Seattle Here We Come!

Tomorrow Nick, Linda, Rob, and I are taking a morning flight up to Seattle for a mini vacation.  The whole thing started one day when Linda and I were talking about how we like to travel and were kind of just throwing out places we've never been.  As it turns out, neither of us have been to Seattle so we decided to plan a trip.  The boys are kind of just coming along for the ride.  After months of waiting, the date has finally arrived!  Couldn't have been better timing either.  Even though we just went on the family cruise, I still feel like I need a vacation. 

We're planning to do touristy stuff like Pikes Place Market and the Seattle Aquarium, but we're also going on a boat outing with Nick's sister branch.  He talked to some of the guys up there and they want to take us on a boat around the harbor.  It sounds like fun.  I got some Dramamine so hopefully I won't get sick, though I'll probably fall asleep.  I'm really just hoping that the water won't be choppy and I won't have to resort to taking it.

In preparation for our trip, I got myself a new camera because I was the only one in our family without a functioning camera.  I can't depend on my family to take pictures for me this time since I'm on my own!  Christopher gave me his old camera, but he has a water proof case for it that was like $200 so I didn't want to break the camera and then not be able to use the case.  It's an older camera now, so I think it would be kind of difficult to find a replacement.  I ended up getting the Canon Powershot SD1300, the same as Christopher.  He was like,  "Man, we always get the same cameras."  And I was like, "That's because we like the same thing...because we're family."   Especially now that I'm living back at home, we have even more in common.  We even make the same random sound effects when spontaneous things happen.  It's a little creepy, actually.  Anyway, so when I get back, hopefully I will have remembered to take pictures while we were there.  I definitely want to see those fishmongers throwing fish.  Maybe I'll take videos of that.

So we're off!  I'm really excited and will report back in a week. 

Pictures from Behind the Emerald Curtain

As you probably remember, Nick took me to the Wicked behind the scenes as an early bday present. Here are a few pictures he took with his phone while we were there.

 Elphaba's dress after the intermission 

These were our hosts.  They are two of the dancers called swings.  They know all the parts of the chorus so that they can jump in at any time.  Apparently the San Francisco tour is the only Behind the Emerald Curtain that has one of the fake babies.  Pretty cool!

Emmy Plays!

I have never seen Emmy play with another dog before.  Here she's playing with her cousin Potatoes.  Even when other dogs want to play with her at dog parks, she never wants to play with them and always shies away and usually nips at them.  I'm very pleased that she's learning.   It's so cute, at the end she nudges his ear to see if he still wants to play.


Click link below to watch Youtube video Julie Posted:

 Emmy Plays!

Why did I think this was a good idea?

I have been stressed out all week with this scrapbook for Christopher's Eagle Court of Honor.  I currently have made 102 pages and estimate about 20 more.  We're going to have to get a second book to fit it all in.  Volume 1 and Volume 2!

What an awesome weekend

Nick took me to see Wicked! ...Again!  But this time it was even more spectacular because we did the behind the scenes thing.  We got to see some of the actual costumes and props up close and personal.  Elphaba's black dress in the second half of the play is wayyy more detailed than you can see from the seats.  It was really cool.  I couldn't stop smiling when the guides were telling us about the show.  We learned cool stuff about how the production is put on every night.  For instance, the little vial of green liquid that the Wizard has is full of Scope and has a glow stick in the middle of it.  They replace it for every show and have to do that about three times a show.  I like knowing little things like that.  It makes me happy. 

After the tour portion Nick and I walked around looking for somewhere to eat.  We stopped at a little cafe for a Reuben and breakfast burrito.  It was pretty darn tasty for just walking around trying to find something, though I can't remember what the place was called.  After that we went and sat in front of the Asian Art Museum and looked at city hall, but it was really windy and cold so we headed to the giant library across the way to kill time before the matinee showing.  We had thought that maybe after the show that we could go to The Stinking Rose, but we weren't really that hungry so we canceled our reservations and hopped back on BART.  One of these days we'll go there when we're actually hungry.

On Sunday Nick took me back to Bouchon for lunch.  MMMmmmmm.  To work off all of that butter, we took Emmy for a walk at the Lafayette reservoir.  I had never been there before, but had heard a lot about it.  It was really nice, but it's just a little far to go for our daily walks.  New Hall Park will have to do! 

Scrapbooking Weekend

This past weekend I spent an awesome amount of time sleeping, eating, and scrapbooking.  Since Nick was in the City shooting a wedding and I had to stay home and Emmy-sit while my parents went to Erica's bday party, I had the house to myself.  It was lovely.  Emmy and I scrapbooked the beginning of Christopher's scouting career for a few hours while watching tv.  Well, Emmy was sprawled out on the floor because of the heat, but she kept me company.  There was also a lot of Avatar: The Last Air Bender (book 3) and Sex and the City viewing.  Talk about relaxation.  It was like college all over again minus Juni and finals.  (We seemed to scrapbook a ton during finals.  I guess it was our outlet to the stress.) 

Here are some of the fruits of my labor.  These are pictures from 2003 when he first started boy scouts (cub scouts was before that) to the beginning of 2004.  My mom just found more pictures for me so this coming weekend I'm going to try to do a lot more on the book.  I need to have it all done by August 7th, which is his Eagle Court of Honor.  I was also very excited to find actual Boy Scouts of America produced scrapbooking material.  I got awesome stickers, embellishments, and even BSA themed paper.  I was ecstatic.   I also got a nice neutral/brown pallet of patterned paper.  The best part is that Joann's was having a huge sale on their scrapbooking stuff so I got it all 40% off!  I got tons of stuff and all for less than $70!  There's so much that I'm not going to post pictures of it all.  I'll just post pictures of my work.

I am quite pleased with these two joining pages because the trees on the bottom and in the background were stamps I got from the dollar bin a Michael's.  For two dollars and some colored pens, I think I've already put these stamps to good use.  I also just purchased a copper colored stamp pad to use with these stamps as well.

I made these mountains and clouds myself.

This is by far my favorite page.  Not because it's simple, but because I made all the embellishments by hand.  It took me about 45 minutes to do this whole page, but I was very pleased with the outcome.  There are even dotted marks on the butter where you'd normally cut it for baking!

This is one of the pages from the BSA pallet that I got.  Isn't it cool?  There are even cooler ones with map, kayaking, hiking, camping, and nature patterns.  I was soooo pleased with this pallet.  

There will be more to come.  Family, please look at my hard work when you come to Christopher's Eagle Court.  These pictures don't do the pages justice!  Plus you can't see the pictures of 12-year-old Christopher very well.

Additional Cruise Pictures

Scans from the group pictures my parents bought.  They look soooo much better than my pictures of pictures.  Maybe I'll try to test out our scanner to see how it works.

Cruise Picture Post

Finally pictures from the cruise!  Because of the sheer amount of pictures that everyone in our family took I am going to keep my commentary to a minimum.  Note:  The random guy in a vest and/or sports jacket is our awesome server Milton.

The Traveling Crew

Christopher, Mommy, Grandma, Allison, Daddy

Dante and Auntie Mary

Uncle Daniel, Auntie SuAnn, and Natalee

Mr. Ryan, Mrs. Ryan, Evan, and Pierce

Ching, Shannon, Jenelle, and Nikko

Pizza Restaurant in San Pedro Before Boarding

***

Formal Night #1

Zip Lining in Puerta Vallarta 
(I chickened out and shopped instead)

Dining Room Pictures

Cabo San Lucas

Mazatlan

Natalee's Talent Show (She showed her Katas)

Grandma's Blackjack Trophy

Victory Dance

Misc. Photos

Pictures We Bought

I don't know how to use our scanner so I had to take pictures of the pictures, which is why we are so washed out looking.