Relaxation & fun: mission accomplished

Hello everyone- hope you had a relaxing weekend like we did. We spent Friday in Gig Harbor with the 'rents, chilling and watching Seinfeld. I was still wound up from my week until while driving down to Gig Harbor, the song "Footloose" came on the radio, Bryan and I cranked it up and rocked out, singing at the top of our lungs. It was nice.

Saturday morning, we relaxed some more and watched the USA/Ghana game with Mom and Dad. Oh, did I say relaxing? Well, I couldn't sit still, Bryan was up and down screaming, and Mom and Dad were getting a kick out of our reactions. A sad outcome, but such a fun run for the team (and us!). There's still some amazing soccer left to be played, so thank goodness for our DVR.

Our friend Scott (note the Green shoes) and Bryan walking to the ceremony

After the loss, we had to pull ourselves together and get out of the funk because we were on our way to celebrate! Our good friends, Greg and Brittany, got married in Port Gamble, up on the Olympic Peninsula. We had such an amazing time at their wedding. It was a true reflection of them and their relationship and we just had a blast with everyone attending. On top of it all, the weather turned absolutely beautiful for the ceremony! It was perfect. One of the highlights was that a friend was asked to write a song and sing it for the wedding ceremony. And again, it matched Greg and Brittany perfectly. He wrote a hilarious parable about how the two met (YMCA camp counselors) and how Greg was so lucky to find a woman like that. I hope to get a copy of the lyrics and I'll get them to you. So funny! The whole crowd was cracking up.

Greg and Brittany watching their serenade

Bryan and the happy groom, Greg

We spent the night at Port Ludlow, a little town about 20 min away. When we woke up this morning, it had turned dreary and gray again, but that was fine by us. We went out to breakfast and then took a walk along the rocky beach at low, low tide. It was fun and good to just get out near the water in the fresh air.

We then drove back to Gig Harbor for some linner (lunch/dinner) with Mom and Dad, some more soccer, and a new card game (Casino!).

I have to say thanks for all the good vibes being sent- it must be working already. We had a really good weekend and I feel relaxed and ready to tackle the last 5 days!

Lots of love, Lauren and Bryan

Sunday Photo: 6/27/10

A happy Sunday morning spent on the beach in Port Ludlow! More on our weekend coming up :-)

A little request

Hello dear friends and family!

One more week left of work for me! I really, really, really can't wait! Really. Which is where my little request comes in. If my last week of work is anything like the past three since I gave my notice, I'm going to need some help. So, if you could please send thoughts/prayers/good vibes my way, I will greatly appreciate it. And while you're at it, send some for poor Bryan, too, who has been putting up with this roller coaster.

Let me explain.

The first few days I gave my notice were so relieving. I was happy to have it all off my chest and in the open. I gave four weeks notice in order to help them set up for success after my departure. I had such a supportive and positive response from my superiors, and especially from our CEO. I told him in person (very glad I did) and just got an amazing outpouring of love and support. I told a few others, but didn't exactly know the etiquette of how to tell the rest of the company. I thought that the information would just... flow. It really didn't and at the end of the week, I became stressed as to how I was supposed to handle everything and tell everyone.

At the start of the next week, people began to find out. And again, the love and support was amazing. One co-worker, Alex, came up to me with tears in his eyes, and others offered whatever support for us they could. Near the middle of the week, though, I began getting some bad vibes. I was subjected to some passive-aggressive comments from my boss that really put me in a big fun and pissed me off, too. I had been working my butt off to set things up and then I got some nasty comments thrown my way. So, I took Thursday as a sick day (or should I call it a pissed off day?). Friday, well, fridays are easier. That weekend was great to get to take dad into the labs (and was so nice not to have anyone else around!).

This week proved to be pretty interesting. Wednesday, after a set of project meetings, someone came up to me and said: "What are we going to do without you? Seriously." And that quote is basically the best description of my week I can come up with. So many questions, little things going wrong, it all got to me this week. I think I screamed as I was walking away from the building (or at least felt like screaming) more than twice a day. Once on my way to lunch, and once while walking to my car to go home. It actually came out as a full-bellied scream once that bounced off the walls of the surrounding hospital. I am so ready to be done, but I can't be yet. I guess I can mysteriously come down with some ailment so I can use all my sick time next, but I really would leave too many people in the dark.

I'm having trouble dealing with the fact that I know I need to "give up" and let them all handle these things and not being able to. Let it go! Let them worry! I KNOW that's what I need to do and it's the right thing to do. And even the sane thing to do. I'm starting to become convinced that it would be physically impossible to do it. Take today: when you work with $500,000 machines and electricians need to move them and there is no one else around who has even touched one of these machines before, I cannot let that happen without my help. I had to organize a full effort to get these machines moved in a safe manner. Safe, not just for the value, but with the wrong pressure changes, the machines can blow up. I should have been paid more.

So, thank you for listening to my rant as I sit here Friday afternoon with a beer (yes, I left work early because it became too much to handle and came home, opened a beer and started writing). As you can see, I'm going to need your help (and Bryan too for never hearing the end of this!). Good feelings sent our way please! I'm going to need your help (and a lot of alcohol) to get through the week! Luckily, I think that the week will fly by and it'll just be one big celebration. As much as I try to avoid celebrations about me, I think that the more parties this week, the faster the week will go, so keep 'em coming!

Thanks in advance for the good thoughts and I'll keep you updated! I am so ready to move onto the next phase in my life. The next step is so exciting and I am so thankful I am headed the way I am. We have a fun weekend planned (go USA!), and I hope to keep enough alcohol in me to keep me relaxed. Also helping is good family and friends like all of you. You're the best. We love you.

Happy Father's Day!

Hi all! Happy Father's Day! I hope everyone had a fabulous day. We did! This week, our Sunday Photo will be a couple of pics from our day. Mom and dad came up to hang out (we were supposed to go to a beerfest, but it was pouring rain, and the 'fest was supposed to be outside, so we did our own beerfest at home). Then, we surprised Dad for his Father's day present with a trip to my lab (for two more weeks), where we had to fix a failing machine (what are they going to do without me?). We then headed to my Grandpa and Georgette's house for a family celebration. Bryan cooked us a fabulous meal and we all had a wonderful time laughing and catching up. We wish you all could have been there to all celebrate together. Thank you so much to all you fathers out there, especially our two amazing dads. The support and love you offer to us is more than we could ever ask for. Thank you.

Yet another grapefruit benefit

Hello everyone! Happy, happy Friday!

So. Let's just say my motivation at work lately has been hard to come by. I've actually had to work pretty hard to get things ready for when I am done (two more weeks!), but I've also found myself browsing the 'net lately.

During a recent "surf", I ran across this article, and I was intrigued. See, Bryan and I have been getting these produce boxes from a local farm, and sometimes, we don't eat all our fruit prior to our next pickup. Needless to say, we had some grapefruits that had been sitting there for a long time. I've found uses for a good number of our grapefruits, but a few found their way to the bottom of our fruit bin and were on their way out. I decided that a bathtub cleaning adventure with grapefruit was needed.

Bathtub cleaning was on my long list of "to-dos" this weekend, and I thought, well, might as well make it fun and try something new! The tub had been calling my name for a little while now because it just seems like such a big process to clean it, with the strong chemical smells and feeling all chalky at the end. I know, I know, it's still needs to be done. So I did it tonight!

The good: Upstairs smells like grapefruit, it actually worked pretty darn well(!), it was easy, it was fun, it was pretty fast, and I'm not opposed to doing it next weekend.

The bad: Big halves of grapefruits are hard to fit into little corners, so I might have to follow up with a little cleaner in the corners where tub hits tiles; one medium sized grapefruit did not get our tub cleaned all the way up the tile (but we have tub-to-ceiling tile and could be solved with multiple grapefruits); and I would have extra salt on hand (but probably depends on the nastiness and size of your tub).

The ugly: The grapefruits after they were done looked pretty pulverized/ugly, but that's it!

Anyway, we'll have to see if Bryan notices the smell up here- it'll be our fun little game :-)

Hope you're all doing well, have a fun weekend planned, and have been watching the World Cup endlessly as we have been doing at the Hamilton house.

Happy Grapefruit-ing!

Sunday Photo: 6/13/2010

We may be sick of the rain, but...

Our plants are digging it!

Anniversary #2!

We had a fabulous 2nd anniversary. It started off by going to our friends' wedding, Beth & Joe, the night before. The next morning, we woke up and headed out in the POURING rain to breakfast at a local greasy spoon that's in a record store. Such great food and a fun atmosphere.

Next, we headed out to Marymoor Park in Redmond to take Bruno to the offleash dogpark out there. It stopped raining for a bit while we were there, so that was nice. Bruno still got really, really dirty, so we took him to the dog wash station just outside of the dog park and got him smelling quite nice.

After the dog park, we came home and I got some flowers from Bryan! I love them :-)

Do they look familiar? (see below) What a good guy.

We then headed out for dinner at Matt's in the Market. It's basically in the center of Pike Place Market downtown. We had a fabulous meal and even better conversation. What a day!!!!

And here's to many, many, many more!

Sunday Picture (6 days late)

Okay, so I've been a little behind on this blogging thing. We decided to do a "Sunday Morning Picture of the Week".... and took the picture last week. But didn't put it up. But now, here you go. June 6th:

It's a great way to start the Sunday morning pictures. We love our lazy sunday morning with the paper and coffee (note that I'm reading the comics....). So great to have the time together to just hang.

Hope everyone's doing well and next time I hope to post the Sunday morning picture a little closer to... Sunday. :-)