Leavenworth

We just got back from our annual family trip to Leavenworth this year. Sadly my brother was not back from college yet so he didn't make it for the trip, but we had a great time with my parents and my sister with her boyfriend Keiran. Luckily the weather decided it was finally time for some snow, and there was tons of snow all weekend.

We ate some german food Friday night which was fun and drank German beer of course. Saturday we did a walk along the river during the day and got lots of pictures. That evening we caught the "lighting festival" briefly (I was amazed how many people were there, it seemed like thousands and there were so many buses that brought people in from Seatle for the day... luckily the town cleared out quite a bit after the Lighting), and then went to about 4-5 wine shops in downtown Leavenworth for some wine tasting. The wine tasting was a blast and we tasted some really good local wines! We finished off the evening with a great italian dinner and more wine =).

Overall it was really relaxing and a great weekend away from the city. Here are a few pic's!

Winter updates

Haven't done a great job of blogging in a while, so here are a couple updates.

I got our house decorated for the holidays right after Thanksgiving! We had a fun time decorating the tree (Matt gave in and we got a fake tree this year... ), we got a small 5 foot tree at Target, and its the perfect size for our small house.

At my parents house Thanksgiving... my brother acquired a cut-out of Barack Obama and I had to document it. =)

Fun work updates

As most of you know, I have been working on the Coors Brewing Company brand for the last few months at my company, and travelling down to Golden, CO for work meetings every month or so. I am really enjoying working on this client, and although it keeps me busy... I get to work on some cool campaigns!

My most recent campaign is for the Blue Moon brand of beer, we just launched a Holiday campaign yesterday - and as part of it we created a Holiday Radio station on Pandora (a site which I love!). Check it out... its really cool! www.pandora.com/stations/bluemoon

In other news... Matt got promoted last week! His company DLR had their annual meeting last Friday and he is now officially an "Associate". YAY!!

He has also started studying and taking his architecture exams to be a certified architect (there are a series of 7 exams they take.. and you aren't allowed to take them until you have put in so many hours at a company...after you already have your 5 year or Masters degree). So although Matt already has his Masters degree... he now "qualifies" to start taking the tests to be a "real" architect. =) I test down... 6 to go!

Happy Halloween

We had a fun little get together at our house for Halloween... drank some halloween punch, played Catch Phrase and just hung out. I dressed up as a vampire (although the fangs didn't even last past 8pm) and Matt was a cheesy TV reporter.

LA

I was in LA last week for my company's annual Publisher Summit. It was a good few days and we always do a community service project each year (last year we helped re-build some baseball fields in New Orleans). Here are a few pics of us cleaning up graffitti on the streets of LA...we had police escorts by the way.... hmmm. (p.s. I can't take credit for these pic's, another gal at my company took them but I thought they would be fun to share!).

Dan's 30th Birthday!

Happy Birthday Dan! We had a fun time this weekend celebrating our friend Dan's 30th Birthday. We tried out a new restaurant in Belltown called Kushibar on Saturday night which was really yummy japanese food, followed by a trip to Ozzy's so Dan could show off his Karaoke skills.

Here is a video of Dan's Karaoke... it is totally dark and you can't see him, plus it is sideways for some reason - but just look at the picture above and then listen to the video! =)

Fall

I have been bad at updating the blog lately... things have just been a little busy. I've been busy at work and traveling a bit more visiting clients in Golden, CO. Next week I will be in LA for a work event which should be fun though.

Besides that Matt and I are just trying to start more house projects... next on the list is re-doing the closet (pretty much tearing it apart and putting new walls in, shelves, and closet doors) in our "office" (which will probably get turned into an extra bedroom at some point). Keeps getting pushed off though of course as we end up wanting to enjoy each of these beautiful weekends being outside and doing fun things with friends. So maybe in November we'll get started =).

Pretty fall flowers from the West Seattle market.
The view from the plane heading home from Denver. Snow topped mountains!

Andrea's Birthday

Happy Birthday Andrea! We had a great time at Andrea's 80's themed birthday party on Friday. Here are a few fun pics.

Weekend Fun, Yard work & Fence gates

It was a fun weekend, we watched the Cougar football game saturday at Crystal & Ryan's house... and then did lots of yard work Sunday followed by a great dinner at Dan & Ashley's in West Seattle.

Matt filled in parts of our yard (not the part that we put in Sod in the spring) which were lacking grass - there was one area by our fence which was kind of a big hole and we never got around to planting anything there. So everything got filled with dirt/compost a couple weekends ago... and now the grass is coming in! success!




Today we gave the yard a good overhaul, chopped back lots of bushes/weeds/etc. We also worked on finally building gates for our fence (we got 2 of the 3 gates done).

The fence... lacking gates.

In progress...

Looking good!

House Projects

After being sick most of last week... I am finally feeling better, and Matt and I have decided to get started again on some House Projects.

Most urgent is our upstairs bathroom off of our Office. The toilet is constantly running. So Matt has been reading up on plumbing... and managed to also find our main water shut-off valve. He shut off the house water today, got parts at Home Depot to replace some parts of the toilet (I know thats not very technical - but hey he is the plumber not me, haha) - and now it works!

My project today was re-painting our bedroom door (it was kind of a 70's style wood door) - and I painted it chocolate brown on the outside & white on the inside and replaced the gold knob with a silver one. I know this project sounds a bit simple... but with Matt preoccupied fixing the bathroom, it took me 4 screwdrivers and 5 trips to Yahoo answers just to get the first doorknob off. =)

... lots more projects to come this fall/winter!

I also finally hung up some pictures in our house from the wedding!

Congrats Danielle & Jake!

Our friends Danielle & Jake got engaged last weekend and we are so excited for them! They are such a fun couple and it is great to see them so happy!

A large group of their friends went out last night to celebrate Danielle's birthday and also their engagement, we had a great time at a couple bars in west seattle I hadn't been to before. We ended up at the Celtic Swell on Alki, about a block from Danielle & Jake's place. Very strong drinks and good live music.. we will have to head back there again sometime. =)

Tomatoes!

This may seem silly... but I am very proud that I have successfully grown some Tomatoes this year! I have never been much of a "green thumb" and have killed everything from Basil in my kitchen to a Jade plant which supposedly you cannot kill.

Well... I planted 4 types of Tomato plants on the side of our house this summer and they are doing quite well. The "Lemon Boys" are already almost ripe - and we will soon have Beefsteak and some other sorts of red Tomatoes as well. =) Maybe next year I'll try carrots and potatoes too... I hear those aren't too hard...

Wedding slide-show

We just got a slideshow with lots more pic's of the wedding from our photographers! (150-200 "favorite" photos that is). Gabe and Boone continue to amaze us, the photos are just fantastic. Enjoy! (link to the slideshow is below)

http://gabrielboone.com/showit/glassman/