look who came to visit!

Jason had convinced me we were going on a little trip for my birthday. He told me to pack a bag and we went to the airport Friday evening, where I was going to find out what the trip was as soon as our tickets printed out of the machine. But instead, when we got there, we found my sister standing around the ticketing area. There were many tears of laughter and a LOT of explanations on the way home from the airport. I had tried to think of every possible weekend trip we could possibly be taking, but I had completely ruled out seeing brooke or other family members because I knew exactly what everyone was supposed to be doing this weekend. Turns out brooke's story was a lie!

What an awesome birthday surprise. It has been years since brooke & I have spent our birthday together (yesterday was her birthday, too!). Happy birthday, sister! And Jason deserves huge kudos for thinking up the idea, putting up with my pestering questions, and arranging for everything to happen. This was definitely a memorable birthday.

For the history books

Us in the first minutes of 2009.

happy 2009!

that's my very blurry picture of fireworks at the space needle.

hot and cold

Merry Christmas!

Hope you're staying warm & cozy this year!

our first christmas tree

...that's taller than 2 feet. yay for our True Value store for having a great tree selection AND stands still available only 11 days before christmas.

Looking out over the city

12 ornaments

A trip to the market

we liked these musicians:we found a great picture spot:

some people weren't sure how they felt about the cold:

gingerbread village

Forgive me for posting a ridiculous number of photos of one parade.

Parade theme 1: dogs. Here are some English sheepdogs and their... toy soldiers?
I am glad my high school band uniforms did not look like this:
Cowboys:
Reindeer on unicycles. I guess if they can fly they can unicycle.
Impressive job of staying in straight lines (look at those diagonals!).
Following a sign that said, "Hope your holidays are dino-mite!":
Scotties:
Giant Scotty:
Yep, we really like dogs here in Seattle:
And, finally, a gingerbread house:
I had a blast.

Macy's Holiday Parade: It rained.

But I still had fun. More pics to come soon.

happy halloween

A diagram to make up for a disappointing photograph

We actually had an awesome view - we could see both main Seattle shows, and 3 or 4 from surrounding suburbs on the horizon. We were just too far away from all of them to get any impressive photos.