It was PNE good times last Saturday.

The Tyrrell’s got tickets to see the BC Lions Home Opener and invited us out to join them. Ryan then got the genius idea to make it a full day of events and head over to the race track before kick off.

I like the way this man thinks!

I heart the race track. Not only is it fun to bet $2 on the horse with the coolest name, but it is also such a great place to people watch.

Willy Quan…Is that you!?

Who wouldn’t want to sit and stare at this view all day?

I didn’t know Johnny Drama was showing up.

After the game we tried to look for a place to eat that we could walk to. Unfortunately everything was packed full of Lions fans, so our only option was to hit up Tom and Jerrys on Hastings street. This place is GHETTO, but I have to say, the food was pretty damn good. Totally not what I was excepting. I probably won’t go back, but for what it was that day, it was good.

The funniest thing was watching all the players come out of their locker room, which was of course, a portable!

WOOT WOOT!

CF18 BONER. I was obsessed with this thing the whole night. I am still so obsessed that Chad is going to take me to the Abbotsford Air Show so I can see it again. YAY!

INJURY!

Wow, TSN, I expected more…

I’m sneaky and got a picture of the Pilot who flew the CF18. Yes, he made it to the game after his fly by!

Also note, that there is really no point in me ever wearing making up since it only lasts on my face for 5 minutes.

Crazy P

The army sat behind us the whole time, and all I wanted to do was sit there and watch them.

I am craaaaaazy!

It was a good first quarter. They scored a touchdown right in front of us. The rest of the game sucked, but the atmosphere was awesome!

We got word from Elise’s friend who works PNE parking that they park all the overflow cars on the inside of the track. I had to see this for myself, plus it gave me an opportunity to run around on the horse track, which seemed like an amazing idea at the time.

A great day in our beautiful city! I love the PNE and all the things it has to offer on its grounds.

I can’t wait for more summer days like this!

More Hastings Racecourse!!!

I have a reoccurring nightmare that I am in an emergency situation and I need to call Chad right away.

I attempt to call the home phone but I can’t seem to get the numbers right.

I then attempt to call his cell phone but every time I punch in the numbers I do it wrong. Again and again I get the number mixed up.

I attempt to scroll down my cell phone to find his number in my contacts but every time I find it and press call it scrolls down and calls someone else.

This just causes me to panic more and more until I wake up.

I hate this dream because there is nothing worse then being in an emergency situation and not having the ability to contact someone.

I just tried to call his cell phone to ask him a question – non emergency situation – and I dialed the number wrong 5 times. WTF?!

It’s like my dream is coming true…

I’ve noticed this new trend occurring at the dinner table.

Chad and I will be eating away, watching the news, chatting and such, when all of a sudden a giant burp is emitted from Chads mouth.

Normally, this sort of thing doesn’t bother me, but with thoughts of having children in the future, the last thing I want is for this to be seen as acceptable behaviour.

I attempt to curb Chads pleasure in loud burps by glaring at him, sending him a mental reminder that he better quit this habit asap.

What does he do in response?

He turns to his left, pats our imaginary son on the head and says, “That’s right  Matteo, that’s what Men do!”

…

Somebody save me.

Last day in America!

We didn’t spend a lot of time in the USofA as there were things to do back in Canada!

We headed off in the morning to visit St. James Cathedral, which was amazingly beautiful.

Cab Cab Cab

We stayed for mass and it was so cool. The choir was amazing and there was all these different things going on. It was a very  neat experience.

Hey there!

All the pictures don’t do it justice. It was so beautiful.

I found Forget Me Nots outside.

After visiting the Cathedral we headed back to the hotel, packed up and took off. We made a quick detour to Pike Place just so that I could pick up some Mothers Day flowers from the market for our Moms. Then it was off to Costco to buy some Ciavarro Cheese and then back to Canada.

We got to the Ciavarros at about 3 in the afternoon and spend some time there visiting before we headed off to my uncles for my family birthday dinner / mothers day dinner.

It was a lot of driving.

Zoey did all the pre washing of the dishes. I hope Pat explodes when he sees these.

Yea. Pretty un eventful day compared to the other ones. But we did lots of family visiting which was nice.

It was good to be back home but it’s always hard going from a King size bed back to a Queen especially when someone likes to sprawl (CHAD).

Even though I’ve been to Seattle twice now, I wouldn’t hesitate to go back down again. There are so many things to check out that we never had the chance to do.

So whens our next weekend away!?

Day 2!

I never realized until this moment how time consuming these giant photo posts are when you are trying to finish a pile of work.

Do you see the dedication!?

Chad having a traditional toast and Peanut Butter breakfast.

Morning View

What a beauty photo!

The first order of business was to check out the Space Needle. Now, while looking at the tourist map of Seattle, I did notice the Monorail, but honestly thought it did a loop of the city (even though the Map said otherwise). Chad and I were both surprised to find out that the monorail only does two things. It picks you up at the Mall and takes you to the Space Needle. Then it picks you up at the Space Needle and drops you off at the Mall. Handy, but how useful is it if you aren’t going to any of those two place. Weird if you ask me!

Even though we have a Skytrain, I still get excited going on Monorails. I loved how much you could see when riding in this one.

Hobble, hobble, hobble.

I CAN’T SEE IT, I CAN’T SEE IT!

Oh! There it is.

Up at the top enjoying a relaxing view.

How is Chad not a super model?

Komo 4 news had by far the best Hella Pad. Sorry King, & Kiro. (Am I missing one?)

I love these photos.

We hung out at the top of the Space Needle for a while. Played wiht all their interactive games and stuff. The view was obviously amazing, but damn it was cold up there!

I really felt the need to lay in the grass.

HOT

We found a little garden beside all the Carney games.

Spot the Cripple!

We took the Monorail back to the Mall and then walked down to Pike Place.

Chad made friends.

The Ocean!

Apparently Alleys are fun in Seattle!

Chad was starving, so we stopped in at the little French bakery that Alicia, Claudia, and I went to the last time I was here.

Veggie and Cheese. SO GOOD. Everything looks amazing in this place.

GIANT HEAD.

We had to do a lot of stop and start and stop and go with Chads foot. We ended up buying a huge thing of oils for my Mom and ourselves. The thing weighed a ton and Chad had to carry it all day. Not smart :(

Crazy Dairy Farm place.

For Patrick.

Shhhh, he’s sleeping!

Most offensive T-shirt ever!?

This was suppose to be a seated rest area. There were 3 chairs. Nice.

We hopped into this place for a quick beer. Quite possibly could have been the place Sleepless in Seattle was filmed.

FIRE BOAT! Apparently the Tugboat races were going on. We ended up checking them out.

Down to the pier we go!

Poses.

We couldn’t really tell what was going on, but Magnum PI kept flying buy.

Oh yea! And I got my picture taken with a clam!

We took a cab back to 5th street to check out a few shops. There was no way Chad could have walked it even though it wasn’t that far.

Ze Hotel!

After our adventure we hit the hot tub, showered, napped. The usual. I organized all the stuff we had bought into nice piles so packing Sunday morning would be easy.

Chad slept for a while and I drank wine.

We went to a really nice Italian restaurant for dinner, and I felt too weird about taking photos. Then the wine and martini and more wine went to my head and I felt totally paranoid that I was going to make a fool out of myself. The pasta was amazing though.

After dinner I needed to sleep cause I just felt out of sorts (*cough*drunk*cough*) so Chad hit up the Lobby Bar and I snuggled into bed which was the best feeling ever.

Once I got into bed I felt so much better. I think my stomach wasn’t too happy with the left overs I ate before dinner, coupled with the wine and the martinis. I knew that was going to happen. I never listen to myself. Ah well.

One more day in Seattle left!

OK, photos of Birthday Day in Seattle Road trip Alert NOW.

On Thursday morning I saw a lady carrying a bouquet of flowers walk past my window at work. The first thought that came to my head was ‘oh God I hope those aren’t for me’. I waited to hear the door bell, but nothing. Sweet, I was safe! Then I heard the door bell. ”I have flowers here for a Dan Yell See A Varro” Sweet Mother of Mercy.

My obvious reaction was to think they were from Chad, considering how I had just recently bugged him about not getting me flowers, following Adam surprising Alicia at work with a bouquet. But, at the same time, I knew Chad would probably never send me flowers at work, so I had no idea who they were from.

Alicia and I laughed about them as I reached for the card. The envelope was sort of see thru so I could see that who ever had sent them had a name that started with an A. “Is it from Chad?” she asked me. I could tell by the look on her face, she had no idea who they were from, so the fact that all I could see was a letter A surprised me.

Well, I opened the card and saw it was from Alicia and Adam! The best part was that Alicia had no clue Adam had done this, so it was a surprise to her as well!

It was so sweat of them! Emberassing for me, because I hate having all the attention placed on myself, but it was definitly very special!

Friday morning we left the house at 8:30am. It was sunny and bright and beautiful.

Peace Arch Crossing didn’t have a long wait time, which was good. Boarder crossings scare the crap out of me. It has to do with my fear of authority and even though I never do anything wrong, I feel like I am going to get in trouble anyways. Fortunately for me, the boarder guard was very nice once he found out it was my Birthday!

We did some shopping at Target in Bellis Fair. That was basically the extent of my purchases for the weekend.

We tried to buy a McMini from McDonalds, but they don’t exist in America. 

We had many stops on the way down, which is one of the reasons why we didn’t get to Seattle until late. While it sucked because it meant we had less time at our destination, the stops were very much needed.

Like this stop for gas. Muchly needed.

And this stop at the Seattle Premium Outlets. If we didn’t stop here, Chad would have nothing to wear.

Chad saw these Herringbone Vans at Bellis Fair but they didn’t have his size. He was on an obsessed mission to find them. Luckily The Outlets had them in stock!

“Look! Jesus is on sale!”

YES, it’s TRUE. Marketing does work. I have been needing new runners for…oh…3 years now, but have been too lazy to spend the money. One commercial and I was sold.

I haven’t taken them out for a stroll yet, but they feel soooo cool on. You need to go try a pair! $108 inclusive at Seattle Premium Outlets!

The Outlets is where Hobble Along did all his shopping. I get so excited when it comes to shopping for Chad because it’s like I get to dress up my own live Ken Doll. Yes, I just said that.

Oh too Seattle!

So, remember when I mentioned trying to check out some of the Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives in Seattle? Well, we made it to one of them!

A very late lunch (3pm to be exact) at Georgia’s Greek Deli proved to be the best idea ever, as the food was AMAZING. I think this will have to be a traditional stop every time we go down south now.

Jesus and Mary joined us for some foodz.

We knew eating at 3pm was pretty random. Too late for lunch and too early for dinner, but there were actually 2 other groups of people eating as well, so, we weren’t the only strange ones.

This is where they set the Saganaki on fire. I missed taking a picture of it :(

Greek Beers!

Saganaki, the love of my life.

Say Hello to Chicken Gyros with Greek Garlic Fries. Ugh, I want to go back and eat more food NOW!

So I started to look around the restaurant because I read that Guy Fieri leaves a little special something on all the DDDs he goes to. Just as I say this to Chad he points at the wall.

!!!

It was like meeting a Celebrity. Yes, I am that sad.

Photos from the taping of the episode!

Signed Poster!!!

The thing with Me & Guy is, when I was sick from my first Thyroid surgery, I would lay in bed all day long and watch the Food Network for 12 hours straight. This meant I saw a lot of episodes of Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives. At first I thought he was the most annoying person on the planet, (as I’m sure most people do). I hated when his show came on, and I just found the whole thing so over done. But I watched, and I watched, and then they went to a diner that made pulled pork (gets me every time), and I watched more, and then I became OBSESSED.

I went from hate to LOVE. We had spent a lot of time bonding.

After my second surgery, I would lay in bed watching the Food Network and I looked forward to Triple D coming on. I loved watching all the different places he would visit. I was totally hooked!

Getting to go to this Deli/Dive, was like a small dream come true for me.

Oh, onto the hotel.

We didn’t really have the rest of the day planned, and we were pretty tried from our drive in. Not to mention all the shopping.

The view from our window at the Westin.

There is a lot of WHITE in this photo.

We decided to spend some time in the hot tub relaxing and then we went for a nap / obsessively watch The Food Network.

Chad went out and bought some wine while I had a shower, and tried to figure out a place for dinner, but it was 9pm at that point and the hotel front desk was a little clueless as to where all the action was downtown. Since we had got in so ‘late’ and had not explored the city at all, we really didn’t know where the happening places were.

We ended up just eating at the hotel restaurant. It was nice, but I was way over dressed. I had pick out this outfit before I knew where we were going. Oh well. At least I looked hot. HA.

After dinner we wanted to go out for a drink, but Seattle has this stupid law where they won’t give you a table if you aren’t ordering food, so we had to awkwardly sit at this window bar where we were served by the worst waitress ever.

I guess dinner and drinks wasn’t enough for Chad since a full glass of wine was in order while laying in bed. He stayed up to watch all the late night shows, but I passed right out. I was soo tired, plus I’m 85 years old.

Plus, I needed to rest up for all of the next days adventures!