Wrapping up Christmas

I spent my first Christmas with the Biehl family! It was great- I loved having kids around! The adults were ok too :) We had a delicious breakfast with homemade cinnamon rolls, an awesome dinner, and played 5 Crowns- I think Kurt's family, at least some of them, are a little bit surprised at my competitiveness. As Claire now knows, I will do whatever it takes to get the card I need! Thanks everyone for making my first Christmas as a Biehl a success! (Especially you Kurt!)

Last night, to finish off the Christmas festivities, Mom and Clarence took me and Kurt to see A Christmas Story: The Musical on 5th Avenue. Oh my gosh- it was hilarious. I was literally laughing out loud. The set, the actors, the singing and dancing, everything was great. One of the best productions I've seen! If it hadn't been the last night of the show I'd recommend you all going to see it for yourselves :)

It was a very merry Christmas and I can't wait until next year!

Reviews

Movie: Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader
Review: Eh.

Book: Chronicles of Narnia: The Horse and His Boy
Review: Loved it!

Book: Treasure Island
Review: Ok.

Book: Alice in Wonderland
Review: Interesting

Short Story: Beauty and the Beast
Review: Great

Movie: True Grit
Review: Wild

Game: Super Mario Bros Wii
Review: Awesome

Game: Donkey Kong Country Returns
Review: Good

Book: The Jungle Book
Review: Thoroughly enjoying

Movie: Inception
Review: Mind Blowing

Movie: Despicable Me
Review: Cute

Book: Gone with the Wind
Review: Enjoying/racist

What else does one do with a few days off :)

Gingerbread!

Here are my favorite scenes from the gingerbread houses on display at the Sheraton Hotel downtown.

Gum trees!

The Space Needle and a plane made of M&M's!

Troll under the Freemont Bridge

Dead Rudolph?

"The Clllaaaaww!"

Minions and WALL-E (plus some more Toy Story references)

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Music

Click here (and then on the blue arrow) to hear the musical stylings of Sarah Hammond. She's amazing!

Merry Little Christmas

We've started from scratch this Christmas. Two strings of colored lights, The Polar Express, and paper snowflakes that our nephew made us several months ago were all the decorations we had between the two of us. So, I decided to make some:

They're all over the ceiling of our front room.


We bought a tree (and some ornaments):

Wrapped some presents:

And now it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas :)

Videos!

Mom tried to make Aussie a sled dog...with limited success.

We walked around Little Cranberry- who knew throwing rocks was so fun? We did this for at least 10 minutes.

It was a great Thanksgiving weekend!

Best Quotes from Thanksgiving:

"Is your fire fake? Everything you do is fake!" -Henry

"I'd like to propose a toast..." 5 minutes later, "I'd like to propose a toast.." 5 minutes after that, "I'd like to pro...wait, do I get to take home leftovers? Then never mind" -Henry

"Is he blind?" and "His hands look like grandpa's"- Lili after meeting Henry.

So here's a toast to Henry- the most entertaining older gentleman at Thanksgiving dinner. It was nice to meet you.

"Snow, snow, snow, snow, SNOW!"

I had a crush on Danny Kaye when I was 4 years old :)

It's snowing Seattle!

Lili has a dollar

Last Monday Lili asked me to count her change:
Me: Sure! I'd be happy to. (counts change). This pile is a dollar and this pile is $38 cents.
Lili: Really? I have a dollar?
Me: Yep.
Lili: Oh good. I'm going to take it to the bank and get my dollar.
Me: Well, this is already a dollar.
Lili: No, I'm going to get a real dollar- a dollar bill.

She left and walked to the bank. Lili returned about 15 minutes later and proudly pulled a dollar out of her pocket. With a huge grin on her face she told me "Now I have a dollar!"

My mom thinks the people at Lili's bank know her pretty well :)

No more laundry

I had the laundry all divided. I put the whites in the basket, measured out the soap (and discovered we only had enough left for 2 loads), grabbed my keys and quarters, and headed down to the laundry room. I loaded up the first machine, put in quarters, then soap, and turned it on. I loaded the second washer (there are 2 total), put in quarters, and went to put in soap...but there was already soap in the dispenser. Weird. I didn't want to overload it and I felt weird using someone elses soap, but the clothes and quarters were already in. I pressed start and nothing happened. I pressed it again. Nothing. I pressed the "return coins" button. Nothing. Great! I took out the laundry and headed back up to the apartment. 35 minutes later I transfered clothes to the dryer and put in my second load. I was putting in the 5th and final quarter when I realized the machine hadn't registered my 4th quarter. It was stuck. And now the 5th quarter was stuck too. I shook the machine. Tilted it backwards. Even shoved my key into the slot to see if I could dislodge them. Nothing. I finally called the manager who informed me the washing maching guy is coming on Friday and that she'll return my $2.50 in quarters to me when he comes. At least I got one load done...right?

Happy Birthday to me!

Kurt gave me a Kindle! I love the "screen savers".

We also went to the Harry Potter Exhibit at the Science Center and watched Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix in Imax. We had a great time! Thanks Kurt!

Costco

Our first stop on Friday night was Costco. We ended up buying this:

It's never too early to prepare for Christmas, right?

And then we stumbled across this in the art section:

Anyone know which temple it is? Kurt said Portland.

After Costco we went to the Crest Theater and saw Inception- I loved it!

Adventures in A-Town

When I got back to Lili's apartment after grocery shopping, Ani came down and joined me. She had a few questions about my trip:
Q: Who was your checker?
A: I don't, but she was very nice.
Q: Do you know what her name was?
A: Nope, sorry hun! (yep, I call Ani and Lili 'hun'.)
Q: Was her name______, ______, _____, ______, or _______? (she listed off at least 5 names).
A: Really, I don't know.
Q: Who was your courtesy clerk?
A: It was a boy.
Q: Oh...(pause)...Why are they called a courtesy clerk? Because they have to be nice to customers?
A: Yeah...that's what the courtesy part means. And clerk is their position...their job title.
Q: Ohhh. Ok. Well, what about the checker? What's their title?
A: You know who would be a good person to ask? Kurt- he worked at Safeway for a few years.
Q: Reeeeaaally? Well, did he wear a brown shirt or something else?
A: Sorry, Ani I don't know.
Q: I thought you talked to your husband about his jobs Chew! Why don't you know?
A: I'll try to do better.



P.S. The Giants won the World Series today!!!!!!! Gooooo Giants!

Merci!

Why is Kurt great? Because he made chocolate chip cookies for the potluck at MY work tomorrow.

He is a serious cookie maker.

Mail

Sorry for the hiatus. My computer is officially dead now- it won't turn on.

You know how credit card companies like to send you lots of offers (aka junk mail) in the mail? Well, American Express has upped the ante- I am now eligible for the American Express Gold Card! No, I'm not going to get it, but for some reason this makes me feel good- American Express thinks I'm worth gold!

Talking about credit cards- I like it when I swipe my card at a store, the machine thinks for a moment, and then "approved" flashes across the screen. I makes me feel validated for a second- I've been approved!!!

I hope you enjoyed my random rant :) 6 days until Halloween and the Giants are in the World Series!

Let the holidays begin!

Kurt and I have been celebrating Halloween all month long! Last week we made cookies:

This week we went to Aunt Kathy's annual cider party: it involves trampolines (that's me and Sofia jumping), pressing apples of course, and homemade donuts. Just awesome.


And we painted pumpkins! There are 3 'sides' to each of our pumpkins. Mine are on top and Kurt's are on bottom:


I also got my diploma in the mail this week- go me!

This morning

Soon after I woke up:
Kurt: "Hey look what I found on our doorstep!"

Me: "Oh my gosh!!!! Is someone threatening us?"

Kurt found it funny at least :) Have a great Saturday!

Day 8

Kurt and I were in the car from 830am to 2am. And that's about it. Here are some of my favorite pictures from the trip (that you haven't seen yet).

Thank you Ashley and Adam for letting us stay with you! It was so good spending time with you and I wish we could do it more often!

Day 7: Disneyland

We tried to ride Space Mountain first...it shut down and everyone was evacuated right when we reached the front of the line.

We then went to the Matterhorn- it was closed for repairs.

Then we tried Thunder Mountain- the ride broke down while we were on it leaving us stranded for 10-15 minutes before a cast member came to get us. (we did get free ice cream!)

After that we headed to Indiana Jones- it was far from a smooth ride, stopping when it shouldn't and such. But we made it through...the ride closed soon after we got off.

After that everything went smooth :)

Here's one of my favorite shots- Main Street, USA at night.

Day 6 Adventures

At the San Juan Capistrano Mission there is a fountain. Within the fountain are fish. There is a particular fish who does not like Adam. As Adam simply pointed his finger at the fishes on brought its head above the water, opened his mouth, and spat water at Adam- twice! It was awesome. Here's Kurt trying to recreate the episode:

The Getty was awesome! They had an entire section of ridiculously old books with actual gold letters, intricate drawings, fancy writing that is pretty much illegible, and many were written in Latin- I had fun trying to decipher a word or tow. Unfortunately one quarter of Latin means I'm far from being a Latin language expert. Here's a picture of the museum:

Our last event of the day was attending a Dodger's game. I tried to take a picture of the big-screen-score-board-thing and here's what happened:

The screen went blank right as I took the picture. I was trying to get this:

They have a player named Salazar! Anyone a Harry Potter fan?



Look! It happened again! (the second picture didn't turn out too well)

Does this mean I have horrible or excellent timing?

Day 5

I killed everyone in a game of Settlers. Thanks, Adam, for not watching the board and helping me win faster.

This wasn't my favorite picture day, so enjoy a preview of Day 6:

Days 3 and 4: SF and LA

We met a few celebrities:

The most awesome celebrity we saw all day? Why Tori Doyle of course! Never heard of her? Well, there is a song about her!

Day 2: San Francisco

Kurt and I attended a Giants' game in San Francisco. That's a baseball team if you don't have every sports team memorized (I totally do). Apparently the team is doing pretty well this year and they have quite a few fans. We arrived about halfway through the game and had to pay $40 for two standing-room-only tickets. Here's the stadium:

Kurt was excited to be there!

We also saw some sights:  Golden Gate Bridge

Fisherman's Wharf:

The Painted Ladies:

And it was super foggy/overcast the whole time!