More pictures from Angie

So we ended up staying in again last night. A rare Tuesday at home...seems like everyone was recovering from a rough weekend of partying a little too hardy. Angie sent me a few more pictures from Saturday night so I am posting them because they're cute..

Angie, me, Russ and Donna (Donna- love the outfit!)

Not sure what's going on here...but I love it!


Caught on film smooching...I love this picture!

And another shot to try to prove we're having fun without Charissa (even though the night would have been way funner with her there!)

Random stuff...

Well, it's Tuesday...not much for me to report...but I want to keep up with the blog so I will do my best. I also hate writing without posting pictures, pictures make it SUPER fun, so I decided to steal some images off of my best friend in CA, Lauren's website so everyone can see what she looks like. Um, can you say MODEL??

Her and her boyfriend are considering the idea of moving to Baltimore...and by considering I mean Lauren and I are doing everything short of witchcraft and kidnapping to convice Brian (the bf) to agree to move to Baltimore. I feel that this blog is my effort to make B-more life look as fun as humanly possible.

Here is a cute pic of Wes stolen directly from Angie's blog as well...


Well...that's all for now.

Saturday Night Pics

Here are pics stolen STRAIGHT from Angie's blog. Thanks girl! We had a blast.
This is us pretending we're having so much fun without Charissa...but we REALLY missed her!
Jess- this is a tribute to you! Look at me posing with the band!! And they're laughing!

Me imitating the Drooly look. AKA- all the Wes girl groupies giving me mean looks when he hugs me. LOVE IT!

Me and Angie...cute pic.

The Weekend in Review

Last night we went to see Wes and Drew play at Sonoma's in Columbia. What a dump. We had fun nonetheless. Donna and Angie were there and we had a blast taking hilarious pictures. Unfortunately all the good ones are on Angie's camera, so I will have to post them once I get some from her. They're pretty funny. Here are some shots I took with my phone...not bad considering its a phone.

This is a picture of Russ and Angie discussing how to best get a picture of the girl with the horrible pink thong sticking out of her pants, without her realizing it.
CAUGHT ON FILM!
These pictures were taken this morning. They make me laugh so hard! I took them to document what a horrible driver he is. He is driving with ZERO hands as displayed in the pictures (one hand is holding a Dunkin Donuts bag and the other is holding the donut) he is also not looking at the road to boot! Anyway, he does this ALL the time. Sometimes he reads the paper on the drive to work. See below. Exhibit A: He is eating the donut. Exhibit B: he is mad that he is caught on film!
A Day's Work. Here is a picture of a LONG fence in our yard. We took the WHOLE thing down today. I thought it was worth documenting as well....I don't have a picture of the fence cleared b/c it was dark when we finished.

Saturday Morning

Russ and Sam making pancakes for breakfast. Picture came out so cute I had to post it. I'm on my way to go to Bazaart with my mom dowtown...a craft show at the Visionary Art Museum. The boys will be out back all day digging a stream and playing in the yard, so Saturdays are always a good time for my mom and I to hang out.

Catching up...

I've been slacking on my blogging lately. It's been a busy week with Jess visiting and preparing for Thanksgiving. Russ took all our thanksgiving pictures, so I'll need to get the images from his camera and post them soon. We cooked the turkey in a smoker for ten hours outside. We woke up at 4am to get the sucker started and it came out super yummy. The best part was that I didn't have to do anything with the turkey at all. My mom and I cooked everything else and we had eleven people over, mostly Russ' family. Not much exciting stuff happened for me to report because my mom and I were tucked away in the kitchen all day.

Below are some pictures from our trip to Telluride, Colorado last March. I just got these pictures off of Russ' computer so I figured it was worth posting them. The first is a picture of us getting breakfast burritos and drinking bloody mary's. It was our pre-ski routine every single morning. Then the second picture is the top of the run right outside my cousin Dru's condo where we stayed. We literally walked out the door and skiied right down to the lift. I will post more overdue Telluride pictures soon.

Bonfire

As usual I'm stealing images from Charissa's blog because she takes such thorough pictures and I do not... To my defense, I was driving a golf cart most of the time, so I couldn't. Sunday, the girls and Wes came over for a bonfire. Charissa brought her dog Antonio, who Penelope loved! Russ made chili, we played Taboo and burned all kinds of things in the fire. I also took the girls on a golf cart tour of the yard and got us stuck in a flooded area of grass. Whoops. Here are the pictures:
Me holding the puppies in my living room.

The girls on a golf cart ride: Jess is taking the picture.


Charissa thoroughly enjoying a ride on the back of the golf cart.
And Jess doing the same...

GIRLS' NIGHT!!!!!

Last night we went to see Wes and Drew play at Kelsey's pub. The girls met us out...Angie, Donna, and Charissa. We had SOOOOOO much fun. I stole all of these images straight off of Charissa's blog becuase she took all the pictures...but so many more will be posted later b/c we had such a blast! I don't think there are any pictures of Donna...probably b/c she was so mad at Angie about her outfit...(long story). Stay tuned for video of Jess dancing as well!
Jess posing with the band. "Look mom! That's Wes McDonough behind me!)
Jess and Drew had so much catching up to do that there really was not time for Jess to pause the conversation for a picture.
Jess and I singing and dancing to the Dave Matthews medley...It's too good! The whole bar went nuts.
Charissa dancing, and me laughing hysterically.
Charissa and Angie looking adorable as always.


I'm really not sure why we started taking these pictures...people must have thought we were nuts...


Some serious pictures.....
And a not serious picture...

JESS!

Last night Russ told me he had a surprise date planned for us and that he had to leave at 7:15 to pick up a package to enhance the night and that he would return at 8:15. He pulled into the driveway and honked three times for me to come out to the car. As I was walking out- Jess jumped out from behind the garage....she lives in Vermont, we haven't seen each other in almost a year and her visit was a total surprise. I was so excited and shocked/startled that I screamed and threw my purse at her. Needless to say we are SO excited to be together for a long weekend and I already swore I'm not letting her go home...there's no way! Russ took some really cute pictures of us last night which I will post later bc I don't have them right now but I do have pictures from our shopping trip to H&M who now, apparently sells unitards. They were so silly looking we tried them on...it actually looked cute on Jess and she wanted to buy it and wear it out tonight. She said "Jess, if I buy this and wear it tonight will you buy my beers all night?" and I said "I will not go with you, or I will go and pretend I don't know you." So luckily, she didn't buy it. We are headed to Ellicott City- a pretty lengthy drive from Reisterstown to see Wes and Drew play since Jess has not seen him since she moved a year ago. We are meeting Charissa, Donna and Angie- the usual suspects- and there will be plenty of pictures posted once I get around to blogging again. Here is a horrible AND fuzzy picture of me looking like a total dweeb in the horrid unitard! I should have tried on black- much more slimming. Oh and I put in on backwards...like I know how a unitard should look!

What's Cookin' Good Lookin'?

Russ is cooking his super yummy chili for dinner tonight...so rare and so cute that I had to take a picture for my blog of course. I will not get into my shopping trip b/c I had to run out and grab last minute ingredients. I hate the supermarket so much and retelling the story would mean partially reliving it- and I refuse. Let's just say- any visit to the supermarket deepens my love of peapod.com we get all of our groceries delivered from there. It's so cheap and SO easy to use! Anyhoo- the recipe called for Guinness so I had to also go to the liquor store...that I don't mind so much. The guys that work there are cute and super duper helpful...I got some wine and the new Bailey's with mint chocolate flavoring. Yum.

Dr. Penelope Medicine Woman

Just a typical Wednesday night for Penelope and friend Jamie at the Hackerman-Patz House.

Penny and I teach art class every Wednesday night through an organization called Art With A Heart, "An organization geared towards helping people in need enrich their lives through visual art". My site is Hackerman-Patz House which is like a Ronald McDonald House, easiest way to describe it. Families live in this house while their children undergo limb lengthening at Sinai. Apparently Sinai Hospital is world-renowned for this procedure so we get families from around the world. Children who need this are either "little people" or children who were born with an underdeveloped limb that will never grow on its own. The surgeries occur many times during their lives, I think at every growth cyle, it is very very painful but amazing. I see children come in with one short leg and get their surgeries and their fixaters on (think of a halo that people get attached to their skulls after serious head trauma- fixaters are the same thing but on arms and legs) and leave with two legs the exact same length. The children are such sweethearts and they LOVE art...and dogs. I do an art project with them for an hour while Penny jumps from lap to lap to visit with her friends. Many of the kids stay with their families at the house for 6 months at a time...they love seeing Penny b/c most have dogs at home that they haven't see for a while. Penny loves going there so much...as soon as she gets out of the car she runs as fast as her little legs will carry her to the front door. As soon as she dashes into the living room everybody cheers...who wouldn't love that kind of reception? Here are a few adorable pictures of Penny and her friends.

Spring Ikea Trip

Spring employees, Matt and Kelli smiling over a job well done- turning this blue BMW into a clown car. Graphic designers and expert packers. A few weeks ago while sitting in our new office space which is larger than our old office space- obviously...we realized we really needed more furniture. Being that Spring is a startup and the employees are paid well ; ) we wanted to save money on furniture so the three of us hopped in my sedan (shown above) and began our journey. After about four hours and many serious discussions over tables, storage bins, and creative chachkis, we found ourselves rolling up to the register when Matt looked at our THREE carts bulging full of furniture boxes etc. and said very innocently "Jess, are you sure all this stuff is going to fit in your car?!" Kelli and I looked at the carts and immediately doubled over laughing. DUH what were we thinking!! I calmly responded "What do you mean?!" and that sent us into more roars of laughter. I have fold down seats- so we set out to the parking lot determined to make it work. We spent a good 45 minutes in the parking lot loading the car. An Ikea worker even came out and started disassembling furniture and offering suggestions. Apparently Matt was frustrated with her presence b/c we had too many cooks in the kitchen I think. Anyway- very long story short...we had boxes sticking out of every nook and cranny. After having Matt inhale a lungfull of exhaust while tying the trunk closed at the same time I turned the car on, and having a stranger help Kelli into the front seat by sticking a large mirror next to her and closing the door, we were finally on our way back to the office. Right as we were making our final turn into the parking lot a rolled up carpet pressed the window button which opened the window and almost sent the carpet flying out into the road. I am happy to report that everything and everyone made it back safely in the clown car.

Zoo House

Penny (left) and Felix (right), two buddies in the zoo we call home. This post is for my friend Kris whom I've just recently reconnected with. I told her how I lost Max recently and she wrote an email saying it sounded as if I have more animals in the house. Oh boy do I! Three cats: Felix, Samson, and Sydney, a dog: Penelope and a gecko: Dragon. I don't have pictures of everyone...but I will try to get them all posted on this blog at some point or other. Two weeks after Max died I found a very old dog dying of starvation on the side of the road. I brought him home and took him to the vet. We nursed him for two weeks trying to get his strength back- but it didn't work and we had to put him to sleep. We named him Wylie Coyote because of the incredible likeness to the Looney Toons character. He was a sweetheart and one of the many beloved animals to have lived in our Zoo House. Kris also mentioned that she has lost both her labs in the past few years and that she has them buried in her yard with lilac bushes. I plan to do something very similar with Max and Wylie. When we moved in the house Russ and Sam discovered a grave stone out back for a Boxer who died in 1952. We are going to make that the gravesite for our animals. It's on the far end of our property and I'm going to put a white fence around the area with a trellace at the entry way and make it a garden of all my favorite flowers and bushes. I also plan to put a bench or table out there so that I can sit and visit them often. I think its important that their souls feel honored. As crazy as this will sound....I can practically see Max still running in our yard. Its hard for me to look out back without envisioning him playing and loving the space. Maybe it brings me comfort to think of his soul continuing to live with us in the house and in that yard as if he never left. Here is a picture of Max on the last day his physical body was with us at the house. He doesn't even look like himself. And below a picture of Wylie Coyote.

Russ

It seems the person most interested in my blog is Russ...(as he comes in the room and says in the cutest imaginable voice "What are you blogging??"). This is not surprising to me as he is very supportive of everything I do. We live together and work together and rarely get on each other's nerves...We're good partners. Our latest venture...a piece of furniture. He made it, I stained it. Will be done later tonight and placed in our favorite room of the house, our breakfast nook/entry room/dog room. I'll post pictures of the table and the room tomorrow. We're off to Claddagh's tonight. Will post pictures tomorrow.