Birthday Celebrations

Can you believe my man is Thirty? Such a fabulous age with a whole new decade to embark on. When trying to list all the things that happened the last 10 years of his life, we started to get excited with how much more good stuff lies ahead. So a big "hala" to my love and his thirty years of life. Rather then go through a list of 30 things I love about him and bore you all to near death, I'll just skip to the activities and let you all know what we did.

Mom was kind enough to treat us to a weekend getaway in Monterey. The weather seemed made to order with sun and blue skies. We enjoyed a delightful walk down Cannery Row, perused through some antique shops, stopped by a market for some lunch and enjoyed it on the beach where I caught some rays and a little nap. Aahh delightful.

The highlight of going to Monterey was our trip on the Bay in kayaks. We rented a few and headed out to see if we could find some wildlife. And boy did we. We made our way to a rather large bed of seaweed and there were about 12 or more otters just hanging out. Advised by the rental guys to stay at least 50 feet away, we didn't get close enough for a picture, and was even more amazed at the speed at which we had the wildlife preserve peeps on our back ready to "answer our questions" about the otter. Right. So we enjoyed from a distance for a minute longer and then made our way back.

Okay, now for a totally inappropriate segway picture for this birthday post. While kayaking in Monterey, the rental shop had this little dedication tattooed on the wall. I thought it was extremely accurate and therefore had to take a picture. I would have taken it on my phone but since that was all the way in the car, this was the solution. And besides, the Internet world needs to know the truth of the matter. I'm just sayin.

And back to Mark, for his actual day of birth, we enjoyed a little Chili's fresh mex. Which is just delightful, and opened a few gifts that I had tried so very hard to choose. Buying for Mark is so difficult. Especially when he breaks the cardinal rule of birthday-dom; don't shop for yourself during the month of your birth! UG.

Here is Mark and his fake surprise picture; posed perfectly for the camera. We both love the movie Inception, and I had to practically tell him that I got it for him to prevent him from purchasing it on his own. And a more genuine birthday opening face which I appreciate for the photobook memories. I also got him a few books to keep his reading frenzy at bay. He seriously has been reading every book we have in the house several times over. So some new material was highly overdue.

So a happy birthday wish to my wonderful man who is embarking on a new decade of life. I guess you could say he is "thirty, flirty, and thriving." Which is what we were going for.

Garage Sales

Some people are big on Garage Sales. I am NOT one of these people. Especially after helping my mom in our first garage sale events of our lives. Exhausting and hardly worth the little income you make. Ug.

Since Mom's move about 5 months ago, we have found a lot of stuff that doesn't really fit in the new house. When word came out that her neighborhood development was having a garage sale, she thought it was a great opportunity to get rid of some old stuff and make some profit while we were at it. I headed over Friday night and we spent a good 4 hours taking everything out of boxes and deciding what the value of the object was, putting the price on it, and laying out on one of the 6 tables Mom had gotten from the Church. It all started fun, but by the end we were just throwing numbers out and not really caring what the "value" was.

Saturday morning came, only after an entire night dreaming about the horrors of pricing and selling, and by 7am we were moving the tables out of the garage into the driveway. And can you believe that we could hardly get it out fast enough before the lookers were already looking. I was surprised with how busy it all was; several lookers at a time for most of the morning. I even sold our old bed-in-a-bag set and made a little cash for our new bedroom decor. (which I then promptly spent on dinner...my bad) . By noon it had all pretty much died out and mom and I were both exhausted and just done with the whole scene. We sold a good amount of stuff but felt like we boxed up more then what we sold and dumped it in the DI truck.

So - in my personal opinion - donation is the way to go. Yeah we made a few hundred but really? For the amount of time and effort it takes to first get your sell pile together, then to price it all, then to get it all out so people can buy it, then to sell it, then to put it all away...its just a lot of work. But hey, at least I can say I've had a garage sale. Well, that my mom had one and I sold one personal belonging at it. Which is basically the same thing right?

Something Different

We're not actually moving, and I need something different to look at when I open my blog. We are such boring people. We don't have babies or vacations or fun things to report on so consequently, our blog is boring. My apologies.

I suppose I could blog about our daily lives. Like how our kitchen seems to reproduce dishes like magic. And how our dishwasher is always overloaded with bowls. And how as much as I love the look of the dark wood floors, they are more work to keep clean and pretty then I probably thought about when I choose them.

I should be embarrassed to mention how my spare bedroom has turned into the "clean linens" pile because I am too lazy to fold the laundry and put them in the closet. So whenever we need a new set of sheets, I just pull them off the top of the pile. Throw the new clean sheets in there when I'm done washing them so that when I need them...there they are. It's bad right?

I could mention about our upcoming trip to Disneyland with some of our very favorite people and how I feel like I haven't been in a million years and how I am about ready to make a paper chain to help me count the days down. It'll be jammed packed with people and probably super hot but I have plans to ride the new Little Mermaid ride which I've been awaiting since they started construction, and of course Toy Story Mania as many times as our friends will let me. And Ruby's Diner - how we have missed you.

It is easy to overlook our careers. Mark continues to learn new stuff about the pool business. He can fix just about anything and is quite the master at trouble shooting the problem. We've vowed we'll never own a pool but sure appreciate those who do. School for me is just about done. 3 weeks left makes it a struggle for the students to pay attention. We'll all be glad when it is over. Currently, the district shows no signs of hiring me into the position I've been filing even though the word on the street is that the position is available. So we'll see.

So there you have it...we don't have any pictures or good stories to tell. So a big thank you to the rest of you bloggers that keep me entertained because reading my own blog has left me realizing that we need more action.

We're moving

Only because its for sale. Opportunities like this don't happen twice. You can come and visit.

Beat That.

Dear world. If you think that I am snubbing you - think again. I just paid my monthly cell phone bill. The numbers are as follows.

50 minutes used

19 Text messages sent.

And can I just say that I'm pretty sure 17 of those messages went to a certain Washington number - because I love her. I think I need to increase my social outlets.

Wow. That is ... unreal.