X-mas Tree Hunting

Ben and Shelli went X-mas tree hunting on Monday. Go to http://www.martineau-pittman.blogspot.com/ for more pictures.

Thanksgiving Pics

Alex pulling Genn's chain. :-) See all the Thanksgiving pics

Socks by Shelli

I promised Shell I would post a picture of the socks she knit for me. I am the green socks on the left. Cat posed with me, her pair of Shelli socks are on the right. We love them! Thank you Shell.

Dear, Dear Home!

Many tears were shed by them in their last adieus to a place so much beloved. "Dear, dear Norland!" said Marianne, as she wandered alone before the house, on the last evening of their being there; "when shall I cease to regret you! - when learn to feel a home elsewhere! - Oh! happy house, could you know what I suffer in now viewing you from this spot, from whence, perhaps, I may view you no more! - And you, ye well known trees! - but you will continue the same. No leaf will decay because we are removed, nor any branch become motionless although we can observe you no longer! - No; you will continue the same; unconscious of the pleasure or the regret you occasion, and insensible of any change in those who walk under your shade! - But who will remain to enjoy you?" - Jane Austen

Thank You Mike and Cathy! & RR too

Mike & Cathy came over to help hang our new door this evening, which is very, very nice being it is a 2 1/2+ hour drive (one-way)! The door is perfect. I can't wait to see it when the sun shines through! We just need to take down the old screen door, it hides the beauty of the new door. The dogs also had a good evening, they scored a bit of steak!

Beautiful

Door Update 2

RR puts the finishing touches on our new door. We didn't stain it, just put on a protective urethane coating. Now all we need to do is hang it. This is one heavy door so hanging it will be easier said than done. Oh, and yes RR did most of the work (maybe all of it) in his bathrobe.

 

SNUTS At The Office

This afternoon I heard a loud commotion in the office bathroom, followed by.... Oh No, Oh No! I ran quickly to see what was going on and found Mrs. Snuts with her arm down the toilet. Why? Apparently while washing up her lunch-time dishes her silverware slipped and bounced directly into the open toilet! She successfully rescued a fork and when I found her she was desperately trying to retrieve a knife. Of course instead of helping I ran for my camera.

Mrs. Snuts could not get a grip of the knife to pull it free. We had to call in GP, our IT, Go-for, all around problem solver guy. After retrieving the knife GP advised us to keep the lid down on the toilet. Imagine that! A guy telling us to put the lid down, hmmmm.

Note to self: Don't ask to borrow Mrs. Snuts silverware for a while.

A Thought

It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; What is essential is invisible to the eye. -Antoine de Saint Exupery

JI Now A Licensed Driver!

This is late but.... TA DA! JI got her license on the 14th. The only problem now is RR and I have to share the van. JI needs the car to get between High School and Highline CC, she is doing running start. Also, she works as needed at a Daycare.

Below, showing off her Tool t-shirt she picked the end of August at the concert at the Gorge.

i was on the radio!

this is how it happened:

Me and Earl were driving back to Lynnwood after picking up a few things from FDub. We we're listening to 107.7 like we always do and Harms was doing the Peoples Choice Countdown. Well, he mentioned that during the countdown he would be giving away tickets to Panic! At the Disco by playing a game called "Three Easy Questions". Me and Earl always try to win those games and even tho i don't like Panic! that much I decided to try anyway.

I called about 5 times [usually by 10 i give up] and Harms picked up the phone!

Harms: 107.7 The End
Tiffany: Can I play "Three Easy Questions"?
Harms: Sure! Let me get your phone number and I'll call you back in 5 minutes to play the game.

So I gave him my number and hung up. At this point I'm really excited because i've never won anything in my life and the game is called "Three Easy Questions" so how could i lose? I didn't even care if Harms didn't call back [which i thought was going to happen].

Sure enough 5 minutes later the phone was ringing saying "PRIVATE NUMBER" So Harms and me were chit chatting, he asked me where i was from, etc. and what i do. Then he asked me if i knew the rules of the game [which i did], and that i couldn't swear on air.

First he asked me what the smallest state in the U.S was, which i knew was Rhode Island. Harms: correct!

Second question: Ponce de Leon went to BLANK looking for BLANK.

I had no freaking clue at all. I looked at earl and i repeated the question and earl whispered. "FLORIDA" & "FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH" Harms: Correct!

I was so confident I was going to win. But then he asked me the last question.

Harms: What is the capital of New Zealand?
Tiffany: Uhhh, [i looked at Earl again, he didn't know] do i get a hint?
Harms: Let me see....no.
Tiffany: Sheepsville?

Basically I don't care that i didn't win because I don't really like them anyway. But i'm really excited that I got through and it's awesome that I was on the air! What are the chances? YAY!

Oh Canada!

The girls enjoying a weekend in Victoria BC

Meredith, Cathy & Connie enjoying Tea at the Empress
. - Yummy!

The Butchart Gardens

It took 100+ pictures at the gardens, they were so beautiful! Simply heaven.
I would love to borrow the head gardener for about a week and have him design my yard. Oh, and he would have to bring a few gardener's for the heavy lifting.

Japanese Garden

Italian Garden

This was Meredith's first paid vacation. Yay!

We also saw Craigdarroch Castle . The house is being restored as it was originally built 1890s–1900s. The wood work is extrodinary. We did some shopping, of course. I highly recomend visiting http://usa.lush.com/cgi-bin/lushdb/index.html?lang=en_US&dlang=en they have a shop in Victoria which can only be described as a bath and body candy store! Victoria is a must do, again and again and again! :-)

Tikki Flying From The Nest

Standing alone at the top of the stairs

She breaks down and cries to her husband "Daddy our baby's gone". -Lennon/McCartney

Nugget and Mum are sad about Tikki and Earl's move. First Shell, now Tikki, I will need to come up with a new title for this blog soon. How about; Emptying Nest. At least she's not too far away!

New Door Update

RR and I drove into Shorline (N. Seattle) to finally pick up my new door from Frank Lumber. RR will do anything for Spuds Fish N Chips! This door must weigh 200#, it was a bitch getting it out of the van and around back. RR weighing only 145# and me a weakling, you should have heard us while we were moving it! We used a wheelbarrow. :-) We need to add the locks/handle set and stain. Because it has taken forever to get the door (over a year), I now can not find the stain I orignally picked up. I am thinking this might be a good thing because I had picked a stain with color and I now think the natuarl color of the door is best. The picture of the door taken at Frank Lumber does not do it justice, It has a stained glass panel at the top with 3 red tulips, one for each girl! The door is solid mahogany.

Meet Maynard

We have a new family member, Maynard who is a Armadillo Lizzard. JI stopped at Midway Pets and picked him up on the way to work. The girl has nerve, she had the audacity to call her boss and ask for a ride to work from the pet store because she couldn't carry the aquarium, etc... all the way to work. We had a scare with him yesterday, JI had him outside and he escaped from her grip and scurried over onto her back, she screams grab him, grab him! Going through my head-She can't be serious! He's pokky, he's a lizzard, he's gone! He ran under the van, we tried flushing him out with water to no avail. We thought he was a goner, but Richard to the rescue! He moved the car and Maynard jumped out. Richard then snuck up on him with a towel, tossed it over him and Maynard's adventure was over.

Quick Visit Home S&B

We had a BBQ and a nice visit. Thank you everyone for making it over on a week night! S&B had were in town to attend a best freinds Wedding and were not able to visit on the weekend.

iPod

Tiffany gave me the iPod shuffle she was able to purchase with a money-back rebate when she bought her Mac. Genn was nice to load her Pink Floyd CD's on for me. ( I think she has an ulterior motive) Tiffany and Earl had to show me a few things too. I like it a lot with the exception of the damn sorry excuses for headphones... ear thingys or whatever they're called. They're horrible! I have to stuff them in my ear, grinding, trying to find a spot and just when I think I've got it and a great song is on.... thats when the damn things fall out!

Tiff with her new Mac - Hmmm...

Carol's Birthday Pics

Happy Birthday Carol!

Genn and Alex

Alex with Daddy Rick

Genn and I had a great time. Richard says thank you for the cake! - Carol made a to die for "diet" eclaire-type cake, it was soooo good! -YUMMY

APPLE!

mama bought me a Mac.

it's amazing!

CALIFORNIA! |this is a long one|

we took a trip to garden grove. it smelt like lou dog inside the van
OH YEAH

[awesome signs i saw while on my road trip to cali]

earl, celine and i all went on a road trip to california. it was a week long outing and we went to alot of different places in a short amount of time.

we started our trip off at Denny's on 320th [yeah i know. long drive]

[me mentally preparing for the long road ahead.]

So we were driving and driving and driving when we get to the middle of Oregon and are hungry yet again. So we take a random exit and what do we find?

SONIC!

Yes! After watching all those damn commercials about Sonic and never seeing one in the Seattle area we found one in the middle of freaking no where! It was amazing to say the least!

and a little erotic.

[its a drive in but we were sick of our car so we decided to eat outside]

So we continued our journey. We saw this cool guy.

[he loves wood]

AND FINALLY! we ended the first day in San Francisco at Earl's mom's friends studio apartment. We got all squished up and i ate burritos in celebration of making it to California! YAY!

---

Next thing we know we're on the road again stocking up at a gas station.

[the ridiculous gas prices.]

MORE DRIVING....and more being hungry. we figured you cant go to california without going to an In-N-Out.

[me and earl agreed its not as good as Dicks]

[sleep, eat, sleep, eat: thats basically all she did when we were on the road. haha]

[fabulous pink semi-truck on the way to L.A / Hollywood]

We made it to L.A to see Celine's old buddy Dianne. Her and her mom were really nice to let us stay there for a couple nights! The first night [the day we got there] we went to Hollywood to check out the scene. It was like 9 @ night and a monday and it was completely dead! Hollywood can lick my butt if you ask me. HaHa. the greatest thing we saw there that night was the church of Scientology, seeing a couple famous "stars", going on Hollywood and Vine, and eating at the Zen Zoo. All in all Hollywood is over hyped. Maybe it was just the time we were there at but...wutever.

[really funny to me for some reason]

[Hollywood & Vine]

[Zen Zoo]

---

The next day we were in the car again. This time we were heading toward San Diego [a whales vagina] and brought along Dianne for the ride to go to seaworld! SeaWorld was so much fun! I love animals and i'm glad to hear that SeaWorld is only trying to help them [like the manatees]. I liked watching the animal shows and feeding the sea lions. they remind me of my beagles!

[manatees!]

[watch your fingers earl!]

[this whale was awesome. me and earl think it was shamu but we weren't sure.]

---

after SeaWorld we stayed at Earl's Uncles house who lives in Laguna. It was really nice. He took us to dinner, breakfast and to the beach before we left the next morning to go to Universal Studios.

[ya know?!?!]

[Dianne]

UNIVERSAL!

Another amazing amusement park!! The rides and everything were great! One of the cooler things was going on the studio tour where we actually got to see "hot sets" and such.

This is the actual set where the plane crashes in the middle of a neighborhood in the movie "War of the Worlds" with Tom Cruise and Dakota Fanning! There's more...

They actually took apart a real airplane to make this scene!

We also saw a lot of other sets: How the Grinch Stole Christmas

Central Park on the show Sienfeild is actually just a patch of grass. [But i still took a picture of it anyway because yah no...Sienfield!]

we went by the houses that Desperate Housewives is shot at but they wouldn't let us go down there because it was a "hot set" and they didn't want us disturbing the actresses.

---

The next day we started off with some good old fashion Jollibee! Jollibee is this fast food place that started in the philippines and is starting to come over to the US. Obviously we had to go there.

[good sgetti]

[good halo-halo ice and ice cream basically ]

[good drinks]

[not so good hotdog. apparently it wasn't anything like the original one]

we went shopping on Melrose after that. Which i guess is in Beverly Hills? I'm not really sure. Anyway the shops were really cute!

that night we ate dinner with earl's cousin [i think] and her husband and little baby boy. We went to California Pizza Kitchen and then after that went shopping in Santa Monica. I dont have pictures of that because my camera kept taking annoyingly blurry pics.

---

The next day we said goodbye to LA and to Dianne and headed back up the state toward Fresno. We visited Celines side of the family, who once again treated us to dinner! YAY!

[It was called the Pink Elephant. but its not pink!]

[blurry]

it was so hot there! that's all there really is to say about Fresno. haha.

---

This trip was so short and a lot of fun! The next day we headed back up to washington. We really want to go back again [particularly by plane and to Laguna Beach] so that we can learn how to surf and also to use our 2006 pass we got from Universal Studios.

[me driving]

THE END!