Work! Party!

My boss let me set up the last work party we had. Which meant it was on my terms, yay! We got Thai food and went ice skating. Here are some pics from our adventures. (Translation: here is an excuse to show off Chisom's mad photography skills.)

The bystanders...

BJ will always be prepared to provide entertainment.

Snow, YAY!!!

I was trying to make a snow angel!

The use of blue on this one is particularly awesome, if you ask me.

Massanutten is the place to be on MLK Day

Well, Kim did it again!! She planned the perfect extended weekend. This time it was in a cozy cabin in Massanutten, VA. Here, for the first time ever, I tried my hand at east-coast skiing. And you know what, it wasn't half bad! Me and the boys found a "black diamond" run at the top that we did the whole time - the lift had virtually no line, and there was actually some decent snow up there.

We liked it so much, we went back a few hours later and did some night skiing. And Marcia tried skiing for the first time!!

Her birthday was that day, so of course, we made her a "cake."

And of course, there was dancing.

When I wasn't dancing, or skiing, or reading, or hiking, this was my other activity of choice. Yay for "lazy" weekends!

(Yes, I noticed that this is the blog entry of "quotations...")

Dreaming of a white Christmas......and Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was spent in Cleveland, Ohio this year at Colin and Lori's house. We also took a side trip to Kirtland, and to the stadium to watch the Cavs play. (We were all witnesses, as they say.)

As you can see, Maggie is enthralled with the game...

There was free face-painting, so Lori and I couldn't resist!!!

Some dancing kids entertained us during a break in the game. Pretty impressive, eh?

Christmas was spent back home in IDAHO. Of course, I took a trip to Utah to see Sarah-Dawn and go skiing and rock climbing. (Well...we didn't go rock climbing, but that's a story all by itself.) Here she is, not skiing or rock climbing.

As could be expected, I didn't take many pics at home except of the niece and nephew. Colby got a new bed, and he knew EXACTLY what to do.

He got lots of other toys, too. But wouldn't you know it, he was more entertained by the toy container than anything else! This pic was captured no less than 15 minutes after he became enthralled with the wonderful world of cardboard.

Can anyone think of anything more adorable than Eva sucking two of her fingers and holding onto her ear?

How about her laughter???!?!?!

NYC is Wicked awesome

My friend Kim had a birthday, and the girl knows how to celebrate with style. So, she planned an awesome trip to New York City - complete with a 12-person van, filled to capacity.

Some days were pretty exhausting, with all the walking around. So when one group decided they were going to walk to a bakery (MORE FOOD?! I felt like I'd been eating non-stop!), some of us decided to skip out...and to top whatever they were doing. So naturally, we took a ride in a horse-drawn carriage around Central Park.

We also found a cool fountain and entertained ourselves around it...

...and we got to play around on the huge piano in FAO Schwarz, made famous, of course, by Tom Hanks.

And a trip to NYC wouldn't be complete without a trip to Broadway! We went to see Wicked...this was two days before everyone went on strike. Great timing, Kim!

We look sooooooo good!

We celebrated the spooky season with a good old-fashioned, dress-up Halloween barn dance. Our entourage consisted of a ninja ("I didn't dress up."), a fairy, a couple princesses/superheroines, and Teen Girl Squad.

Great Falls is.....great!

October is a beautiful time of year in DC. Marcia, Princess, and I took advantage and went hiking on the Billy Goat trail in Great Falls.

Running is fun! And biking. And swimming.

I did a sprint Triathlon to "celebrate" the end of the summer this year. And since I'm not in school, when I say "end of the summer," I really mean September. It took place in Wilmington, NC, and I did it with my partner in fitness crime, Lauren Furer, her husband, Yuriy, and his friend, Jay Carmine. (Props to Jay for letting us stay at his house and giving us a preview of the race, and to his fiancé for letting me use a bike that was SO much better than the Craigslist special that I brought!) My total time: 1:42:26.

In short - I loved it.







The swimming,











biking,
















and running.
(I beat that other girl by one second!)












I loved it all, and wouldn't object to doing another.

Yeah, we felt pretty cool having our numbers written all over us with magic marker. We also had matching swimsuits and called ourselves Team Awesome.

We probably thought we were pretty tough or something, but really, we had nothing on Yuriy.

Arrevederci, Italia

In September, I fulfilled my 7+ year dream of going to Italy. Sarah-Dawn came along, and we met up with Lauren and Yuriy periodically throughout the whole trip.

VENICE

All the streets are pedestrian only. No cars. It was beautiful.

For the record, we didn't take a gondola ride. They were overpriced. We just piggy-backed on everyone else's experience and rode in the water taxis when we needed to get around.

FLORENCE

This is from the Piazza Michelangelo, which is on the top of a hill and has a duplicate of the statue of David. We weren't paying much attention the statue. We were too distracted by the sunset.

I couldn't help myself - I just wanted to see if I was as tall as a SmartCar is long!

The Duomo. That's all I know about it. Nice, isn't it?

TUSCANNY

On a whim, we took a bike tour through Tuscanny. Tied for first with the best and most memorable experience we had there. The scenery is every bit as incredible as everyone says. This picture is from the tower of a castle - which is also a winery. Very exclusive. It is only distributed in Italy. We didn't get to try any, but we DID try some olive oil, which I'm pretty sure was the strongest I've ever tried in life.

ROME

I really liked seeing all the sights of Rome - the Colosseum, the Panteon, the fountains, the Vatican, the ruins...but in all honesty, I feel no need to go back another time.

Look familiar? You may have seen me previously in Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas! Interestingly, this place has a tomb of the unknown soldier on the other side, with guards keeping watch 24 hours a day and a flame that never burns out. Sounds like another place I know...reminded me of home.

The Spanish Steps - I'm still a little bitter that they put that big sign right in the middle of it and ruined my shot.

CAPRI


The other place tied for first - Capri Island, right off the Amalfi Coast and Napoli. Go there. Just go. Mount Vesuvius is behind us.

Inside the Blue Grotto - the blue is from the angles of the rock and the light refractions from that tiny hole...yeah, I don't know what I'm talking about.

Right after this, we went back down to the bottom and went swimming for about 10 minutes before our ferry left.

THE VATICAN

It rained for just long enough for us to buy those ponchos. We were wearing these hats we'd purchased in Capri and talking with really bad Italian-english accents and watching how many people laughed at us. It's like the hats set us free. And St. Peter's basilica really is ginormous. No picture will ever capture its magnitude.

Gelati and our hets. Life can't get better.