be mine

look what my valentine gave me! aren't they pretty!!! what a sweet guy. i hope you are all having a happy valentine's day!!

help

should i go here this weekend: (the outer banks) ps i know the house is pink.

or should i stay home?? dilemma!!! i need help. please comment.

pre-occupied

this shouldn't surprise you but i have not led a super exciting life as of late. i am having fun but the cold keeps me home (or at mark's) more often than not. so we have been making lots of home cooked meals and playing guitar hero 3 -which ben totally bought because i passed guitar hero 2 on medium. i rock! not really, my friend will plays on expert! but here are a few other things that have occupied my time in the past weeks.

the banff film festival. about 20 of us had tickets for the 5- day festival at the national geographic society. there were some films that totally rocked and some films that totally sucked. anyway, it was a good time and i am glad i got to go. here is the other thing that occupied some of my time:

this is the book that we read for my book club this month. i read another book of his called the reader that i really liked but this one was not as good. however, the more we talked about it at book club last night, the more i understood it and liked it a little more. i still am not sure i would recommend it to read. i am still processing so the jury is still out on that one.

other than that, here is the main occupier of my time. makes me happy.

explaining

this shouldn't surprise you but i have some splaining to do. apparently my last post is making people confused so i will give you the back story. 1 and 2 are true so ignore those but 3 is not so true. a few weeks ago when i asked mark what we were going to do for valentine's day, he said we were going to break up on the 13th and get back together on the 15th. it has been a joke of ours ever since ( i hope). so the other day he told me that since i would be crying all day on valentine's day, maybe i should do it somewhere fun in the district so he told me to get off work early and go downtown. so that is where all the planning and breaking up came in. it was a joke people, a joke but apparently not funny. linnea called me today all worried about my state of well being ( thanks linnea) and maur was confused as well as darin. so there is the back story. sorry people, sorry.

good news and bad news

this shouldn't surprise you but i have some good news and i have some bad news.
1. good news: i am probably going to be in utah for 1-2 days next weekend so i will try to post ideas for seeing lots of people en masse.
2 bad news: my life is boring and therefore, so is my blog.
3. bad news #2; mark and i are breaking up for v-day and i get to cry in the district on the 14. thank you mark-he has it planned out for me. so sweet.

super bowl.

this shouldn't surprise you but i have some funny friends. they are so enjoyable and when there is a chance to have all of them under one roof together and with good food and watching football, i am in and excited, except about the football thing. it is not my cup of tea but i will watch it if my friends are there. so the banker family had a super bowl party and their dad worked for the NFL for years and years and he was there to tell stories and such. also he had his ginourmous super bowl rings with him and so i got to wear them for a minute (when mr. banker was not paying attention). seriously people, those things are huge! and heavy and diamondy and goldy. man alive.

you're first place of the losers

this shouldnt surprise you but some days this is how my life feels. except i wish they had spelled "sike" psych. i think that is correct.

dja's birthday

this shouldn't surprise you but dave had a birthday shout hooray!!! so we had a little party at ri ra irish pub. we all met for dinner and then they have trivia nights at this pub so we did that too and it was lots of fun. the trivia nights are fun. we have been to several. at ri ra they have 6 rounds and most of them are general knowledge but there is usually a picture round and a song round which mix things up a little. our team totally sucked. not too bad but a little. here are the peeps: mark, me ben h., tim, ben s., birthday boy, becky and christopher. this is a close up of the far side of the table: ben h., cubbie, tim and ben s. (that is his happy face)
okay, so i planned this party and i made a yummy coconut pineapple cake (totally mixed 2 recipes) but i forgot candles (some planner i am!) so good thing mark had a yankee candle!! (mei li and milu joined us for cake.)

HAPPY STAR BIRTHDAY DAVE!!!! i am glad we are friends.

gala or gayla?

this shouldn't surprise you but the other day ago (thank you linnea), my work had a winter gala. instead of having a huge christmas party, we have lots of small ones and then we have a winter gala in january so there is always one more party to look forward to. smart eh? well last year, i opted not to attend and all year i caught grief for it. so this year i went and i took a hot date. our gala was held in the westin hotel. my coworker adam and his wife carla got a room in the westin with a sweet view and we met friends up there to pre-party. mark and i had sparkling cider (wasnt that nice of them?). then we all went down to the gala together so we could have a table together.
here are the men folk in the room: back row: josh, rich, mark, simon, paul, adam and adam (kneeling).here are some of the ladies: michaela, kit, jessica, me and tiffany tearing up the dance floor.

my hot date. this is the raw meat that michaela ate.so gross looking. i am glad kit took a picture. the rest of the food was very good.
here is me doing the sprinkler. i am a horrible dancer and i was forced onto the floor against my will and bad things ensued!!! i can do a mean electric lslide thanks to my 8th grade gym teacher mrs. rupper. it was a fun night with great company and free food. way to go employer! (and enrichment committee-go kit and josh!!!)

restaurant week

this shouldn't surprise you but here in dc, there is a fabulous time of year called restaurant week. it is when the fancy restaurants open their doors to the poorer folk and offer their cuisine at reduced prices. they give you a three course meal for $30.08. yum. so our dear friend jessi made reservations for us at bistro bis down town on capitol hill and it was delightful. we didn't want to take 2 cars so we (mark, ben, jessi, jenica, debby and i) all crammed into mine and jessi would duck when she saw a policeman. worked out well.
the restaurant was pretty good. i had french onion soup (delish) and pork tenderloin and some apple dessert. we also tried escargot (blech), beet salad(yum), veal, rockfish, creme brulee and other items it was a good meal with good friends. after dinner, i stepped outside to take a picture of the swanky joint and met a new friend.
i don't remember his name but he was a homeless man and a vietnam vet and he wanted to chat. he was so funny. we were taking pictures and mark was complaining how he hates pictures and how he never looks good and the man was like, "NO, you are a handsome man." or something like that and that started this whole tirade and then he told mark all about how to woo me. apparently he needs t o run a hot bath for me and jut rub me. also we learned about fore play. he needs to grunt in my ear and apparently then i will be turned on. it was funny and we learned a lot to put in to practice (heh heh). so he is in our picture and so is some random girl that walked by and wanted to join in too. fun times at the bistro bis. thanks jessi!

good time

i know i really need to blog but i have been lazy about the pictures so i will get blogging soon! we went to a gala for my work on saturday and here is a funny picture of how good of a time mark was having. i found it on our intranet. these are my friends kit and josh but check out mark in the background. best. time. ever. hahaha

dear olan

I remember as a teenager thinking olan mills was the place to get photos taken. it was so sophisticated and their photos were so beautiful. did anyone else feel this way? we never went there because it was too expensive so we went to the tres chic jc penney studios. but i remember in jr. high, my friend linnea got to have her portraits taken there with her sister and they were so beautiful. i really wish olan mills was still around and that my tastes in photography had not changed so much. here are some beauties for your viewing pleasure. for instance, olan mills does some great family shots. what prepubescent girl wouldn't want to be in a picture with her nude brothers? not awkward at all. this one captures every personality trait in the family...even the craziness shines through. raw talent olan, raw talent.
i wonder if olan mills did the make up on this lady. if so, it is AWESOME!

pedophiles are welcome too!
i like this snazzy couple. mustaches and a mullet mixed with jewel tones?......exquisite!
this one shows the drunk and sober sides of this gentleman.

i just liked the mullets here. mark has cut his hair into a mullet and so this is how i envision his future portraits to be.

seriously? why would you do that? there are enough greedy money grubbers already. i don't think they need to start this young.

and this is my favorite of all. not really. many of you know that i do not have a fondness for horses lying down. well, check out the background of this lovely senior picture. SCARY!!

the devil inside.

this picture was saved in mark's phone as diablo. i thought i looked so pretty(ha) and he thought i looked like the devil. sweet. this is the reason i hate cats, yes hate them. my eyes were swollen out of their sockets. so sick and painful.

near death

this shouldn't surprise you but i almost died today. i was sitting here at my desk minding my own business and sucking on a salty licorice candy when all of the sudden, i inhaled it and it lodged in my throat and i could not breathe one little bit. it was scary. i knew i needed help because i could not breathe nor talk. (sorry about the artwork, but i needed pictures)so i reached over into my bag on the floor to get my access card to go get help from someone and i leaned too far and promptly fell out of my chair.

right when this happened, the elevator came to my floor and someone walked out and toward my desk. and also i landed right on my elbow and the licorice candy flew out of my mouth and i had to take a big, noisy gulp of air. tears were running down my face from lack of oxygen and he saw it all. of course. so he helped me up and picked my chair up and dusted me off and i sucked it up but oh man, it was humiliating, but i am alive!! hooray for that and i can laugh about it now.

ps

my cousin mauri hates my blog header. she thinks it is creepy but i love it and think it is sweet. my little brother took this picture in thailand.