Sunday, February 26, 2012

SMASHPUTT!!

last sunday was smashputt time again.  this year i went with nicole, nicole's bff cindy, dawn, grace and her man jeremiah.  it was located in south seattle in a total industrial area.  smashputt is a traveling putt putt golf/art performance piece.  it is a lot of fun!  nothing quite says fun like putt putt golf and hard alcohol.  


they had all the same holes as last year, just in a different venue and set up differently.  last year it was in the old immigration building and each room had it's own put put hole.  some rooms were larger and had 3-4 holes.  this year it was in a much bigger industrial space, so it was all in two large rooms.

the entry way was full of fake christmas trees.  some lit, some not.  it was inviting and somewhat creepy.

this hole had absolutely no use for the putter.  you dropped your ball in the top of this maze and rotated it to get your ball through.


this one was good!  there were holes in the green for your ball to fall into and then your score was whatever point was designated to that hole.  pure chance.

*giggling*

this was my favorite one, from last year and this year.  both the record players were rotating and you had to try to shoot across them.


there was a sweet couch to sit and drink yer drinks.  so we did.


this one you had to stick your ball in the catapult, align it how you wanted it to throw and stomp on the pedal to make it throw.  mine was way off.  dawn's was a hole in one.  because she's awesome.  that is just how she rolls.


disturbing kermit frogger!

there was a separate room that was just a decorated room.  i liked all the photos.




and another room set up as a room.

poops!

also from last year....i covet this peacock.  you can't tell from my digital pics, but there was only red light in this area and it was really sweet, but the flash made it look all white.  rude.


this hole was superfantastic.  it was set up like a living room and the shag carpet had a little path of green through it that you shot through and the hole was on the other side of the living room.

i felt a little bloated :)

this lamp was friggin sweet!


i loved this one!  you shot your ball into a meshed off area and it just drilled a hole in your ball and spit it out.  see?  it's drilling a hole in a ball!!

the woodwork on this one was awful purdy.


for this one, you shot into one of 3 holes and your ball went into an area where it got sliced (literally) by a power saw.

see?  that's a yellow ball on the far left!  gettin sliced!


and then there was the shooting range.  3 people got to sit at a time and shoot golf balls at items hanging in a cage.  it was loud and everyone who did it was super excited.  i took pictures.


you could mess with people on this one.  there were only two holes, one on each and and you could push a button to close one hole or the other.

yay!  another good year of  smashputt!  see you next years!!

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

AP bowling party!!

the AP department totally exceeded their pcard spend goal for the year 2011, so we got a bowling party!!!  even though i've transferred to a different department, i was there for all of 2011 and contributed to the pcard spend so i got to go to go!!!

it was super fun and held at the garage on crapitol hill. 


i've been to the garage before, but only to play pool so this was nice to see the bowling part of the place.  they opened an hour early for us and we rented out the downstairs bowling:
dawn, nicole, rebecca and i bowled on a lane and we had super good bowling names: superfabulous, innerdelish, peaches and sassafrass respectively.

rebecca had a little problem with her bootie, but she bowled awesome in spite of it!

it was a neat little space with 6 bowling lanes:
i'm not too sure why snoop dogg was on the television or even why the tv was there, but whatevs...

nicole and i picked out fab balls!

and i conquered the computerized scorekeeper:

a good time was had by all!





jane was kept company by beer.

we ended up with really close scores at the end of the game, and peaches wasn't even there after the 3rd frame!  she had to go get the booty off!
i like that the initials of our bowling names was SIPS.  awesome.

then the wellsfargo peeps and windi had some words for everyone on how fantabulous we did for the year!


YAY!!  that was funs!  thanks windi :)

Sunday, January 29, 2012

♥ kai ♥

ivy brought kai in to work!  aaaaaaaagggggghhhhhh!  he's adorbs!  and three months old ☺
everyone took a turn holding him:









i was super excited to see ivy and meet kai.  i've really missed her the past 4 months.  i will be better about staying in touch with her!!!  
imissyouivyandiwasreallyreallyreallyhappytoseeyou!!!

Saturday, January 21, 2012

my mom's delicious marinated veggies!

a couple of months ago my friend sarah and i had lunch and a canned food trade and i gave her one of my jars of my marinated veggies i made from my moms delicious recipe.  yesterday she decided to dive into the jar and apparently loved it and wanted the recipe.  
so here it is!!

my mom's delicious marinated veggies
the marinade:
  • 1 1/2 cup red wine vinegar
  • 1 cup oil (i used safflower)
  • 3/4 cup sugar
  • 2 teaspoons salt
  • 1/8 teaspoon pepper
  • 1 tablespoon oregano
  • 1/2 tablespoon garlic salt
the veggies:
corn, tomato, cucumber, red and green peppers, olives, onion, broccoli, carrot, really whatever veggies you want.

so basically, i just used as many veggies as i wanted and made enough of the marinade to cover the veggies.  you chop all the veggies up as small (or large) as you want and put into a container, cover with the marinade and refrigerate for one week.

after the week is up, take them out of the fridge and can them using a simple canning type.  i boil my jars for 15 minutes, the lids for 5, fill them with the food, put the lids on and boil for 10 minutes.  done.  so simple.  



here is the book i use for my canning, it's super simple to read and follow the instructions: small batch preserving.  i think it's a great book and there are fantastic recipes in there.  like the recipe for raspberry grapefruit honey jelly that i make except i use blackberries instead of raspberries.  there's also pickled ginger in there.  i really need to make that.  i loooooooove pickled ginger. mmmmmmm.......


Thursday, January 19, 2012

state of emergency!

the weather is so shit here in seattle that the governor has declared a state of emergency.  tons of snow, ice and downed power lines are creating havoc.  in normal places that get snow this would be no big deal, but here in seattle...CHAOS!
since it was just snowing yesterday and the buses were running,  i decided (foolishly) to go on in to work.  it took me 2 hours to get there and 3 to get home.  and i only stayed for 4 hours.  needless to say, i did not go in to work today.  instead i'm staying home with maya (so far this week she's spent a record breaking 2 hours in school and today is thursday) and the cats and the dog.  alistair had to work a thursday, which never happens.  but we live so close to his work that he just walked.
maya and i just went over to the store and took some shots on the way.

here's the view from the porch

and the porch itself!


the street in front of our house: 35th ave NE, a heavily used and major street in our neighborhood:

the neighbors across the street made some snowmen!!


safeway is up and running and has plowed their parking lot :)

the front yard:

my little tacky quail is all buried!

and the gnome water sprinkler looks pissed at all the snow.

all in all, i feel like i'm back in idaho.  except you can't get to work.  i was telling maya how in places where winter actually happens, this is no big deal.  SNOW DAY?  who ever had a snow day?
ok...i'm gonna go make some cookies now and kick it in front of the tv!
wooooooo!

Sunday, January 15, 2012

snow in seattle...

the annual once a year snow has finally showed up here in seattle.  and by tomorrow morning i expect the city to be in full panic mode.  this place is hilarious when it comes to snow.  totally not prepared, ever.  and the problem is all the damn hills.  since there is really only snow once a year, the city has almost no snow plows and will never buy them.  so therefore, complete pandemonioum reigns whenever it snows.
it snowed a little bit yesterday and then today it started snowing at about 8 am and didn't stop until about 1.  i walked on down to the library and got 1/2 block before the first ridiculous bus problem of the year was seen:
the bus is totally stuck on this little incline.  it completely ridiculous.  and turning the corner on the right there is the large metro semi out to pull the bus out of the street.  there is hardly any snow on the streets, it's not even icy yet and the bus is stuck.  hilarious!  this city kills me.

but the snow is really pretty and nice to see!
 a random side street where i'm sure an accident will happen. because people have no idea how to drive in snow and drive like complete jackasses.  kind of like how they drive in the rain.  like they have never seen it before.

our driveway is nice though!

and so is the yard:
q says hi.

Sunday, January 8, 2012

3DS!!!

for christmas alistair got me a 3DS!  i'm super excited about it.  i really wanted it because the new version of animal crossing is coming out only on the 3DS.  and you all know what an animal crossing lover i am!!  i love that they put bunnie in the trailer, she's my favorite animal.  i really really hope she shows up in my new town!
anyhoo...joseph is the one who first told me about the 3ds (i'm not really into video games and was clueless) and animal crossing so i'm thanking him all around.  i'm super excited for may and the new animal crossing.
but the 3ds is great!  it has a camera, internet (yay, netflix!!) and the 3d is really awesome on it.  the new version of mario kart, mario kart 7, came out on the 3ds, so i went and got that the day after christmas and am racing away.
but i'll be carrying it around with me a lot and i didn't want to get one of the ugly cases for it...so being me, i made my own.  mom gave me some fabric for christmas that is SUPER cute and i thought it would make a great little bag.

here is the fabric.  adorable and textured!

some of the pieces all cut out (i'm padding it with quilt batting):
and super cute white and yellow lace that i've been dying to use but didn't know what the hell to use it on.

here it is!

 i decided to use velcro instead of buttons or snaps because i thought it would be easier to get in and out of and not snag on anything in my big bag.  all we had was black velcro...i would rather have had white, but i wasn't about to drive to ballard for white velcro.  why, oh, why isn't there a craft store in NE seattle?  someone please answer this question!

i made a little pocket on the outside back to carry the games in.  they're really small and fit great in the pocket!

and here it is...my new 3ds (thanks alistair!!!!!!) with the hello kitty earpods i got for it!
since we don't have access to netflix in the bedroom and i really really like to lay in bed and watch tv, i can now watch netflix on the 3ds and not drive alistair crazy, hence the hello kitty earbuds.  i think these hello kitty earbuds would have been AWESOME, but i just didn't have 75 bucks to spend on them!