Dancing!

Well, I have found a new calling...SALSA Dancing! My friend and I have been going to some dance halls to shake our booties! Sometimes we spice up our night and go to Little Red Hen to sing Karaoke!

Christmas Joy

The holidays were different this year. We were snow bound, missed loved ones and we were fortunate to have Grandma stay with us over the holidays. We had fun getting together and opening all of the presents.

Renee, Gabe and I before the destruction began!

Two little love birds with their Seahawks hats from Santa ...aka me!

Let it SNOW!

It snowed and snowed and snowed. Fun times if you didn't have to work in this stuff. At first the snow was pretty but then it got very old. My sister's car was trapped in their garage so Gabe and I had to drive her around everywhere. Who needs a gym when you can just shovel the snow off the driveway.

W.T. Party

My friend turned 30 this weekend and we celebrated by having a white trash party. We even rented a party bus to take us around Kirkland and different areas in Seattle. My friend and I took the metro from Downtown Seattle to Kirkland to meet up with everyone. People were staring at us but for some reason we looked a lot like other people walking around the streets.

Fun in Spokane

I went to Spokane this weekend for the Seattle Sounders FC soccer tryouts. Saturday night the bosses took all of us employees out for dinner at the Shogun Japanese Steak House restaurant. It is kind of like Bennihana's but definitely not as good. Vince is turning 40 on Thursday so we decided to celebrate a little early. After dinner we tried to do some Karaoke, but everyone was too shy.

Halloween! BOO!!!!

Halloween was very interesting this year. My friend and I went as Betty and Wilma from the Flintsones. I even made the outfits, which weren't the best but worked. We went to a friends party which was kind of fun. Later in the evening, we ended up going to a club in downtown Seattle. We never go this place because it isn't the nicest group of people but we decided to give it a try. Well, long and behold, there was a shooting outside the club. Good thing we were inside at that moment because an innocent bystander got shot in the face. YIKES!!! I guess we will never go there again.

Two Thumbs Up for Breaking a Record

This last weekend my mom, a friend and I went to the other side of the state...Spokane and Pullman. Yippeee!!!! My roommate from college is getting married this coming summer and what do you know, I am in it. We tried on bridesmaid dresses in Spokane on Friday and then went out in the town. I finally made it to Trick Shot Dixie's but there wasn't much to write home about. Kind of disappointed.


L to R: Angela, Cronk (bride-to-be), Me, and Mia

Saturday morning, we headed back to Pullman to watch the Cougars break a record. They lost 69-0, it is the biggest loss in Cougar Football history. I am so glad that I was there to witness the pitiful team. The game was quite amusing. Come on now, if Drew Dunning could play football, any guy could play. I could even do better.


This is the best score the Cougs have seen in a long time.

60th b-day

My mom's friend turned sixty and we definitely went all out for her birthday. We went to Julia's to a watch female impersonators show, Le Faux. The men were beautiful as women. They even have better bodies then some women. We saw Marilyn Monroe, Tina Turner, Cher, Madonna, Reba McIntyre, Gwen Stefani, and many more.

After the show, we ended up going out in Capital Hill. We went to Neighbors, a huge gay club. I think my mom and the other ladies were going to have a heart attack. It was definitely a site to see...men without tops dancing with each other and men with just underwear on. All of us girls were dancing in a circle and a bunch of men decided to dance with us. Not sure what they were doing but it was gross. My mom even got asked by a lady to dance with her. lol

Poor Girls Night Out!

As many of you know, the economy SUCKS!!! My friends and I wanted to do something fun but didn't want to spend any money. We ended up making dinner and drank wine and champagne all night long. Don't forget we watched the Sex in the City movie!

Do the Puyallup!!

A couple of my friends and I went to the Puyallup fair on Saturday. It was very hot and there were a ton of "carnies." We ate delicious food...BBQ pork sandwiches, roasted corn on the cob, scones, lemonade, and elephant ears.

We went on the Extreme Scream! AHHHHHH

Here are the piglets. They were so cute running over each other trying to get milk.

Goodbye Dee Dee

As many of you know, Renee has an old bed spread that she uses as a blanket. She would curl up in the blanket everywhere. It was basically attached to her when she was at my mom's house. Now that Renee is married and lives with Gabe, we thought it was time to say goodbye to the good 'ol blanket and put it in the trash. The garbage man came today, so the blanket is officially gone. :(

Heather and Joe's Wedding

This last weekend I went to Fort Collins, CO to be a bridesmaid in one of my best friends weddings. Heather "hot dog" looked so beautiful and Joe looked smashing.

The girls at the bachelorette party!

Later, we went to a salsa club and danced the night away with our four feet Mexicans!

We went to a saloon for the rehearsal dinner. Looking good in the cowgirl hats!

Doing the Heather dance at the reception.

Family, Tears, and Music

Grandpa's memorial was filled with love, tears, laughter, and a ton of music. Here are two video clips to show my crazy family.

Adventures at the Lake Cabin!

Jess, Grandma and I left early on Monday morning to get to the cabin. The car was packed to the rim, we couldn't even see out the back window and there was a little space left for me to sit in the back. We were cruising right along and just got through St. Maries. All of a sudden the car starts to shake. I told Jess to pull over. We had a huge flat tire...there was even pieces of the tire on the road. Yikes! It was about 95 degrees out and we had to unpack the car to get the spare tire out. Grandma said she had AAA but I didn't think they would come for about 3 hours to help. Finally, we fixed the tire and now we are hot, sweaty, dirty and hungry. Oh but we had to repack the car again. Ugh!
Once we got to the cabin, Jess and I went down to the lake and tried to sun bathe, but it was so hot so we stayed in the water all day long. :) Then we decided to take a bike ride. For some reason a stupid bug flew in my eye and I grabbed the handle bar as well as the brake. I popped a front wheelie and flew over the handle bars. My left side is cut up and bruised. :(

It gets better, around 8pm a thunder storm came and it was very windy. All of a sudden, the power went out. We decided to go to bed before anything else happens.

Time at the cabin...Priceless!

Air Force One

My dad's uncle passed away and we had a tribute to his life at the Museum of Flight in Seattle, WA. Bob Ellis was an extraordinary man who helped to develop what the aviation is today. Many of his accomplishments are in the museum on display.

Several of the planes were on display outside of the museum. This was a DC-2 U.S. Air Force plane. Very cool!

Here are some of the other planes that are inside the museum.

I was on the Air Force One plane of where JFK, Johnson, Regan, Nixon and several other presidents used during their term. I think I look like Jackie O!

In Loving Memory of Grandpa

Grandpa you mean the world to me. I will miss you so very much. May you rest in peace and look after all of us.



Robert John Strobel
1920-2008

Erica's Wedding

Erica looked so beautiful on her special day. It definitely was a big celebration!

Amsterdam...The RED Light District

We were able to get one night off, so some of the coaches and I went to the RED light district in Amsterdam. It was very interesting and sad at the same time.

After walking down the streets seeing old men walking in and out of the closet doors, it got boring. The girls in the windows weren't even that pretty.

This was at a local pub. The two girls were team leaders (assistants to us coaches) and the guy was another coach.

Amanda and I decided to do some karaoke. Don't know who the guys were but they helped drown out our horrible voices. ;)

Touring around Holland

Besides playing soccer, we toured around Holland in the mornings before our tournament games at 1pm. We went to a cheese factory, wooden shoe factory, and rode bikes throughout the city. Here are some pictures:
That's a lot of cheese, but was it sure delicious!

People in Holland don't necessarily wear the wooden shoes anymore, mostly farmers wear them and tourists.

On our bike tour we saw the famous windmills. They aren't necessarily all over the country but every once in awhile they pop out in the middle of the fields.

Holland!!

So as many of you know, I just went to Holland as a soccer coach with People to People Sports Ambassadors. I was coaching 15 year old girls from all over the USA and we competed in the YFGH tournament.

Our first day was outrageous. I flew from Seattle straight to Amsterdam (10hours) then we went directly to the Youth Friendship Village. With my travel group from Seattle, we did some team building activities and around 3pm departed to our different hotels. Oh ya, it was raining cats and dogs the entire time. Once we got to our hotel I met the girls on my team. After 37 hours of being awake we finally went to bed. zzzzzzzz

The first two days was training with the girls and then on Tuesday the tournament started. My team did pretty well in the tournament. We made it to the semifinals but missed the finals by a one goal differential. :( It was a great experience watching the Sweden, Canadian, and Wales coaches work with their teams. I learned so much about coaching and met amazing people. We were also able to watch the boys teams play as well. They were fabulous. It is so much fun to watch great international soccer matches!

Canoeing

My friend Emelissa and I wanted to do something fun in the sun, so we decided to go canoeing through the Arboretum in Seattle. It was amazing how many boats went through Montlake and all the people burning gas. The floating bridge, 520, was closed for maintenance, so people were jumping off the bridge into the nasty water. Crazy! We saw so many baby ducks and herons just chilling in the sun. Also, there were two bald eagles that were flying over us. Em and I didn't even get sun burned, just tan!