Oh dear....

Snobby?

You Are French Food

Snobby yet ubiquitous. People act like they understand you more than they actually do.

What Kind of Food Are You?

Update:
I like this much better...

Your Seduction Style: Au Natural

You rank up there with your seduction skills, though you might not know it. That's because you're a natural at seduction. You don't realize your power! The root of your natural seduction power: your innocence and optimism. You're the type of person who happily plays around and creates a unique little world. Little do you know that your personal paradise is so appealing that it sucks people in. You find joy in everything - so is it any surprise that people find joy in you? You bring back the inner child in everyone you meet with your sincere and spontaneous ways. Your childlike (but not childish) behavior also inspires others to care for you. As a result, those who you befriend and date tend to be incredibly loyal to you.

What Kind of Seducer Are You?

Finally, the wedding...

Gorgeous Ellen in her dress....oh, and a dapper Don too....


The Embrace...


Amber and Betsy give a toast...


The band (Hot Buttered Rum)...



Don spins Barb around the room...


The party continues into the evening...


Our breakfast spot...


A last stop for 'real' coffee...


And that closes out my blogging session of Ellen and Don's wedding.
I'm not sure where the two of them are right now, if they're vacationing yet or not. I hope they're living up the love, wherever they are!! XOXOXO

Birthday Celebration

Pete took me downtown today to see Spamalot then out for a fun dinner. The show was hilarious, based on The Holy Grail movie, but with some new funny bits thrown in.

We had great seats, (as long as we could ignore the chatty lady behind us) which Pete bought on Craigslist. And were laughing at the program before the show even began. It made us think of my cousin Mark, as I think he may have been the first person to introduce me to Monty Python...and there were plenty of Scandanavian jokes thrown in. Mark, of course, lives in Sweden now. We plan to send him a program.
Dinner was at a shmancy place called Sushi Samba. Pete had been given a gift card while I was still pregnant with Henry. We wanted to save it for a time when I could actually enjoy some drinks and raw fish...tonight was the night. We ordered a 3-tiered appetizer dish which had 'Sawagani' ("flash-fried Japanese river crabs"). I tried not to appear startled when it arrived, but I did have to ask "how am I supposed to eat those things?" I'm not sure if this photo (courtesy of my cell phone) does the little guys justice.... we were told to just pop them in our mouths and crunch them like toasted pumpkin seeds. The problem was that they were about the size of ping-pong balls (okay, small ping-pong balls) and they had eyes. I hesitated, but decided I should just go for it. The 'Caipirinha' cocktail helped a little bit.

It was an experience, but I would not order them again. It's one thing to know you're eating something that used to be a living animal. It's a completely different thing when it looks like it is staring at you and might pinch you with it's tiny little claws. And when you look up from your second cocktail and realize that you're dining across the street from the Anti-Cruelty Society, well, then you really start to feel a little creepy.
In any case, it was a fun birthday celebration. Thanks, Honey!

The wedding day finally arrives...

We all got ready in our room. The boys were looking dapper, and helping each other with their ties. Henry was very excited to be in his fancy shoes. He can't get enough of those things!



When we got to the wedding location (see Amber's blog for links to everything) Pete helped set up the sound and I went poking around looking for the bride. I found her downstairs, applying make-up in her tasteful, minimalist way. Her hair had also been done up that morning. She later told me that there was still hairspray in it after two washings. She looked lovely...and wasn't even in her dress yet!


Ellen was being watched over by her mother, sister and baby niece when I arrived...but the ladies just kept coming. We can sniff out a new bride like nobody's business.


Here's a picture of the hall before all of the festivities began. Henry helped set up the mics. and we enjoyed peeking at the caterers outside preparing the salmon.





Yum! Best wedding food ever! See Amber's blog for soem up-close and personal photos of the food. I tried to get a shot of the tables downstairs, but was battling batteries and card space on my camera the entire weekend.
Next post: photos of the bride in her dress!!!!

Still blogging about last Friday...

I'd better be less wordy or I'll never get back into the present...
After the shower on Friday I got to see a little bit of Chloe. She and her parents had driven down from Seattle and spent time with Pete and Henry while I was doing the girl stuff.
Here Chloe tries to give Henry a hug (her arms were outstretched) while he's too busy dancing to notice.

Here they are on the bed, not quite sure how to share the books.
And finally, a stylish Chloe gives her best camera smile.


After that fun we went to the Lucky Lab Brew Pub for some drinks and tasty sandwiches. There was also a delicious extra-garlicky ceasar salad and extra-garlicky hummus. Here Amber shows her garlicky tongue.



Here's a group shot and a shot of the (mostly) happy family, the happy couple and the handsome man who drove us home after Pete and Henry left early.

A break...

...to blog a little bit about gardening. After Henry took a nearly 3 (THREE!) hour nap this morning, we decided to skip the grocery and spend some time in the yard this afternoon. I spent most of the time pulling up the mint that has overtaken my flower bed. I've been mostly letting things go, just to see what will come up....but the mint was out of control. Here are some shots of it all over the place...creeping up the side of the house....and a look at how that root just runs underground and sends shoots up every few inches. The good news is that it's easy to pull up. And you can't get frustrated because it just keeps sending it's mellow mint aroma up at you and you have no choice but to chill out. Sadly, for the mint, I didn't chill out so much that I stopped weeding. Here's a pile of the stuff that I pulled up. I'm not sure this photo does it justice...it was really a lot of mint.





These other pictures are just of my yard and patio....my happy place. There's the pretty little purple flowers that have popped up out of some creeping ground cover. You can see our pretty new patio cushions, and if you come visit you can sit on them! And there's the little corner of petunias and herbs. Some of those herbs are from Ellen's wedding. They were her table centerpieces.


Finally....the little gardener. He was trying to help with the watering cans. He continues to love all things involving water.

Wedding Part Deux

So after the festivities of the first night we all tried to sleep in a little bit and acclimate to the time change. Henry didn't quite see things that way, though. He was still on midwestern time. Amber and I had to get up anyway and go set up for the shower we helped to throw Ellen. Here's a shot of Barb (Mother of the bride) and Jenny (big sister of the bride) in Anne (little sister of the bride)'s kitchen.

Somehow we managed to have the perfect amount of food. I'm never able to do that...I always have too much. Then again, I didn't do any of the cooking or baking. Needless to say, the food was delightful. Amber suggested some simple shiny blue and silver stars that made for a festive mood. We toasted with mimosas, watched a slideshow that I put together with everyone's photos and stories and Ellen opened a few presents. I must say, the highlight was the French lingerie that Jenny found and purchased as a gift from all us gals.

I believe Ellen said we weren't to post the pics. of her trying it on, but Amber must have been engaged in other conversation at that point...so see her blog for some hot shots of that! Woo-woo!! Another high point? Barb checking out the edible undies that Anne passed on to Ellen after declaring that she and her husband "didn't need them" when they were given to her as a bachelorette.

Of course, all through the festivities, Amber, Jenny and I were angling for the perfect photo opportunity!
















Here's Ellen with her new mother-in-law.













Here are us three BFF (best friends forever!!!!!!!) standing on the porch. It is unclear exactly how many pictures there are (dating since 1981?) of the three of us together.....it IS the next slideshow project!

Birthday and a pokey Blogger...

Well, Blogger is being a bit pokey with the photos, so I'm not sure I'll be able to post any tonight, but I'll sure try.
My birthday has been pretty nice. We slept late (Henry in his bed!) until 8:30 when Rob called and woke us all up. We were still on Portland time, and I'm sure we could have kept sleeping! We drove up to Deerfield to pick up the pooch, then made a stop at the bakery for donuts, coffee and a birthday cake! I chose a lovely looking German chocolate, which we're going to cut into pretty soon here... When we got home Henry napped, Pete did who-knows-what on the computer and I paid a little attention to my garden. Mary had picked up some petunias for me, so I put those in pots and also checked on how the rest of my little friends are doing. When Henry woke up we walked to the center of town and had some lunch on the patio of the Landmark. That didn't leave much time before I had to leave for class. Fortunately, class went pretty quickly and she's letting us out early this week- until we start working with the kids next Wednesday. So now I"m home. Pete and I are going to have a romantic pizza dinner, followed by cake. Then it's off to bed so I can rejoin the working world for one day this week.
That darn Blogger is being SO slow...I'll post more on the wedding tomorrow. In the meantime, see Amber's site for a more comprehensive look at the events.

Home again...

I don't know quite have a plan for blogging about the whole weekend, and I"m not sure how much energy I have tonight. But I thought I should post something for all of those people out there (Joyce) who are waiting for some sort of update. So here's a few pics from our first night in Portland.
Pete, Henry and I flew in on Thursday, met up with Amber and Jeff at the airport. Picked up our Dollar rental car and headed to the Residence Inn. We had a nice two-floor suite, which we shared with Amber and Jeff and then with Matt when he showed up on Friday. Henry thought the stairs were fun. He also enjoyed bouncing to the tunes on Amber's ipod. Most of all I think he liked having a captive audience with whom to share his tricks.

After checking in we walked up to Broadway where we quickly indulged in our first McMenamins (sp?) burger of the weekend. Turns out McMenamins has several places in the Portland area. Some are just restaraunt/brewpubs, but they also have a couple of bed-and-breakfast type places as well. More on that later... Here's a shot of Amber, Jeff and Henry at lunch. We did not yet know that we should have ordered the tater tots, rather than the fries.

Later on we went to Ellen and Don's house for a casual barbeque. Don cooked up a storm, as usual. We met his family for the first time and said Hi to Ellen's family, many of whom we hadn't seen for a long time.

Here's Pete enjoying some time on the lawn. The manequin in the background let people know where the party was.

We also got to see Tomi and Leo, Ellen's twin nephews from France. They were having some time-change adjustments, and weren't quite sure about sharing their bubbles with Henry. Fortunately there were plenty of bubbles to go around.

Okay...I think I'll go to bed and try to blog again in a couple days. Probably won't be tomorrow...as I'll be trying to celebrate my birthday before I have to head to class at 4:00. Wheee!

He does it again!

Henry slept in his bed all night again last night!
This weekend will throw us all off course, but it's for a good cause. We're off to the airport pretty soon. We'll meet Amber and Jeff in Portland. I'm sure Amber and I will be mentally blogging all events during the course of the weekend. Look for the posting to begin Sunday night!

...and counting...

Just got back from dinner at The Yard House...."world's largest" selection of beers on tap. It was pretty impressive, actually. I had some Pils...don't ask me what it was called, something German with an S. Anyway, got carded. Had a realization that I'm 10 years past legal...kinda heavy. That's all.

Back to our usual programming...

Last night Henry slept in his own room, in his own bed all night!! A couple nights ago I put his mattress on the floor, because there's just no making him like his crib. Then last night we took the crib down all together. His dad put him down to bed, read him some stories on the floor...Henry wanted to crawl around a little bit, but after he settled down he slept there all night long! He slept through two alarms! I finally had to gently rouse him to get him ready for his day. He loves his little bed! He often goes over to it, lies down and says "nigh-nigh!" We'll see though. This weekend we're in Portland for Ellen's wedding, so with the hotel sleeping and the time change there will be much disruption to any sort of new sleeping ideas we might have. I do hope that we can soon get Henry an actual twin bed, rather than just a crib mattress on the floor. A little more comfortable for the in-bed reading and cuddling.
Henry's other new trick: toilet flushing. He's gone pee in the toilet a couple of times...not that we're pushing it, we just try it out if the timing is right. He thinks it's fun, though if I hold him in standing position on the seat he sometimes tries to kick into the stream. He went in the toilet a little bit about 45 minutes ago and has flushed the toilet three times since then.