Giving Thanks for a Lovely Weekend

Thanksgiving '07 was a most excellent holiday weekend! Festivites started a little early with me making the PIES on Wednesday night. I am thrilled to report that the pie crusts did NOT sense my fear this year. They turned out wonderfully on the first try!

I think this year's success is due in part to several things - using the food processor, chilling the ingredients, chilling the dough before rolling and chilling again before pre-baking. Sadly, the pies themselves only had a 50% success rate. I made butterscotch (mmmm...my fav!) which turned out perfectly. But the homemade pumpkin suffered a much worse fate. This was my first attempt at pumpkin and despite following the directions, I pulled the pie out of the oven before it was actually cooked thru. It LOOKED done on the top, but the middle/bottom was soup...as poor B discovered on Thursday.

Speaking of Thursday, we finished cooking up our sides (zuccini pumpkin muffin stuffin' & honey mashed sweet potatoes with marshmallows) to go with our ham. I got to experience making my own poultry seasoning (stuff we had contained nutmeg and sadly nutmeg=evil for me) and used our mortar and pestle to grind up the various spices. It was quite fun!

Anywho, we feasted with delight and ate to our hearts' content. Mmmm!!!

The rest of the night was spent reading our Stephen King books (Dark Tower series), listening to the classical station and playing some games (Yahtzee!, Rack-o and Skip-bo). All in all, an absolutely lovely day!

Friday was pretty low-key. I finally got inspired to clean out the pantry (WAY overdue - rice from 2002 anyone?) and more importantly we carried through with our tradition of cutting down our own Chirstmas tree. We found a great tree that is perfect for our home. I can't wait to decorate it! Will post some pics once the decorations are up. We also squeezed in a little bit of shopping - but avoided much of the Black Friday madness. Whew!

Saturday afternoon we drove up to Bellingham to meet Rob and Anastasia and stay over at the Chrysalis Hotel and Spa. LOVE that place! (Plus they offer a MS discount fellow 'Softies!) This is the same place B surprised me with for my bday this past year. I "treated" myself to a facial, which was, um, an experience. I didn't quite know what to expect and WOW was there some discomfort during the extraction process. My initial thought was "if I never have another facial it'll be too soon," but Anastasia tried her best to convince me that the first is the worst, and it gets better the next time. We'll see if I can screw up the courage to do one again in a few months.

Anywho, here's a few pics of the view of the bay from our room. And as you can see, the train runs right by the waterfront!

I thoroughly enjoyed spending a few hours hanging out on the window seat reading my book and just relaxing. And did I mention the soaker tub in the bathroom? Sheer happiness!

So that pretty much wraps up T-Giving 2007. A wonderfully relaxing weekend that I totally enjoyed every minute of. Things are gonna be a lot different next year, but I am looking forward to that too!!

Finally Finished!

I can't believe it took me a year to finally complete the frigging thing, but I have FINALLY completed the scarf I started knitting a year ago! That's not to say I haven't completed other projects tho! I made fast work of making my very own Jayne hat as seen in the picture below.

The scarf? Well, I had to start it over a couple of times, and then the yarn was so thin and the needles small enough that it just took forever to actually complete. But I am SO happy to finally say that it is DONE, and now I can finally start wearing it!! Woo Hoo!

Major Milestone Achieved!

This week is a momentous week. B and I have conquered a goal that we set for ourselves 18 months ago!

That's right folks, we are officially credit card debt free!!!!! It's been a long while since the last time I said that, and this is definitely a first for us in our married life. When we set this goal back in April 2006 and got on our aggressive debt repayment plan, it seemed like the payoff date was forever and a day away. It's a little hard to believe that we have finally achieved that goal, but DAMN are we HAPPY!!!!

We’re Having a ....

Boy!!!! SQUEEEE!!!!!

Now we just need to figure out a name...but hey - we don't have to repaint the bedroom! Woo hoo!

Hello Sunshine!

Finally...last trip to report on! My sister Tara and her family moved down to Arizona a few months ago. She is the second of my sibs to head out of state - look at the trend I started! I remember how tough it was for us when we moved out here, so I thought it would be nice for both of us to spend some time together. Plus, it was my niece's (who is also my godchild) 13th birthday, and I thought it would be fun to get to celebrate with her!

I got in late Saturday afternoon, so we just spent a quiet evening in catching up and chillin' around the dinner table. On Sunday, we drove up north a little ways to visit to monuments - Montezuma's Well and Toozigut. Both of these were the living places of the ancient Sinagua Indians. The weather was absolutely gorgeous and helped to make spending time outside all the more enjoyable. Here are a couple of pictures of the ruins:

My sister and me at Montezuma's Well

The pueblo at Toozigut

Monday was my niece, Christina's birthday so we girls pampered ourselves at the salon and got manicures and pedicures. Afterwards, we swung by the school my sister teaches at, and then we stopped at my beloved Swensen's on the way back to the house. Mmmm....ice cream!

Christina and me at Swensen's:

That evening Christina opened her presents and we enjoyed some delicious cake! Because everyone had to be up and out early the next morning (except me, my flight was in the afternoon), we said our goodbyes that evening and turned in.

Since I had the house to myself (along with the dogs!) on Tuesday before leaving for my flight, I kept myself busy by baking cookies and brownies so that the Beckers had nice treats to come home to. Reports indicate that the treats were a huge hit! Whee!

And now I can breathe a sigh of relief at being home and staying put until Christmas travel comes upon us. Don't get me wrong - the traveling and vacationing has great been fun! But still, it's always nice to be at home and in your own bed.

(ETA: Link to pictures of AZ trip.)

On the Road Again

After only 2 weeks at home, I was back on the road again. This was another work trip with just a crazy series of back to back flights that I will *never* do again. Way too much travel at one time! I flew into Chicago on Monday, 11.5. Tuesday I did a day trip to Detroit and back. Wednesday was the trip to and from Cleveland. Thursday I flew back to Seattle. Talk about being exhausted! The nice upside was I got to stay with my mom for a couple of nights, and my sister Cathy came over for dinner one night too. After not having been back home to Chicago once between Dec 06 and Sept 07, I ended up there THREE times over the course of 5 weeks. Crazy!!! But still it continues...for I was not done with traveling just yet!

Sweet Home Chicago

After our anniversary trip, we flew back to Chicago to share the baby news with family at long last. We'd been keeping it quiet for the requisite 3 months, plus the additional couple of weeks before our trip back home. We really wanted to share the news in person and it was well worth the wait!

To share the news, I made up these little cards that were birthday invitations. On the inside was a picture from the ultrasound and the "party details" included the due date as the party date, "Baby Duchek" as the person the party was for, and the location was the hospital. It was so much fun watching everyone react as they realized just what they were looking at! My cousin Amy's eyes just about bugged out of her head, and then we were jumping up and down while hugging like a couple of 14 years olds. My sisters were both shocked and excited all at once. And Brian's family is just thrilled. His dad immediately ran off and emailed all of his friends with the news. My mom is just plain relieved at no longer having to keep the secret!!

Here's a picture of the "reveal" to Brian's parents:

It was a whirlwind weekend of family and fun!!

Our 4th Anniversary/Vacation

October was a crazy busy month, mostly due to tons of travel! At the beginning of the month, work sent me to Chicago (yay!) for the week to meet up with my new team and do some team building. It was a fun week meeting new peeps, getting reaquainted with many of my favorite foods (Edwardo's, Mia Francesca's, etc.) and even squeezing in some family time.

A couple of days after my return to Seattle, B and I packed up for our vacation celebrating our 4th wedding anniversary. We found a smokin' deal for a 5 day/4 night cruise to Nanaimo and Victoria, British Columbia aboard a Celebrity cruise ship. We departed on Monday morning, and when we woke up Tuesday we were docked in Nanaimo. We booked an excursion to Port Alberni where we got to ride a steam powered train up to an old (but still functioning) saw mill. It was a little chilly and gray that day, but still a neat tour. My favorite part was the train ride (despite riding in an open air car! Brrr!! )

On Wednesday, we woke up in Victoria. We decided to forgo the expensive cruise ship excursion to the beautiful Butchart Gardens and instead found our own transportation (public transit) there. As a result, we met the coolest bus driver ever! When we planned out our route, I thought we'd be starting at a proper bus station and would be able to buy our tickets there. Since our route was a little complicated and involved a transfer with an hour in between buses, I wanted to buy an all day pass. No such luck as it turns out the route started at some random intersection right outside of town. Our bus driver was a real friendly and chatty fellow and after explaining our planned trip to him he said to go ahead and get on the bus, and he'd make sure we got to where we needed. Well, this guy was so cool that he ended up dropping us off about 1/4 mile from the Gardens (no transfer needed!) AND paid for our fare ROUNDTRIP!! How cool is that?!

The Gardens themselves were absolutely amazing. Highly recommended if you're ever in Victoria! Here are a few pictures to give you an idea:

The Sunken Garden

Japanese Garden

The day in Victoria was also the date of our actual anniversary, so we celebrated by going out to dinner at what was reported to be Victoria's "most romantic" restaurant. This brought us to the lovely Camille's Restaurant. All of the food served is purchased from local farmers and their menu can quite literally change daily based on what is available. Our meal was absolutely delicious, and it truly was an incredibly romantic little spot.

On Thursday we spent the day at sea which was a little rough going. The water was pretty choppy and made me feel pretty queasy. Sort of a revisit of the morning sickness I had for 2 weeks in August. We holed up in the library (most stable area of the ship) and read to our hearts' content. Friday morning brought us back to Seattle with just enough time to pack for our next trip - Chicago, here we come!
(ETA: Link to photos from Canadian trip.)

Home again

Yikes - it's been quite awhile since I've last blogged. Well dear reader, it's your lucky day cuz I'm catching up now!

The main reasons I haven't written much lately are:
1) I've been traveling like a madwoman both for work and for pleasure
2) Work has been sucking ass and keeping me far busier and more stressed out than I like
3) General laziness

So, instead of writing one long entry, I'm going to break it up into a handful of smaller, more digestable chunks. Read on and enjoy!