G is for Glass

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I is for Impatient Winos Eat Grapes.

Working together for a year created one of the closest friendships I have ever known. We get into trouble together, grow into adults together, support each other, and LAUGH. All the time.

My little love, Laurel and I enjoy spending our time dishing out one-liners, inappropriate jokes, and reciting Mitch Hedberg quotes, verbatim. But when I moved to Washington, we had to change all of our friendship activities into textual conversations and Skype chats.

As an engagement present to themselves, Matt and Laurel came to visit us! (OK so maybe it was to see their family who just so happened to live in Washington, but whatev to that!) (And it takes too long to call you Laurel and Matt, so I'm getting a head start: you are now and forever The Stacys. Better start accepting it now.)

 Sometimes when you haven't seen a friend in a while, it might be weird to get back in the swing of things, and other times you pick up where you left off :) That's how you know you've got a keeper! Here's some photographic deets on our time together...

Days filled with food, drink, ocean, and shooting virtual animals trying to kill you. HELLOOO, what else is there to do in life?

Laurel and I smashed the scores of our husband and future husband. Apparently, military men and cops do not use Cabela's Big Game Hunter to practice gun skills.

 
Welcome to our backyard you little engaged love beasts!

They brought the Oklahoma sun with them! One of the hottest days of the year while they visited. (90 is HOT AS HELL for Tacoma)

 
Stacy Family beginnings. All you need is Jadepup and some fancier clothes and that's a straight up wedding photo no?

The Underground Tour in Seattle is a great, and humorous history lesson about the city. I was glad to go on the tour for the third time, because they were there! Oh ya Andrew too :)

 
Vonn's in Downtown Seattle. A favorite spot for people who like to get drunk for $3. The place is famous for their house martinis...but the girls got the $10 drinks instead of drinking diesel fuel.

 
I asked her to show off her ring and this is what she came up with....

We look ridiculous. Too busy to slow down and smile normally.

Andrew and I had a magnificent time with the Stacys, however my excitement only increases with each passing day since we will be reunited in Kansas SO SOON. To wrap it up, here are some closing words/explanations on Laurel and Kelsey's Greatest Hits.

1) Have you ever heard of Mitch Hedberg? If not, get on our level. He is the silver lining to cloudy days, the umbrella to our tropical drink, the duck to our Subway sandwich. Want some of our favorite jokes? Here. *Warning: It's best to hear Mitch, because his comedic timing is...just perfectly awesome. Too bad he died.

I was gonna get a candy bar; the button I was supposed to push was "HH", so I went to the side, I found the "H" button, I pushed it twice. Fuckin'...potato chips came out, man, because they had an "HH" button for Christ's sake! You need to let me know. I'm not familiar with the concept of "HH". I did not learn my AA-BB-CC's. God god. Dammit dammit.

 

I met a girl who works at the Double Tree front desk, she gave me her phone number. It's zero. I tried to call her from here and some other woman answered. I said: "You sound older!"

 

My hotel doesn't have a 13th Floor because of superstition, but c'mon man...people on the 14th Floor, you know what floor you're really on. "What room are you in?" "14.01". "No, you're not. Jump out of window, you'll die earlier!".

 

Imagine being killed by a bow and arrow. That would suck, an arrow killed you? They would never solve the crime. "Look at that dead guy. Let's go that way."

 

I mostly included that because I know Laurel is sitting at her computer reading those out loud in her best M.H. voice. I even included italics and bolds and underliners so you, too, can put the emPHAsis, on the right syllABle.

 

2) I have loved James Taylor since the day I was born. I remember watching him on Sesame Street. One day while reminiscing about the days of yore we YouTubed one of his old school performances, and could not stop laughing.  JAMES WHY ARE YOU SHUSHING THE CHILDREN?

 

3) THIS little monkey made such an impact on the Stacys while they were here, that they wanted their very own! I didn't know Rainy had so much power over others. Must be the hypnotizing eyeballs. Oh yea, and the new cat's middle name is JellyManKelly. Win. 

 

 

Until next time.....yakka yakka yakka

 

Cheers,

 

KB

B is for Big City Times for a Small Town Dude

Andrew and I had the pleasure of showing our 2nd guest ever around Seattle. His parents visited during the summer and then, in cold, dreary January, my dad came to see us! Having guests always gives you the opportunity to do the "touristy" things that you don't normally think of doing after you become accustomed to living here. Here is a pictureful post to show everyone what fun we had!

On one of the first days we walked all the way from the stadiums to Olympic Sculpture Park, which is a few blocks from the Space Needle. Round trip, its about 6 miles of walking, yee haw!

We took the infamous Seattle Underground Tour! Andrew and I had wanted to go, but he was at work. Luckily it was so fun, that I would love to go again. Andrew would love all the historic stories involved. The story basically is, that when Seattle was settled the first time around, they messed up, and ended up having to build new Seattle, on top of old, flooded, shitty (literally) Seattle. Pictured below are the skylights from the underground looking up to the current "1st floor" level Seattle.

Here's what the skylights look like from above. I always thought they were some artsy purple amethyst thing that Seattle just did because. Which is often the case. For art's sake of course. 

Old storefronts in underground Seattle. Super creepyish.



Underground Seattle's famed "sewing circle." The most lucrative business in Seattle's early days. I won't give it away but these seamstresses weren't exactly making quilts. Can you find anything odd about the picture below?



 We took an inexpensive ride on the ferry to Bainbridge Island. Walked around for the day, had a great lunch, and saw some great scenery. Here's the skyline as seen from the ferry. Gorgeous.

And a view of the Needle and Mt. Rainier from Bainbridge. Aren't the houses SO CUTE!? Right on the water. Those people are such luckies!

All smiles for father-daughter time, and an artsy sunset :)



We induldged in great sea food, and many trips to Starbucks during Dad's visit. Also, I had to work for a couple of days, so Andrew and Dad also had their man time to go see strippers and talk about sports, or whatever men do. Just kidding, they went to the Museum of Flight.....as far as I know. Ah shucks I missed it! Thanks for taking the time to visit Dad, it was a memorable time!

P is for Post Holidays

So here I am, back in the land of Subarus, seagulls, and evergreens. Being in Kansas for a few weeks was absolutely wonderful! I ventured back and forth between Topeka and Winfield a few times; north and south, up and down, doin' the holiday shuffle. My favorite memories of the trip involved simply being with my family whom I hadn't seen in a long time. KJ and I decorated the tree, we all ate a ton of food, laughed for hours, had lazy days, and coddled me and my screwed up sinuses (I am NOT good at being sick. It just makes me so mad! I have better things to do than feel crappy.)
I spent a lot of time with Andrew's nieces and nephews. All 4 of them. Under the age of 4, God bless em. Here is the newest addition, sweet little Natalie, in her lamb coat!

I feel like it takes a special kind of person to appreciate scenery like Kansas'. The Flint Hills is one of my favorite drives ever. You can see for miles, and the blue sky sits right on top of the hills. No buildings, no trees. Nothing to separate the best friends of land and sky :) Much different than the Washington scenery, that's for sure.

Much of my time home was spent watching Andrew fly his.....wait....fix. his new remote control airplane. We watched it slam into a telephone pole, get snapped nearly in half, fly into a tree a block away, and it's still alive!! The thing did start to grow on me after I got a lesson from the pilot himself. We'll see how long those feelings last. In the meantime, I'm getting my shotgun warmed up for sporting clay lessons, so I hope we don't try to "practice" our respective interests at the same time ;)

We took a horse and buggy ride with two GIANT Clydesdales in Winfield. Just a short, chilly ride around their famed "Isle of Lights" display.

Got to have coffee with one of the best friends ever from my college days. It was so great to see Ashley and get caught up in person. Since moving, first to Oklahoma, and now to Washington, I have found that true friends are hard to come by. Distance makes things inconvenient to many people, which is a shame when you think you are close friends with somebody. Luckily, I have a select few girl friends who have been supportive, and not let mileage get in the way. They know who they are and I couldn't be more grateful for them!

And finally, New Years! We have a great tradition of going somewhere new each year with a couple, Eric and Kelli. This year, we traveled alllll the way to Wichita for a nice dinner, and dancing! If only we had gotten a good picture....funny Andrew. Real funny.

That's all I've got for now. I hope your holidays were all you wished for! Can't wait till next time when I can fill you all in on some aquarium happenings. Until then....

Cheers,

KLM

T is for Tea?

ANDREW IS BACKKKK! He surprised me at work last Thursday with flowers and everything :) After a relaxing dinner and day of shopping we began our journey into Ooooo Canadaaaaa. The trip began with a drive downtown, and a ferry ride to Bainbridge Island, which is across the Sound. So here we are, in a car, on a boat, in the bay, goin to Bainbridge!

We then drove about an hour and a half northerly to Port Angeles, where we caught our 2nd ferry, sans car, and arrived in Victoria.

If you're not familiar with Puget Sound geography,  here's a general idea of our path. The drive was just gorgeous, as I have found with most things in this part of Washington, and it was nice to enjoy simple things like being in the car with Andrew.



After a full day of traveling, we finally arrived in beautiful Victoria! And then Andrew told me a surprise he had been keeping from me, and pointed out where we were staying! The Fairmont Empress......

Which was right across the street from their Parliament building.....

Amazing right? Our hotel room had it's own little fireplace and the staff were willing to do anything to make your stay a nice one. As you can see, the outside of the building was covered with ivy, and apparently, it too, changes color in the fall. Obsessed. I was obsessed with it. So.BEAUTIFUL! Here are just a couple of the many, many, pictures I took, solely of the ivy.

Obsessed I tell you. I loved staying at The Fairmont, not just for the ivy, or the service, but the atmosphere! Don't you always wonder what it would be like to live in a castle? Well, I do. And I figure this is about as close as I'll get. Though I don't know what I would do with alllllll of those rooms, while walking down the long, curvy hallways it was fun to think about. Until Andrew brought up The Shining and made me nervous to turn corners in fear that there would be two girls on tricycles at the end of the next corridor. Nice Andrew. Real nice.

Besides exploring the hotel, with it's own restaurants and shops inside the place, we mostly just walked around the town. The hotel was within walking distance of the ferry dock, and tons of shopping and great eating opportunities! We got takeout one night and sat in our room to watch American football, found a brewery (Sorry Canada, your beer sucks)....

Ate some salmon nachos, and waffles. Fancy waffles are quite popular there....

Found a Christmas store with an anal retentive owner who allowed no photos and minimal handling in his 6,000 square feet of PURE CHRISTMAS. (Yea I took one anyways HA!)

and finally, on our last day there, our favorite part of the trip, we had afternoon tea :)

We dressed up nicely, and had the opportunity to head to The Fairmont's very own, Tea Room. The tradition has been around for over a century and it was an amazing experience to be apart of. This link tells you a little more about the "quintessential Victorian experience," and what is involved in afternoon tea. Even though the tea was caffeinated, both Andrew and I found it to be super relaxing and felt like we could have sat there all day chatting and calling each other things like "dahling" and "my sweet." As a gift, we received some tea of our own, and I'll have to say, I look forward to drinking it again. Andrew now wants his own tea set.

Of course we, nay, one of us can never take a serious picture, so I had to opt for one on my own as we left town. Until next time Victoria!

Cheers,

KLM

P.S.