Good to be home

It is so good to be home. North Carolina is growing on me, but there is really nothing like home. My mom knew I didn't have a tree to decorate in NC, so she saved her tree for me - she even put up the lights, which is my least favorite part!

The twins came over yesterday and our plan was to run to Target so they could buy gifts for their cousins. Denise, my mom, Ali, Pax and I headed out there and stayed for about 20 minutes before we quickly purchased what we had and rushed out of the store. It was so stressful. Yuk. Good thing I have ZERO PRESENTS purchased. Oh well. "There's always, tomorrow, for dreams to come true." My dream this Christmas is to actually purchase some presents!

Since Target was a bust, we decided to decorate the tree instead. They did a great job - the front of the tree is very well decorated, especially the bottom 3 feet. We had a great time working together, and it looks perfect!


It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!


How on Earth are we supposed to fit any presents under all of those ornaments!

MEDRIX

My friend Corene works for the non-profit organization Medrix. Caroline and I went to her work fundraiser on Saturday night, and we had a great time playing games with Corene's brother Darik and his wife Tracy, and her cousin Alyssa and her husband Jason.

If you get a chance, please take a minute to look at her company's website to see all the great things they are doing in Vietnam, and check out this youtube clip.



Thanks for inviting us Corene!

Locks of Love

It's that time of year again!

My hair had gotten really long, which meant it was time to cut off 10 inches and donate my hair to Locks of Love. This is something I have done 4 times before, and I really enjoy doing it. It's a great organization, and I am happy to do it. Although I always hate having short hair, my hair does tend to grow fast, and I can live with it. Besides, once it is long enough to go back into a ponytail, I'm good to go. I flew in from NC Thursday night, and Friday afternoon I had an appointment with Eric from Gene Juarez in Redmond. He is my mom's hair guy, and he has done my donation cut two times before!

A funny side note about Eric - he's not very old, but he looks very similar to Taylor Hicks. He was actually on American Idol during the tryout shows as a Taylor Hicks knockoff!

My mom was a trooper and acted as my photographer for the day - thanks Mom!


Da-damn, my hair was long.


Eek, no turning back now...


Goodbye hair!


Purty, and NO LONGER ON MY HEAD!


Thanks Eric, it looks great!

Now, all that's left for me to do is act like a 26 year-old, and actually use a hair dryer. Wish me luck!

OBX!

Manteo Elementary is a school in the Outer Banks of North Carolina, and they asked our staff to come out for a day to teach some K, 1, and 2 lessons. I originally wasn't going to go, but one of the staff members that was supposed to go ended up spraining his ankle pretty bad, so the office had to do their best to switch things around. They asked if I was available over the weekend to head out to the Outer Banks from Saturday - Monday, and I said yes before I even heard the perks: $60 for food, a free place to stay for the weekend (which was ON THE WATER), and gas reimbursement! Conor took the day off of work on Monday so he could come too, and we had a blast!


The front of the house

We left Saturday and started the 4 hour trip to the OBX, which was a really pretty drive! It was nice to drive on a bridge over open water, it reminded me of home. When we got there, I couldn't believe how beautiful the house was - I could literally throw a rock from the deck into the Atlantic Ocean. 3 of my co-workers also showed up on Saturday: Betsy (and her husband Greg), Caitlin and Gillian.


Awesome chair in the cabin

Saturday night the 6 of us went out to dinner to my co-worker Betsy's favorite Nags Head restaurant: The Black Pelican. Conor ordered the crab legs, while I ordered the prime rib. I got a picture of Conor's meal, but I couldn't even fit my hunk of meat into the frame of my camera for a photo. It was enormous. I ate as much as I could, and it didn't even look like I had touched it...


This was in the front of the restaurant - pretty clever!



After dinner we headed back to our cabin for some games around the fire. Conor and I brought Loaded Questions, one of our personal favorites. If you've never played the game, it's a great game to play to get to know people.


Caitlin (Finn) on the left, Gillian on the right


Finn showing off her Secret Santa gift from Betsy - an F'in cup! (Funny story - when she was little, she had a cup with the letter F on it, because her last name starts with the letter F, and she once asked her brother for her F'in cup, and her brother got really mad at her - she didn't quite get it.


The family that we borrowed the house from even left us a Christmas tree!


I don't really know what's happening here...


I seriously don't know what's happening here...

After playing games, leaving a voicemail to Caroline from Finn, and some chit-chat, we went to bed so we'd be well-rested for our next day! We woke up and Betsy made us some sausage bread (Betsy - if you're reading this, I want that recipe!) We then parted ways for the morning to check out the area on our own. Greg stayed behind to watch football while Betsy, Gillian and Finn went to the local aquarium. Conor and I decided to check out Kitty Hawk to see the Wright Brothers museum. I know, we're nerds. If you haven't already figured that out by reading my blog, then you only have yourself to blame...

Since Conor and I are together again in NC, he's had to deal with me stealing all the blog material. We're trying to figure out how to share the love - we'll either combine our blogs, or take turns. Conor really wanted to blog about Kitty Hawk, so go to his blog to check out our tour around the museum!

After the museum, we came home to meet with everyone else so we could go eat lunch. The wonderful PTA at Manteo Elementary left us with two giftcards to local restaurants in the area. I had checked online to see where the restaurants were, and I noticed that one of the places listed it's days open as "Tuesday - Saturday." It was a Sunday, so I called just to be sure, and they were closed both days we were going to be in Manteo! Oops, we missed our chance to use that gift card. The other choice said it was open Monday - Sunday, so we headed there. We set off to try out the Hungry Pelican, which was a deli in Manteo. I'm not sure if you've ever visited a beachy-resorty type place during the winter, but if you have, then you know that the town literally looks like a ghost town. Needless to say, the Hungry Pelican was also closed, so we ate at a restaurant across the street.

After lunch, we came home to veg out for a bit before heading to the store to buy dinner supplies - we ended up making spaghetti and meatballs, which was really tasty. After dinner, the final scientist showed up, and he unpacked his car and joined us for some games. Jimmy is actually the scientist that sprained his ankle, which brought me out to the Outer Banks in the first place, so it was kind of funny that he ended up coming. We played Taboo first, but everyone was itching to play Loaded Questions again. After games, we all headed to bed since we actually had to work the next day.


Conor and I snuck outside to stick our feet in the sand.

Our day at Manteo Elementary was a lot of fun. I taught two 1st grade lessons, and one 2nd grade lesson. The kids were very excited to have us! Betsy, Caitlin, Gillian and I even had the same lunch break, so we were all able to make it over to the Hungry Pelican for some sandwiches - sorry Jimmy! Conor and Greg found a local, cheap place to play 18 holes of golf - although Conor said he had a bad day, it was a beautiful course and he had a lot of fun.

After our day at Manteo, we headed back to the cabin to quickly clean up and get on the road. The weekend went too fast, and I wish we all could have stayed one more day.


I had to say that I have dipped my feet into both the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean, so Finn and I headed down to the water to get our feet wet.

It was so great getting to know my co-workers better - I'm looking forward to getting all of the scientists together in 2010 for a game night! The weekend was SOOOOoooo much fun.

Thanksgiving Cousin-Fest '09

Thank you to Erin and our iPhones for all the pictures! And sorry this took me so long to write, but all the pictures took quite a while to resize, and the laziness factor set in quite often. Blah, blah, blah - excuses, excuses.

Conor’s parents treated us to our Christmas presents a little early this year and got us our tickets to San Diego for a Tuchschmidt family reunion. Ann has 2 sisters and 1 brother, but unfortunately Chuck couldn’t make it. I’ve been with Conor for 8 years and I still haven’t met his uncle Chuck! Maybe in 2010! Ann’s older sister Joan and her husband Scott live in Colorado. They have two kids – Blair and Erin. Janie is Ann’s younger sister, and she and her husband Tom live in Carlsbad, CA with their three children: Chelsea, Chase and Charlie. We all headed to San Diego for a 5 day-weekend – the cousins are all pretty similar in age, so it was the perfect time to get us all together!

It’s a good thing Janie is so nice and has great neighbors, because we were able to borrow her neighbors' house for the week, since they were in Fiji. Yup, I said Fiji. Janie’s neighbor was a famous surfer – Trevor Christ (rhymes with Twist, not the Almighty.) He has a beautiful home, and an adorable family! But, more importantly, they have Bowser. It was love at first lick. Bowser is the family Rottweiler, and he was the sweetest dog.






Thursday, which was Thanksgiving, was instead ThankMickey Day! We headed to Disneyland, which is about an hour from Janie’s house. There were 10 of us total: Ann, Cheryl, Conor, Megan, Joan, Blair, Erin, Janie, Chase, Charlie. Chelsea was supposed to come, but she came down with Mono and had to stay home to rest. The boys (Scott, Bill and Tom) stayed home to go biking. I haven’t been to Disneyland since high school, so to say I was excited is an understatement. The last time I went, California Adventure wasn’t even open yet! There is something wrong with me. The entire day was a blast – we fit in as much as we could in 11 hours.

At California Adventure we started the day with Soarin’ Over California, then California Screamin’, Midway Mania, and ended with Tower of Terror.











At Disneyland we hit up Astro Blaster, Splash Mountain, Indiana Jones, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Space Mountain.












I’m pretty sure I couldn’t wipe the stupid grin off my face the entire time. It didn’t matter how bad my feet hurt, or that I was exhausted – I was in heaven.

Top 3 rides:
1. Space Mountain
2. Tower of Terror
3. California Screamin’

Top 3 Moments:
1. Conor falling while getting off of Space Mountain
2. Splash Mountain picture
3. Just hanging with the cousins in general

3 Worst Moments:
1. Not having a picture of Conor falling while getting off of Space Mountain
2. Not seeing Gepetto
3. Not seeing a talking trash can

On Friday we woke up and planned a cousin day while the grown-ups prepared Thanksgiving dinner. Cheryl, Conor, Megan, Blair, Erin, Chase and Charlie went to Carlsbad’s version of Zones. We first hit up the batting cages so the boys could re-live the old days. At first, the girls weren’t going to bat, but they looked like they were having fun, so we all joined in. It was so fun, I haven’t batted since junior year of high school.






After the batting cages, we prepared for our 18 holes. We all generally sucked, but Conor and Erin got a hole-in-one and Conor won it all.







You can’t go to a place like that and NOT play Skee Ball! I was playing Air Hockey with Charlie, and next thing I know, Megan is winning 500 tickets on some hokey game. And then I turned around and Chase was doing the same thing on another game! We earned 1800 tickets collectively and went to the counter to pick out a cool toy. We were 300 tickets short of getting each of us a sweet pair of glasses, so Chase took his last 3 coins to the game he was luckiest at, and on his last game, he won 300 tickets exactly! It was perfect!

As we were leaving, we realized that it would be pretty mean of us to walk in with these glasses and not have a pair for Chelsea or Chase’s girlfriend Kristina, so we headed to the dollar store to see if we could find 2 extra pairs. No luck, but we did find some ideas for next year’s Halloween costumes…




The boys headed to two more stores and the third store was a charm - they found the same glasses and colors! The girls headed home to put on our swimsuits and use the Christ’s hot tub and pool. Their pool is a salt-water pool that has a slide. I love that family. Even though it was cold, we couldn’t pass up trying everything out.



After hanging in the pool, it was time to get ready for Thanksgiving dinner. The grown-ups did a great job – everything tasted so good! We all walked in wearing our glasses, which caught everyone off guard. What can I say? We were proud of our prize!



We're all incredibly tech-savvy. You're counting correctly. 9 people, 9 iPhones. Actually, out of the entire family, only 2 of us didn't have iPhones!





After a yummy dinner, we ended the night with a round of Loaded Questions and some ear candles before heading to bed - we were still all a bit exhausted after our day at Disneyland!







Saturday started with us cleaning up the Christ’s house because they were headed home that afternoon, and we wanted everything looking nice for when they got home. The kids snuck off to In ‘n Out Burger to eat lunch, played some Rock Band, and the girls were spoiled and treated to a relaxing massage. My massage was with the owner named Jack. He was hilarious! Every time I opened my eyes, he stuck his tongue out at me. At the end they sort of slap your legs as part of the message (it sounds weird, but feels really good) and he pretended like he was beating me up. My kind of guy!




That night we all went out to dinner together at Juanita’s, a local favorite for the FitzSimons family. Apparently the thing to order out there is the California burrito – carne asada and French fries inside a tortilla!

Everyone followed us back to our hotel room for the night at the La Costa Resort - it was an awesome hotel, I wish we could have had one more night to spend there! After a few photo opportunities, we played a card game called ERF and Party Playoff with the cousins before we all said our goodbyes and conked out before our early flight the next day.








It was so great to see the cousins again – I hope we do it again soon! Thanksgiving 2010??