August 31, 2008

Fun!

Hotel Review: Hotel Monaco in Old Town Alexandria

OMG! This was an amazing hotel. It was fabulous in every way.

The room was spacious for 2 people (queen size bed w/tons of extra pillows). Beautifully decorated in luxurious furnishings and fabrics. A nice 42 inch plasma LG TV (where we watched Gustav coverage). Nice hotel mini-bar, well stocked, with a minibar cabinet for non-refridgerated items (red wine, bottle opener, Tom's Toothpaste, Recycline toothbrush and razor, large size back of fancy potato chips, full size Snickers, organic chocolates, etc.). Their toiletries were all natural and very nice. Super luxurious towels - I am super picky about hotel towels. They must not smell of bleach and be SUPER SOFT - these were BETTER than I expected - super soft and fluffy.

The robe was very nice - they supply pjs in the closet too (for a fee) but I thought that was kind of odd.

There was an umbrella in case you needed it. You could ask for any item you might need, free of charge: toothpaste, deodorant, fan, humidifier, curling iron, straightening iron, hangers, cribs, etc. You could buy anything else you might've forgotten: tweezers, nail clippers, scissors.

They had an ipod dock for playing your music (which we did).

Our window was able to be opened! So we opened it to hear some of the street music playing.

Room service breakfast was amazing, although pricey - $60 for an omlette and toast, chocolate milk, OJ, pancakes and bacon. BUT WORTH EVERY penny - it was so awesome.

The staff was great. The hotel was quiet and clean and very very nice.

WE WILL STAY THERE AGAIN and we will not stay anywhere else in Old Town, should we need to get away again! Anywhere we travel where we need a hotel, we will look for a Hotel Monaco/Kimpton hotel, absolutely. They have won us over!!

Our hotel!

August 28, 2008

Nice parenting job

Woman brings three year old to back to school night. Child making his
shoes squeak on floor. Instead of ASKING him to stop, she smacks him
across face. Nice.


Sent from my iPhone

August 26, 2008

Restaurant Review: CakeLove in Tyson's Corner Mall

I'm a total geek.  I will read anything, so my feedreader has like 1000 blogs feeding it (at any given time I've got about 500 posts waiting to be read).  I've got some links to food blogs - and some CAKE and CUPCAKE blogs - who knew there were such things!!  Anyway, I've been drooling over pictures of cakes and cupcakes for a while now, hoping to run across a cupcake store somewhere (all the blog posts about cupcake stores were for stores not in my area).

Well, Sunday hubby sent me shopping by myself for some well-deserved alone time and I saw CakeLove!  A cupcake store!

I bought 5 for $15 - kinda pricey but I figured it was worth it for just-baked all-natural cupcakes!

I got a coffee one, chocolate with vanilla icing, chocolate with chocolate icing, vanilla with vanilla icing and vanilla with chocolate icing.

My hubby said "eh." when he ate his.

Mine was over cooked and the top of the cupcake (under the icing) was hard!  Not full of flavor either.

THE SIX YEAR OLD WOULDN'T EAT IT - HE DIDN'T LIKE THE TASTE (OR LACK OF) AT ALL.

Bummer.  I had such high hopes, but at least I won't be paying $3 a cupcake all the time!

maybe i'm not supposed to work today!

It took me an extra 53 minutes and $3 to get to work today.

My normal route was STANDING STILL (rt. 606 to rt. 28).  Since rt. 606 goes, in a roundabout way, also to my office I decide to not get on 28 (well, at least to get out of line to get on 28, since the line wasn't moving).  1 minute down 606 IT also comes to a complete standstill.  It is a small road and unable to handle the overflow of everyone, like me, ditching rt. 28.  I turn around and head back towards home and get on the mega-expensive toll road - it is $3 and I go 1 mile on it.  It is also a parking lot, but one that is moving at 0.25 mph because the 6 lanes thru the toll booth merge down to TWO lanes 50 feet after the toll booth.  Good planning there, State of Virginia!

So it took me 60 minutes to get from my house, to my office 7 miles away.  I love Northern Virginia.

August 22, 2008

welcome to the life of a user-interface designer...

seen is a word isn't it?

I know a person who, for some reason, doesn't use the word "seen".
 
For example, "Have you seen Mike?" is "Have you saw Mike?".  Seriously - I've known this new person for about 10 months, and haven't heard the word "seen" ONE TIME.  And I've been listening for it, because it makes my ears hurt when I hear "Have you saw the book?".

I would...

totally get a tummy-tuck if I wasn't afraid of being the dumb one that died to get a flatter tummy.  And maybe bigger boobs, but at least have them put in a nipple ring while I was under (no f-ing way am I doing that while awake no matter how bad I want one!).

Hubby and I discussed this a while back

How wireless power would be AWESOME...
 
and now...
 
"Intel on Thursday showed off a wireless electric power system that analysts say could revolutionize modern life by freeing devices from transformers and wall outlets." from news.yahoo.com.

August 21, 2008

oh, and have you all seen this?

http://indianapolis.craigslist.org/mis/804856575.html

Only 2 more days!

Until Hubby gets home!  Our house is so boring when he is gone!  He is the "fun" parent, so the kids have been quite deprived, although I did try really hard to make yesterday more fun. 
 
- we went out w/the daycare kids next door twice yesterday.  Of course, then I heard one of the daddy's telling the daycare owner that one of his sons had been throwing up before he brought him to daycare so this choice could bite me later, but the kids did have fun.  TWICE!
- we went for a late night walk where I let older son ride his scooter and younger son chased him instead of riding in the stroller!
 
See, I am loads of fun!
 
I did try to get son to play Guitar Hero with me last night, but he got frustrated with it very quickly.  So we played Battlefront a bit before I sent him to bed!

Google chat

Oh how I love you!!!

Thank u for letting me have those conversations! And not relating
slurring into typing!! I love my late nights alone with the Internet,
the tv, and iTunes!

Sent from my iPhone

August 16, 2008

my little monkey

UGH!
Hubby left today for a 7 day business trip - he left 4 hours after we got home from the beach.  We got up at 3:30 a.m. to drive home.  And I've been at the beach for 7 days with three small children.
 
I AM TIRED.
 
And of course the following happens:
1.  we arrive home to no air conditioning.
2.  BabyT shut the garage door on the Yukon XL open rear hatch.
3.  BabyT shut off the pool chlorine generator before we left for the week.
4.  BabyJ learned how to scale the baby gate that is all mesh - the one they advertise as "unclimbable" because it's all soft and has nothing to grab onto.  That one.  So she can now access the steps at will.
5.  BabyJ has figured out how to climb out of her crib and drop on her head.  Because she's so young, she doesn't forsee that this will happen EVERY TIME and keeps doing it.  I turned the crib around so the short side is against the wall so then she climbed the HIGH SIDE and almost fell on her head.  Fuck.
6.  Did I mention Hubby is out of town?
7.  I need to work from home this week (see item 6) and the laptop downstairs won't connect to the internet.
8.  AC repair guy to come tomorrow.
9.  BabyJ gets hot easily and cannot sleep if it's too warm in her room.  See Item 5.  Again, I am totally screwed.
10.  Blondy and Red are partying in OC with out me.  How in the hell did that happen???

August 14, 2008

A better day at the beach

Click for pic

So far an awesome vacation! Good food, well behaved kids and fun in
the sun!

August 08, 2008

A pic of the flower my kids got

For me for my birthday almost a week ago! The flowers are still
beautiful!

Done with pedicure!

Click for pic!

Mid-pedicure

I love my pedicure lady -but today they've over booked her so her
niece is doing mine until my lady is done with her other client.

Of course the niece is not as good, and I can't say anything, drat.

August 07, 2008

DMV

I hate the DMV.

I had to go Tuesday and renew my license (it expired and the State of Virginia insisted I have a vision test).  That took 35 minutes, plus 20 minutes to get there and 20 minutes to get back.  Really, at my age ( < 40!) I do not NEED A VISION TEST.  SERIOUSLY State of Virginia, thanks for wasting my time.  Shouldn't I just be able to pay a fee and get on with it - ELECTRONICALLY?  Would've saved me time AND gas!  They could say they're going green and NOT MAKING EVERYONE COME DOWN THERE FOR DUMB THINGS.  Hell, even raise the fees, I don't care as long as I don't have to waste my lunch break (I'd much rather be out to lunch!) than heading down there.

So last night my little brother called - Mom's license plates expired.  Since this is my responsibility, and we're going on vacation Saturday (and they are taking Mom's car), I HAVE TO GOTO THE DMV AGAIN TODAY!  ARGH!  Someone shoot me now.

August 06, 2008

SPIDER ON MY CHILD!

We keep our strollers either in the backs of our SUVs or in the garage.  My preference is in the SUVs because of the bugs and dirt in the garage, but whatever. 

Well, today, while taking the 3 kids on a totally joyous fun-filled trip to Target, I look at Preschooler and see A HUGE SPIDER ON HIS CHEST.  And he wasn't wearing a Spiderman shirt! ;-)

Of course I start screaming and am trying to extricate him from the stroller and get him to let go of the fruit roll up he's eating (that stuff is like crack for them I swear) so I can flick it off.

What if it bit him?  Where is my hubby when I REALLY need him? GROSS GROSS - what if it ALREADY bit him somewhere?  Yikes.  NOW the strollers will be stored inside our vehicles.

August 04, 2008

JetBlue

is going to charge passengers $7 for a pillow and a blanket?  SERIOUSLY?  I'd never pay money to rent a used pillow / blanket.  Not only is it gross, it's crazy to charge for it!  What is this wold coming to?  Will they charge for seatbelts next?

planning a good-bye for the intern

We have an awesome intern at work.  He is fantastic and basically does the work of a regular employee while he's here (no photocopying all summer for him!).

His last day is Wednesday and we're trying to plan a going away event.  For a long time we were going to do indoor go-karts.  Until we discovered it is $80 per person to do that.

So then we've been emailing back and forth (and killing the Outlook server) about what to do -

The choices we came up with were:

Laser Tag
Bowling
Visit Museum
Movie

Then we disucssed Mini-Golf and decided it would be too hot.

Then Bowling.  And cue the discussions on lack of socks worn today by the women on team (ok, I started that discussion, but WHO WANTS TO WEAR BOWLING SHOES WITHOUT SOCKS?  EWWWW).

So we're going to play pool.

August 03, 2008

Happy Birthday to me!!

YAY!  It's my birthday!  Hubby let me sleep in and then prepared me a great breakfast that included a wheat bagel and COFFEE CAKE and flowers!

Then at 10, he went to the Fractured Prune and got fresh donuts for a snack!

Then he helped me take the kids to my grandparents because she made me an awesome southern cake (with the homemade southern hard chocolate icing!).

pretty good, eh?

My girlfriend says the reason I don't hate being 35 (she turned it in March) is that I have no wrinkles!  Maybe that's why, but I don't feel older than I did when I was about 23?  (except of course when I have to change a diaper or break up a fight!).

August 01, 2008

Yay! No more cast!!

click thru for pic....

Yard sale prep!

Click thru for pic...
This is 1/2 of the clothes too small for babyj - 5 boxes left to sort
and 10 boxes in basement that the kids haven't grown into yet.

Plus u don't see the boxes of bibs hats and shoes for sale!

Blog The Recession!

Ok - so there are a lot of people having issues - job losses, cut backs, layoffs, not being able to find much free-lance work, etc.

Motherhood Uncensored has what I think is a great idea! Click thru your feed readers to the blogs! People will get some ad revenue for the click thrus and click on an ad if you see something interesting! It doesn't cost you anything and you're helping people out!

What do you think?