Pi Day and Other March Happenings

I had things that I was going to share this month, meant to share, but decided not to share because they really weren't worthy of a post.

I've gone "all out" (not really) for St Patrick's Day before, but not this year.
I didn't decorate for Easter.
I forgot to write a birthday post for my brother/an anniversary post for my grandparents (both happened on March 18th).

Mostly, we worked and went to school. I had a birthday, which I did record. We went to Pennsylvania, as you might recall. But the little things that happened and were recorded in picture form didn't get posts of their own, so here you go.

Pi Day
I was going to record our adventures of Pi Day, which was March 4th (3.14, get it?), but the reality is that it's not something I really thought about beforehand. I texted Carson "Happy Pi Day! Sorry I didn't make you any pie!" at some point during the day, which now sounds like I taunt him cruelly with things he can't have, like pie. When I picked him up at work, we went through the McDonald's drive-thru for some "apple pies" which don't really deserve the name. It was his idea, and we sort of phoned it in, but here are pictures:

Carson made the stuffed squirrel join us for this picture. For some reason, he tries to include it in family events. Like movie nights and pie eating.

St. Patrick's Day
You were going to see pictures of our super fun, super green St. Patrick's Day, but there weren't really any. We wore green (I made Carson change so we were late to church. Blue just wouldn't do.), we had a Shamrock Shake from McDonalds, which tastes very strange, for the record (I hope I remember that next year).

After that fun adventure, we went to the $1 theater and watched Les Miserables and Jack Reacher back-to-back. It's funny that those were our picks, because not only could they have less in common, and when Brooke and Levi were here, Brooke and I saw the first movie while Carson and Levi watched the second. In between the two, we walked to a grocery store for an early dinner (movie theater popcorn was my pre-dinner choice). I made Carson stop in front of the theater for a picture, which he was more willing to do than expected. He's getting used to me.

March Weather
You would have seen springtime pictures, only there weren't too many to be found. Yes, daylight savings offered us more light during the evening hours, but when it's 34 degrees outside, being outside is not exactly priority. This is what the weather looked like in March:

Sunny! 60-something! 03.10.13

6 inches of snow overnight! 3.25.13

This wasn't very promising. Taken 03.26.13

Deceptive, but sunny (39 degrees and slightly windy, but we read in the sunshine for an hour in short sleeves anyway. I noticed that a few of my freckles returned as a result.)
03.29.13

Thrift Store Score
Sunday is the only day that we both have off work, and generally the only day we can truly spend together (I don't have a consistent work schedule so sometimes we see each other more often but Carson has plans six days a week between two jobs and school). Recently, we drove around Cleveland in search of thrift stores. We were feeling like taking a drive, so we chose stores that weren't right down the street. We found some great items, saw Cleveland, and had a great afternoon together!

We seriously scored. Books (a couple for Carson and several children's books), a game, a picnic basket, 5 work shirts for Carson, a pair of boots for me, four pairs of shorts for Carson, 1 pair of pants for Carson, two summer shirts for me, a wooden sign for me to paint over, fabric (an old flat sheet!) for an upcoming project... and more! The tags Goodwill had on sale were what saved us so much! C even found some things to list on Ebay and those sales made the whole trip worth it!

Best "Brand New" Purchase?
I got a hairdryer. I had one a long time ago, but assumed that it wasn't worth it because it made my (already full of volume) hair huge. I guess I thought that the sleek "blow out" look would work for me. It doesn't, but this does save time (it takes about 8 hours for my hair to air-dry) so that I can now shower in the morning instead of at night. Obviously, I have to straighten or braid or something after this process, but finally, nearly-instant dry hair is mine!

I hadn't dried the ends yet. 

Just Random

I found this lampshade for $4.54 in the Target clearance aisle. All of my lampshades were various neutral colors, but I couldn't beat the price and needed to replace one that got beat up during the move, so this came home with me. I actually like it! It's in our bedroom.

We've been working on this puzzle for SO LONG and it's been so difficult. I can't decide if I want it to be finished, or if I want to find it one day, accidentally fallen on the floor. It's a doozy.

Carson brought me flowers one day randomly. This doesn't happen very often, but I love when it does. Wherever he gets them from has really great flowers, because they usually make it for close to two weeks.

I finally finished cleaning and organizing the landing upstairs from all the things left over when we transferred the bookshelf to downstairs. Our DVDs now reside in the guest room. I really want to organize them, which is important to exactly nobody but me. Ps - one of the things I bought with birthday money was Cinderella on DVD - I'm out to collect the classic Disney DVDs, so if anyone wants to add to that collection, feel free.


Here's my birthday card collection, still displayed in the living room. I love looking at them and rereading them.

Thanksgiving 2012

So this year, there was no Macy's Day Parade watching on Thanksgiving morning.

(that used to be one of my favorite starts to the morning)

Instead, I dragged myself out of bed to work at 6:30. Carson dropped me off and went to his office to grade papers. It didn't exactly feel like a holiday, except that there were many more customers than usual. We were very busy, and I was exhausted when I left at a quarter to 2. 

Carson picked me up and we rushed home so that I could get ready, which happened in record time. He'd made a pumpkin bread since I didn't have time (meaning that I didn't really want to get up before work to do it) and we grabbed that and headed over to our friends, the Wilsons for a Thanksgiving feast. It didn't occur to me to take pictures, but everything was so tasty! There was turkey, Cajun stuffing, a really yummy green bean casserole, bread, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes and gravy and more. After a little bit, we had dessert, which I couldn't finish. It was great!

We hung around and talked for a few hours, and then headed home. We flipped through the Black Friday sale papers and just hung around being still for a little bit, since we'd been around people all day.

Just a disclaimer here - the reason I like Black Friday is because my dad and I would get up really early the day after Thanksgiving to hit Staples, Radio Shack and Best Buy. We'd finish up the shopping trip by searching for gifts for my mom's birthday on December 1st (hint, hint... it's coming up!). The day after Thanksgiving is more of a sentimental thing than anything... it's fun to find cheap things but I'm mostly in it for the memories and the fun. 

Then we decided to go to Target, which was opening at 9pm. The line was wrapped around the building when we arrived, right at 9, but we were in the store less than ten minutes later. I took this terrible picture with my cell phone since I didn't bring my camera.

We went because I bullied Carson into going, just because I like the thrill of the lines and the people rushing around. We weren't there for a large TV, which is good because I'm pretty sure those sold out before we got in there (it was seriously less than 10 minutes!). We were there for the cheap fake Christmas trees. I felt a little bit like I was betraying my upbringing by purchasing an artificial tree but the deed is done and I'm now in the market for a good Christmas tree scented candle :)

After Target, we went to Michael's and got some on-sale Christmas decor. We'd considered going to Old Navy too, but they didn't open until midnight and we weren't really planning on buying anything, so we just went home.

The next morning, Carson left at 5am to get in line for a bookstore that was giving away gift cards to the first 100 people in line. He was seventh or something. I worked that morning, and then we went to dinner for date night, then a few other places to see if we could catch sales. We found the entire Harry Potter series on DVD for pretty cheap and came home with that as well as a few small Christmas gifts and an advent calendar.

All in all, a relaxing and fun weekend.

Christmastime is here, happiness and cheer

After Maila and Aaron's wedding, Carson and I met up with Chris and Josie (my summer roommate) to spend time together downtown. We ate at the Old Spaghetti Factory and walked it off in the Davenport and the mall. The Davenport was chosen because they have a display of amazing gingerbread houses right now. They were spectacular with so many details. Here's a collage of them. They were SO impressive in person. Some were done by departments in the hotel while the larger ones were done for competition.

Josie and I found a secret elevator

 And then we made our guys join us

We separated in the mall to visit different places. We met up in the toy store, where I found two dolls with spectacular names, Lindsay and Brooke! Took the picture for  you Brookie :)

And then we found these unfortunate pants in the clearance section... jeans with sewn on leg warmers. 

It was a fun evening with friends. So much laughter and good conversation!

Thanksgiving Weekend

We left Spokane at 5:45am on Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving. 

Five of us piled into the little Civic. 

We dozed, talked, listened to Christmas music on Pandora (thanks to the iPhone)

We dropped one of our party off at his family's home in Seattle. We passed this beauty on our way out of the city.

 Rachel and I were thankful for the extra room in the backseat. 

Safeco Field in rainy Seattle

We dropped Rachel and John off in Tacoma and arrived in Olympia at about 1:30. We took naps in the living room and had a lazy day. 

On Thanksgiving day, we slept in, got ready, made food, and ate at about 2pm.

My plate. I was SO full... no second helping for me!

One of Carson's many servings of pie. I ate half of a piece of chocolate pie, but he made up for the both of us!

That evening, we sat around and looked at the Black Friday ads.

A little before 10:30pm, we went to Wal-Mart to see if we could get any deals (we wanted a laptop). It was madness. I tried to capture the crazy mess of people but couldn't. People were in the frozen food section lined up for computers (the same one we wanted, so we didn't stay). There was plastic over items to be opened and sold at midnight. People had ripped those bags off and gotten their stuff.

On our way out, we took a picture in the surprisingly empty Christmas tree section: Jordan, Savannah, Jasmine, me, Carson

This was our list of stores we wanted to hit. We ended up skipping most of those and going to places in the mall instead. Best Buy had maybe 500 people in line so we definitely avoided that.

We waited for an hour in the rain for Macys to open (and then discovered we could have been waiting the nice warm mall for that time)

We shopped for SO LONG. The guys got grumpy and left before 1am, but we stuck it out. At about 5:30am, we got really tired and parked ourselves in JcPenney with this terrific view.

A kind employee took pity on us and gave us candy canes. We were going on the strength of these and Thanksgiving dinner 15 hours beforehand.

Our final stop was World Market at 7am. We enjoyed what the store had to offer. 

And then this is how we looked at 8:30am when we got home. Don't judge unless you were out shopping for 10 hours also.

We took naps, showered and changed, then watched Christmas movies (Rudolph, Elf, The Shop Around the Corner) and played or observed Settlers of Catan

Saturday was another day to sleep in. That afternoon, we packed our things. Carson and I went to Meconi's, Carson's favorite place to eat in Olympia, while we waited to meet John and Rachel downtown.

We stopped at a gas station on the way home, where Rachel discovered that she had been tagged with a $3.99 price tag.

The rest of us resumed listening to Christmas music on Pandora, but Carson listened to a sermon like this:

And that was our Thanksgiving weekend