Fun Times with the Parents

My parents trekked over the pass this weekend to visit my brother in Bellingham and then back to Seattle to see Corey, Roxy and I. We had a blast with them!

We started off with dinner at La Isla, a near-by restaurant which serves amazing Puerto Rican food. My parents loved their dinners and we are all looking forward to going back again in the future.

Dinner was followed by indulging in my homemade chocolate chip oatmeal cookies and of course, a rousing game of Lips between my dad and I. It took him a song or so to warm up, but by the end, he was putting on a show for us with his fabulous singing and dancing skills.


And in case you still aren't sold on La Isla, check out the free stickers they give you with your bill. Bet you are jealous now, aren't you?


My mom and dad with their stickers. For some odd reason, they didn't actually want to put them on.


Figuring out how everything worked...


And then showing off his dancing skills.


Real proof that my dad could have been a rock star instead of an IT Manager. (In case you can't tell, he's singing Sara Bareilles' 'Love Song'.)

Today we made a Trader Joe's run and picked up some delicious pastries for breakfast from a bakery up the street. And we (and especially Roxy) were excited to have a quick visit from Patti and Kelsey this morning, too.

Neither Corey or I are looking forward to going back to work tomorrow after a fun-filled weekend. And I'm sure Roxy isn't looking forward to being on her own after having constant companions all weekend long.

Date Night with the Reeders

Because the food at Madame K's was so good last weekend and because the Reeders wanted to try it out for themselves, we headed back there tonight for some more delicious pizza. We had a great time catching up with Lisa and Jason over dinner and Lisa agreed that the only dessert that they serve was worthy of the name (see my blog post from last weekend for more details).

After dinner, we all went to see Slumdog Millionaire, which I thought was excellent. HIGHLY recommended that you go see it. Be sure to buy tickets ahead of time - even the Majestic Bay theater here in Ballard was sold out!

Thanks for a fun date night, Reeders!


Lisa had so many things to catch us up on, she made an agenda.


Lisa and I outside Madame K's.


After dinner, we had some time to kill before the movie so we headed back to our place to keep Roxy company. As you can see, Roxy loves the Reeders.

Shelf-Indulgent Purchases

Recently, Corey and I have been on kick to put the finishing touches on decorating our place. We've already painted and have most of the furniture but it was the decorative accents on the walls that were missing.

A few weeks ago, we bought some shelves from West Elm that Corey put up on the long wall in the dining room and they look great. It's so nice to have some extra room to store decorations and really help make our place feel more homey.

In addition to the new shelving, we had a brand new 52" flat screen Samsung delivered today, which sits on top of a new media cabinet we just bought. Corey is in absolute heaven. Now, before you ask why we needed a new TV, take a look at the photos below, which show the new TV and shelving.


New TV (yes, Corey had to try out the NFL channel right away) on the new media stand on the left and new shelving on the right.

The old TV was 16" thick and the new TV is only 2". It's able to sit much further back from the couch and in a narrow room, it makes a huge difference to have a little extra room between the couch and the TV. And with the new media cabinet, all the millions of wires behind the TV are hidden much better.

All in all, we are happy with how our recent decorating and new TV set-up has worked out.

Doggy Day in the Sun & Madame K's

After a run in the cold with lots of clouds and fog, I didn't have high hopes for the day. But a few hours later, we were so excited to see sun! We decided it was the perfect time to take Roxy out to the park at the Ballard Community Center (about a 10 minute walk away). We took along her favorite ball (the soccer ball she fell in love with at Corey's office) and let her off leash to run around and play with it.

After she'd been playing for a bit, several other dogs showed up (Minnie & Wolfgang) and she had a blast running around with them. She ran around so much, she was sluggish on the walk home and she was panting from all her running the whole way back. She recovered by sleeping much of the afternoon.

Here are few pics from our time out in the sun. Even more photos are here.

Roxy loves her walks.

Salivating with excitement over going to the park.

Seriously can't wait to get to the park!

Out of breath after running most of the way to the park.

Just love this shot of Rox for some reason. Maybe it's the fact that it looks like she's smiling.

She was so happy to be outside that she literally leaped around the park.

Roxy and her beloved soccer ball.

Roxy chasing Minnie around. They were the perfect size for each other.

Roxy, Minnie and Wolfgang doing the obligatory license plate sniffing.

Then tonight, Corey and I, and our friend Jennifer, decided to try out a restaurant in Ballard that we'd read a bunch of great reviews for - Madame K's. They have delicious deep dish pizza, yummy salads and the best dessert. Madame K's is in a location that was previously a brothel and they brought that theme throughout the restaurant, complete with with lingerie on the walls and the Chocolate Chip Orgasm dessert (yes, I swear - this is the actual name of the dessert) we shared.

With a sunny day in Seattle in the middle of the winter and a delicious dinner, we couldn't have asked for a better day!

Our yummy dessert. I don't think it's a coincidence that they put the two scoops of ice cream right next to each other or that they put a single chocolate chip on the top of each scoop.

Jennifer & I devouring the dessert.

Downtown Dog

Long story short, having Roxy at home alone all day hasn't been working (crated for 10+ hours is too long to go without a potty break, we don't have a dog walker lined up, if she's in her pen, she continually tears up the plastic and newspaper we put down for her to do her business on, etc).

In our efforts to find a solution that worked for all involved parties, we ordered a litter-box like tray that we're going to try out in her pen, but in the meantime, she's been going to work with Corey.

In addition to getting lots of love from his co-workers (thanks all for putting up with Rox this last week!), she has taken a liking to a soccer ball that she found in the office, has gotten to take some walks around downtown and even helped Corey with his work a bit (see below). I'm sure she'll be very sad when, in the next few days, she goes back to staying in her pen and perhaps the HMG'ers will miss their canine mascot...or, on second thought, maybe they won't!

Totally Loving 'Lips'

So as you may remember, I mentioned that we played the Xbox game Lips (a karaoke-type video game) at the Gossett's holiday party and I loved it. Well, my super fabulous brother-in-law, Elliott, got Corey and I Lips for Christmas! With the recent bad weather, we didn't get it in the mail until this week and tonight, Corey and I broke it out for the first time.

I think I beat Corey about 75% of the time (you are judged on tone, etc, and most of the songs were girlie songs) but we still had a blast. And lucky him, after he was done playing, I kept going by myself. I'm sure he loved me serenading him.


We look pretty legit, huh?

Warning: If you come to the Moran household in the next few months, you'll pretty much be required to sing a few songs with me.

Snowboarding at Steven's

It's been awhile (almost 3 years to be exact) since I've snowboarded and finally, after saying every winter for the last 2 years that I really wanted to go snowboarding, I was able to go up for a day of snowboarding at Steven's Pass! I joined the Reeders and Gossetts in this adventure - none of us were able to successfully talk Corey into joining us (he's never skied or snowboarded). Next time, though!

We had a great day! The snow was perfect (tons of fresh power, so much so that it was almost too much power in some places), not too cold, not too much wind and good times with good friends. While Lisa and Jason (both skiers), Chris and I spent some time on the backside of the mountain this morning, Natalie took a snowboarding lesson and by the time she joined us in the afternoon, we were all super impressed with her snowboarding skills on only her second trip up.

I didn't have my camera on the mountain with me, but Natalie was kind enough to share her photos with me. I've included a few of my favorites below, but all of her photos can be found by checking out her blog post here.

Me on the mountain.

Lisa watching me trip to flip over on my stomach so I could be in proper position for our girl shot (see next photo).


Girl shot - Lisa, me and Natalie.

Happy New Year!

Last night, we headed out to Lucia's (a yummy Italian restaurant in Kirkland) with the Gossetts and Bishops for a New Year's Eve dinner celebration. After dinner, we headed over to the Gossetts' house for fondue and poker before the big countdown. And to top it off, music to accompany our poker game included a rap song written by Nate that was about all of us.

We had a great time and I was excited to finally win a poker game - and what a big winner I was. I came home with a whopping $16!

Thanks for the fun times all!

There are a few photo highlights from the night below; others can be found here.


Corey and I during the poker game.


Ashlie, me, Natalie and Maggie.


Nate had some trouble keeping his fondue dippers on his fork. This was taken right after he went fishing for a banana that fell in.


And this is what we came home to. (Thanks for cleaning it up, Corey!)

Happy New Year everyone!