Summer Vacation Part One

This summer I took a real honest to God vacation.

For the past few summers I've taken trips... but always to places that I have been to before. Don't get me wrong I love those places but I always stay with friends (which I love) and always do what we used to do back in the day reliving memories which is WONDERFUL but this time I needed something different. I needed a plane trip, a car rental, a hotel bill, and to feel like a tourist! a Vacation.  So this summer I went on a Road Trip with some friends from work that incorporated all those things and let me tell you- that was quite an adventure.

I had never really hung out with these girls for very long before the adventure just random get togethers at another friend from works house, but I always felt out of the group since they were all teachers and I'm just an EA. However they asked me to go and I agreed... and I'm glad that I did! In the weeks leading up to the trip there was lots of planning and meetings so I felt like I got to know them a little more and was psyched and ready to go about a month before we actually left.

Our venture started out first in Phoenix where we spent the night with one of Caty's friends who graciously let 4 girls sleep at his house and drive us to the airport the next morning. The first leg was a flight from Phoenix to Seattle which we barely made by the skin of our teeth because of a not so nice baggage checker whom I personally believe jinxed us. But it all worked out in the end and all four of us got our behinds on the flight!  Of course I got bored on the plane and entertained myself my taking pictures of my fellow travelers.

When we arrived in Seattle we took a journey on the light rail... and let me tell you it was quite a way to start off this Seattle leg! It was amazing because of many reasons. One being that it is CRAZY CHEAP! the second being that while on this train we encountered an individual who started us off on the right foot! He was a strange kid who had a new ipod that has the speak feature where when you speak to it it responds with a song by the artist... he chose to play mostly classical. He had gigantic glasses and he stuck up a conversation with Nikki about her iPhone she decided to keep him engaged in conversation... He looked like a fellow who enjoyed his food so we asked him for Lunch recommendations and he gave us quite a list we chose not to participate in his selections as most of them were in the Northgate Mall food court. We bid our fair wells to him when we got to the last stop of the Light Rail and headed to our hotel, Hotel Max. We... well I got a little lost and turned around after departing train station but we only had to walk one block out of our way... it was a needed stretch of the legs!!  I've stayed there once before with my sis and I had a gut feeling that this was the place we should start off our journey on, and it was amazing. The rooms have pictures of famous musicians on all the doors and VERY comfortable beds to sleep in- We had a quick bed discussion then headed out to the market to grab some lunch and pictures! Another thing great about our hotel was that it was really close to the market so we didn't have to walk very far at all! We went in on the side with all the outside vendors and meandered our way to the fish men! Who after a little trash talking on his part recommended that  we got to Pike Brewery for lunch instead of dinner like I had planned. But we heeded his advice and went for lunch and it was delicious!! 

Crazy full on delicious beer and food we walked back out through the market and back to the hotel for a lay down. We went to the hotel bar for cocktail hour  and waited for a one ms. ABBY LEONARD to make her appearance!! We got a dinner suggestion for a restaurant in near where the space needle is so my fellow travelers could experience that side of town  from our waiter who proceeded to shoot down the "advances" of a ms. nikki and walked our way to dinner. The name of the restaurant is blanking me as of this moment, it was once again an delicious meal from a nice restaurant. After which we tried to make an appearance at a Chopstick  type of establishment but after walking in and realizing that we were the ONLY people in there we decided to head out.
We walked through City Center after the sun had gone down and gave the ladies a view of the space center at night, one of my all time favorite sights! After that Abby left us to go back to the real world and we dropped a very tired Lindsay off in the room, and Nikki, Caty, and I went back to the hotel bar for a night cap.

a great first day.

Sick Day

Today I had my first sick day in about two years.
It consisted of coming home from work after an hour, a hug from my mom with orders to go to bed.
A long nap. Lunch of chicken noodle soup and Flipping Out.
Another nap interrupted with texts from work asking if I could step in on some other EA's duties.
A snack of Crackers, Sprite  and TV on the internet.
Finding out that I have Jury Duty tomorrow and calls to work to let them know that I will be gone another day.

                                                                                                                        and now I feel a bit better.

neglected blog

I've neglected this blog.

I am going to try and make a new go of blogging.

Desert was brought to our house tonight and it was pretty stinking delicious.

its been a long long while

updates on life of zoe
1. its tuesday which means tomorrow is wednesday which means early release out of school, which means MAYHEM!
2. i work with a lady who is alergic to the smell of peanuts so every morning knowing i can't have peanut butter... I CRAVE IT!
3. I got my school pictures today... i felt like a little kid again
4. In the process of creating a new blog... which makes me feel bad that I've ignored this one for so long!
5. i heart instant watch on Netflix
6. I'm eating a pumpkin bar with chocolate chips that my mom just made
7. number 6 is a lie... i'm thinking about getting up to eat a pumpkin bar with chocolate chips that my mom just made
8. I started playing golf
9. I'm planning thanksgiving recipes already... I want to make them all include some sort of dash of alcohol... is that wrong?
10. i made pumpkin cupcakes with whiskey buttercream.... they were REALLY GOOD!
11. i got a promotion at work which means I am now the assistant manager at CARE, which means I now have to be at work at 6:20 every weekday morning
12. I work with lots of older ladies... and i'm beginning to have sympathy menopause pains. Seriously... i get hot flashes all the time.
13. i love the social studies teachers that i aid for
14. the math teachers that i aid for... they're on my iffy list.
15. ok number 6 is now true, and number 7 is a lie
16. I've gotten my dad hooked on appetizer dinners
17. i can't wait for summer months to be here and i can make my move
18. I'm bummed i can't find a job in seattle and am still living in tucson
19. oh man its getting late... i should be getting to bed.
20. I've been on skype with val for about 2 hours... its been pretty wonderful
21. I was a ladybug for halloween again... half the kids thought i was an alien
22. The new neighbor who just moved in next door is in one of the classes i aid for... he had a sleepover and they yelled over the wall " HEY MS.ZOE I LIVE NEXT DOOR TO YOU NOW!!
23. i like meet me at maynards runs... their really fun. Especially with champ as my running buddy, but i wish the ladies were running them with me so we could chat it up like we used to
24. i'm thinking about crawling into bed right now and watching pushing daisies
25. i don't want to see who won the elections tomorrow morning... i'm nervous
26. i love when i wake up now... its chilly enough for a jacket
27. but the time lunch recess rolls around its pretty dang warm out
28. i miss my ladies VERY much.
29. but i'm very glad that they are all happy in what they're doing now... that makes me very happy.
30. I HOPE EVERYONE HAS A WONDERFUL WEDNESDAY TOMORROW!!

loves. me.

Summertimes' a endin'

Its been a long long while but most of you know what I've been up to... VISITING YOU! and for those who don't camp ended and I went on vacation to one of my most favorite places on earth... Washington!

Some other places to top the list in no particular order...
Beach Plum (how i miss it!)
my bed
the kitchen
william senoma
with the fam
driving range
in a car on a road trip at night
any grassy yard with a good book
lying around with blankets with friends watching trashy tv
and a few more.

After I got back on friday, the weekend was spent lying around in my bed! (i didn't realize how much i missed sleeping in a real bed as opposed to a couch for two weeks! but the time i spent with good friends long made up for the achy back!) Applying to jobs in seattle, day dreaming about the apartment that I am determined to get to sooner or later somewhere in or near seattle with lovely abbyleonard as a roommate. Reading a book that i had started but didn't take with me on the trip, catching up on recorded tv, laundry, and napping! Monday was spent dodging phone calls from my boss (wasn't ready to deal with yet), shopping for professionalish clothes (and bumming really hard about not being able to wear yoga pants to work any more), lunch with mama callimanis, and craft store shopping.
After blog stalking to try and learn how to make fabric flower bobby pins, and realizing that i needed fabric that we didn't have, and a few somewhat failed, somewhat successful attempts to make ribbon flower bobby pins I came across a martha stewart article for making tissue paper flowers, i got excited/inspired/ and i may have gone a little over board. I searched our gift wrapping/ storage/ miscellaneous craft closet all i came up with was 10ish sheets of white tissue paper, and to make one flower you need about 12. So i improvised and made my original one smaller and its still my favorite, unless you count the pale pink one, or the navy blue one, or the aqua one... never mind they're all my favorite! Anyway back to the story of monday... went to the craft store, bought tissue paper with with 25 colors in it (thats how i made the navy, and the fire colored one, and the purple and silver one... never mind just look at the picture.)


Then came tuesday where I answered my phone and went to work for a few hours, planned out working a little bit for the rest of the week, decided that easing myself into work would be a lot easier on everyone around me, rather than just jumping back in! Then went to lunch with a co-worker and shopped the william senoma SALE! where i got candied ginger which i got really excited about fall deserts like ginger apple pie, and ginger snaps! and blood orange bitters which is A-MAZING in fresh made whiskey sours! and best of all... both were under $3 and were originally priced at more than 10! Tuesday night is filled with blog stalking of fellow kappa dorm roommates who are traveling traveling traveling (and by the way i'm super jealous of her solo walk through spain) and the other is home owner! CRAZY! but I'm also super jealous of her- she owns something, constantly has projects, and something that needs to be done. But also I would be scared shitless. So proud of them both!!

And to end this post of rambling-ness a few pictures.

abbys dinner of fries covered in gravy my first night in! how i missed that girl!
lake sammish. I love this place.picture wall at S.A.M inspired by andy warhol

see if you can find me!
and last of all since the kitchen was officially completed this week with window shades and moldings before and after pics!

and now... shiny new kitchen!!!

Thusday thoughts

Its thursday today, and the week is slowly creeping to an end. I'm back to working just at the high school camp instead of half there half at camp monsoon, and liking it MUCH better! Camp monsoon was fun for a while, but staying in one location made the hours creep by instead of behaving normally! I walk so much more during the day when I'm at the high school and I get to visit with lots of people instead of just headed from one class to another. And it allows me to spend less time in the classes, or with the teachers rather that are just strange. Like the woman who told me the story of how her pet rat died, and how she was so distraught that she drove 3 hours to a patch of land that her and her husband own slept in the bed of her truck and burred her rat in the morning light. Which she thought was rather poetic, I agreed (I decided that was a better response than... Say What?! pet rat? three hours? buried in the morning light?) This is also the woman who tells the kids WAY more than they need to know like why she is wearing duct tape on her legs (obviously because she ran out of band aids to put on her poison ivy rash. DUH.) So anyway I like being at the high school camp a lot more than camp monsoon!
When I made the chocolate coconut cupcakes on Tuesday I brought them into work (since Theo was going out of town and therefore they would sit around the house for to long tempting myself, mama callimanis, and basil) to be enjoyed by the people who spend hours upon hours planning, scheduling, and working with the kiddos.
Devin is the teacher for the ping pong class that I aide in in the morning, so i brought him a cupcake, and he traded me a personalized tennis ball- it was a pretty sweet deal.
I went to the driving range after dinner with the folks tonight, it was really peaceful going by myself listening to new music and getting out frustrations by whacking at the ball with my new clubs, and while there I was once again amazed by one of the things Arizona has a leg up on compared to Washington- the sky. Whether its the monsoon clouds rolling in in the late afternoon, sunset, or just glancing up at the night sky- its truly amazing.
Its getting late, so the boys (hudson and hemmingway) are getting rowdy- so I'm going to entertain them, as well as my self with their laser pointer, I should remind you that the boys- are cats. Yeah that's right I'm pretty awesome.

Tuesday night

Chocolate Coconut Cupcakes

YUM.