Tuesday, January 05, 2010

Note to readers...the more you (legitimately) comment, the more I post.....

Updates, updates....we went to Avatar on IMAX 3D for New Years Eve, which was very good. It did give me a headache, and I can't STAND wearing glasses...but the movie is THAT good...

Had a lovely, laid back weekend at home with my husband, marred only by the ~6 hours we devoted to the last Seahawks game. Another no-go. We are in the running for a decent draft pick, at least. We always have a good time at the games--win or lose. More fun when we win, of course.....but fun nonetheless. I love the pre-game, where they announce the players and they run onto the field, and when the hawk flies out of the tunnel, and when they announce the raiser of the 12th man flag--this week, it was Ken Griffey Jr, and the stadium ROCKED. We always root to lose the coin toss, or to defer the win if we DO win it, so our defense can start out on the field. Everyone screams full force when the D is on the field, and you haven't LIVED until your voice joins with 70K others all in an attempt to screw up the opposing offense's plays.

This week was special because it was the first time I have ever been in a stadium where there was a successful 'wave'. You know...where people stand up and scream in a timed way so that it looks like a huge wave rippling through the crowd?? Never seen it go all the way around. This week, the fans were so bored (and fed up ), they made it around 6 times. It was epic. Have I mentioned that it brings a tear to my eye to see a crowd do the wave?? Even though they *did* do it while we were on offense....

So, the Seahawks season is finally over, and I now have my Sundays back. Not that I didn't enjoy the games, but they mean leaving the house around 930am, and not getting home until 430-5pm. It is a full day, and squeezes into my general lounging around time.

Elsewhere on the home front...we are working very hard to figure out where our money goes and make an actual budget. I have printouts from mint.com that we are going to analyze today to see which areas we can maybe cut back on. After seeing that we spend nearly the same amount on restaurants in a year as we do food/coffee at work.....we are going to start bringing lunches or at least snackage to work instead...

Also lots of (mental) planning for our upcoming Europe trip. Can I tell you how excited I am??? I even got a gym membership and am working with a trainer specifically in the area of stair climbing, since every gorgeous monument I want to see involves a lot of stair climbing, and I don't want to be the fat, lazy American tourist huffing and puffing and not making it to the top. We want to climb Notre Dame, the Arc du Triumphe, do some hiking to a castle in Germany, climb a bell tower in Amsterdam, go to the top of St Peter's, and climb through numerous ruins in Rome. Lots of stairs.

Still need to book a couple hotels and our little flight, and will be able to book the train portions later this month (can only book 90 days ahead of time). I bought the Rick Steves guide books for each area (except Germany), and have pored over each of them numerous times. Lots of excitement over this..

I am also making plans to have a niece come up to visit me for a long weekend this summer. I have secret plans of going to Wild Waves and maybe the Seattle Aquarium and some other fabulous things. Just need to talk the mama into sending her up......I think this will be awesome, and will try to get each neice/nephew as the get a little older and can hang out. Maybe two together??? Yeesh....maybe not...

Anyway.. that is where I am today..

4 comments:

Arlee Bird said...

Wow, you've really posted a lot!

A budget is good --- eating out sure gets expensive-- believe me I know from experience.

I'm interested in your opinion Please see my blog post:

http://tossingitout.blogspot.com/2010/01/john-grishams-associate.html

Let me know what you think about what I've said.

Lee

Davinie Fiero said...

She's cute, but seems to me you skipped someone in the whole "bring a kid up one at a time as they get older" bit. hmph.

Happy Budgeting and Traveling! We really need to focus on the house so we are probably going to skip DC. The local economy and friends' losing jobs, homes, left and right, plus the City trying to get out of paying a raise yet again, threatening cuts (although my hubby wouldn't be effected by that) does have us pinching our pennies a bit.

You just never know.

Sabrina said...

She can come up whenever you're ready for her! She just can't fly alone..... so that may take some figuring..

Love the climbing goal, but will Ethan be able to keep up?? two replaced knees and all that....

alyca said...

No...no skipping. R's mom is the one who came up with the idea of sending her up here alone (except she wants me to fly down, meet her in Redmond, then fly up with R, fly back to Redmond with R then fly home alone), so that is why we have started planning. I thought of asking for the two eldest neices together, but am unsure about having TWO here at once. Although I thought that would make it more likely that the kids would be put on a plane together, and save me two round trip tickets to Redmond (I would of course put in on THEIR plane tickets to come up)


Anyway..

Ethan did NOT have any knee replacements--just tinkering on the right, and a new ACL on the left. Left side is good as new, if he wears his brace while doing vigorous activities. We went hiking this fall/summer, and everything held out just fine.