the light shines on all of us ...

but on this particular day it was shining on ms. kelbel. although we had to celebrate it twelve days later from her actual birthday, it was well worth the wait. not only did we get a chance to meet up the night before for the halloween party, but we added nic, pat and JT to the festivities and had a wonderful meal at a trendy little moroccan restaurant on granville street called sanafir. afterwards we made our way to the republic for a few drinks and i would think a few too many for our little kerbear (sorry, girl!). the music wasn't too great so after a few hours of some drinkin', dancin' and some lickin' we decided to head over to forbes' to unwind and chat.

kells was thrilled having all the girls together for her birthday and it was a great way to celebrate her 'coming of age' as well as her little adventure that lies ahead of her next week. she's part of a key group of ten people who will be living and working together in new orleans and assisting families and the habitat for humanity group with the construction of new homes. way to go, sista!

here are some 'classy' pictures of us celebrating the night away...

spice up your life

When your feelin', sad and lone
We will take you,
Where you gotta go
Smilin' and dancin',
Everything is free
All you need is positivity
Colours of the world
Spice up your life
Every boy and girl
Spice up your life
People of the world
Spice up your life
Aaahh!!!

i attended the pwx halloween party this past friday at the mouse and the bean in vancouver. we had a blast and it was great seeing some interesting costumes and reconnecting with people that i hadn't seen in years. here are some pix to the fun filled event.

happy birthday mr. mooks!

today mr. mooks turns one

and will be pleasantly surprised tomorrow when he gets to

frolic around with other doogles at the dog lounge in seattle.

disclaimer

hey nic...

i have removed gunt out of my 'cobblestones and the gunt' posting. you know i'm not mean spirited and would never ever want to insult a single soul. thanks to you,

say bye bye to the gunt!

you have a piece of my heart...

so i had an interesting day today. i drove into seattle this rainy afternoon to go get an echo exam done on my heart. it was part of my routine physical exam from last week where i got some blood work done and the doctor went over a few things to inform me on my health and diet. i told him i worked out about 3-4 times a week and he actually insisted that i go five times a week. umm ... what else am i suppose to add into my work out routine?

he then asked me personal questions such as am i sexually active? i giggled. and then he was applying pressure on my stomach to ensure that there were no abnormalities - i laughed hysterically. see why i never go to the doctor's? but the good news is, it's confirmed ... i'm 5'5.5"! just 3.5 more inches away from my ideal height. yah!

anyways, though i fray away from going to the doctors i would have to say that today's visit was very educational for me. i asked the technicians a tonne of oddball questions and found out that officially they are called ultrasonagraphers. at one point when i looked at the monitor and watched the valves in my heart pump away, it literally looked like some kind of alien saying, 'hello' to me. the sonographer, melissa, applied that funky gel on the ultrasound tranducer and kept pressing away on the left side of my chest and over my chest bone. did i tell you that she was an intern? and she was putting so much pressure on my chest that i thought it was going to crack.

so just thought that i would share something with you. i was thinking that when you actually look at a human heart it doesn't really look like the shape of a heart as one would normally sketch it out. but after closely examining the screen today, it just came to me like a lightning bolt. if you tilt your head sideways to the left and look at the picture below ... from the view of my aortic valve, you can see the shape of my heart - enjoy!

my new rollerblading partner

Peppa - my new rollerblading partner

sleeping beauties

here's a fabulous picture of my dear friend pat. the only one friend who has an issue with her picture on my blog and who thinks it's unsafe to have your face plastered anywhere on the world wide web. sorry, just had to do it!

forbes and pat drove down this weekend to pay me a little visit and to do some shopping. funny how it works. forbes is always claiming that she's here to visit and refuses to waste time shopping. i think this is the second time around she's walked out of nordies after dropping five bills. and then to 'boot, pat insisted on going to trader joe's to stock up on some goods and reluctantly convinced forbes to drive her. then once again...forbes walks out with $70 of groceries! nice.

here's to another wonderful bitch fest and to my sleeping beauty!

feeling the love

so it was pretty much a lovefest this weekend. i drove up to vancouver (with minimal sleep coming off my fri night shift) and spent the saturday evening celebrating my cousin's birthday. it was great to see soohee, suzi, stephen and paulina again. think we should do it more often and get everyone out next time. perhaps a good game of cranium.

prior to dinner, i paid a visit to the senior care home and chatted with my gma. she's such a funny lady to be around. it's the never ending question of whether or not you've eaten. how come i'm not married? where are my kids? to once again, have you eaten? too funny... but what can you say, she's still in great spirits for a ninety-two year old and i am sincerely grateful that she has played an important role in my life. think i have to thank my lucky stars for having allowed her to teach me to be resilient and strong, yet at the same giving of myself to those that i care about. got to love her!

met up with forbes and J briefly on saturday to grab the keys to my place. i took a bunch of pictures and was sure not to interfere with the xrated love sessions that took place in my unit. easy there forbes! but here's a view of what you can see from my living room window. had brunch with the two lovebirds on sunday @ NU and then met up with my hungover bro at barber's apartment. it's been eons since i last saw mike and i was surprised that i remembered his cell number after trying several times to track my brother down. it was a pleasant reunion.

so i left van in the early afternoon and was worried that i wouldn't be able to pay my final visit to see brynja before she headed back to iceland. she had din plans already so i managed to swing by to rob and lana's new place in sammamish for a quick visit. OMG...talk about architectural digest/frontgate - their home is insane! i'm hoping that luck in some form will come my way via the villagio connection. i was thoroughly impressed by carrie's place in mercer island but she kept going on about rob and lana's killer pad. their backyard is landscaped so beautifully and in the springtime they'll be putting in a heated swimming pool (with a hard covershell that will protect the pool and easily allow luba, their bullie, to run around freely without any danger). they've inquired about wanting to babysit mookie so luba could have a playmate and now there is no question that my mooks would be in good hands with the pledger's.

after a quick visit, i drove out to snoqualmie ridge to bring some dessert and icecream over to the myren's. had a great chat with bryn about her life in iceland and how exciting it is to work for the us embassy. she's met a lot of interesting people along the way and is looking into putting in her time and then returning back to washington state and working for a local government agency. yippee... i miss her so!