End of Hanukkah

The end of Hanukkah has come and gone and here are some pictures of Amy and Mute saying the nightly prayer. Sark joined later to help make sure the candles burned properly.

We went to Jeremy and Samara's party at Jeremy's Greenlake house. It was a Hanukkah party filled with hella decorations, Samara's Hanukkah cookies, dreidel's, etc.

He even decorated his aquariums.

There were adult beverages for everyone to drink.

Samara is super awesome and the cookies rocked. Amy and I helped decorate some cookies with frosting and sprinkles that Samara bought.

There was beer pong downstairs.

Selena, Stacy, Ellen and Michael were all there too.

A great Hanukkah overall. Who is ready for Christmas?

Ninja kittens

Anthony was wrapping Christmas presents while Amy was out of the house and he closed the door to the SE bedroom so the cats wouldn't eat the wrapping paper and presents. After finishing, he went to look around the house for the kittens. He could not find them anywhere. Finally, came up stairs again and found them 10 feet from where he was wrapping the presents, curled up together on the bed in the guest room. Ninja sneaky cats!

Fireplace is my favorite place

Amy was at home while I was out and the fireplace was turned on to warm up the house. Both cats like the warmth and Amy moved the ottoman next to the fire place and both cats went to sleep for multiple hours. Deep freakin sleep too. Below is a picture of Sark passed the eff out, even after the fireplace had been turned off... everyone was melting...

Music Trivia of the Day

Again, without resorting to your search engine of choice... can you tell me...

Who is Chris Gaines?

And if you know who Chris Gaines is... is it bad to say I like him and his one song a little better than the guy he really is?

Movie Trivia of the Day

First without using your search engine of choice... then resort to a search if needed...

In what movie can you hear the following lyrics:

"Entering Bootytown
So shake that booty now
'Cause your booty is the way into his heart"

Ten bucks says Drew and Lana get this one first!

kitteh foto op

Aww... the kittehs are just so cute!

Rare to get them both together... but here are a few shots... Sister/brotherly love...

What are you lookin' at... we know we are cute..

Sark... what are you looking at?

Watching TV....

Ok, look lady, if we look over there at you, will you give it a rest already?

Bake Sale

This year Tarragon decided to have a bake sale in addition to their annual Treehouse Drive for local foster kids. Ok, the Community Outreach Committee decided to do that... and Amy is the chair of the committee... so... she had to make some kick a$$ cookies!

Well, originally Amy and Steph were going to make croissants... chocolate ones... but it takes, literally, all day... we know cuz we've done it before... Steph got low on time, so she found this awesome formulas for two kinds of cookie: double chocolate ginger cookies and graham cracker sandwiches with chocolate ganache! Whoa!

Unfortunately, Steph got sick about a day before our scheduled baking session... sucks cuz she really wanted to make these... so, Amy went ahead and made them so Steph could try them too. Somehow we didn't get a photo of the ginger cookies, but they did get rave reviews. Also, Amy decided that if you are gonna make graham crackers from scratch, they've gotta be cute too... so that's why they are little penguin sandwiches instead of the boring square grahams... Yay!

getting in the spirit

Every year Amy and Lynn go to Karin's house on the day after Thanksgiving. See, Amy and Anthony spend most of that day with Norman and Lynn... and Amy's previous boss, Karin, traditionally has a wreath party late on that day. She and her husband have most all of the supplies you need to make a wreath and she invites her girlfriends every year. Amy and Lynn have been going for a while now and may have made their best wreaths yet!

Note in the photo below, Amy's wreath is hung on the front door... nice touch that it is right next to the Mezuzah...

Here's a shot from further back... It's taken from the ground so that you don't get a reflection of Amy in her PJs as an added photo bonus...

Now here is Lynn's wreath... really, it's her best yet! Looks great, huh!? Nice job, Ma!

Season's Greetings Everyone!

Happy Hanukkah

Happy Hanukkah everyone!

We went to Mercer Island for a Hanukkah party on Friday night. Amy and Nick won Hanukkah bingo! Blintzes, latkas, lox and bagels.....quite a Jewish festival.

Song Lyric of the Day...

"red is the color of the sun with my eyes closed"

anyone know the artist? the song? the album?

I <3...

Can I let you all in on a little secret? I effing LOVE amazon.com!

Free Shipping? Yes please!

The product I want, in stock and for a low price? Yes please!

Lighting fast shipping? Yes PLEASE!

Sure, it's not 100% awesome - I've had a slower shippment than I'd hoped (still on time though), or a miscommunication about an order here or there (said the delivery couldn't be made, but it was in my office mail room the whole time)... but overall, amazon.com effing rocks!

Thank you, amazon.com... it's ok that you didn't hire me when I applied to work at your fancy office on the hill... you're still a rock star...

Shout Out

I gotta just say it... Roy Orbison ROCKS. Everytime one of his songs strikes my ears, I just get excited about music, and that is really something worthy of a shout out.

Orbison was a stud, (I mean, just look at his kick a$$ photo above...) an amazing artist who performed solo, as well as with other great artists. I mean, he was a member of the Traveling Wilburys for crying out loud! Hello? Rockstar!

And this guy had so much tragedy in his life, I didn't even know about all of it. Not only was his talent taken from the world when he died at the young age of 52, but he survived so much. His wife died in a motorcycle accident, then two of his three sons died in a fire as his house burned to the ground while he was out of the country. Later, his brother died in a motor vehicle accident when on his way to visit Roy for Thanksgiving. How much can one person take?

Throughout all the tragedy, Roy continued to be a rockstar - and in my book he still is. If you aren't familiar with his work, check him out. Download some iTunes, and prepare to sing along once you learn the words.

Thanks, Mom and Dad, for introducing me to cool peeps like Roy when I was just knee high to a grasshopper...

-- ALB

Animals we saw while in Maui

We saw a Katie bird (Blue and gold macaw)
A cockatoo (this photo is turned, turn your head to the right for the proper view... the bird is leaning down over the bottom of her perch, chewing on it... yep, that's what birds do! crazy birds...)

A military and scarlet Macaw. (they were the only birds that sat together, they are good friends or something... maybe bird mates...)

A gecko of some kind.

Flamingos.

A white and black swan....Stop looking at me swan (Billy Madison reference)

A black swan. (hard to see from the night shot, but he was cool. And his best friend is one of the dudes that works at the hotel because one morning we came down and heard the swan who wouldn't stop making this crazy noise because her/his friend was there, the hotel dude, and was petting the swan... it was just so cute how the swan would wig out, and the dude would pet it, then the swan would wig and the dude would pet the swan some more... too funny!)

A weird but cool fish.

Hella big fish.

Koi... and hella big Koi...

There was also a Gorilla sighting... no, that was just Amy using her Chiquita Banana floatie in the ocean... no picture of that one, sorry!

Thanksgiving with Benezra's then Brelsford's

Thanksgiving as always was celebrated first at Mom and Dad Benezra's house on Mercer Island. Even though there were less people and Mom made less food, there was still tons left over. Maybe next year......

Mom made a delicious meal of Turkey, Salmon, mashed potatoes, gravy, sweet potatoes and marshmallows, green bean casserole, stuffing, cornbread, biscuits, etc. Selena and Samara made desserts. Amy made an appetizer because she thought people would need something to munch on... little did she know there would be so many apps there already too! Geez, what a feast! Below is Debbie in the kitchen as she slaves away... yes, she did have help, but she really does most of it all on her own! Thanks Debbie! Again, this was just part of the left overs. Yikes. Selena had quite the sugar high after dinner and decided wrestling with Jason was a great idea. Finally, Jason showed her who was boss. Taylor, Libbey, Amy and I watched the Selena Jason match and it was quite funny.Dad went all animalistic and decided to take a man bite of turkey. Amy had a temporary braided stash and goatie going. Gross - maybe she was bored for a bit...Friday we went over to the Brelsford's and had Papa Murphy's pizza, eggnog ice cream sandwiches (seriously, the Nog is the bomb!), pumpkin pie, chocolate brownies, etc. Norman and I watched movies while Lynn and Amy went to the annual wreath party at Karin's... wreath photos will come later we're sure... Oh, and Mickey is SO cute. The original cat whiner, but CUTE!Lynn gave Katie a Turkey bone and she cleaned that thing out. When she was done it was 1/3 of the size of when she got it.

It sounds really sick, but the bird loves bones. Not just bird bones, but any bone really. She loves to crack into it and get the yummy stuff inside, she makes a mess and it's all over her face but she just loves it! You say, "Katie, what do you want? Katie, do you want a bone?" She says, "Wanna bone?... MMMmmm, is it good? Mmmmm!" Too funny! We love that crazy screamin' maniac of a bird!