalkers
- had yummy coffee and gingersnaps at Isaiah's recommended coffee shop Victrola . . . twice in two days, and yes their americano is good
- had sushi and martinis (okay i had martini spencer had wine) at hotel max at the after ten happy hour, you'd think we'd eat earlier because of the time change but really we've just been eating at all random hours of the day, like nine or three or eight or ten or two or really whenever we decide we are hungry enough to fork over some more dough
-squeezed eight people into an expedition
-stopped at a random winery . . . before lunch
-bought a sweatshirt from AE because it is still COLD here
-played a walked in a grocery store and bought something with the letter blank . . . and yes that was while we were all in the expedition
- tried to get on the ferry a second time, but decided 63 dollars was way too much to pay for eight people and a driver, shoot should have said we were all under 18, the windows were tinted she would have never known

So tomorrow we're off to the PCA church that is conveniently located three blocks from our hotel and then off to some wineries and who knows what all else we'll find to do. Hopefully it'll be sunny!!! And by the way when the sun is out in portland you can see mountains! With snow on top! I know ridiculous, I feel like I'm seeing a whole different city from the one I saw last time I was here. I'm not holding my breath though, I think it's supposed to rain again tomorrow. I'll take the sun while I can though :).

Friday Afternoon

It is finally SUNNY and WARM.

I love summer, really if it were 90 out most days I'd be a happy person. I'm not saying I don't like air conditioning but I really do like to sweat and get all nice and tan and wear flip flops and shorts and sweet shades haha.

Okay so Alisha is here!!! And it's Ben K's graduation tonight, so crazy, I remember him as a little kid when I moved to town, time flies aka this is one of those moments I feel old and then just look around the office and usually feel better, only problem is everyone from my team is gone for the day except me! Where's the fun in that?! Looks like I get to spend the afternoon looking out my window thinking about oil and gas haha.

Mini Updates

My rose has one bud on it!!! No not blooming, just something other than leaves that could be a flower someday. Seriously plants actually growing amazes me.

No shower door yet, we went looking but apparently the selection at lowes and home depot is minimal and ugly.

Last night we talked all about diversity and development in downtown tulsa with a bunch of middle class white people who apparently hate the burbs.

We made some major progress cleaning the spare bedroom last night! The table saw has moved, the bikes are hanging in the basement (yes if there is a tornado it is going to be very hard to actually get in the basement since the bikes are blocking the stairway haha but at least they aren't in the bedroom!), all the random cords are in a nice plastic box upstairs in the attic and the bed is made! So Alisha come visit!!!! Tonight I'll even put up the random bags of stuff that are still lining the walls :).

One week till we leave for vacation! I'm so excited!

Expensive Tastes, Nothing New

So last night I bought this remodeling magazine from Reasors because it had these really cute wicker chairs on the front of it, and we've been trying to find wicker chairs for our back sunroom/breakfast nook. I showed it to Spencer and he really like it too and we were all excited, it looked nice and beachy and mostly modern but not hideous. Here you go:

So we flipped to the back of the magazine to see where we could get them and . . . no not pottery barn, WORSE. They were from Restoration Hardware and the chair itself was $890!!!!!! So we are looking for an alternative :). Talk about ridiculous, I knew I had expensive tastes, but really?!

On a completely different note, I've been out of the office the last few days at a work conference. It was really fun actually, I mean tiring because there were hours of getting to know people, but management definitely managed to get across the whole corporate family idea and said they were proud of us but we needed to keep getting better. I got to harp on one of the VP's some in my presentation which was pretty funny and got a bunch of laughs. And!!! I won a bunch of hotel points, I'll keep you posted, but I'm pretty sure I'll get to be staying in a bunch of hotels free :). Alright, better get to work before my motivation that was stirred up in the past few days flitters away haha.

Productivity

Well the garden class is done! Yes we took eight hours of gardening class on everything you could want to know about shrubs, flowering trees, shade trees, evergreens, and azaleas that grow well in Oklahoma. It was definitely drinking from a fire hose, but it got us excited about our yard. Okay I think I'm more of a dreamer on this and Spencer's doing all the hard work. So last night we were both extremely productive, just in different realms :). I hit up DSW and found some really cute sandals that are my soul shoes according to Libby and got Kat a bday present and Spencer tackled our out of control yard for hours and hours.


Our lovely overgrown patio, yes it is a patio. We discovered brick underneath the dirt and brambles and HUGE poison ivy plants. Spencer sprayed all this with weed killer last night and we're hoping in a few days it'll all look black and dead so we can haul it away without having to go the hospital from breathing in poison ivy fumes.

He also cut down all these random things that were growing in a huge brush pile in this random spot in our front yard and discovered there is actually a pretty oak tree growing there. So we left that for future generations :). Yes it is very small right now, but whatever haha.

He also planted these lovely gerber daisies we picked out from Home Depot. I think they are so cute :).

Alright!! I think that looks pretty great! Too bad the rest of the yard doesn't look this clean and organized and colorful :). We'll get there!

On another note. We went to the botanical gardens with my parents this weekend in St. Louis and I bought a random book on eating local. I like farmer's markets so I thought, what the heck? why not read about it. Well it looks like if we try to grow local we may be starving to death! We planted about 18 plants in this bed and I think only 4 of them survived! Silly Oklahoma wind blew 50 mph the day after we put our 2 inch plants into the ground and killed them all! Good thing I have another 18 plants still in my seeder trays in the house :). I guess they were too little to be outside yet! So I guess we might not starve, or we might just have to keep eating Chipotle haha.
And this is my lovelly lesson in patience. My rose bush which I want to have 20 roses on it already, but it's not complying. It is slowly growing, probably like it should, but I want pretty smelling roses! Okay well I'll keep watering it and hopefully remember to fertilize it also.


Alright that's all on the gardening adventures for today. Saturday it's off to the local nursery to look for flowering trees and encore azaleas!