i am mocking you

aaron and i were talking last night and came to an interesting deduction. it all started when we were recalling the first time i met our friend, andy. andy instantly got my jokes and laughed at all appropriate times, which may not seem like much, but it is. especially since he just met me. most people don't understand my humor right away. i can be quite sarcastic at times, however, peoples first impression of me is one of sincerity and earnestness. so they misunderstand my sarcasm as sincerity and leave thinking i'm super nice. aaron however, has the exact opposite happen to him. his first impression usually leaves one thinking he is super sarcastic, so even if he says sometime sincere, people will mistake it for mockery. the truth of the matter is that both of us are much more middle ground than we appear. interesting, no?

after our discussion, we skyped andy and had a fun conversation. it was 11pm for us and we were drinking wine. it was 11am for him and he was at work. he is (i think) the only friend of ours that is exactly 12 hours apart from us, which makes for convenient skype dates.

knitting pics to come soon. promise. also check out wech and barbs go south for some pics of our new place in wellington.

ess grad student retreat

every year the ess grad students (earth and space science), get together at friday harbor in the san juan islands for a healthy dose of island living, beer, and camaraderie. it's usually in february and it is usually pouring rain with 25 mph wind. this year it was sunny, gorgeous, and 55 degrees. in short, it was perfect.

aaron and i brought our bikes to the island and went on a short bike ride (about 12 miles) to the winery on the island. the sun was on our backs and the views were incredible (you'll have to take my word, because we forgot the camera). about 9 miles into our ride, we were a bit sleepy, so we pulled off the road at egg lake and took a nap on the dock. we woke up a short time later and continued our journey to the san juan vineyards. we pulled up some chairs on the porch and had a few leisurely glasses of wine in the bright sunshine.

  (green dot = dorms, blue dot = egg lake, red dot = winery)

that night was a late night involving lots of hard cider, games, a cozy fire, and lots of conversation and laughs. scientists are a fun group.

sunday we left the island and headed to bellevue, where we said goodbye to our friends wes and jenni thelen. wes has received his phd in ess and accepted a job in vancouver, wa. it is time to face facts...our friends are quickly earning their phds and leaving for new adventures. soon it will be our turn. this will be bittersweet. i adore seattle and all of our friends here, but it will be exciting to start anew somewhere else. it's fun to think about where we will be and what our life will be like in a few years.

a sparkle in my nose

way back when i was in high school i bought a magnetic diamond nose stud. i loved the look of them, but knew i would never be able to get one because:

1) i am a big wuss face. i have been told by various people that my pain tolerance is below normal
2) my father would kill me

in college, i told aaron that i would love to go to the tattoo shop to just look at the jewelry. i thought maybe it would help me get some nerve up...it ended with me having a panic attack. bad idea.

last august, my friend theresa, wanted to get her nose pierced and i went with her. she was a champ, and i was stunned that watching the actual process made the whole procedure seem much less scary. i think i might have alarmed her with all of the questions i asked afterward.

last friday, theresa accompanied me to slave to the needle, where adam gave me a small diamond stud in my left nostril. i was a little shaky, but was relieved to find that it didn't hurt much at all, there was only a little pinch when he was attaching the jewelry. t was an awesome person to bring along as she kept talking to me and adam the whole time, providing distraction from the actual process. i love the result, it is so pretty! (although the sea salt soaks may be my undoing). i have always heard that tattoos and piercings could be addictive and i never understood why until now, there was definitely tremendous rush associated with it.

we celebrated afterwards with crepes and wine at the crepe cafe. and then more wine and a private viewing of when harry met sally. i hope to surprise aaron when he returns from india in a few weeks. after the last experience 5 years, when he escorted me out of a tattoo shop crying, i'm sure it will surprise him that i garnered enough courage. oh, and my father is still not pleased, but he took the news with much much less yelling than i thought. he might be mellowing...

if nose piercings aren't your thing, and you think i might have ruined my nose forever. relax, i've discovered that many people don't even notice (maybe that's because in seattle, where it's really common). i don't think it jumps right out at you, it's pretty subtle as far as piercings go.

do you fondue? i do too

our swiss friend, sanjoy, hosted the 3rd annual fondue gathering last friday. everyone loves the fondue party, dare i say that it is our most anticipated winter gathering. aaron and i had some problems getting there...we started off on our bikes, but before i could completely leave our driveway i had already fallen off my bike and tumbled to the ground (no, there was no alcohol involved). once i had recuperated, we biked about 15 blocks before i got a flat tire. we walked our bikes back home and drove. the rocky trip was worth it though. there is something magical about friends, wine, and swiss cheese dip.

saturday we gathered at theresa's to watch the cardinals v. saints game. the game itself was pretty lame (cardinals lost), but it was a great excuse to eat chili, cornbread, and apple crisp. we also discovered for the love of ray j. it has the honor of being the best worst show ever to watch. i'm holding out hope that these people are all paid actors pretending to be contestants on a reality show, and not actual real people .

sunday was pretty laid back. we had some brunch with friends at hattie's hat in ballard, took a short nap (because brunch can be exhausting, you know?), and then played some pool at the buckaroo.

we were both pretty excited to go snowshoeing on monday. however, the route that i picked from the book, there was absolutely no snow. sad. we made the best of things and did an pleasant (but short) hike to the big four ice caves. it was nice to just get out of the city, breath the fresh air, and get a bit of exercise. when we got back home, it was so nice (60 degrees!) out that we went to the park with our favorite swiss man, to toss the frisbee and play the first round of boccie of 2010.

oh, yes. 2010 is great indeed.

3 unique social situations in 1 amazing day.

after a mid-afternoon visit to nintendo, aaron and i paid my boss/good friend, mary and her boyfriend, kevin a visit. we called a 5-10 minutes before we arrived, just to make sure they would be there. of course, in those 10 minutes i'm sure they were scrambling, because when we arrived the house was spotless, wine was getting ready to be poured, and there was a fire crackling in the fire place. mary has a "special drink" that she has been dying for me to try. her special concoction involves wine, concentrated pomegranate crystal light, and a dash of diet 7-up. it was delicious, and i thought it tasted surprisingly like sangria. there was lots of funny dialect and even a few rounds of poker before we had to bid them farewell for our next hot date.

hot date number 2 involved jeanne and ron. they were representing kansas in the american farm bureau 91st annual national meeting. on our way back from mary and kevins, we swung by their downtown hotel (the sheraton, how fancy!) and whisked them off to ivars salmon house. they both wanted to try some food that they couldn't get in kansas, but we wanted it to be friend for picky eaters (a.k.a. ron). seafood was a great choice. it was nice to see them, but before too long we had to hug it out, and join some friends for the last venture of the evening.

our friend, adam, turned 29 so to celebrate we hit the zoo. no, not that zoo, this zoo (if you were true followers of this blog, you would expect that). there was a few beers, and a lot of merriment. also, have you heard of snooker? yet, another fascinating game that i am horrible at (fun, nonetheless).

so there you have it, 3 very very different social situations, with 3 groups of very very different people, and lots and lots of fun.

singing, the flu, thanksgiving

sanjoy turned 30 on november 21st. to celebrate, the gang had some pre-party drinks at dante's followed by a few hours at seattle's best karaoke. i can not begin to describe the time that was had (mostly because i drank like a 19 year old). suffice it to say that a good time was had by all (disregarding the morning after).

the celebrating probably weakend my immune system because the very next evening i had a fever. it struck really suddenly...i felt fine one minute, and the next, sitting on the couch hurt. fever, body aches, and a hacking cough was about the extent of it. by tuesday, i had spread the love to aaron. we spent the next 5 days in the house together. we were cooped up so long that really odd things were becoming hysterical to me (i even youtubed bert & ernie clips).

because of said flu, we were confined to our house for thanksgiving. i made french onion soup, mashed potatos, and cranberry sauce. later in the evening our friend, lora, came by with a large bag of thanksgiving leftovers. this cheered me considerably, and was very "in the spirit of the holidays".

adavis

the fabulous anna davis graced us with her presence this weekend. it was a sneak attack...i was totally clueless that she was arriving. normally, i am not a fan of surprises, but rarely are they this good. she arrived friday evening and left  this morning - but we packed a lot in to her 3 night stay.

highlights of the anna davis weekend

1. saturday we braved the early hour and cold temperatures and waited in line for a couple of hours for the goodwill glitter sale. there were several great purchases: a faux fur coat  for aaron, a scarlett o'hara dress for me, a barbie dress and a mistress dress for anna, and a sweet suit for brendan, and a pretty dress for rachel.
2. made brunch family style at brendan's house
3. gorged ourselves on indian food
4. played shuffle board at the twilight
5. slept in on sunday, then had a run around greenlake
6. taco truck lunch followed by a game of settlers
7. we tried to recreate the pushups shown in this video 
8. drinks at the pi

exhausting, yes, but oh-so-worth it.

hurricane andy

andy visited seattle this weekend. we knew he was probably coming sometime in august, but last thursday he let us know that he was coming on friday. the last few days have been a whirlwind of fun, laughs, and well, andy.

saturday was full of the normal (well, normal for us) saturday things. bocce, brunch, beer, and a bbq at the weekly home. an exciting hightlight was that i went with my friend, theresa to get her nose pierced. it appeared to be less painful than i had imagined it would be. i'm glad i went with her because i would be interested in getting it done sometime. i think the tiny diamond studs are very pretty.

sunday we went for an 8 mile hike to blanca lake. i'm not going to lie, the first 3 miles the beauty was lost on me. the trail gains 3,000 feet of elevation in just under 3 miles. this, to me, is significant. i also learned that my definition of the word "slow" is different from others (note to self: work on cardio so you aren't so pathetic). after all the climbing, i did finally appreciate the setting. the lake was an amazing bluish-green aqua color. really, stunning. probably one of the prettiest lakes i'd ever seen.

monday it was difficult to move. it has been awhile since i've been this sore. i wasn't alone though, andy was sore, too. spry aaron was left unscathed. it's tuesday and i'm still sore. this is probably good for me. i believe it is called "character building".

a biking we will go

actually biking we went. saturday aaron and i biked with a couple of friends from our house to the redhook brewery. this bike ride has been attempted before with disastrous results that involved tears (me) and one of our companions flipping over the handlebars of his borrowed bike (hi, justin). this time the ride went much smoother. we left our house around around mid-afternoon and rode the 20 miles to the brewery. of course while we were there we took the dollar brewery tour and stayed a bit longer for dinner (we needed the energy). the ride back home was a bit more of a chore. we tried to break it up a bit by going bowling partway through. towards the last few miles we broke out into song, which included such hits as "you've lost that lovin' feeling"and "un-break my heart". classics. we arrived home exhausted at 10:45 pm. it was a fun trip, and not nearly as hard as i thought it would be. i'm glad i tried it again.

wingardium leviosa

the werst household had a fabulous weekend. saturday was a wee bit sad, as we had to say goodbye to our friends the morgans. they will be moving this week to tennessee. there was a fun picnic at volunteer park where tons of friends came to play games and wish them well. tennessee is seriously lucking out on this one. it is the begining of many our friends leaving. a sad fact, over the next year many more will be earning their phd's and leaving. soon it will be us.

to cheer ourselves up we went to see harry potter and the half-blood prince. I was wowed over, and aaron thought "it was good, not great". it really made me glad to not be 16 again. i wouldn't mind being a wizard though. interestingly, i believe this was the first time in two years i had been to a movie theater.

sunday i got some "barbie time" in the morning. i think i require more alone time than most. i recharged with some knitting and breakfast at tiffany's. then had a fun-filled afternoon that involved crab rangoon, beer, pool, pizza, and bocci in the park. does it get much better than that?

independence day

i hope everyone had a great 4th of july! to celebrate aaron and i had dinner with some friends and then walked to campus where we viewed the spectacular fireworks on top of the atg building. it was great to be able to watch the show without fighting the swarms of people (50,000!) that usually gather at gasworks to take part in the event.