Sue

You should read Sue's blog - it's about voodoo, cowboys, photography, and auctions! She lives such a high class life, see how she combined those four things into one. Plus, it includes me, and I'm not one to shy away from pimping myself out.

Vino Festival

Yeah, don't worry - you read that right.

Conor & I went to a wine festival last weekend with my friend Caitlin and our fellow scientist friend Craig. Wine festivals aren't usually my scene (it's the whole lack of drinking thing...) but I was excited to hang out with my friends and enjoy a nice day outside, rather than sit around our apartment in my air conditioned abode that I try not to leave unless necessary. Caitlin gave us some suggestions the night before as to what to bring, and we planned on meeting in the morning to hit up a Starbucks on our way there. Conor and I grabbed our lawn chairs, a blanket, and a cooler full of water and we were set. We got there early in order to get a good spot on the lawn - prime people watching real estate. That's really the reason I wanted to go. I feel like people watching should be the Nation's Pastime. Forget baseball, people watching is where it's at. Taking pictures was hard - there were a lot of people and the tight quarters made it hard to zoom into your targeted crazy person.

Conor and I take a standard "smush our faces, camera an arms-length away" photo, but we didn't do so well this time. We've got to work on our angles to minimize triple chins and nose hair.


Nice, Conor. For the record, this is the best picture of me, of course.


Tyra Banks would tell me that I have lost my neck. I'm about to gain it in the next few photos.


Cheryl - watch out, you're getting close to a double chin.


No! No, Cheryl! TRIPLE CHIN! The glasses don't hide it!


Pssh, whatever. We'll just try again the next time we leave the house.

In between atrocious photos of us, I also had a great view of the hula hoop lady. She danced from 11am until we left at 5pm. All while in her hip hat and short little skirt. I will say that I am extremely impressed with her ease of hula hooping. She made it look easy, and it's not easy.


Get it girl!


Ah, yeah!

People don't mess around at festivals like these. Lots of people had lanyard necklaces that had a special pouch for their wine glasses. People also string pretzels onto a string so they can eat while they booze! You've got to hand it to them, that's just plain old resourceful.


Sorry for the crazy closeups of thigh - I was sitting comfortably in my lawn chair, and couldn't be bothered to walk closer to the pretzel necklace, I used my zoom instead and got lots of thigh in there.

I also loved that these people dressed to the nines for their day of drinking and live music. Little summer dresses, heels, hair perfectly coifed. I really don't think the South is for me, but I sure am trying. Although, my jean capris, blank shirt, flip flops, and standard pony tail didn't help me fit in so much.

We had a great time - the weather was really nice, Caitlin and Craig enjoyed the vino, and I enjoyed my 6 bottles of water. Thanks for inviting us Finn!

Kick-Ass Scientist Gathering!

That title has a double meaning. We had a scientist gathering to go see Kick-Ass, and the scientist gathering was kick-ass!

Conor & I met up in Raleigh with Scientist Finn, Scientist Davis, Davis' girlfriend Maria, and Scientist Craig. We ate dinner at McAlister's Deli and chatted about sciencing. It's always fun to get together and share funny stories from our days of meeting hundreds of kids a week. One of these days I am going to figure out how to do one of those side-bar thingy-majiggers and write at least one funny kid comment a day. Now I'm going to be held accountable. Conor, if you're reading this - get on it! These stories are just way too funny not to share.

After dinner and random stories, we headed over to the theater to see Kick-Ass! I really liked it - Conor was on the fence, but he still enjoyed it. The real show was the random couple that sat right in front of Davis and Maria. Wow. I tried several times to take a picture, but it was too dark in the theater. Snap. One of life's regrets...

Every time there was something mildly funny in the movie, the guy (bigger dude, tall, baggy-ish clothes, gross-blonde hair in a braid down to his butt crack - visual necessary, hence the serious regret over the lack of photographic evidence) he would convulse in his chair he was laughing so hard. We're talking swaying back and forth, guffawing as loud as possible. It was priceless. The highlight for me though, is the story I'm about to share.

I don't want to tell you too much about the movie, but if you've seen the trailer, you know about Hit-Girl. Hit-Girl is pretty much the star of the movie, and she lives up to her name. When you first see her in her superhero get-up, the guy turns to his girlfriend/wife/World of Warcraft online gaming buddy, and says "That is TOTALLY going to be our daughter!" Wow. This will make much more sense if you see the movie, but wow. I was crying I was laughing so hard. It took me almost 3 minutes just to get it out to tell Conor what had happened. I have no idea what happened in the movie next, I had too many tears in my eyes. You've gotta love nerds and their high hopes. Sorry weirdo couple that sat in front of Davis and Maria, you're daughter will never be that cool. Never ever.

Go see Kick-Ass!

28 is the new 28...

Conor celebrated his 28th birthday last Sunday, so he got to choose the day's events - brunch and a baseball game! He kept telling everyone that called that I was a trooper for going to the game with him, but I don't hate baseball THAT much. But, lets just keep that secret from Conor a bit longer...

The day started out by sleeping in a bit, and then heading over to the Cheesecake Factory for their brunch menu. Conor got the monte cristo sandwich, while I got a standard brunch meal - eggs, bacon, and pancakes.




After breakfast, we went to play with the new iPad for a while. It's pretty cool, but I don't think we'll be having one of those in the Glassey family anytime soon. Unless someone wants to buy us one. We wouldn't object.

Conor had to go to a game for work on his birthday, and I said I would go too because I wanted to spend the day with him, and because Babe Ruth was going to be there!

The game we went to was in Greensboro, NC, which is about an hour away from us. The Greensboro Grasshoppers played the Augusta Green Jackets from Georgia. Conor & I took our seats, and one of his buddies from work came, as well as his friend Dave Cameron - a USSMariner friend - and his wife Amy.


He'll always be 9 months older than me. It feels pretty good to be 27 right now. Sorry Con, just speaking the truth. Don't I look so young and youthful in this picture?

The Greensboro Grasshoppers are a low class A team affiliated with the Florida Marlins. Low A games are always fun to catch, because they know their players aren't great, so they entertain you in between each inning as much as possible. Their mascot shared a birthday with Conor, so all his mascot friends from the surrounding areas came out and they played a game of kickball. It was completely random, and a bit chaotic... Still funny to see middle-aged men trying to be goofy in a costume for the kids there.

The real reason I came though, was to see Babe Ruth, the bat-retrieval dog.



Babe is the best. She is a trained labrador retriever that goes to pick up the bats after her owner gives the ok (after a player is walked or gets a hit.) Conor tricked me though. I thought Babe was the bat boy for the whole game, but apparently she only does it for 2 Greensboro innings... Oh well, she's too adorable to be mad at. Check out the video below of Babe in action.




I liked Conor's pink lemonade straw. I bought it for him, so the guy naturally gave me a pink straw. I didn't correct him.


If any of you have seen the Hangover, Carlos was at the baseball game too!

After the baseball game, Conor and I found the nearest Mexican restaurant, but the food was pretty raunchy. We came home for some dessert!

Being a baseball widow wife, I decided to try and be cute and turn the white cakeballs into baseballs. The idea is still there, I just need to perfect it a bit. Conor recognized what I was going for, and the thought is what counts, but the pink frosting didn't really translate into red stitching quite like I had imagined...



I stopped halfway through, no reason to keep trying when they looked that disgusting - better luck next time.



I think he's wishing for me not to make these again anytime soon.

Happy 28th Birthday Conor!

North Carolina Zoo

You want to know what is the OPPOSITE of fun? Looking at other people's zoo photos. We've all been to a zoo before. We've all taken hundreds of photos of the animals who are doing their best to pretend you're not there. We've all patiently waited for the animal to wake up and DO something already. We've all had to explain that your photo doesn't do the monkey flinging poo any justice. You just had to be there, we get it. But here I go, putting my zoo pictures on the blog. Enjoy! They're really awesome! You should have been there - the pictures don't do our afternoon any justice!

Conor didn't have any games to go to last Saturday, and the weather was supposed to be a perfect 75 - 80 degrees, so we packed up and headed to Asheboro, NC to go to the North Carolina Zoo. Apparently we weren't the only people with the bright idea - it was a ZOO there. Yeah, I said it. I'm okay with it.

After parking and waiting forever in line to get in, we saw the elephants first. I missed the best shot of the elephant actually spraying water out of his trunk, so use your imagination.






Next up was the baboons. Conor and I got lucky on this one - we were actually just walking to the restroom, when we noticed the baboons. They were being fed, which basically meant that some lady was hucking fruit and vegetables at them. I think she was enjoying her job a little too much though, she kept hitting them with a flying carrot or head of lettuce!


Uh, hey nice food lady, do you think you could just gingerly toss that food my way?


Is this a turn-on to the other baboons? The larger the red butt, the better offspring you'll have? This guy not only had the biggest patch of red butt, but he was also the biggest baboon, and he had no problem getting food.


Mmm... carrots...


Whatchu lookin' at?


If you look really closely, you can see the baby that's getting a free ride on Mom's back. Lazy baboon.

Next up, we passed a gorilla. I think this gorilla is a lot smarter than people give him credit for. There were so many people there this day, and he was hiding way off in the corner in the shade. I don't blame him. Plus, he didn't have another gorilla friend to pick ticks off his back, so he was probably sad and ticky.



On our way to the aviary to see tropical birds/insects/frogs, we saw a flamingo.



Next we saw some Poison Dart Frogs - they're poisonous, in case you couldn't gather that from their name. I teach about these guys in one of my lessons - natives used to rub their arrows on the poison dart frogs back. The poison on their back has enough venom to kill 10 grown men. Ouch.




We went into the Sahara dessert exhibit where we first tried to take a picture of a roadrunner. I'm not kidding, he's fast. Conor even dropped a "look out for falling anvils" joke. We're in love.

There were also some turtles. One as big as a boulder, one as big as a small boulder.




Inside the desert exhibit, they also had native plants. This made me giggle.

This plant will survive forever if Mormons are meant to drink it - we don't drink tea, you crazy plant!

Then I saw this guy. This guy describes how I felt 3/4 of the way through the zoo. It was hot, we walked a ton, and I felt wide. Thank you fat lizard for the visual.



The grizzly bear was one of those animals that was completely unimpressed with his crowd. He was originally hiding behind a rock, popped his head up for a second, and then retreated around a corner where no one could see him. I think I even heard him growl "Stupid paparazzi."




Same with the polar bear. He wanted nothing to do with us. He even showed his severe dislike of the crowd by only showing us his backside, and taking an enormous leak. You can't really tell in this picture, but it was hilarious. It was about a 2 minute piss. And it all floated in what I am guessing is his swimming/drinking water. JOKES ON YOU MR. POLAR BEAR!



The otters were awesome. They were little synchronized swimmers. Everywhere Otter 1 went, Otter 2 wasn't far behind. They were putting on a show.





There was a wolf...


And a bobcat... (there was once a bobcat loose in Sammamish. What the what?)


A seal too...


An alligator also...


And a pretty tree...


But then there was this...

I'd say that this kid probably just dressed himself this morning, but I don't think that's really the case. Dad is to the left, Mom is to the right, and they were just as equally intriguing to stare at. I think I may have done more people watching at the NC Zoo, but it's a bit more normal to take pictures of the animals. This necklace probably came out of a vending machine for 50 cents. And this kid is damn proud of his bling bling. I even love the way it glistens and sparkles in this photo - just the way it should.

There you have it - our go around of zoo pictures. I hope you enjoyed the baboon butts and polar bear peeing.

Martha Freakin' Stewart

Feel free to start calling me that.

I couldn't be home for Easter this year, so I cooked what I knew my Mom would be cooking that day - ham, scalloped potatoes, and corn. Oh man. It was so good. Conor knows how to compliment me, and he called me LJ all day - Liz Junior. I recommend that you all buy Costco ham. It's a lot of ham, but it's so dang good.


Cheesy...


Cheesy...

Conor and I also got each other Easter baskets. I put in his basket lots of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, an iTunes giftcard, a Starbucks giftcard, Zombieland, some gum, a wiffle ball bat, and a Pez dispenser. Conor got me New Moon, the same Pez dispenser (great minds think alike), Snickers eggs, bite-size candies, a gnome for a potted plant, and a DS game I already had. We're good - a perfect basket for both!

Happy Easter to everyone - I hope you were able to spend it with loved ones. If not, hopefully you ate a delicious meal and got an awesome Easter basket like I did!