Quackin' up in Seattle!

On Saturday we went to downtown Seattle and rode the Duck. It was so much fun! Our driver was hilarious and we pretty much laughed for 90 minutes straight. I've seen these around Seattle all the time, but I'm glad that I actually got the chance to go on one!

Brent's cute mom getting ready for the tour to start

I love this cute face!!

Love love love! The couple behind us doesn't look so lovey, though.Brent's mom wanted a picture with the driver, Captain Quacktastic (that is really what he called himself).

I'm so glad Brent's parents came up to spend some time with us. We had so much fun and can't wait for them to come back!!

Deception Pass and Fort Casey

Brent's parents came to visit us this past weekend and on Friday we took them to Deception Pass and Fort Casey! We had so much fun taking them to some cool places in the area. Here are some pictures!

Deception Pass Bridge. This is the bridge that is on "The Ring". Creepy!

Shot of us on the bridge. We walked out about 10 feet and didn't want to go any farther.

View from the bridge.

View of the bridge from the beach

The beachFamily shot!Mace running full speed with Brent's momBrent and Macie at Fort CaseyI TOTALLY think this place looks like it should be haunted. It just looks creepy to me! And there were no lights inside the fort so sometimes you would walk into a room and not be able to see anything but black. SOOOO creepy!!!View of the beach from Fort CaseyAdmiralty Head Lighthouse right next to the fortMy two lovesBrent was brave enough to climb to the top of the lighthouse. Brent's mom and I got halfway up and then you had to climb a ladder up the rest of the way. I don't do ladders. Neither does she.

My name is Sam and I'm a nasal spray-aholic

Since we've been back in Washington my nose has been plugged up. It's gotten worse recently and poor Brent was so tired of hearing me sniff and snort and blow my nose that he was begging me to go to the doctor. I hate going to the doctor so I only go when something is REALLY bad. But yesterday I woke up and it took me at least 10 minutes to get my nose to where I could breathe through it. So I decided that it was probably time to go to the doc.

I got to the doctor and they asked me what was wrong. I told them that I believe I have allergies and it started when I moved back to Washington. The doctor asked me what I have been doing for the problem and I pulled out my trusty Vicks Sinex relief medicine. I've been using this stuff for several months and it clears my nose up like a charm.

Well, it turns out that you aren't supposed to use this stuff more than a couple days or else your body can get addicted and depend on it (whoops!). So the reason that I couldn't breathe through my nose and I felt all stuffed up wasn't because I'm allergic to anything, it was because I've been snorting this stuff for probably 100+ days longer than I should have been. So he ended up diagnosing me with rhinitis medicamentosa. He told me that people get this when they have been using nasal sprays for too long or if they are using cocaine. He looked at me when he said that and lucky for me I brought my Sinex with me and showed him that it was definitely the nasal spray. So he gave me a prescription for Flonase to help with the swelling and some Sudafed. I had also slipped down our stairs earlier in the day and bruised my tailbone and so he gave me a prescription for Tramadol, which is a nice pain reliever (I was actually pretty shocked that I could say something hurt and he just wrote me a prescription for it, but I'm not complaining because it sure helps!).

Anyway I went to Target to pick up my prescriptions and by the time I got home I was jonesing for a fix of my Sinex. I took the Flonase/Sudafed/Tramadol combo and when it didn't clear it up right away like my Sinex did, I got soooo mad. I seriously felt like such an addict!! Poor Brent had to listen to me complain for an hour until he left to go play basketball.

Anyway today has been better. My nose is still a little stuffy (what do you expect from months of overusing something, I guess...) but at least I can breathe through it on my own again. And the tramadol is pretty much awesome. The only side effect I have is that it makes me super chatty so if anyone needs someone to talk to, give me a call!

Macie Lou Who

We are lucky that Macie is fairly low maintainence when it comes to grooming. The only problem is that the fur on her paws and on her legs/butt/tail gets really long and I have to trim it. I guess I let it go too long because she started looking like a Who and we were calling her Macie Lou Who. Here are her before and after shots.

She HATES having her picture taken so in every picture that we get of her face, she looks like she is being tortured.

Who Paws!!

After shot of the pretty pup!
Nice and trimmed up feet, legs, butt and tail!

Highlights!

I got my haircut a couple months ago and my stylist said that she thought highlights would be cute. So when I went back this time to get a trim I also made an appointment to get some. The last time I had highlights was when I was 15/16 and anything from that time in my life makes me nervous to think about so I was a little apprehensive. But I really like how they turned out! Here are some pictures! From the top!

This is what it looks like in natural light, with a cameo from Macie's lower half.

Nothing too drastic, but it adds a little something to my hair. I think I was mostly afraid that having highlights would make me look like I should be living with Hef, but I'm glad to see it didn't!

How to kill some time

Last week in our Readers Digest I read an article about a website called snopes.com. I checked it out and it's AWESOME! It basically takes every urban legend I've ever heard and proves whether it actually happened or not. It's seriously a good way to kill some time and it makes me less paranoid about some of those weird email forwards I've gotten :)

Also, while I'm cleaning the house I think a lot. And sometimes I like to invent things. My newest thing I would like to create would be called "Foldeez" or "Foldz". Basically it's just a bag of folded over potato chips because those are the only ones I really like. I would totally add those to my food storage :)

I'm a grandma before I'm a mom...

So tonight as I was getting ready to hop in the shower I started to go through my normal pre-shower routine. As I was taking my makeup off I thought I saw something by my hairline I had never seen before. Upon further inspection I realized I had indeed saw what I thought I did. My first gray hair!!! :( :( I honestly felt old. I mean, I'm not even old enough to be going through my quarter life crisis (which is due to begin in two months)!! So I quickly grabbed the little sucker and yanked. I looked at my head. It was still there. So I yanked again. Still there. It seriously took four yanks before I got that stupid thing out. So now I am one less gray and about twelve less brown hairs on my head.

I'm not sure why I wanted to take a picture to remember this moment, but here it is. When I showed Brent after he got home he said, "Wow. You're not even 25 yet...". Thanks baby.

Who, me?

11 months out of the year Emma is the sweetest kitten in the world. But for some reason when our Christmas tree goes up, she turns into a spastic tree climbing psycho cat.


Our tree was so pretty the first day we put it up. Maggie loves laying under it, so she tried to teach Emma how to enjoy the tree without driving Mom and Dad crazy. The second day it was still pretty, but some of the branches were bent down. By the end of the second day, I could stand back and see the path that Emma had taken from the bottom to the top of the tree. By the end of the third day we had given up trying to re-bend the branches and just decided to stick to threatening her with the evil squirt bottle full of water.

Finally, two days before Christmas Emma has decided that the tree is no longer exciting. Fortunately the only casualties that we've had this year were a bunch of candy canes knocked down and a broken Christmas ball. At least it's not Maggie that likes climbing the tree, right?

She LOOKS innocent

"Here Emma, this is the right way to enjoy the tree. And I will help hold you down just in case you are tempted to climb it."

This is the only real action shot we've gotten. Look at those demon eyes... and I guess the evil squirt bottle doesn't really have much of an affect anymore.
Here she is with one of the candy canes.

We even tried dressing Macie up like Santa to remind Emma who is watching her.

"Psst....Santa.... come here.... for Christmas I would like food. And treats. And food. And maybe a mouse. Oh, and food. Don't forget the food."

Do NOT let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

So it's been super snowy/icy in Lake Stevens since Sunday (December 14). It was so icy on Sunday that we couldn't make it to church! We went up a couple different ways and our tires were spinning so we went home. Crazy! Brent was able to make it to work Monday and Tuesday, but by the time Wednesday rolled around we had a LOT more snow. His work was open on Wednesday, but only about half the people were able to make it in (and they were the ones that live right by Seattle). It kept on snowing and his work ended up being cancelled on Thursday and Friday. Now it's Saturday and ANOTHER storm is starting right now. We are supposed to get another 10 inches tonight and tomorrow! So I'm betting church will be cancelled tomorrow.

On Wednesday we were both stir crazy from being trapped in our house so we decided to go out on Thursday. I called South Lake Pizza and Japan Teriyaki to see if they were open so we could walk up and get a calzone/teriyaki food. I talked to both places and they were open. So we got on our snow clothes and set out.

We got to Japan Teriyaki and it was CLOSED! Seriously, I talked to them twenty minutes earlier and they were open! So I was mad and pouting a little and told Brent I wasn't going to eat anything. We went to South Lake Pizza to get his calzone and he ate it there so it wasn't frozen by the time we got home. I eventually caved in after I saw how good it looked and I ate some of his calzone :) After that we walked over to Tom Thumb Grocery and got chocolate milk and Brent got baby doughnuts.

We got home and I shoveled off the driveway again. Brent had done it earlier in the day, but it had snowed more so it needed to be shoveled again. Then I decided I wanted to build a snowman so we could have a big snowman in our front yard for Christmas!! But as I started building the bottom I realized how long it actually takes to build a big snowman (I guess I didn't have a realistic idea since I have only 'helped' my dad build them) so I quit. We still had a pretty decent size mound of snow so we made it an igloo for Macie, who had come out to join us by that point. She was kind enough to pose for a picture and then she wanted to go back inside. She is definitely not a snow dog.

Hurray for blogs and cars!

Alright! So after a few weeks of waiting we (I) are going to blog again! I'll start by telling why we are going private.

A few weeks ago we went to Utah to visit and to go to the Coldplay concert. We got back Sunday night at 12:00 and were in bed by 1am. Brent woke up for work at 4:30am. In between those hours, right in front of our well lit house (we always keep our outside lights on at night) someone stole our LOCKED car out of our driveway!! Poor Brent always ties his shoes on the bumper when he's leaving for work and he when he put up the garage there was NOTHING THERE.

So we called 911 (twice actually because it was taking them FOREVER to come to our house. Come on fuzz! The bad guys are getting further away with our car!) and waited for them to get here. The police lady got here and Brent went out and filed a report and all that. We were seriously so shocked this happened. You hear about it happening to other people, read about it in the paper, see it on tv, but I really never thought it would happen to ME. I actually peeked out our blinds when Brent told me to make sure it was really gone.

Anway about 15 minutes after the police lady left she called and told us that they found our car!! She was pretty frantic and told us we needed to get there ASAP. She told us "I'm at the blah blah blah block and something street. I have to go." Ok. Police lady. We are sooooooo glad you found our car (hopefully in one piece) but we don't even know what city you are in!!! So we waited for her to call back and she did asking us where we were. So she kind of gave us directions (we knew what city she was in, but we still had no idea where we were really going) and set off with trusty GPS. Well halfway to where we think we are supposed to be, trusty GPS dies. So now we have no idea where we are. So I called 911 again and thankfully we had a very patient 911 operator that was able to direct us to where poor Tinker (our stolen car) was.

We got there and it was seriously down this random gravel road in the middle of NOWHERE pulled into the grass on the side of the road. The cops told us that an off duty Seattle cop lived on that road and called it in on his way home from work because he thought it looked suspicious. When Police Lady called ours in it came up right away since he had already reported it. We were soooooooooo lucky that he happened to live on that road because that was pretty much the only way we would have gotten our poor little Tinker back. The cops told us that sometimes people steal cars and park them in random places and see if they are called in. If they aren't they go back later in the day and strip them for parts. Also, we were driving that one home from the airport that night and it had ZERO gas. I told Brent we needed to stop, but he said that he just wanted to get home and I could get it in the morning. LUCKY HE SAID THAT. The bad guys stole a car that had no gas! So that could have been part of the reason why they had to park it and come back, too.

Since we left it outside we never really kept anything in it. They stole the old Utah license plate and registration we had in there and our insurance cards. They also stole my blueberry hand sanitizer out of the side door (that's ok, that kind gave me a headache anyway). Brent told me when we started parking our car outside to make sure we always took our garage door opener inside with us when we got home. We are so lucky that we did that. It's sooo scary to think that if we had left it in the car the bad guys would have had acces to our entire house.

Anyway about 3pm lady police officer called me and told me that our license plate and registration and insurance cards had been found at the Snohomish golf course!!! So what I think happened was that the bad guys went back to our car and saw that the good guys found it and got it back to us and they didnt' want to be able to have anything trace back to them so they just ditched our stuff at the nearby golf course. So we got all that back too!!! The only thing that we lost was my blueberry hand sanitizer. And that was ok because I didn't like it anyway.

So now Brent and I are kind of paranoid about everything. It's weird to think that someone took something of ours that didn't belong to them. I felt weird driving around for a little. And as soon as I got home I took my Lysol spray and my Clorox wipes and sanitized the heck out of Tinker to get all the bag guy germs out of the car!! I also cleaned out the other side of the garage so now Tink can safely stay locked inside. So after all this happened we decided to make our blog private just because we are now a little paranoid about life and don't want whoever to be able to read what is going on with us. Still, after all this happened it made me very grateful for the police. And it gave me some renewed faith in the good people of the world. So thanks Snohomish police and off duty Seattle cop for getting us Tinker back!