My Favorite Pictures From The Last Month Part 1 - B2B 2008

I am a TERRIBLE blogger. I have no excuse... except that I've entered the land of a thousand weddings... or ten weddings... but it feels like a thousand.

I don't even have a coherent story to tell... but I do have lots of pictures.

For part 1 of my catch-up I give you: Bay to Breakers 2008 - a weekend of debauchery in pictures.

My friends and I went as Breakfast of Champions, it was a good time.

Here we are building the floats:




Here we are getting serious about some math:


Here I am building my hat... it was a bit big at first, dontcha think?


Here I am demonstrating the adjustable feature on the wheaties box (snazzy no?)


Here we are asking for a hangover:


Really a terrible idea:


Here's the whole gang at the start of the race:


Here's Kyle dressed as the Honeynut Cheerios Bee and me dressed as Cap'n Crunch.


Our beautiful breakfast table (the whole thing flipped up to reveal a cooler filled with beer inside the shopping cart! What do you expect from a bunch of engineers!?)


Our awesome carton of milk:


Here's the sign that we accidentally attached upside down (yeah, we're awesome!)


The back of my shirt:


Jason and Ben dressed like toast:


Pit stop along the race route to play rock-band:


You gotta love the tiny wings on Kyle:


My neck was pretty sore by the end of the day from that hat!


Did I mention there was some drinking...





Here's proof I made it mile 4 (out of 7):


Unfortunately I didn't make it much further... (photos too incriminating for the interweb so I'll just leave it at that.)

Stay tuned for part two... Wedding 1 of 10 for 2008... in Florida!!!

It's Not That I've Abandoned The Internet Entirely

... it's just that I've been sort of living at theknot.com instead of here for a while.

*Hangs head in shame*

I even made a "bio" page... see, girls on the knot make these bio pages to share with each other for ideas and inspiration and to show off snazzy little do-it-yourself projects that they've done. (Note: I have NO snazzy projects to share yet... but hopefully soon!) Anyway, I made it using google pages. Wanna see? Click here!

Fun. No?

In other news, last weekend was awesome in one of those blissfully plan-free sort of ways. We took each day as it came at us and just sort of went with the flow. It was officially our last "free" weekend until July 12th. Ugh.

Friday night we saw the movie "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" with our friend, Akbar. Kyle and I hadn't seen a movie in the theater since "Transformers"... yeah, LAST JULY! Wow.

Saturday we went for a run in Golden Gate Park (per my instructions, Kyle has been trying to whip my butt into shape for the wedding/honeymoon) and then we had a leisurely brunch at one of our fave restaurants, Park Chalet. After brunch we registered at Crate and Barrel (YAYAYAYAAYY!!!!!), cleaned our house, and then had our friend Ari over for BBQ. (His wife was out of town and so we took care of him. Gah! When did we become such grown-ups?)

Sunday we registered at Macy's (YAYAYAYAYAYAY!!!!) and then had ANOTHER BBQ with our friends Sophie, Tony, and Jess. The weather was SO gorgeous that we just couldn't help BBQing twice in two days.

My mom had knee surgery on Tuesday and so Kyle and I will be spending this weekend down in central California taking care of her while my step-dad runs their restaurant. I'm really excited to see her.

Plans for this weekend:
1. Make Chicken Soup for mom
2. Tan (I'm going camping next weekend and do not want to be Neon White)
3. Select invitations for my wedding!
4. Order Bridesmaid dresses!
5. Design and order invitations for my step-dad's 60 birthday party (It's pirate themed. Arrr.)

DC

Hi hi! I'm back from Bethesda! Oh, didn't I mention it? I was in Bethesda last week for work... leadership development, to be specific. Apparently someone thinks I should be a leader. Cool. Anyway, it was a pretty awesome week:

Sunday - Arrive at Dulles International Airport, take a $60 cab ride (thank goodness work is footing the bill!!!) to my hotel in Silver Spring, eat sushi all by my lonesome. (Feel rather depressed to be traveling/eating alone.)

Monday - Wake up at 6 am (East Coast Time... aka 3 am West Coast Time!!!) so I can be on the shuttle to my class by 7. Goodness gracious it was EARLY! Get to class, am bummed that I seem to have ended up in a"loser" class. After class meet my friend Anna for dinner and drinks. (Fun!!!)

Tuesday - Roll out of bed at 6 am cursing Eastern Standard Time. Have an awesome day at class. Decide a FEW of my classmates aren't totally lame. Go out for Thai food with a dozen or so people from my class and then go back to my hotel room to DO MY TAXES!!!! (Holy crap. I can't believe I waited till 9:30pm on April 15 to do my freakin taxes! SO unlike me!)

Wednesday - Would it kill them to start the class an hour later??? 6 am is a terrible time to have to wake up when you're jet-lagged! Another great day of training. After class we have a big dinner back at the hotel for the whole group - free beer and wine! We all take advantage. And after that, several of us go out for more beers at a local Irish bar. I decide I LOOOOOVE my classmates. "You're the best, man!" "No, YOU'RE the best!" Free beer + more beer + jet-jag = drunk Courtney. D'oh. And then, to top it all off, I may have gone to bed in all of my clothes... scarf, jacket, everything. Gah. You can't take me anywhere.

Thursday - Wake up (spinning) at 5:15 am in all of my clothes. Think to self, "Awesome!". Change into jammies and sleep for additional 45 minutes. Whimper when alarm goes off at 6 am. Decide to wear outfit that requires no ironing, sleep for 10 more minutes. Make it to shuttle by 7 am with coffee in hand and sunglasses glued to my face. Am greeted by several understanding (and equally hungover looking) faces. My classmates rule. Spend morning fighting the urge to hurl. Feel much better after large bowl of soup at lunch. After class, all of my new friends take off for the airport. :( Very anti-climactic. "Bye new friends!!" I wave to them all as I get on the shuttle back to the hotel with a few other stragglers. Get to room and collapse on bed. Order room service. Watch Men in Black. Get good night's sleep

Friday - Wake up at the far more sane hour of 9:30 am. Pack stuff. Check out of hotel. Best friend, Sara, and her boyfriend, Sean, pick me up and we head to Baltimore for the day! See Harbor, shop, get nails done, go to happy hour, go to Orioles game, go out in Baltimore. Fun fun fun!


Sara and me at the game

Saturday Day - Touristy stuff: see monuments, declaration of independence, hope diamond, etc.











Saturday Night - Go to Passover dinner with Sean's family and then out in DC. Order only wine and drinks made with Kettle One vodak (which is made from potatoes) in an attempt to keep kosher for Passover. Meet up with my friend, Liz (who, incidently, is also Kyle's ex, Liz... but I like her, a lot, and so I've decided to keep her, and change her name from "Kyle's ex" to "my friend".)

Sunday - Decide I'm not cut out for the whole kosher for Passover thing... get panini for breakfast. (I'm a bad fake jew.) Make it to airport on time. (Yay!) Fly home. Am greeted by my awesome, sexy, amazing future husband at baggage claim.

Happy Courtney.

Monday - back to "real" work... Le sigh.

And Then BAM! Right Into The Side Of A House

Kyle and I played in Tahoe this past weekend and I just have to say it was a.maz.ing. Some of the best snowboarding I've ever enjoyed.

We hit the road from SF, bright and early, at 6 am Saturday morning. By the time we got gas and breakfast, and sat in Bay Bridge construction traffic, and made the 183 mile trek to Kirkwood, it was 10 am, which was later than we hoped for, but still ok. The weather was unbelievable. High 40s... maybe even 50 degrees... and not a cloud for miles. Sweet home Alabama had NOTHING on this awesome blue sky. And yet, even with the warm day, the snow was still beautiful. A bit slushy, but not nearly as wet as I would have expected, and still totally fun to carve around in. AND I had a total breakthrough on my board. I FINALLY FINALLY learned how to really flow from being on my heal edge to being on my toe edge (which I realize is just Greek to anyone who doesn't snowboard, but for me it was HUGE DEAL! Something I've been trying to master since last year.) It was so exciting for me!

Unfortunately, I was so excited that I sort of stayed out on the mountain way to long and rode way too hard. By the end of the day my whole body was exhausted and all my muscles were shaking. On my last run I just could not go one little bit further. I had gotten myself stuck in a gully and needed to get out in order to make it back to my car. I was half way up one side of the gully when I decided to just take my board off and walk the rest of the way up. I sit down, dig my board in a bit and then unstap my left foot. I then unstrap my right foot, take a deep breath, and remove my board. I relax for a minute, working up the energy to stand up and carry my snowboard the rest of the way over the hill. Feeing ready, I reach for my board... and it ever-so-slooooowly sneaks down the hill a bit. I pause and think for moment, oh this can't be good... "No no no", I tell the board as I point in its general direction. And it then starts sneaking a bit more... so I stand up and start walking behind it, still pointing, now demanding, "Hey hey hey! You... board... stop right there." And then it starts moving faster, and I start running down the hill thinking I might actually catch it... well then it just TAKES OFF! The sides of the V-shaped gully we were in kept the board on course and so it was able to just pick up more and more speed. Foom! Down the mountain it went. Whoosh! Just missing another skiier. ("Sorry!" I yelled). Wheee! Up over an embankment at the bottom of the mountain. And then BAM! Right into the side of a house. (D'oh)

The board survived, and just missed a window (by about 6 inches!!) so I was able to laugh about the whole episode.

Sunday was more of the same, blue sky, great snow... but with less running into houses, so that was good.

Feels Like Fall

I think Fall is officially here. It's dark when I wake up in the morning, there's a distinct crispness in the air, and our kitty, Yertle, has taken to sleeping under the covers with Kyle and me. (Beyond cute!)

In honor of the season, a bunch of us went apple picking this past weekend. I had never been. And if you have never been, well, let me tell you, you should go! Apple picking is good stuff. The apple cider and apple cider donughts aren't half bad either.


My very first hand-picked apple!


Kyle with the cheater stick.


My future brother-in-law, ladies and gentlemen.


Pretty.


I don't think I could possibly love this picture more.


Our apple pickin posse. (Say that three times fast!)

Note: I may or may not have come home with 12-15 lb of apples... does anyone have any good apple recipes? Otherwise, I'm just going make a gallon or two of apple sauce.