Friday, November 24, 2006

Thanksgiving

Not the prettiest day in Gloucester.

I left D.C. around 8pm on Tuesday to head to my family's house in Gloucester. I-95 was a little bit of a mess, but once I got off on 17 it was smooth sailing. I arrived around 11:30 to find my parents (surprisingly still awake). It was nice to talk to them for a few minutes before we all retired for the night. Unfortunately, the weather was rainy and dreary so it put a little damper on the activities.

But it did not put a damper on the food. We had all the normal fixin's (turkey, ham, homemade mashed potatoes, homemade cranberry sauce, stuffing, pumpkin pie) and there were a few non-traditional items as well (roasted duck, peach pie and a ginger trefoil). The food was great. I ate my full and then I ate some more.

I love thanksgiving, it is my FAVORITE holiday.

I hope everyone had as great of a thanksgiving as I did :)

Thursday, November 23, 2006

Monster Dog.

My Mom is 5 feet and 6 inches tall. I think jet may almost be there.

Home for the holidays.

I love being home with my family for the holidays. I miss them.



My Mother hiding from the camera!




My Father(looking thoughtful)!






My brother doing what he does best. . . eating. :)



Jet looking twisted.



Bomber trying to take a nap.

A million of me



I love these kind of mirrors and what better than a million of me :)

Monday, November 20, 2006

The luckiest girl in the world. . .



























I do not know how I have gotten so lucky. I have found a sweet man that loves me. I am spoiled and sometimes even a spoiled brat. I have gotten so use to the sweet things he will do for me that when he hasn't done something sweet and amazing I will pout.

After my first day back at work he made me a wonderful candlelit meal of Braised Lamb. Last night I came home and since we were separating for a few days over thanksgiving he decided to do a fun meal for us. He made this amazing rolled bread (the dough itself was filled with flavor, then mozzarella and homemade tomato sauce was rolled in it), he also made bread sticks (filled with flavor and mozzarella melted on top), served with homemade tomato sauce and a tasty chianti. I was in heaven. I ate till I could not possible eat another bite.

How did I get so lucky to find a man, that as busy as he is, still finds times for little sweet surprises almost every day. I will miss him over the next couple of days. He is my heart.

Monday, November 13, 2006

New friends and then your gone. . . .





Recently I had to take a business trip to San Jose, California. I was excited about the adventure, but sad as well since it meant leaving Mark, Bella and our home for a little over a week.

Mark made our last few days before we parted a lot of fun. We went and did things in the City that we had not had the time to do yet. It was nice to have that quality time together.

I was unsure of what to expect when I arrived at my hotel in San Jose. It was 12:30 their time (which is 3:30am our time) and I was EXHAUSTED. I didn't know if I should be glad my roommates door was closed (so I could go straight to bed) or disappointed (because I would not know who I was rooming with until the morning). Unfortunately all the doors were closed so I was uncertain about which door to open, fearful of waking her up and making a bad impression.

Luckily I guessed right on the door to my room and the bathroom and avoided waking her up. Well. . .kinda; as soon as I placed my suitcase down a very tired, very pregnant girl came out the third door. Her name was Chantel, she was from San Francisco, 7months pregnant, mother of two already, and was full of a tremendous amount of energy that kept her talking a mile a minute. By 1 am I knew everything I could possible NOT want to know about anybody. Her lack of modesty aside she was a very sweet girl. She went out earlier that day and got us groceries just in case I was hungry when I arrived. She had worried all night that I would not show and she would be alone all week. She was very relieved to see me.

Over our week together I came to like Chantel, she was very sweet and would give you the shirt off her back. However, I felt the need to distance myself from her because she seriously lacked a 'censor' button and on numerous occasions told inappropriate stories and constantly said crude things in a professional environment. As sweet as she was one on one, I was very happy when our time as roomies ended, out of fear she would drag me down with her.

The next person I met was Steve. Steve is from Jersey, married with two cute kids and was taking the class to learn how to be an instructor. Steve was funny. HUGE Rueters fan. I think Steve is going to be a great teacher. He is very thorough and tries to make things fun. Out of everyone I met, I stand the greatest chance of seeing him again since he might come to our area to teach. I look forward to it. I already told him Mark and I would show him the greatest Italian restaurant in DC.

The few others are Lily. My silly classmate who kept me giggling in class. Though she made me giggle, I made her laugh so hard she cried. She was our taxi driver and our co-conspirator. Unfortunately since she lives in San Jose, I do not know when I will get to see her silly tail again. Hopefully, we will still be able to keep in touch via the internet just in case.

Thaigo (pronounced Chaa-go) is another Cali native that I will probably never see again. He was the sweetest kid. A little nervous under the pressure of role-playing in class but in the end pulled it all together and wowed the instructors. He seems like the kind of guy that if I had a little sister, I would of INSISTED they meet. He was sweet, smart and funny. Plus, he always had a highlighter for me to borrow.


The person I will miss the most is Garrett. I love Garrett to death. Without him it would of been a very dull, horrid week. Garrett encouraged me to go to the gym, to eat more salads, to drink more wine, to giggle and wrinkle our noses at others, to laugh till it felt more like an ab exercise. The boys fashion taste put mine to shame and he almost had me out matched on the sarcastic remarks as well. He was quick to make sure I didn't miss a hot guy walking by and he kept me up to date on the VA elections (CNN addict that he was). We talked about our relationships past and present, made fun of our teacher and toured the restaurants on Santna Row. Garrett was from Boston and on this trip he was the Abbott to my Costello. To semi-quote Garrett's most recent myspace comment to me, I miss him like Whoa!

In class our instructor kept referring to me as Molly and Thaigo as Thigh-go. So as a joke we officially changed all of our names. Steve became "Professor Stien" (always pronounced with German flair), Garrett became Barrett which somehow got transformed to Blanket and then was known as "Sir Blanket", Lily became "Billy" and Chantel became "Mantell". We were our own Mod Squad. No one in class really understood our silly jokes, but we had fun together.

It is sad to meet such fun people that I could truly see myself becoming friends with, only to leave them after a short time. It made coming back to DC sad. Because I have yet to meet those kind of people here. The kind where we hit it off instantly and embark on fun adventures. I think Mark and I would both enjoy those kind of friends in our lives, although our free time is limited, laughter is always welcome.

I can only hope that soon I will find my DC Mod squad.

Ahhhh Vegas



Saturday, November 11, 2006

Ahhhh. . . .Vegas
Current mood: tired

So it is 1:20am for all you eastern folks out there. However, in Vegas it is betting time. Also known as 10:20pm.

It has been quite an adventure so far. My class got out early which left me at the airport at 4pm (umm that would be 4 hours and 25 minutes before boarding). I killed time in the food court ohhh so excitingly by playing collapse on my computer. Why was I not on the Internet; because like D.C. , San Jose is a cheap airport who does not want to provide free Internet for it's bored boarding customers. I did not feel compelled by any measure to pay $9.99 an hour; so Collapse it was.

Unfortunately, my computer died (suprise, suprise) after an hour (in case you weren't keeping track that means I still had 3 hours and 25 mins to kill). So I ventured out to the terminal.

Smart girl Holly (or known this week as "Molly") was stopped by security due to a suspect object in my lap top case (oops forgot about that diet cherry coke, you know how lethal those cans are). So after apologizing profusely for not only attempting to carry such contraband past security but lying about it at the three (count it three) check points where I was asked do you have any liquids, I proceeded on my way.

I had dreams of a eating a big juicy cheeseburger while simultaneously charging my laptop. It should go with out saying that these dreams were dashed by the existence of only a concession stand and a bagelry in the terminal. I enjoyed my bagel all the same.

While charging my laptop I made a friend. Unfortunately I played the damsel in distress (if that is what you call a girl that almost falls over trying to plug her laptop into a place she can't reach) and he saved the day (here forth known as plugged in the laptop). I learned in my brief conversation with him while waiting for my zone to be called that he does something,something, something for a technology firm (yea, I was listening that intently), he is traveling to his home in Dallas (which he thinks is a GREAT location. . . hey someone has to like it) and he has previously lived in Charlotte, Tokoyo and something something something (there go those listening skills again). He learned I am on a red-eye to DC which will be followed directly by a road-trip with my boyfriend and that my boyfriend goes to Law School and my boyfriend use to work in computers as well (there was a lot of boyfriend in this convo). Oh and that I know nothing about my own company and can not answer questions (ohh wouldn't "Brace" be soo glad this week of training paid off).

The flight to Vegas is only one hour and eight minutes from San Jose. In which time I forgo-ed the drink and pretzels and instead finished watching 'Rabbit Proof Fence' on my laptop. Then of course the battery died.

I have to say at this exact moment in time I have NO desire to venture out into Vegas (with the exception of getting a picture) I have to say that was the MOST beautiful landing EVER! (even tops Hawaii). The landscape looked like a beautiful board full of lights and then in scattered areas there would be a building ( or in some areas a cluster) jetting out from the flat landscape. It looked like a model of a town, everything so perfect and pretty looking. As we got closer the casinos and the lights took shape, making it even more beautiful. As we came into the final circle before hitting the run way we saw Mandalay Bay, the Luxor flashed at us and everything lit up. Landing on the runway was a unique experience. Usually when you land the run way is surrounded by fields and other runways but this runway was like landing right in the middle of the strip. I could see the front to all the stores and if felt like the plan should be parallel parking at any moment.

Once in the terminal I ventured over to buger king (the only choice) for that juicy cheese burger (via two moving sidewalks) and played some slots before trying to find a window with a view for a good picture (including a rude guy who informed me such a thing would not be found).

Now I have 30 minutes before my flight boards and then what will feel like FOREVER until I touch down back "home".

Four facts to derived (that were interesting enough omitted) from this blog:

-I loved all of the people (or maybe just most) I met this week and will sincerly miss (most of) them. Blanket, Stein, Thigh-go, Mantell and Billy were loads of fun and kept me laughing.

-Once I touched down in Las Vegas and was officially away from California my nose unstuffed and I stopped coughing.

-That I sincerely missed DC. More than I thought I would. Of course I missed Mark but I missed my DC as well. I guess I am finally starting to feel like a "district columbian"

And most importantly:
-YES I can say I lost a dollar in Vegas. Hey when it is a dollar you just keep playing those 5 cent machines till it is ALL gone!

I don't heart Pheonix

Sunday, November 05, 2006

I don't heart Phoenix
Current mood: tired

My flight out of DC left an HOUR late.

Why did it leave so late? Oh because someone walked off with the log book and the plane couldn't take off without it. Obviously he was not in a hurry to bring it back.

Then I got into Phoenix an hour late. I might of made my connecting flight but since I was in the BACK of the plane it took me too long to get off and they'd closed the doors already. I learned no one needing to connect to Las Vegas, San Francisco, Portland or Anchorage made their flights. There were a LOT of angry people in the customer service line. Luckily for me I only had to wait an extra hour for my flight, Portland and Anchorage passangers have to wait till tomorrow.

So here I am waiting at the airport, bored and passing time online. :)

Hope this does not set a presadent for my whole trip. :(