a day in the life of sleepyeve

I’m a little behind but I finally sifted through photos from my 30th birthday day of fun.  Some highlights:

Sock cake made by the fabulous Rosie

Awesome cupcake bouquet sent by my wonderful Christian

Chillin’ on the lawn chomping on some tasty kebabs

Smiles with Jayden & Kat

Baby Lily sporting the coolest cupcake hoodie ever

Just Dancing in the garage to Womanizer

Here’s the rest of the photos for your viewing fun.  Thanks for reading!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sleepyeve/sets/72157624350200743/

(Slideshow) http://www.flickr.com/photos/sleepyeve/sets/72157624350200743/show/

On this, my 30th birthday, I’ve finally decided to take a moment to update my blog.  I must say this about every other entry but an update is looooong overdue.  I’m trying to write this up while watching Mad Men (the last thing on my birthday to-do list for the evening), so please bear with me through any grammatical atrocities.

Before I get into the awesomeness that has been my 30th birthday today, I want to share the story of my past 6 months.

30 pounds for my 30th.

At the beginning of this year, Christian and I decided  to get our act together and make some lifestyle changes.  I think we had both hit a point over the holidays when we realized how unhappy we were with how we were feeling and looking.  I was probably at my heaviest  that I’d ever been in my life over the Christmas holiday… and we all know how feasting over holiday meals go…  In mid January, I decided that enough was enough.  I started teaching myself some simple things about calories, nutrition, well-balanced diets, and Christian and I started our lifestyle change.  I decided to join Christian and some of our friends each weekend to ease my way into the world of running.  I’d run some, walk some, run some, walk some more.  We started to eat better meals – homemade, properly portioned,well-rounded meals (home-cooked meals now take about a half hour to an hour longer to prepare because I measure and calculate everything out).  We watched our balance of calories, making sure to keep ourselves accountable for everything we consumed and balanced our days with physical activity.  Some of you are probably thinking, “oh,  so they went on a diet” but no, that’s not really the case.  As I mentioned a few lines earlier, we decided to make a lifestyle change, so this isn’t a temporary fad we put in place to drop pounds; this is a permanent transformation in our way of thinking and behaving to make ourselves healthier, happier people.

Six months later, I’m now officially thirty pounds lighter and ten thousand times happier.  When I lost ten pounds, a good friend of mine suggested that the next  time I go to the grocery store, I pick up two sacks of potatoes to see how that extra ten pounds of weight really felt.  Well, I never remembered to do that, so the next time I remember when I go into a store, I need to pick up 6 sacks of potatoes to account for the thirty pounds.  Ooooh boy.  I’m  happier, I feel loads more confident about myself, and I don’t mind seeing myself in a mirror or in pictures these days.  I don’t really deprive myself of anything I enjoy; I just enjoy it in moderation and/or balance it appropriately with working out.   It’s all about discipline and balance.  And teamwork.  If Christian and I were not in on this together as a team, I’m sure neither of us would have been as successful as we have been.

This lifestyle alteration also has me doing more physical activity than I’ve ever done before in my life.  When I first started running, I’d run two sides of a block before I had to stop for a walk break.  Eventually, the walk breaks shortened and now, I can run for 7 continuous miles on a good day.  No, not training for a marathon or half marathon.  And no, not enjoying running itself either.  I just enjoy the sense of accomplishment that comes after I’m done.  The increased caloric capacity to shove more food into my belly is also a plus   To think, when I was a chubby junior high schoool pre-teen, I struggled through a 14 minute mile a week because I had to do it for a grade.  Now, I’m choosing to do a 10:30 to 11:00 mile for way more than just a mile.  I’m nuts.  At least I’m happily nuts.

One last thought on this life change: eating better and working out allowed for me to drop 4 pant sizes since January.  I’ve spent so much money shopping in the past several months because I kept outgrowing (or whatever the opposite of outgrowing is…) my clothes.  Totally worth it though because shopping and trying on clothes is actually a fun thing for me to do these days

All right, enough of that.  On to something else.

What I Did for My 30th Birthday.

I’ll keep this portion as brief as I can because frankly, I’m sleepy and I wanted to get this blog posted on my birthday but it looks like I’ll be missing that by several minutes… OH WELL.

Christian and I woke up around 7ish and went out for a 7 and an half mile run.  7.6 to be exact.  That’s the most I’ve ever clocked in continuous running miles *pats self on back*

After we got back home and took our respective refreshing and very necessary showers, we picnicked in our backyard under our nice ginormous backyard tree.  I love picnics and so rarely go on them, so this was fun

After lunch, we headed over to the movie theaters and treated ourselves to Toy Story 3.  Lots of kids, but it actually wasn’t as annoying to be in the audience with them as I thought.  Great movie – very emotional, actually.

Once the movie was over, we dashed over to the Tech Museum of Innovation and enjoyed a very educational and interesting exhibit on Genghis Khan.  We walked around some of the other Tech exhibit halls after that was done, but didn’t end up staying for too long because we were both starving.

Dinner consisted of feasting on some yummalicious baby back ribs at Henry’s Hi-Life by the Shark Tank.  MMMMMmmmm… ribs, baked potato with a scoop of butter crack and sour cream, and super-delish garlic bread.  Oh, there was a salad of some sort somewhere in there too, but that was totally forgettable.

Since we were  sort of in the neighborhood, we decided to check out one of our favorite Target stores – the one off of Coleman is pretty nicely kept.  Didn’t buy anything exciting, but I just enjoy walking around that store and looking at stuff.

We got home and had a small Mad Men marathon to close out the evening.  I tuckered poor Christian out with my very long list of birthday activities but he’s a total trooper.  I’m the luckiest girl in the world to  have someone like him love me so much that he’s willing to go through all of the craziness and never-ending list of activities with zero complaint just to make me happy.  Thank you for making me feel so special.

All in all, it’s been a really fabulous 2010 so far and a really fabulous start to my 30′s

Thanks for reading.

Sleepily Yours,

Evelyn

My mom found a cute little Terrier mix laying on her front porch on Saturday afternoon and called me in a panic. She didn’t know what to do with the dog and wanted me to come over and work it out. Christian and I decided to take her in and clean her up while we are on hunt for her owners or find her a new home (no, we can’t keep her… my allergies and sanity can’t take it). She’s not potty trained and I don’t think had ever been on a proper walk, so we are working on that with her everyday (she needs to learn the rules if she’s going to stay in our house). She’s a fun, cute little girl who needs a loving home by Thanksgiving… Otherwise, we will have to take her to a no-kill shelter. I’d rather have her find a good home with someone we know or at least kind of know (friends of friends count) but since we’re heading out of town the day before Thanksgiving (we will be taking Lily with us – not both dogs), we need to figure out what to do.

Here’s a video Christian made of the dog (we call her Dottie for now) and Lily:

Lily and Dottie from Christian Pizzirani on Vimeo.

Here are our online postings:
http://www.fidofinder.com/dog.php?id=185476
http://hssv.convio.net/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=7667&news_iv_ctrl=1345

Help us spread the word and let us know if anyone would like to care for this cutie!  Otherwise, we’ll be dropping her off at the humane society on Tuesday.

Soooo… we took Lily in to see the vet on Monday (the day after the seizure drama). Her checkup was good – perfectly healthy pup based on the initial exam. The vet took some of her blood to run some tests. He told us that the blood test could possibly reveal issues with the liver or kidney. It could also come back with nothing, which could possibly mean doggy epilepsy… whatever it was, we wouldn’t find anything out until end of day Monday or Tuesday morning. Ugh. Worry worry worry.

The vet tech called me this morning with the blood test results. “Perfectly healthy” was the verdict based on the results that returned. There is absolutely nothing wrong with her organs, nothing wrong with anything in her blood, nada, zip. She said that it could have been an epileptic episode, but I also asked if it was a possibility that she maybe swallowed something toxic because she was walks around our lawn and tends to lick paws clean (yes, like a cat… but she’s not a cat – I swear!) AND Christian had put some snail bait out two weeks ago. She confirmed that it was a real possibility that she could have stepped in some runoff that was tainted with bait and ingested that when she licked her paws.

So this means either no more lawn play time for a while or a really thorough wipe-down after each trip out there.

Oh, one more thing that the vet tech mentioned… A seizure once a year is nothing to be alarmed about (not like it’s okay, but it’s not an indication of anything serious). Anything more frequent than that and we might have to treat her with medication for the rest of her life. Praying that she stays seizure-free forever…

Today was a crazy, whacked-out kind of a day.  I went walking with my good friend Kat this morning and when I came home, our dog Lily was acting strange.  She was crouched over and ran around the kitchen that way for a bit, ran into the blinds for the sliding glass door to the backyard, then scurried under the kitchen table.  I thought that she maybe needed to do her business, so I opened the back door and let her out.  She darted out and headed for the grass.  I could see that as she was heading out there, she was trying really hard hold her stuff in until she hit the grass.  After she did what she needed to, she came back to me at the back door but was still doing the weird crouch walk.  Figuring that maybe she wasn’t quite done yet, I coaxed her back out to the grass.  Once she got back out there, she started walking around really strangely, then lost her balance, toppled over on her side, and kept trying to get up.  It was as if the back half of her body was no longer in her control.  She was shaking, kept trying to get up, but then just kept toppling over.  She did this a few times until she managed to limp her way onto the concrete part of our patio and puked her guts out.  Once she finished, she walked around a little more and headed back to the grass.  I had no idea what was going on and was in a panic.  Not knowing what to do, I yelled for Christian to come out so I didn’t have to watch this alone.  I asked him to try and contact the vet as I watched her collapse in the grass.  Her legs were bent funny, her body was shaking, and she starting whining.  I could tell she was as freaked out as I was.  I remembered that I had the vet’s number in my phone which happened to be in my pocket, so I called.  I got a vet tech on the phone and told her everything that had happened and she said that Lily might have had a seizure or stroke.  !!!  The office was closed today, but she suggested that I take Lily’s temperature and if the episode persisted or if her temperature was over 102.5, that I take her to the emergency room (which she mentioned would be pretty expensive).  While I was on the phone with her, I was able to get Lily to come off the grass and lay down on the concrete where I sat.  She was shivering and weak.  She laid her head on my lap and was drooling excessively.  Her back half was still shaking and seemed a bit out of her control.  I started crying on the phone because I didn’t know why this was happening and how I could make it stop, but the tech really helped talk me through everything and helped to map out my next steps.  After I was done talking to her, I let Lily rest there for a few minutes and just rubbed her belly.  There was nothing else I could do but wait it out!

After a little while, I was able to get her to stand up and walk back into the house.  The episode was over and now she was just really weak.  She went straight for bed and laid down.  She still had some drooling issues, so I grabbed a towel and wiped her down.  I sat with her for about an hour while she just laid there.  It was so sad to think about all that had happened and watch her lay her, so weak.  I couldn’t help but check her breathing every few minutes – I know, I’m crazy.  At this point, she seemed tired but okay.  I brushed her teeth and left her alone and she recovered some of her energy as the day went on.


Poor Lily had a hard day

Our friends Jason & Sharon stopped by so Jason could get a quick tutorial on some DVD functionality from Christian – nerd-type stuff.  Our friends Justin, Natalie, and their son Jacob came by not to long after to drop off some things and catch up.  It was a full house and I wasn’t sure how Lily would do with the troubled day she had.  Little Jacob is 14 months old and is the cutest little boy!  He has so much personality and such a charming little face. 

Jacob being cute

He took to Lily right away and she let him chase after her until he tired himself (and her) out.


Jacob & Lily

I’m doing a quick blog update while the boys are out shopping for nerdy computer parts (by boys, I mean Christian and our friend Kevin who is visiting from L.A.)

I baked my cinnamon bread last night.  Yum again.  Cross one off the list.

I had crocheted a few things that were not on my list before I created my actual list, and wanted to mention them here:

Moonfruit – for a contest that moonfruit.com was having:

Cheetos Giant Cheese Puffs for a Co-worker as a thank-you gift for my free iPhone case (Giant cheese puffs are an inside joke):

A slice of bacon for my manager who gave me a WWBD (What Would Bacon Do?) Spinning wheel from Kentucky:

2 Cupcake Scarves that friends of a friend wanted to buy (they look indentical, I know):

And finally, sushi (maguro, to get specific) that I made for Kevin (our friend in town):

(JK – I hope this wasn’t disappointing.  Glad I already had this one cranked out to show you!)

I’m currently working on some bookmarks, but also trying to re-read Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince before the movie comes out Wednesday, so I might be a little slow in my crafting this weekend/coming week.  We’ll see.

I’ve been sitting in the office/craft corner for 15 minutes debating about which craft project to start up next.  I just finished making 2 cupcake scarves for some friends of a friend (first time selling stuff I’ve made and it’s kinda weird, but whatever).  Now that those are done, I have a bazillion other things I want to make – just not sure where to start…

Here’s my list:

• Crochet sushi
• Crochet turkey drumstick
• Crochet pear
• Crochet ice cream sandwich
• Crochet ice cream cone
• Crochet chocolate chip cookies
• Crochet strawberries
• Crochet bunny rabbit
• Crochet roses
• Crochet Sack Boy
• Crochet mini-monkey
• Crochet blanket (that’s a huge project)
• Make Cute Stuff tote
• Make Cute Stuff sack
• Bake bread (to be done on 7/8)
• Sculpt Fimo cupcakes for glazing
• Sculpt Fimo ice cream
• Make bookmarks
• Finish scrapbooking the rest of 2008 (I left off in March 2008 – another huge project)
• Make Iron Man blankets (2)
• Make pocketed skirt (haven’t decided on red or blue yet)
• Make bubble skirt

I’m sure there’s more to add to the list.  Those are just the first few things I was able to come up with immediately.  Each project has a purpose and several have more flexible timelines than others. 

Marathon crafting – here I come!

I’m averaging about 1 blog every two weeks here… sorry about that.  Special apologies to Jen since she wanted me to make sure to update often so she’d have something interesting to read

Day 5

Day 5 of our Scotland trip was our last day in the Strathyre cabins.  We woke up early, cleared everything out of the fridges and rooms, and checked out.  Christian showed the rangers at the front desk photos of the pine marten.  They were so excited and gave us their email address to send photos to.  Too bad the address was just a hair illegible enough for us to not be able to figure out what the correct address is supposed to be…

Clearing out the cabin means finishing up the milk…

Hogwarts Express Trestle

Once we checked out, we headed north towards Inverness to check out Loch Ness.  We stopped in Killin to take in views of the falls where I proceeded to FALL.  Yes, I fell flat on my butt and my camera came down with me.  At least I was able to spend a good 15 minutes taking some great photos before I went down.  I had slipped on a wet rock and my entire right foot landed in a puddle while my camera crashed against a rock, making a tragic “crack” sound.  It was sad, depressing, angering, embarrassing, and any other negative -ing you could think of.  My first concern was for my camera – I made Christian rescue it before helping me up.  He opened up the the lens cap and the glass on the lens filter was shattered to bits.  I had no idea whether or not the lens itself was okay (the lens that we just bought a week before the trip).  Next up was me.  I was fine – no broken bones or bruises.  Just a hurt ego.  My right shoe was soaking wet and the entire butt of my jeans was soaking wet and black with mud.  I hate dirt.  I hate mud even more.  This was disgusting.  Luckily, since we were traveling, we had all of the clothes that we packed for our trip to the cabins in duffels in the backseat of the car *whew*  And THANK GOODNESS that I always pack a spare pair of underwear and socks because both were soaked with gross, muddy water.  I even had a spare pair of shoes  – go me. 

Falls of Killin… before I fell

After I got changed in a random inn’s restroom, we headed up the windy road to Inverness.  Very long, windy road.  Not ideal for those prone to car sickness.  Like me.  After a 3 hour drive, we made it past Inverness and headed to the Loch Ness Hotel & Lodge to experience the official Loch Ness Visitor Centre (which we thought we were getting in for free, but ended up only getting a slight discount).  The experience was LAME.  Don’t ever go there – it consisted of a boring, out-dated, uber-cheesy movie and then hallways of posterboards covered with Loch Ness myths/stories/legends.  I was pretty disappointed, but Keith was pissed. 

LAME

We continued up the road to seek out a castle that we saw from the drive up, hoping to get a better view of the Loch and to, of course, check out a cool old castle.  Once we found it, we discovered that there was an admission cost (which was pretty stupid considering how much of it there really was to see).  Needless to say, we didn’t go in; we just took lots of pictures around the place (which was a little challenging with all the fencing that they put up). 

Urquhart castle with Loch Ness in the background.

We decided to drive back a bit and check out the town some more before stopping for lunch at a small cafe.  The food was very so-so.  I had battered haddock fish with a baked potato and veggies.  We ordered a side of fries that never arrived.   That was lame too.

After lunch, we were all pretty fed up with Loch Ness and Inverness in general.  Keith was exhausted from the drive and considered looking for a hostel to spend the night in instead of making the long drive home to Edinburgh.  The cafe folks had mentioned to him that there was a youth hostel nearby right up the road that we were on, so we followed the directions.  After about 15 minutes of driving, we saw nothing that resembled a youth hostel, so that was the breaking point and Keith decided that it would be best to just head home.  He downed a TON of Coke Zeroes during the drive and we all played name the celebrity for about 3 hours in hopes of keeping Keith awake for the drive.  We made several pit stops (too much Coke Zero for Keith) before finally making it back to Stefania’s flat in Edinburgh.  I did a much needed load of wash and had to wash the pants I fell in twice before the stain started to disappear.  I even threw my sneakers for a good wash.  Felt good to get stuff cleaned.

We spent the rest of the night playing MarioKart and watched a DVD of comic Michael McIntyre (funny guy).  Loooooong day.

Day 6

We all slept in the next day (a Saturday) and I think I slept in too much because my back was hurting by the time I got up.  Christian and I played some more MarioKart and checked out the weather on the Wii to pass some time while waiting for Stefania and Keith to get up.  Once we had breakfast (and tried French Fancies), we all headed out and hit the Royal Botanic Gardens.  We took lots of pictures and explored lots of neat and interesting plants.  We explored the giant greenhouses there and ran into some humidity issues – our camera lenses were fogging up too much to take decent photos in there. 

A plant

Greenhouse

Bananas!

After the greenhouses, we went to the Terrace Cafe in the gardens for lunch.  I had a scone and chicken soup.  Both were quite tasty


Scone!

Once were done with lunch, Keith drove us to New Berwick beach.  The clouds were amazingly puffy and the sand was very gingery-colored.  It was a neat little beach.  Stefania and the boys had ice cream.  Christian’s was an ice cream sandwich of sorts.  It looked tasty.

New Berwick Beach

Ice cream… mmm…

As we headed back to the flat, we made a stop at Keith’s grandmother’s place where Christian and I hung out in the car while Keith and Stefania paid her a quick visit.  She hadn’t been doing very well health-wise, so this was important to Keith. 

When we got back to Stefania’s flat, we had hummus and carrot sticks.  What a great combo that I had never thought of.  We didn’t want to have a full dinner because we made plans to see “Gran Torino” and get hot dogs later that evening.

“Gran Torino” played in a movie theater right behind Stefania’s flat called the Dominion Theater.  The place was BEAUTIFUL.  The theater that we were in had leather loveseats and little tables with a small can of pringles for each patron.  I had a hot dog, sweet corn (kettle corn), and a sparkling water.  Our seats were in the very back under a canopy of “stars.”  It was so awesome.  The movie was great as well!  Surprisingly funny.

The Dominion Movie Theater Seats

The Dominion Movie Theater

We headed back to the flat and watched more Michael McIntyre while playing Apples to Apples – British Isles Edition once we were done with the movies.  Once we had our fill of fun and games for the night, Christian and I gave Keith the birthday gift we brought over for him (cordless Wii sensor bar and several bars of Ghiradelli chocolate).  And that was that for day 6.

Day 7

Sunday AKA day 7 was Keith’s actual birthday.  We went to Montpeliers Bar and Brasserie for a Scottish breakfast.  I had a mixed grill breakfast which consisted of: Sausage, bacon, eggs, potato scone, haggis, black pudding, tomato, mushrooms, and baked beans.  It was a full breakfast!  I had a bite of the black pudding and gave the rest to Keith.  Not a fan of that one…  Christian had french toast.  It looked yummy too… if I cared for french toast.

My Scottish breakfast

Christian’s Scottish breakfast

Scone! (Christian’s)

We decided to have a casual day and hit up an electronic store, potentially shopping for a television for Stefania… and then we went to the Forbidden Planet Comic book store – Keith’s hangout   They had a doll of Blanc Neige in the storefront window.  I took a photo of it because I voiced that character for a game called Shining Tears.  Thought it was pretty cool.

Blanc Neige at Forbidden Planet

Keith drove us to Hollyrood Park and we decided to climb Arthur’s Seat.  Keith and Stefania decided to stay in the car and wait (smartly so, we later realized).  Arthur’s Seat isn’t a super-long way up; we just happened to pick a steep side to climb.  Once we were about halfway up, the wind decided to pick up suddenly and I felt like I was about to blow over.  The closer we got to the top, the worse the weather turned.  The wind decided to pick up even more and then pellets of rain shot down at our faces.  It felt like thousands of tiny razor blades cutting against my face.  Ouch.  Once we got to the top, we held on for dear life and tried to take as many pictures as we could without falling off.  We had hoped to get some beautiful shots of the city, but the weather had turned so bad that there wasn’t much of a view left.  Trying to make our way down was scarier than trying to climb up.  Wet rocks were now in play and the wind was still blowing strong.  We eventually made it back down, and it felt very rewarding in the the long run.  I felt rather accomplished.

View from Arthur’s Seat

At the peak of Arthur’s Seat

On our way back from Arthur’s Seat, we decided to hit a few more electronic stores (Curry’s, PC World – both of which looked like CompUSA, but with appliances… poor CompUSA.)  We also went to a catalog store called Argos and then a Borders.  Came away with nothing. 

When we got back to the flat, Stefania decided to give Keith his birthday from her and several of his friends – Guitar Hero: World Tour.  He loved it and started playing right away. 

Keith the Guitar Hero

Stefania made reservations at Karen Wong’s Chinese restaurant for Keith and his friends (as a surprise to Keith), so we took a taxi there.  Karen Wong was very energetic and happy!  She was very eccentric and so very entertaining.  The food was slightly different from Chinese food you’d find here.  I had a lemon sorbet for dessert.  Keith had an upwards of about 5 beers or so.  He had a very happy birthday!

Karen Wong – A Scottish Chinese Woman

A very happy birthday for Keith… after about the 5th beer.

3 more days to go… I’m getting there!

So it’s been how long since my last update…?  Sorry about leaving folks hanging on day 3.  It was a really long day, so you have to understand that I was just trying to give you a feel for what it must have felt like for me on that bike trail

On to day 4 – This was a busy day.  It started with a freaky deaky dream I had about a little girl who needed medical help and ended up dying while doctors focused their efforts on someone else.  It was really sad and disturbing, but thankfully, was also only a dream.  We didn’t sleep in too much that day since there was a lot on our to-do list for the day.  We decided that a distillery tour was a must for this trip, so we made our way towards Perth in search of one.  We first stopped at a cool looking place called Deanston Distillery; they didn’t have tours, so we moved on.  They were able to recommend another distillery to us before we left though, so that was incredibly nice of them.  We headed to Blackford to Tullibardine Whiskey Distillery and made a tour appointment for 3 PM.  Since it was still something like 10 or 11 AM, we had a lot of time to kill before the tour and ended up wandering the rest of the strip mall where the distillery was located.  There was a Baxter’s Soup shop we wandered into that had some really tasty looking goodies.  Baxter’s is like the equivalent of Campbell’s soup for us, I think.  They had tons of stuff there, ranging from whiskey to soups to jams.  They also had a gift section with lotions, candles, books, etc.  There was a mini market section with refrigerated goods as well.  The place was huge.

Deanston – Didn’t tour this.

Tullibardine – We toured this one.

Once we got bored of the strip mall, Keith drove us all through Perth to find something interesting to check out.  Nothing stood out in Perth, so we kept going until we hit Scone.  We pulled into the obscure parking lot of Scone Palace and decided to walk around.  The place was pretty empty as it seems we hit it during an off-season, so they didn’t have any tours going.  That meant we were pretty much on our own, so we wandered around for a bit.  We saw peacocks, an old coronation site, a very old graveyard, giant trees, and a cool outdoor maze called Murray Star Maze.  Not too shabby for being on our own.

Scone Palace                                                                                                                     


Old graveyard  

One of the oldest gravestones there

Murray star maze 

Peacock – reminds me of Titania in her bower

We finally took our tour of Tullibardine and had to opportunity to sample whiskies.  I passed on the sampling, but Keith, Stefania, and Christian tried a few sips.  It was a neat tour, though.  I bought my dad a bottle of whiskey as a souvenir and some Tullibardine chocolates for my co-workers. 

Tullibardine

Old whiskey barrels


1488 - King James passed through to pick up some whiskey

Whiskey tasting


After Tullibardine, we headed to Stirling and hate a super-late lunch at The River House restaurant before dricing up the hill to the castle.  The late lunch deal was faaaaaabulous.  I had angus steak and french fries – so tasty and super-duper affordable (7 pounds or something).  We didn’t expect it to be great or anything because of the price, but were so pleased that the food and service was so good (it looked like a pretty hoity toity restaurant).

Tasty dinner                                          

View of Stirling castle from The River House restaurant

When we got to Stirling castle, we walked around town I took a bunch of pictures.  Stirling castle was closed because it was off-season, but the view was still cool. 

Loch Lomond was next on Keith’s list of to-sees, so we headed there.  We were racing the sunset and got there just as the sun was going down.  The view was beautiful.  The sky was colored with pinks and oranges galore and there were no power lines in sight.  Beautiful.

After the sun went down, we headed back to the cabins and watched lots of TV to unwind (it was a really eventful day!)  We made salmon and pasta for dinner and watched hours and hours of “Scrubs” and “Supernatural.”  At one point, we heard some noise on our balcony, so we paused to see what was out there – lo and behold – it was the pine marten again!  It made two appearances that night while we watched TV.

We went to bed early that night since our plan was to get up early the next day to travel to Loch Ness (3.5-hour drive) and head home afterward.

Our second day at the cabins was an uber-active one. I didn’t take too many photos that day because I wasn’t man enough to haul my camera bag around. I started the day with another dose of Weetabix…mmm…

After breakfast, we went down to the main office to rent bicycles. It was a nice, sunny day – perfect day to be out and about. I was a little nervous about hopping on a bike since I hadn’t been on one that wasn’t stationary since I was maybe 11. I couldn’t keep my balance very well with my camera bag so I had to dump it back at the cabin. Boo on that since that meant I couldn’t take any pictures of the painful inclines and curves I encountered during the bike ride (Yeah, I’m a baby. So what.) We pedaled our way to the tiny little town of Strathyre and encountered some Highland cows, sheep, and some scary, curvy dirt paths – crappy to walk a bike up through and really terrifying to ride a bike down through.

The bike route we took into Strathyre.

Once we finally did make it to Strathyre, I was dying of thirst so we stopped and the first market we saw and bought some refreshing sparkling water. After we all cooled down, we walked our bikes over to a little old inn called the Munro Inn. It was a rickety little place that had absolutely no patrons that we saw. I ordered my first scone – a fruit scone, and Christian ordered a plain one. It was deeeeeeeelish. The cream, the jam… so yummy. We also shared some garlic potato wedge – also surprisingly yummy. The innkeeper appeared a bit shifty and rickety… much like the inn. He was a skinny, lanky older man who needed to scrub his fingernails. Nice guy though, I guess. Once we were done with our mid-afternoon snack, we headed off to a nearby playground (they call it a play park); we couldn’t resist the tire swing (though I didn’t play on it).

We started heading back and decided to stop at the nearby stream to skip some stones and race some branches. Super-simple fun (even though I really suck at skipping stones). Keith decided to take his shoes and socks off and test out the water. That was pretty funny considering the water was ice-cold, he jumped out as fast as he jumped in.

Once we got our fill of stone skipping and freezing, we rode back. Christian swallowed a bug (second one he’s swallowed in his lifetime). We retrned the bikes and headed back to our cabin. Everyone went to rest and I was still hyped up on energy despite the embarassingly painful bike ride, so I decided to go on a lone mini-hike and take some photos. When I came back, Stefania and Christian were up and decided they wanted to go on a walk to, so I was all for it! We took the short walk down to the loch (Loch Lubnaig as mentioned in my previous post) and took some pictures.

Christian & Stefania

We made pasta with red sauce and roasted veggies for dinner. No dessert on this night, but we were pretty full off of pasta (had tons of leftovers). After dinner, we dove into some more episodes of Supernatural (yay!) and played with the Wii. While we were watching Supernatural, I heard loud shuffling outside on our balcony (I sat right next to the window). Our visitor was none other than the Pine Marten! The critter came to pick up the peanuts we left for him/her. Christian pulled out his camera and snapped some so-so pictures of it. It was so dark and scurried away as soon as we opened the door. Oh well. Still neat that it visited us though. We were told that it was a frequent visitor of cabin 26, but no one else ever really reported seeing it anywhere else. So yay us!

I’m able to blog about each day we spent in Scotland post-trip because I kept detailed notes on what happened each day (a journal of sorts but with bullet points). The last two bullet points I listed for day 3 were:

• The showers have no water pressure (it’s true – took forever to wash soap off).
• Keith is a bit sick – the bike ride did his asthma no good

I’m a bit backlogged, but here’s a recap of day 2 of our Scotland trip.

After a long and eventful day one of traveling and sight seeing (I missed mentioning the crazy Yew tree we went to see before heading to the Forestry Commission yesterday – see pic at the bottom of this blog post), Christian and I decided to sleep in for 12 hours before starting day two. His sister Stefania lives in 2 bedroom flat with her roommate Catherine, but they also have a box room (not allowed to call it a bedroom because it doesn’t have a window – true story). Stefania placed a blow-up king sized air bed in there and it turned into a great guest room, so we took full advantage and slept as much as we could. Once we finally did get up, we had some Weetabix cereal. This is something I have not seen in the U.S. and I wish we had it because it was really tasty and healthy. We had the Weetabix Mini Chocolate Crisps. Mmmm… Mr. Weetabix, please export your Minibix Chocolate Mini Crisps straight to California, thanks.

After breakfast, we all packed up Keith’s car with our duffels, Keith’s bag of technology (consists of Wii, controllers, and media box filled with tons of shows and movies) and enough food to prepare meals for our 4-day (3 days, really) cabin stay. We headed up through the little town of Callander to our cabin in Strathyre (on the edge of Strathyre, I imagine… the place was somewhere between Callander and Strathyre). We checked in at the main office and drove over to our cabin – cabin #25. It was beautiful. There was a bedroom and bathroom downstairs as well as upstairs. We claimed the downstairs one that had two twin beds separated in the room, so we tried to push them together to make a nice king-sized one. The kitchen was stocked with silverware, glassware, cookware, and a little fridge. The balcony was very large – enough room for two round tables and 4 chairs at each table (they were out there, but we didn’t use them). We had a great view of Loch (lake) Lubnaig. We were yards away from the loch; it was awesome. The weather was beautiful and the water was incredibly still. The Loch was like a large, long mirror that reflected the mountains on the other side of us and the bright blue sky above us. It felt pretty unreal to be out there in the middle of so much natural beauty.

Our cabin – #25

The inside of the cabin

Loch Lubnaig

We decided to sign up for a night hike later that evening, so we headed to Callander to shop for some flashlights (they call them torches). We parked by Callander Meadows and took in the sights and then walked into a few shops and looked around. Once we found our torches and hit a few other little stores, we headed back towards the cabins. We stopped along the way to visit Hamish the Highland cow. Hamish was huge.

The night hike was a light to moderate hike with a few slight inclines and two painful sets of stone steps. Our guide was one of the park rangers (Ranger Will) and was uber-knowledgeable about the surrounding plants and animals. He taught us about the Pine Marten, which is a ferret-like animal that eats grey squirrels (remember the Pine Marten for next few blogs). He pulled a few sprigs of pine and put them in a thermos of hot water to brew us some pine needle tea. Apparently, you can brew tea out of almost any thing out in that forest. He also told us about these red mushrooms with white spots (you may remember them from Super Mario) called the Fly Agaric which I found to be super-interesting. These mushrooms are highly poisonous and psychoactive. According to Will, the Santa Claus with flying reindeer story stems from hallucinations as a result of accidental consumption of this fungus. Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer is also tied to these fungi because deer can safely consume the Fly Agaric and they actually turn their noses red after consumption. The deer that consume these mushrooms filtered out the poisons but their pee still contained the hallucinogenic chemicals, so people would take advantage of this during the winter and eat yellow snow to get their highs. Weird, kinda gross, but neat, right? The overall hike was about 3 miles. Towards the end of the hike, we hooted and listened for owls, had sonar sensors to listen for bats, (zippo results for both), and played a bit with our night vision. Once the hike was over, we all headed back to the main office and tried out some of that pine needle tea that Will made earlier in the hike. It smelled really nice, tasted a little weird, but totally worth trying. We walked away with a bucket of peanuts to bring back to our cabin to see if we could lure a Pine Marten over to our cabin.

Once we got back to our cabin, we put some peanuts out on one of the plastic tables on our balcony and then had dinner. We had salmon with garlic & onion, roasted mixed veggies, and Cadbury eggs that we picked up from the store earlier that day. We also pigged out on Winegums. These are gummy, fruit-flavored candies that are a cross between Swedish Fish and Jujy Fruits, I think. They’re really good and I wish we had them here in the U.S.

Peanuts on the table for the Pine Marten

After dinner, we relaxed on the couches and watched “Superbad” and an episode of “Supernatural.” I crocheted while watching these and managed to finish the cupcake scarf that I started working on just before we left.

And that, my friends, was the end of day 2 (you see why I’ve taken so long to blog about the trip???)

Pics from Day 1:

Ginormous Yew Tree

Deep-fried Mars Bar

Rosslyn Chapel Under Construction

Irish Dancing

View of Edinburgh Castle from the street

I haven’t been able to make much time to blog about the trip as I go like I was hoping to… Boo on me for that. It’s just been busy and by the time I get on for some quality internet time, it’s 1 AM here (like right now).

We went to Arthur’s Seat today. It’s a really high hill in the center of Edinburgh that provides an amazing panoramic view of the city. Unfortunately, the weather’s been the coldest it’s been since we’ve been here (we were pretty spoiled with warm weather) and the wind decided to pick up a LOT while we were about mid way up the hill. It’s a little bit of a steep climb, so having the wind try to blow me off the rocks as I was climbing up was a tad scary. I didn’t think I would last, but I made it to the top of the peak and was abused by wind and pellets of rain for a few minutes while Christian and I sat on the monument up there. It was a little scary trying to move around and get into position to take pictures. Climbing down was also freaky since the rocks were kind of slippery from the rain that knocked us around. Christian and I had to brace each other at one point in order to take some quick pictures. Sounds ridiculous, but it was pretty wild wind.

Lots more to write about from today, but I think I will just have to do a detailed blog of each day when I get back.

Christian and I headed to SFO Sunday morning and checked in at the United Airlines desk to kick start our Scotland trip (thank you Gregg for getting us there)! Our United clerk, Ms. Kristina San Pedro, was THE nicest airline worker we have EVER encountered. She was so chipper and friendly; I completely appreciated her for contributing to a great start to our vacation.

I was pretty nervous while waiting in line to get through security, simply because this was my first trip out of the country. Everything went fine though and we had plenty of time to spare. We decided to grab a little bit of food from “Deli Up Cafe.” Christian thinks it’s a play on “belly Up” but who would want to name their business with a play on those words???

After my very so-so salad, we went to wait patiently for our plane to board. Turned out to be the longest line ever once we got up to get on the plane. Our seats were in the last row of the plane by the restrooms (which turned out to be pretty okay – no stench and lines weren’t annoying). I was on the aisle and Christian was one seat in. Each seat had movie screens on the back and a channel guide of movies and shows. It ended up being that only two channels would work for me, so I watched “Changeling” (which was very good, by the way) and “Twilight” (turned out to be a bit fluffy and over dramatic, but still glad I saw it). At two  points during the flight, they served us Morocco Chicken, salad, veggies, and an oatmeal chewie as one meal and turkey sandwich with cheese and yogurt.  I crocheted some, listened to music some, tried to sleep some (but failed miserably at it). My back was killing me by 3/4 of the way into the trip and I couldn’t wait to get up and about.

We landed in Heathrow at around 7 and had to go through customs (was pretty nervous about that and no one there was exactly friendly). We then went through security AGAIN – that was annoying. Once we were all cleared and arrived at our gate, we took the opportunity to make our first purchase with the British pound by purchasing water and orange juice.

We ended up being in line behind an old American couple while boarding the connecting flight from Heathrow to Edinburgh.  They were a bit funny like old couples can be, but the wife TOTALLY reminded me of Clark Kent.  She was wearing a bright red long-sleeve top and uber-bright blue pants.  Either she is a very proud American citizen who wanted to display her pride for all others to see, or she  was a closet Superman freak.  I vote for the latter since it had potential to be so much more interesting of the a story.

I was finally able to fall asleep for about 20-30 minutes in to the connecting flight, but that really wasn’t a whole  lot of rest that I could have taken advantage of.  Oh well.  On a side note, it’s 830 PM Scotland time as I draft this post, and I’m nodding off a bit and losing track of where I am, so pardon me if I stop making sense at some point or miss something… All right, back to connecting flight.  It was nice and sunny in London (would have been great for photos) and then became uber-foggy as we headed into Edinburgh.  We landed a bit early and had our baggage claimed a ready to go pretty early on.  We had never offiicially discussed the specifics of our pick-up with Christian’s sister Stefania (aside from agreeing that she and her boyfriend would pick us up), so we weren’t sure whether the default thing to do was to sit in the baggable area team and wait, or find a spot curbside and wait.  We figured the easier thing for them to do was to pick up curbside, so we went with that guess. After doing a sweep of baggage claim (in case they were in there somewhere)  We waited for almost half an hour before her boyfriend came out and got us.

Ooops for not connecting better about that tidbit of info.

We went back to her place, dropped stuff off, (no elevators, btw) and stopped by her Forestry Commission Office to check the place out and meet the people.  Appparently, the Forestry commission has a guy in their lunch room that makes deep fried Mars Bars.  MMmmmm they were good.  And so bad for me.  After meeting her co-workers and getting a tour of the office and greenhouses, we decided to head to the Rosslyn Chapel since we were in the neighborgood.  For those who are unfamiliar with “The Da Vinci Code,” the chapel is the setting for a pivotal plot point in the book.  We were a bit disappointed when we got there.  There was construction all over the place and admission into the mid-constructed/restored chapel was more than we were willing to pay, PLUS they didn’t allow picture taking once inside the chapel.  It would have been awesome to have seen the chapel closer than we already were, but it just wasn’t meant to be.

Once we were done sneaking around the perimeters of Rosslyn Chapel to get peeks of the building, we went on our merry way to Costco.  That’s right.  We went to Costco in Scotland.  We’re heading up to a cabin by a lake for the rest of the week, so the  Costco shopping trip was for food for all of us while we’re up there.  Christian and I each bought a hot dog and coke (even though he gave his sister his soda cup – sacrifices for lent).  Stefania ordered this thing called a “jacket potato” which was basically a baked potato topped with stuff.  She got one topped with Tuna.  Yeah, I thought it was a hair weird too.

Once done, we stopped by Stefania’s boyfriend’s (Keith) flat in order to pick up his Wii to take with us while we are up in the cabin.  Boy, we sure know  how to have a good time, huh.

Once we dropped all of the Costco groceries back at Stefania’s place, we headed out to a local bar that was featuring Irish dancers (one of which is one of Stefania’s good friends and former flatmate).

The performance was fun!  Once that was over, we headed out, took a few photos of the castle near the bars, and then taxied back to the apartment.

I can’t believe I managed to get through all of this.  Some of it may not make sense…  So sorry about that.  I’ll edit the post to include pictures from the day – I just need to rest now *yawn*  Hope to post again in a few days if not sooner.

Headed to Scotland on Sunday… it’s my first time out of the country (I can’t count Ensenada and Catalina, Mexico – I just can’t). So excited! I’ll try to post photos and/or blog while I’m there, but we’ll see what happens…

Christian and I decided to get some shopping done today and boy was it not what we imagined or wanted… at all.  We went to Michael’s with my 50% off coupon but I wasn’t able to find a great big-ticket item to use it on.  I ended up using it to save a whopping $2.50 on treat bags.  We then went to Borders to use up a $10 gift card I received from participating in a focus group at work.  We were on the hunt for calendars since we didn’t get all of the calendars we wanted for Christmas.  No good wall calendars at Borders (at least not at the one in Milpitas).  I picked up two desk calendars (Scrapbook stickers and “How to Cook Everything”) but no calendars for Christian.  We went to pay for my stuff and the cashier scans my card and tells me it isn’t valid.  Apparently, whoever scanned it to put money on it didn’t punch in the number correctly, so my gift card was useless.

Moving on to the Great Mall:

Since there were no good wall calendars at Borders, we decided to try the calendar store in the Great Mall.  After unsuccessfully scouring the Great Mall parking lot for 15 minutes for a spot, Christian dropped me off to shop on my own while he continued on his hunt for a space.  It only took him a total of 25 minutes of roaming the lot before he found a spot.  I met up with him at the calendar store where there were no good calendars left.  We then decided to go to Old Navy since I had a gift card and it was right across the way.  The place was packed and things were a mess.  I found a couple of things but really wanted a knitted sweater that I saw hanging by a 50% off sign so I had the cashier price check it for me before ringing me up.  Of course, it was not 50% off… even though all of the sweaters were hanging in that same 50% off section!  Idiots.

We headed to the Skechers store because we are both on the hunt for new shoes so we can chuck our worn out ones.  I found a pair that I liked – no wait – I found a single shoe in my size that I liked (its partner was the display shoe with scuff marks all over it).  Christian found a pair that he liked but not in his size.  He asked an employee if he could check for a size 14 and the guy automatically shot him down and told us that they didn’t carry 14s in the store.  Total lie.  We’d purchased multiple size 14 shoes from that store in the past.  Granted, this time there really was no size 14 for that particular shoe (we insisted that he check the back for us anyway) but to not even put the effort in before shooting us down just pissed me off a little.  Whatever.  After that disappointing venture, we decided to leave the mall.

Next up – Target:

I found most of the items on my shopping list there, so that wasn’t terrible.  The annoying part of this trip was the clearance suitcase that we found for Lily that we weren’t allowed to buy!  I wanted to pick up a little suitcase for Lily to hold all of her food, treats, and toys when we drop her off at my parents’ house or take her on trips.  It was annoying to pack three little bags for her, so having one suitcase would have been nice and organized.  We came across a cute pink camo rolling suitcase that was clearanced for $17.50 with just enough room for all of her stuff.  When the cashier scanned the item, the computer gave her an error and then bold red text appeared on the screen that said, “DO NOT SELL THIS ITEM.”  Apparently, the suitcase was recalled and they were not allowed to sell it.  We just wanted it for our Dog!  Lame.  Stupid.  Pissed me off.

The only fully successful shopping destination we hit was Walgreens.  We were in and out in 5 minutes – no fuss.  Of all places.  *Sigh*

Could have been a better week.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Christian and I are in Las Vegas, Nevada again this year to enjoy Thanksgiving with his aunt.  We flew out here yesterday morning and his parents flew out here last night.  It’s a tad rainy here, so I expect to be drenched for Black Friday shopping tomorrow.  We checked out the Planet Hollywood hotel yesterday, had lunch at the Spice Market Buffet (I hate waaaay too much), and Christian played a few hands of Blackjack.

The turkey is in the oven, appetizers are out, and there are a bajillion people over at his aunt’s house (okay, not a bajillion, but maybe 12 or so).  I’m excited for dinner.  Thanksgiving meals are always so good.  This day always makes me wish I was home with my own family though.  Just a small part of me. It’s not so bad because my parents don’t celebrate Thanksgiving.  I just want to force them to one year though, ya know?  Today is like any other day for them, except that they are spending it with our dog Lily while we’re away.

Black Friday shopping will begin around 3 AM for us at Fry’s.  I don’t think that getting in line at 3AM will be early enough to score the laptops we’ve been asked to buy for people, but whatever… we’ll see.  Store opens at 5.  Last year, we lined up at Best Buy at 3:30AM here in Vegas and the line was already wrapped outside of the parking lot.  Did I also mention it’s raining here?  It’s going to be a cold, wet Black Friday.

We head out to Cheesecake Factory for lunch tomorrow with his family and will be flying home tomorrow night.  Someone is going to have to roll me on to the plane at the rate we’re eating.  I’m feeling a tad blubberish at the moment.

That’s the update from Vegas.  Hope everyone is staying warm and enjoying their Thanksgiving Holiday!

Woohoo!

Love you!