My awesome birthday weekend

Jon’s mom is totally awesome and came to our house this weekend to babysit so Jon and I could celebrate my birthday.

We went out to see the new Harry Potter movie at an IMAX 3D.

Jealous of our awesome glasses?

After helping Jon’s mom put Peanut to bed, we also got to go out to dinner.

Pomegranate cosmo...that's how I roll

The whole day and evening was amazing.

On Sunday (my actual birthday), we woke up, I opened loads of awesome presents, and we enjoyed a wonderful brunch as a family and then go to hang out and take some photos.

Our little family of 5

The Kings

The loves of my life

She loves being an airplane

My cool kid

I also got to play with my new fish-eye lens!

Cailey wanted to say hi

and smell the new lens

How was your weekend?

Boas, girls, champagne and spas

Now obviously I can't go too far into the details of what really goes into a Bachelorette party because it's so mysteriously awesome.  But I can give you a tiny little glimpse. 

We spent some time getting dressed up and then doing paper work.

We picked out the most ridiculous color for our fingers and toes.

We made sure to leave a trail wherever we went to find our way back home.

We had snacks to keep our bellies nice and full.

We sat around and chit-chatted.

We had some...juice.

Then we finished the night off with a very calm and quiet dinner where absolutely nothing exciting happened.

Okay.  That probably is not how it happened but there's no way I'm sharing the real thing with ya and ruining the mystery.

Are we considered adults now?

This is part of a series, so you can catch up here and here.

The last person I want to dedicate this post to also started with us as the "Class of 2005".  But you know him well.

This guy here also started in the hot summer of 2005 alongside 7 others.  He too, has been through many changes in life - getting a dog, getting married, getting another dog, buying a house.

I don't need to spend too much time convincing you that this guy here has been by my side through tick and thin.

And I don't need to explain just how much he means to me.  But I will say, thankfully, that he hasn't moved away to another state without me!

And in case you're new, this here handsome gentleman is my husband.  The End.

The fabulous 8

As I mentioned before, this week marked the 5 year anniversary for 8 Sightlines employees, including me.  You can catch up here.

Throughout the years we have all become close as we ventured into adulthood.  4/8 are now married, another engaged.  4 own real estate, 5 of us own dogs.  Many have moved once or more for our jobs.  It's been a long journey for us all.

Janice
Janice started in the CT office with Laura, Jon, Ted, Nate, and myself.

Since then she's become one of our closest friends.

Funny story:  years ago, when Jon and I were still very secretive about our relationship, Laura and Nate were under strict guidelines not to tell a soul.  One weekend Jon and I were away and Laura volunteered to walk our monster of a dog for us.  Coincidentally, Laura was on her way to play tennis with Janice, so it was easy for them to swing by and let the pup out.  One thing that we were not prepared for was a visitor, so we didn't "clean out" the apartment from pictures and other paraphernalia that would implicate us and our relationship.  Laura wasn't aware of these details.

Laura and Janice walked into our apartment unaware and from what I heard in details afterward, she was rather surprised by some of the pictures.  I guess I should mention that Janice is one of those innocent, naive, non-suspecting people that just goes with the flow.  So you can imagine her surprise when she saw a picture of Jon and I kissing when she's been part of our lives as "just friends' for over a year.

About 4 months ago Janice and her husband moved to OR to work in one of our offices, leaving us here.  All alone.  I'm sensing a theme to this, don't you?

I have just one more for you guys- but I promise you know him well.  And the others will be spared, if only for a short time.

And now, back to me

So there are the results of my hair poles:

Just 1 more day to vote! View the original post by clicking here and then click to vote on the right-hand side.

Hair advice

Hi my name is Kat and I'm addicted to changing my hair.

I can't ever decide what to do with it and what's worse is that now our well water is out to get any blond hi-lights that make an appearance on my head.

Anyways, it's been about 2 months since I've last changed my hair and I'm getting antsy.  I need opinions.  Here are some previous hair-do's and colors. Please weigh in.  Thank you.

Most recent, and most daring, brown hair:

Pro: I love the way it makes my hazel eyes stand out; Con: After 2 weeks it always looks red-ish due to my natural hair color which is blond.  Plus I'm a little scared of what it will look like when it starts to grow out.


Previously blond hair...although it's a bit longer now.  This is what happens with well water so please keep that in mind when making your decision.  Also, feel free to comment with ways to fix our water that doesn't require me to spend my life savings and then some:

This is a little bit before - so less well water, but still the same. I think:

Really short and still blond:

Pro: I love the way short hair looks when it's styled - almost as if I actually have oodles of hair; Con: After 2 weeks, it doesn't look like that anymore.  Hair cuts are not cheap, at least not good ones!

And finally, long and blond.  Please remember how impatient I am. Also, these are from forever and a half ago, which means I probably won't look just like this.  You know, because I'm getting old and stuff like that.

Pro: I love, love, love the variety of things I can do with long hair.  In fact, I just love long hair.  My goal is to someday leave it alone and grow it long. Cons: Hi, have we met? I have 0 patience.  Hence, this post.  And to grow it this long means leaving it alone.  For like, a  year or more.  Hi, have we met?  Also, the well water.  Also, unless I put energy into it or it's up, it looks really really really thin - which in fact, it is. 

So there you have it folks.  Please vote on two items: hair color and hair length.  Thank you.  In return I promise to someday do the same.

Polls are on the right-hand side under "About Me".

When's graduation?

I'm having a hard time returning to the real world after our vacation so I've been trying to figure out what the heck.  And then, the other night, another sleepless night, it dawned on me.  And now, allow me to bore you with my theories.

The first year out of college was amazing.  I moved out on my own and with a cute boy, I had a stable job, and there was no more homework!  I was in heaven.  We worked all day and went out at night.  We cooked our first meals and stayed up on weekends.  We traveled to distant cities or remote towns for work, went out to dinners on the company bill and tried various foods.

By the end of the first year things started to get a bit stale.  Traveling seemed to take over my life, I was working overtime, and the places we went out seemed to have all these college kids running around, and, well, we were old!

I spent endless nights trying to figure out why I was so unhappy all of a sudden and then I got it!  It was our first summer without a summer vacation.  We spent the past 16 years going through life working our tails off for 9 months and then partying for 3.  In high school and college most of us worked during the summer, but it was a break from the usual routine and so we never minded.  This summer was the first one without a change in the routine.

After we figured that out and all agreed that it sucked, we decided to move with our lives.  And we did.

So our 5th summer is approaching and I can't figure out what's going on.  I am used to working through the summers now, although I still hate seeing the sun out my window and knowing I can't participate.  But, like I said, I got it.  It's the first time that there's no graduation!

We went to High School for 4 years, graduated, celebrated and then moved on to greener pastures - college.  It was going to be the first time we wouldn't have to get up at 6am, we get to choose classes we want to take, and got to live in dorms!

College lasted 4 years for me and after 4 years we graduated.  We celebrated and moved out.  We got real jobs and lived on our own.

Queue this year.  This is the first year with no graduation or huge changes.  We worked our tails off, with no summer vacations!  And after 4 years, there is no graduation!  There is no big ceremony to celebrate our achievement.   There is no big party.  There is no huge change forcing us to take a leap of faith and the next step. 

Don't get me wrong, we are progressing in our careers, we got married, we bought a house.  But after 4 years, it's still the same real world.  What's next?  Where's my next green pasture?  Where's my celebration?

We're back!

We're back from our vacation and it was just amazing!  I'll post about Iberostar Bavaro in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic on a separate occasion because it was just amazing!  The resort totally deserves its own post. 

This is just a small glimpse of the amazing resort.  Every inch of it was gorgeous.  I felt like I was in paradise.

Another stamp in our passports :)

Checking in - with Bahama Mama drinks. Yum!

We had some partners in crime that joined us for our vacation - Laura and Alex.

Ah and here we are.  We had an early morning and a long flight so excuse my appearance.

I love when they make pretty swans from your towels.  I judge how great the service in the rooms is based on how many towel birds and animals I get.

We took a few minutes to drop our stuff off in our rooms, change to suits and ran down to the pool.  I love pools.  I love huge pools best.  I LOVE LOVE LOVE swim-up bars at pools the bestestest.  This place had it all.  I miss it already.  Somehow my bathtub just doesn't do it.

And here's the sandy beach.  So okay.   I'm not really a big beach person.  I prefer pools.  I mean, yes, I get it, we go to a gorgeous place like this and it's hard to believe anyone would want to spend any time at the pool, but there are no seaweed, no fish that might bite, no jelly fish that could sting you.  And you don't end up with sand up your butt 99% of the day.

Laura and Alex love the beach.  I know, hard to guess from this pic.  I guess they prefer to be stung by jelly fishes.

Like this evil one here.  Does that look like something else to you by the way?!

But Laura and Alex are daring.

As for me, I prefer to stay out of the scary water and read my book.

Jon's also very daring.  So daring in fact, that he was even willing to go look at the fishies up close.

There he is, in the vast ocean.  Fearless.

I'm still reading my book.

Jon tried to entice me with his funny looking goggles and salty water, but I passed.

Other than loving and hating the beach, we also hugged some bananas,

 walked along the beach and explored the other resorts,

posed for pictures among weird tree trunks,

and explored Punta Cana - but more about this one later.

We saw turtles.

and more turtles.

In the evenings, we got dressed up,

disregarding decisions about shoes,

and went out to dinner.

The food was amazing,

the staff was fun and so nice.

Oh and the food was amazing.

I wasn't sure if you heard me the first time.

We played at the casino,

sipped some cappuccinos,

enjoyed drinks in the breezy nights,

ate some more,

and just generally enjoyed ourselves away from all the pressure of work, life, houses, dogs, and every thing else that waited for us back home.

And on our last day, 

I got daring,

 

really daring.

Then I stepped on a rock, got attacked by a huge seaweed, and swallowed some salt water.

And that's about as much daring as I can take.