sigmund took mike and i to the paws walk today. it really was exhausting. we had to get up early which wasn't what i really wanted to do given the fact that we were at the gym until 11 friday night. oh well, anything for the best dog in the world. after the walk i crashed for 2 hours and then watched mike do yard work. pretty lazy saturday.

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my birthday was on thursday. unfortunately, i have been sick since sunday so i spent my birthday watching tv and doing e-mail from bed. i was very surprised at how many people wished me happy birthday via email and im on thursday. the people i work with are totally great!

mike didn't get me a present for my birthday. granted, i told him not to but i was surprised that he doesn't know me well enough to know what that means. of course it means i want a present or at least flowers. but i guess i'll have to let that slide. tomorrow we're going to the seahawks game as my present. it's not that i don't want to go to the game but come on, flowers would have been nice.

friday night i had dinner at alexandria's in bell town with allison, rick, torres, carmen, and jay. is was great to hang out with everyone outside of work, especially since all the significant others came too. alexandria's serve awesome southern food. i had the fried chicken and ribs with mac and cheese and black eyed peas on the side. great pick allison! the food and the company were fabulous. mike showed up late but at least he made it. definitely a fun night!

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thank god football is back. sitting around watching football is the best way to spend a weekend. it's halftime right now. the seahawks are beating tampa bay right now but not by much. if only we had the new hdtv to watch the game instead of having to spend all day upstairs in our bedroom.

there are a couple carpenters working downstairs on the new windows. they have been trying to install these windows for a week now but i think they'll get close the finishing today. it looks like they are trimmimg them out now which is a good sign. the new windows look great. the front window will look even better once we get the leaded glass in.

i think we have finally gotten over the hump in this remodel. firing our interior designer and ordering all our furniture from ethan allen really helped things along. our old designer really wasn't helpful! so instead of being done by my birthday which was the original estimate, now i'll be lucky to have everything by christmas. :(

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ok, so i am not sure that my vacation could have been any better. mike and i went to hawaii for the first time. we stayed in maui for a week. below is the play by play of our trip:

day 1

arrive in maui in the afternoon. man, the sun is hot here. so we go to hertz to pick up our rental car and they tell us that they are out of the one was reserved and they have to upgrade us. that sounds good, we smirked. unfortunately, we got upgraded to a Ford Taurus. now i really can't see how the Taurus is an upgrade to anything but what the hell we are in hawaii. so we left with the Tarus and headed the hour to our hotel. we stayed at the ritz-carlton and man was it impressive. we got a great deal because it was the off season but found out later that they screw you with the price of food. anyway, our room overlooked the three swimming pools and the pacific ocean. sweet!

day 2

the first thing we did was head down the restaurant for the breakfast buffet. it was outstanding. mike went back for waffels 4 times. i was shocked over the price which was $25 per person. wtf! indignation aside, we ate there 4 times during our stay. after breakfast, we returned the Taurus and got a Jeep Wrangler. much better! i loved driving with the top down! we spent most of the day laying by the pool and planning out the rest of our trip. when we got back to the room i noticed that i was already sunburned even after lathering a ton of spf 30 all over before setting foot out in the sun. oh well. we had dinner at bubba gump shrimp in lahina. pretty fun.

day 3

we drove the Jeep to the haliakala carter. before going all the way to the top, we stopped off at sykline eco-adventures to have some fun on ziplines. we went on four different ziplines of increasing difficulty. the first one was pretty easy so i wasn't very nervous. the last one on the other hand was about 1 1/2 mile above a ravine and about 1000 yards long. we ended up going about 45 miles an hour on this one. it was totally cool. i would post the picture of me doing this but it shows me in the harness with my white belly peaking out under my t-shirt. not attractive at all. after the zip lines we hiked around the crater. now i have heard from many of my friends and coworkers that it is the most fun to ride down the volcano on mountain bikes. we saw them coasting down while we were driving up there. no offense but it looked ridiculous. i mean all you are doing is coasting down some road. the view isn't all the great and it is totally paved. it's not even like you are doing any mountain biking at all. yawn! anyway, the hike was pretty neat. we have hiked around mt saint helens and it was surprisingly different.

day 4

rest day

day5

the road to hana. now i wasn't sure if we were going to take this drive. i was warned that the road was very narrow and twisty. this usually is a sure way for me to get car sick but we braved it because the Jeep was great and could fix anything. and it pretty much did. we had a great time and didn't crash once. we stopped off at a botanical garden on the way and took some great pics. apparently the opening scene to jurrasic park was filmed from there. neat! we stopped at hana for a quick snack and headed onto the seven sacred pools. the pools looked great but we forgot our suits so we just hiked around the pools and took pictures. off we went to continue our drive. i think the round trip took around 8 1/2 hours. now that's alot of driving.

day 6

this was our absolute favorite day in hawaii. we took a 6 hour hike/kayak/snorkel tour. first we hiked the nakalailai point. the views were amazing and the hike was pretty challenging. there was one woman on the tour who was excepting a gentle hike in a botanical garden. whoops. i couldn't help snickering a little when she was trying to keep her balance. yes, i know it's bad but what can i say. anyway, after the great hike, we got dropped off at the beach for the kayak. mike and i have kayaked before so it wasn't that difficult. we saw several sea turtles from our boat. one of them came right toward us and dove under our kayak. it was totally cool. so, next was the snorkel. i was not at all convinced that i was going to do this. i like swimming where it belongs, in the pool. i'm not a big fan of swimming around with nature all around me wanting me to get the hell our of their territory. well, the cute tour guide convinced me that i was safe so i went ahead and did it. it was pretty cool but not something i would go out of my way to do again. at the end of the trip the cute tour guide told me about how he was bitten by a shark when he was 17. i didn't believe him until he showed me this enormous gash on his calf. he grinned and he he waited until after i went snorkeling so i didn't back out. whatever, he was cute.

when we got back to the hotel i ran off to the salon to get my hair done for our luau. my up do turned out great with a couple of flowers added for effect. when in hawaii... the luau was pretty cool. i hated all the food but we were there for the entertainment. the dancers were very fun to watch. i was very tempted to get a tatoo after watching them. one girl had a tatoo of the hawaiian islands on her right hip moving down under her skirt. very sexy but somewhat stripperish.

day 7

the next day we decided to do another tour with the same company since we liked the other one so much. unfortunatly, the cute guy wasn't there. this time it was the ugly annoying guy. as we made small talk we told him about our last tour and the about the guide with the shark attack story. he burtst out laughing saying the the injury was from a fork lift accident. whatever, he was cute. anyway, this hike was to the waterfall. it wasn't as cool because of the annoying guide and the fact that all the waterfalls were dried up. we hiked for a about 2 1/2 miles to a man made waterfall and swimming hole. mike and i stripped down to our swimming suits and quickly made our way to the pool. wrong. it was freezing cold and the bottom was coverd with rocks which made it hard to walk. we made to over to a big rock and got some sun while others braved the cold water. the return trip was more fun because mike and i went ahead of the pack and made it down well ahead of them. some of this had to do with wanting to be alone mostly, we just had to pee and the porta poty was at the base of the hike.

dinner was at kobe steakhouse in lahina. it is a habatchi place like Beni Hana but much better. By far the best dinner while we were there. day 8

day of rest and packing

day 9

head back to home sweet home.

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I never thought that picking tile could be so hard. The contractors accidentally demo'ed our filreplace tile so we have to start over. That would not be so bad sinceI hate the old tile but it is such a pain. Mike and I bought a book last night that showed a couple of different fireplace styles that we liked but we can't replicate anything exactly. We spend two hours at the tile place and still didn't place an order. We have to talk to our contractor and cabinet guy to fill out the details. What a pain in the butt!

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So Mike and I finally decided what we are going to have done to the house. We decided against raising the house and remodeling the basement. Instead we are redoing the livingroom and dining room. The style will be more original to the period of the house, craftsmen. The big problem is that craftsmen houses were not designed for watching tv. We really had to move things around to make it work. We'll see how it turns out.

The remodel started about 2 weeks ago and a lot has changed. The first two weeks have focused more on demolition. They should start sheetrocking on Monday. Here are a few before and after pics, the rest are here:

Fireplace before demo

Fireplace after demo

Here is the living room after the demo

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