Today marks the seventh year Jon and I have been a couple. He asked me to be his girlfriend on Christmas Eve in 2000. We were seventeen-year-old Seniors in High School.
We always spent Christmas Eve with my Dad when we were growing up. So Jon came over to my Dad's house and asked me to come outside with him. (It was a sunny So-Cal Christmas Eve). So I did and he gave me a pink teddy bear (my favorite color and favorite stuffed animal) and a one pound bag of Skittles (my favorite candy) and he asked me to be his girlfriend. We had been "dating" for a little over a month, but he wanted to make it official. How cute :) I ate the Skittles that day, but I still have the teddy bear... in storage, somewhere. And if you recall from his toast at our wedding, I went inside the house and said "Dad guess what?!" And he said, "Hm, Jon is your boyfriend now." Kind of ruined the excitement there! Oh well.
So I was watching TV last night, well technically this morning, it was just after midnight. Jon came over and laid down next to me and said, "Happy Anniversary of dating" and he kissed me and then he said, "I have been in love with you for more than seven years". How sweet!!! I cried of course.
What is your daily commute like? What is the weirdest thing you've seen on that commute?
Submitted by E.
I get to the bus stop around 6:15, get on the bus and immediately fall asleep. The bus is very warm and my coat has a big hood that covers my face. I don't open my eyes until about 45 minutes to an hour later when we arrive in Downtown Seattle. The most interesting thing I see is this fancy dress shop one block before my stop. It always has really pretty formal gowns and wedding gowns in the window. If I was very wealthy and getting married I would go there for my wedding and bridesmaids dresses. After I get off the bus I walk about 5 blocks to work and get there usually by 7:30 unless I don't feel like getting there that early, then I walk around town for an extra half hour.
It snowed for reals today!!! It was sooo pretty. We went outside and caught snowflakes on our tongues. I have played in the snow before but I have never seen it fall from the sky. It was very pretty and magical. I loved it!
It slushed today on the way home from work. It wasn't quite snow, but it was still really pretty :) Everything was covered in white, it was just soooo beautiful!! I can't wait for the temperature to drop some more so we get actual snow. Apparently it snowed so much last year that streets and schools were closed for three days. I do want to be able to still go to work, but I would like some snow.
I really feel wintery and Christmasy this year because of the weather. I love it! :)
When do you start your holiday shopping?
I do all my Christmas shopping online. I have already started my list, it is almost finished.
I got to work really early this morning so I went over to Macy's to pass the time. It wasn't as busy as I thought it would be and they didn't actually have any really good sales. So I just looked around until it was time for work.
I get home sick pretty easily. It used to be that whenever Jon and I would come up to Washington to visit I was ready to go home by like the third day. Well, we have only lived in Wa for a little less than eight months and it already feels like home. We went down to Ca last weekend and I loved seeing my friends and family and I miss them dearly, but I was homesick by Sunday night. I mostly get homesick for the familiar, like my own bed and my regular routine and all that. But this time it was just different. I love the weather in Wa and am used to it already, I got really congested and yucky feeling in Ca. So, as much as I do miss the people in Ca, Wa just feels right. I'm glad to be home, but I am already planning my next trip down to Ca to see everyone again,
I am sad that I wont be able to go down there for Thanksgiving or Christmas. Maybe Easter?
This website is cute. It has a bunch of little flash games and videos. The site is sometimes slow but it is addicting. My sister-in-law Emily showed me this site two days ago and I have already wasted quite a few hours here. It is not for boys, especially the ones that I am friends with (techy people) because it is pretty and girly and silly, not gamer-ish. I think you all should still go check it out though. :)
Thats what we went on this weekend. By we I mean: Paul, Nancy, Justin, Emily, Ethan, Jon and me! It was so much fun. There was so much to do on the ship we didn't ever have to get off if we didn't want to. We went from Seattle to Victoria, BC to Nanaimo, BC. We went to the Butchart Gardens and a Butterfly farm in Victoria and then in Nanaimo we didn't get off the ship because there wasn't much to do on shore. This was my first cruise, and given the chance I would definitely go on another.
I also think that cruises are a good alternative vacation for people who don't like to fly or like to take easy easy vacations. Being on the ship is like being in a hotel. For the most part you forget you are even at sea. I think I felt the ship move twice while I was inside.
So, I had a good time. I'm sad to go back to work tomorrow.
So on Sunday (our second day in New York) we slept in until like 11:00 so we didn't really do anything until it was time to go see "Wicked" we were going to the matinée which started at 3:00pm. We took our time waking up and getting ready and then we just kinda walked around the city until it was time for our play. It was awesome!! :) After the play we went over to Little Italy where they were having the festival of San Gennero, we ate dinner in a little restaurant there and then walked around the festival for bit. When we left there we went to Rockefeller Plaza and went to the "Top of the Rock" observation deck. It was gorgeous! It was like 10:30 or so by the time we got there so it was dark outside and all the city lights were on. We left the Rock at like 11:30ish but we weren't quite ready to go back to the hotel so we walked down to Times Square again. There were these people handing out $5 tickets to a comedy club right off Broadway. So we went! It is called Ha! Comedy Club. There were six local comedians, it was a little tiny comedy club that was in a basement. There were only about 15 people in the audience and we were in the front row. All the comedians picked on the audience, but not in a way that made them seem like jerks. It was really really funny. We went back to the hotel around 2:00am and fell asleep almost immediately.
On Monday we woke up at like 9:00am so that we could actually do more stuff that day. We went to the Empire State Building first thing in the morning, it was good we did that because by the time we left the wait to get in was close to an hour, when we got there the wait was like ten minutes. The view from there was awesome too. After that we went over to the Staten Island Ferry. We took the ferry over to Staten Island and then got right back on and took it back. We wanted to see the Statue of Liberty but all we'd heard about it was that the lines and security are just absolutely ridiculous. My dad told me that the Staten Island Ferry goes right by it, so thats what we did instead. It did go pretty close and the ferry is free! So it was well worth it. After that we went to Central Park and walked around for a while. Central Park is huge and beautiful :) We sat and listened to a little jazz band play, they were really good. Then we walked over to Serendipity 3. It is a little restaurant near Central Park that is famous for their ice cream. The restaurant is in "One Fine Day" and "Serendipity" I'm sure its also in other New York movies, too. I had the Outrageous Banana Split, cowards portion and Jon had a coffee ice cream with butterscotch syrup. They were big ice creams that we didn't come close to finishing. So after we were so full we felt like big pigs we got back on the subway and went back to the hotel to get ready for the evening. We saw "Phantom of the Opera" at 8:00. We sat in the front row!!!! We could lean forward in our seats and look at the whole orchestra. We were so close that when they lit fire on the stage our faces got hot! It was awesome. I would definitely go see it again if I had the chance. After the play were pretty tired and we were getting up early the next day so went back to the hotel right after the play.
Monday was our last day there. We checked out of our hotel at 8:00am so we could get to the Met right when it opened. We spent the rest of the day until it was time to go the airport at the The Met. I was super tired. I kept sitting down on benches and almost falling asleep. I did like all that I saw though. The Asian wing was awesome. I'm not a huge fan of Rembrandt but they had an "age of Rembrandt" area so we walked through all that. Jon like that kind of art so we spent a lot of time in there. We walked through the American wing but didn't spend much time there because it was pretty much all furniture from a long time ago. Some of it was absolutely beautiful but there were definitely more interesting things to see. The last wing we went through was the Arms and Armory wing. That was pretty cool! Jon was like a kid in a candy shop in that section!!! We managed to see quite a bit of the museum while we were there but you could definitely spend a whole day in there.
We had the hotel call for a car to pick us up because we thought a taxi would be pretty expensive and we didn't want to get on the subway with our luggage. So we got back to the hotel to get our stuff and wait for the car. This limo pulls up and we just kind of look at each other like "yeah right" but then drive comes up to us!! So we took a limo to the airport! It probably would've been more fun if weren't so tired, we both slept most of the way to the airport.
So that was our trip. We didn't get to do everything we wanted, but we still had soo much fun. I would love to go back for a longer trip some day.
Saturday, September 15th was Jon's and my one year wedding anniversary! We went to New York for four days to celebrate.
On Saturday morning we got up at 3:30 am to head to the airport for our 5:00am flight. (Jon stayed up all night, I stayed up until like 1 or 2) We got to New York at 4:45pm. We checked into our hotel, Club Quartes, it was a nice hotel. Then went to walk around the city because we didn't have anything else planned for that night. There was a street fair kinda thing going on down the street on 7th. We walked through that and looked all the things for sale (I love NY t-shirts, imposter designer bags and sunglasses, all kinds of stuff) we walked most of the length of that and then made our way over to Broadway where we walked down to Times Square. It was soooo crazy. People and cabs and buses just going wherever and whenever they wanted. I don't know why they have traffic signals and stop signs in New York, there's not much of a point. We saw the American Cowgirl, (she isn't completely naked, she is wearing pasties to cover her nipples) there is also an American Cowboy, he wears boots, a hat and boxers. They have all these "Hop on - Hop Off" tours you can do so we got on one of those only to find out that at night time they are not Hop on - Hop off but that you have to stay for the full two hours. So we did, it was pretty fun. Our tour guide was an interesting lady who didn't tell us much worth while information. I think the tour actually lasted for like three hours because there was the Festival of San Generro going on in Little Italy so there was a TON of traffic. After the tour we went and ate at Hard Rock Cafe. It was pretty cool. We walked around a bit more after that and went back to the hotel I think around midnight.
So that was our first day in New York, I will post more later. You can look at all our pictures on Jon's Flickr.
