High Pass in Tibet.

A peek at Mt. Everest.

Easter and Brig Day.

Easter AND Brig's birthday all in one! Carol made some pretty cool cakes, we divvied up the rest of the meal (Easter food just happens to be Brig's favorites), and put all the extensions into McK's dining room table. Full house, good times.

Brig and Mike just looking at their Blackberrys.
Brig called this the sea of peas. Ham, Mashed Potatoes, Rolls, Fruit Salad, and all organic green salad made for a good lunch.
There were 24 people there so we got our very own plastic cup. I liked the cups in front of these random old photos Nate bought off ebay (they were taken in Windsor 1,000 years ago or something.
Brig loves Ham.
Polka-dot Maddie.
This is a little enertia car that the Lyalls gave Max. The kids have started wearing Max's ski helmet with it...sensible children. Although Anders has got it on wrong.

"You go dad" is what he said.
The little girls having their cake. They liked showing each other how it looked I guess. We had a little easter egg hunt for the kids. This egg fits in quite well with the look, could be a marble egg.

Easter egg frenzy.
Uncle Mike giving the cousins a run for the money with the pancake flop onto the pillows. They were lining up for turns.
Then Austyn put on a puppet show for us. You can see her peeking through the blanket there. All I remember at one point was one of the characters said, "I can speak some spanish. Asta Diego" and then at the end when she came out Wyatt said, "they were all the same person" with some real disappointment. It went on for a good 8 minutes or so and we gave her a big applause (out of a bit of relief because she was just having random conversations under a blanket ) which she liked so she came back with another show and she called it, "New friend got meat"...uh yeah, thats what we all thought but turns out she meant "meeting" It was sounding a bit gangster/ Sopranos there for a minute. Then we took turns doing some dancing...Anders sure can move his hips, the end.
And since I haven't posted any pix of us in while...Happy Easter.

The perfect Cookie

Last night, Nate made the absolute most perfect Chaz cookies. Mom, you would be so proud.

Well its not THAT big

Didn't mean to make people think I had any BIG news to share (s-dawg)...but there have been some significant marks to the past couple weeks.





First off, I got my first official cell phone. 'Tis true, I have never actually had my own phone in which was not borrowed or shared. I had been borrowing one and needed to give it back and so Mike and Nate went and picked this one out for me. I really didn't care but its very nice and was only 19.99 with the rebate ;) Mike got a Blackberry and I was going to take a cool photo to show off its sleekness but I can't seem to separate it from Mike. He claims it has improved his work by 150%.

Secondly, I got paid for my first official job and am also training for a 1/2 marathon in June so got myself a nano and the nike+ that tracks your distance, pace, calorie burn, and even lets you set a power song so you can simply push a button when you need that extra kick. Two of my SILs (sister in laws) have them and decided as it is getting springish out, it would help me track my outside runs. Mike was going to get my a shuffle for my birthday so we just decided to upgrade to the nano so I could get the nike+ and I got Mike a shuffle instead. I calibrated it this morning on my 3 mile run and LOVE it.

Thirdly, and this is the most exciting (I don't know, the nano is pretty exciting) I got my very own business cards printed for Sublime eye this week. There was this incredible deal from this online printing company and I thought I would just get some done, even if they weren't super great quality, just so I had something BUT I am really pleased with how they look. Work is building slowly but steadily as in I am getting more work from outside clients (I could stay forever busy doing stuff just for the family business stuff) and everyone helps pimp everyone else out. Mck helped me put up a little splash page I designed for the Sublime eye website but there isn't much there yet. I am going to get a little folio of work and also some of my fabric designs I have been working on which will be under another name, ontology. It's just hard finding time for everything.

So those are the bits of exciting news. Sorry if it was disappointing.

There's a good one comin'

Really we are still alive and well, just really busy. There have been some exciting bits about the past week. Until then....

The night we arrived in Windsor

I was just cleaning up some files on my computer and found this picture that was snapped about 10 minutes after we had been landed in Windsor at the Mercantile, the eve before it's grand opening. All those empty shelves in the back have since been filled up and the Merc is well into its 3rd month. Oh and that is Chuck Worrell with us (the husband of our high school theatre director, football coach, and friend) who has helped us out heaps doing lots of building jobs around the Merc. Mike and I are actually going to see a play tonight at the high school. It will be kind of fun taking Mike to one of the places I spent the majority of my time from 13-17. Oh and one more note as we are still in the midst of frigid winter, I want that tan back! It just adds that little lift and takes away the pastey/sickly look that comes with winter. Oh well, we did choose to move to Vermont.

We got our Glamaz-on.

Success. We got our Glamaz-ON last night fo sho! March 7th was a beautiful springish day for me with a bright blue sky and warm sun. At midnight I got to talk to my NZ family (Mike hooked us up with a conference call with Lucy too so it was all of us), I didn't go into work (I am technically my own boss so made sure to meet all my deadlines for the week) and relaxed, baked my Red Velvet Birthday Cake, went to lunch with McK, took an afternoon nap to reboot and re-energize for the par-te, received many emails, awesome cards and good thoughts all around. We all put our colds on hold (we are all infected) and rocked out to DJ n80y n8 (really I think he might need to consider a career shift), C-Dawg brought Rock Band (which I got hooked on with the Hafens and now we all are, no really Mike wants the whole set now), munched on McK's 7 layer dip, organic banana bread (we always have so many left over at the Merc) and got to see some of my wicked sweet friends from So. Ro. days (shout out to Amanda, Madelene, and Lyman for coming from far and wide to get it on!) Thanks to Deepa and Mani for their gift that keeps on giving me joy (sequins!) as I don't know that Glamazon would be the same without it. Enjoy the Pix!

clear blue sky
my rockin' little helper
settling in for some sweet release and nap

decor on a no budget (whatever Mck had around)
one of my favorite things

N8 getting serious with the music

my favorite dance partner
n8 has some serious moves
my favorite Mohawk brother



Madelene and Lyman drove up from Boston...
Collin knows how to rock out.
I look disabled
Karan you rock! Love to you dude!
I don't actually like peeps but they were on sale and I liked the colors.

Getting hooked
Get even more hooked!
Mike was in the zone!So was McKay!
So was JD!
So were L & M
My red Velvet Cake...was pretty darn good.