Steak and Friends

Awhile ago, maybe two weeks?, we celebrated our very good friend Angela's birthday.

We also celebrated steak.

Drool.

She got to pick the restaurant - and we ended up at Charley's Steakhouse. I don't know who Charley was, but which I would have known him sooner.

The boys:

The girls:

I have never been to a real steakhouse - that is, a restaurant whose main and only dinner was meat. Steak and Fish. M.E.A.T. (I guess fish isn't technically 'meat', but we all got steak so...) And though the prices were pretty scary (yikes), we made an event out of it and celebrated in style.

Including my buddy here:

Ms. Appletini

The food was good. So so good.

As was the company.

Angela and Brad



Del with drinks!



Darin with meat!

Before you ordered your meal, they brought around a meat tray so you could see each piece they sold. Wow!

And I just HAD to take pictures of my steak. I got a sirloin. He was a happy piece of meat.

Before.

After.

I have no shame that I ate it all. It was good.

Will go back again when the time's right. Definitely recommend Charley's for big celebrations and such. Eat more steak. (But not too much because of the cholesterol and all.)

Finishing the Holidays: Seattle Part Three

Sorry it took me forever to get to this post. Been busy (reading, really. I was obsessed there for awhile.) I decided I should probably get this one done before all of the others!

Getting on with it...

One of the main things Darin wanted to do on this vacation was to go snowboarding. He loved all of his previous adventures, and it was one of his favorite things to do.

So snowboarding we went. All of us (excluding Mother and Cricket). yep. Dad went!

We were a little worried about the state of the roads/weather, but decided it was definitely worth it IF we put the snow chains on the tires. (And it made Darin and I feel so much better!)

We went to Mt. Baker. It was fun. Scary. But fun.

Beautiful Mountain

Dru, Dad, and I decided to take lessons because we had never really snowboarded before. That was an experience.

Here, pictures really do speak more than words... enjoy!

Del, action shot

Dad, action shot



Dru and Darin



Del



Darin
(How great was this picture!?)

After the lesson, Dad and I had chili and Dru and Darin went on the Beginner slope. I was scared. Maybe next time!

Rock On!

Darin just went everywhere on the mountain. I think he made it to all of the runs. He was a happy guy.

Went home and had a GREAT dinner.

***

Next morning, we had to take Dru to Seattle for work. Boo on Mondays. We also decided to "do" the city because Darin hadn't really explored before.

But there was this crazy wind storm. Yikes.

Did the normal routine - Pike Place Market.

Mom and Dad



Darin and Del

Darin and Fish. Sigh.

It was fun as always. I can't wait until we visit in the summer and they hand out strawberries and raspberries. After grabbing some of Seattle's best chowder, we drove up to Queen Anne to check out the incredible view.

Seattle View. Notice, no Mt. Rainier

After that, we went to a bar to watch a BOWL game - The Alamo Bowl, Missouri vs Northwestern.

Go M.I.Z.Z.O.U!

And they WON - in overtime. What a way to end the visit!

Can you say 26.2 miles?

Oh DJ.

What will you do next?

On Sunday (1/11/09) my soon-to-be sister-in-law ran the Disney Marathon.

And she did great!

Kevin (her husband and Darin's brother), Darin, and I decided it would be fun to volunteer and watch her race! Good idea us. (kind of said sarcastically)

Good Morning.
Notice it's dark outside.

Chipper Kevin and Darin

Didn't see DJ until she ran by us, but Kevin, Darin, and I were at Disney at 5:30 am. A.M. Yikes. It was very early and dark, and there were nice other volunteers there.

Ended up being crazy.

Good crazy though.

First, there were 22000 people running this race. And we were at mile 22 to give them water. All of them - though only like 15000 actually made it that far.

Here were the tables lined up. Just the water - not the powerade.

This was what I did. For 2.5 hours straight.



This was what Darin and Kevin did.
The male runners seemed to really like Darin's long arms.
Wink wink, nudge nudge.

Side note: We decided to do Mile 22 because we're evil and wanted to see if people would puke. They didn't. It was sad. (Or at least we didn't see anyone puke.) Next year?

Filled up so many things of water. Wow. The people were non-stop for over 2 hours.

Can you see the people coming? Yikes.

And then when people were finally finished (they put a cap on the race, 7 hours I think) we had to clean up all of said cups. Because the runners didn't bring them with and didn't throw them away. Obviously. (Most people were out of it by the time they came by.)

It's almost over. Yeah!

Montage of cups.

But we saw DJ and got to cheer her on.

DJ! She was by us for like .0002 seconds.

We met some nice people and got a free ticket to a Disney Park for volunteering.

All before 11 am.

Bowling and Air Hockey. Can we say 122?

Saturday day, my friends Josh and Janice invited us (Darin and I) out for some celebratory bowling - our engagement bowling party, per say.

Other friends came along: Meghan, Suzanne and Rick, and Janice and Tony.

Rick and Suzanne



Janice and Josh



Darin and Del

For some reason I didn't get a picture of Janice and Tony - I did get a movie of Janice bowling, but she'd kill me if I put it online... Meghan had her eyes closed in a group picture. Don't worry though, next time.

(I love that I have two friends named Janice. I just think it's so cute. They get confused because it's not a common enough name, but not super strange like mine. Ahh, enjoyment.)

Anyways, we met at this place called Firkin and Keggler. It's like a Dave and Busters, but with a different name. And it's always packed. Crazy. I guess people bring their kids there for bowling and then they drink beer? Confusing. I always thought it was just a Chucky Cheese for adults.

And we bowled.

Oh, did we bowl.

I looked kickass in my shirt because of the black lights.
Go white stripes...

Now in case some of you don't know this, Darin was a freckishly good bowler. He has his own ball and shoes (which he stole from his father) that were quite stylish thirty years ago. Amusing.

We all had a great time. (I feel like I say that a lot in my posts, but I really do mean it. We always have such a wonderful time going out and doing stuff. Sorry if it makes things boring...)

And I got a turkey.

Sorry it blurry. Can you see it?

Almost (but not quite) beating Tony.

Yeah!

Unfortunately, we had to leave early because we had an early day on Sunday (next post).

Fun times!

More Congratulations

Last week, we finally celebrated our very good friend Kucku's PhD gettin'.

That sounds, ahh, strange. But how do I say that she passed her dissertation and received her PhD in a more exciting way? I can't. It's just a lot of words...

But we are VERY proud of her. And happy that she accomplished this GREAT goal.

Go Kucku!

A group of us (the normal group, actually) got together and ate at Olympia, which we've been to time and time again.

Paul, Del, and Peter: laughin' at something...

Cathy and Anu

It was fun, and we got a free bottle of wine.

The group (L to R):
Paul, Cathy, Steve, Del, Anu, Kucku, Frank, Peter, and Darin

Side note:
I've known Kucku for over six years. Yes, six. She has been a wonderful friend to me and I know is a great friend to Darin as well. Wanted to compile a montage of the moments/memories we have shared. (She'll just love this.)

Congrats Kucku. May you get out of Florida soon.

Book List 2008

Wanted to somehow keep a record of the books I have read this year (or since I started this blog in July).

Sorry, not too exciting... must read more.

Reading Log:
Heat Lightening, John Sanford
Dead Until Dark, Charlaine Harris
Daughter of York, Anne Easter Smith
Eat Pray Love, Liz Gilbert (reread)
The City of Ember, Jeanne DuPrau
Phantom Prey, John Sanford
Certain Girls, Jennifer Weiner
Chasing Harry Winston, Lauren Weisberger
Breaking Dawn, Stephanie Meyer
Eclipse, Stephanie Meyer
New Moon, Stephanie Meyer
Twilight, Stephanie Meyer
Daisy Fay and the Miricle Man, Fannie Flagg

Listening Log
Devil Bones, Kathy Reichs
The Exile, Allan Folsom
The Betrayed, David Hosp
Machiavellian Covenant, Allan Folsom
A Good Year, Peter Mayle
The Black Dahila, James Ellroy

Vacation In Winterland: Seattle Part Two

Back to our Christmas trip.

Thursday we woke up opened presents, ate breakfast (that I made - quiche!), and then hopped into the car for another trip to Washington Park.

All seven of us. Plus Cricket. In one Sonata.

Good times.

Queen of the Mountain!

It was so beautiful outside - twilight-esque because of the dark snow and clouds, yet with a little sunshine peaking through. We just walked around looking for eagles and seals. Saw a seal in the water - Darin initially thought it was Cricket! Picked up rocks that were pretty, looked for slugs at no avail.

Went back home and ate Christmas dinner of white lasagna and played dominoes.

How was that not a great Christmas day!?

***

Matt and Glenda had to leave the next morning for work (boo), so we all got up and went shopping. Even Darin! We all kind of went crazy with the shopping.

I got a cute new pink Coach purse. Darin got two pairs of shoes. Dad went to pick up Dru's tent from REI. Went to eat and then home for more games/tv watching. Might have made Darin watch Mama Mia.

***

Saturday, got up early and went to Friday Harbor! It's a little harbor town in the San Juan Islands and you take a ferry boat to and from it. (Can you imagine having to take a ferry to get to your home? Crazy!) Dru decided to sleep in that day and play with Cricket, so it was just Mom, Dad, Darin, and I. Went to the ferry terminal (which you can see from my folks deck) and proceeded to ride the ferry. (Sigh)

The San Juan Islands



It was uber windy.



We're there?!



First restaurant (they were out of chowder)...



Second try.
Numm. Blackberry lemon drop and draft beer!

Friday Harbor was one of those towns that you can just bring a book, sit in a restaurant, and let the day slowly drift away. It's peaceful and simple. We just walked around and went into shops, then had a nice lunch (of chowder, no less). And I was attacked by a killer whale.

Help!

Coming back.

Though there was no sun, it was very windy, and quite foggy, it was still beautiful.

More to come. Up next, Dad tried to snowboard!