.:: Tuesday, January 30, 2007 ::.

here's a short little video of me, W, J & G tubing!



and while i was uploading video, i found this! soooooo cute! i want one.

:: joyce 10:16 PM [+]::
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.:: Monday, January 29, 2007 ::.

i've been 30 now for 22+ hours, and so far, 30 is GREAT!

first i'll start off with our fabulous weekend at the sundance film festival in park city, utah. we had 3 goals this weekend: 1) get free stuff (aka SWAG)! 2) see at least one celebrity (altho odds were against us since it was the last 3 days of the festival) and 3) watch at least one movie. we succeeded in all 3! well, sort of. the only "celebrity" i really saw was MC Hammer, who was in finishing the game! LOL... but we did see a few "indie film celebs" (also from finishing the game, directed by justin line who also directed "better luck tomorrow" and "fast & furious tokyo drift)) which was good enough for me! we also saw pacman and the airborne germ. haha... the highlights of the weekend were having the opportunity to just be there and see our first sundance films, the enormous chocolate cake i got for my birthday dinner (well, dessert), driving the VW toureg on the crazy obstacle course, tubing, and spending time with J&G (thanks again!!). the free "Stuff We All Got" were boxes of zone bars at the zone lounge, free CDs, travel mugs, blankets, sharpie markers, airborne at the airborne lounge, and other stuff i can't remember. all in all, it was a GREAT weekend, and i had a blast celebrating my 30th at sundance!!

it was really hard to go to work today, being that it's the last 3 days of the month, and i am crazy busy!!!! my desk looks like it threw up! :( but at least the day flew by! my coworkers decorated my cubicle and got me flowers and hello kitty cupcakes! :) when i got home, i was greeted by balloons (from W), birthday signs (from W), and cards and flowers and gifts from my wonderful friends and family!!! thanks again to all for your thoughtfulness...it really made my day even greater!! *big hugs*

so on to the pictures...

sundance:


woman with waaaay too much fur on (that would be hat, coat, boots & backpack...PETA, where are you??)


"celebrities" hahaha...

(that would be pacman, the airborne germ (w/G) and cast & crew of finishing the game)

taking the toureg on the obstacle course:


at the netflix/fox party, that's the actual van from little miss sunshine


tubing!


and now...the good stuff!!

huge chocolate cake at dinner at butcher's chop house (before & after):


hello kitty cupcakes from my team (that's a hello kitty ring on top!):


and CJ's chocolate caramel turtle frozen custard pie from W!!!!!


(i should mention...i didn't take a picture of it cuz i was too excited and immediately ripped it open to dig into it, but L&D also got me a deeeelicious pumpkin cheesecake--thanks again!!)

and last, i was greeted by this when i walked in the door this evening...


i'll have some video probably tomorrow...so stay tuned!

:: joyce 9:58 PM [+]::
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.:: Tuesday, January 23, 2007 ::.

comcast has "on demand" where they just have a bunch of shows and movies that you can watch at anytime. they've been showing sex and the city from the very beginning, so now, after all these years i can finally watch and know what ppl are talking about! haha...it's actually pretty entertaining, and i can see why so many ppl/girls were hooked on it. the characters are fun cuz they're so different from each other. but i have to admit, even tho me and my girlfriends are nothing like them, it makes me miss them even more!! i want to hang out and have drinks and go to dinner... :( and i don't know if carrie's fashion becomes something that evolves later in the show, but so far, i am not impressed at all by what she's wearing. yuck. and what's with the tutu she's wearing in the opening credits?

okay, so there's this song that i keep hearing on the radio but they NEVER say who it is or what it's called! i wish i could sing it for you, but you'll just have to settle for the few words i know. it goes "hoooooooold you iiiiiin myyy arms....i just wanted tooooo hooooooold you iiiiiin myyy arms." and there's a lovely piano track in the background. anyone? anyone?

in about 2.5 days, i will be in park city, utah. at sundance. watching at least one movie. eating hopefully good food. and possibly seeing celebrities. oh, and on the verge of turning 30. wheee!!! :)

:: joyce 5:38 PM [+]::
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.:: Saturday, January 20, 2007 ::.

W wanted me to open my birthday present early so that i could "pick out accesories and stuff" this weekend. so last night after dinner with my coworker J and her husband, i opened my gift, and W got me a new digicam!!! i know i know, we just bought the canon dSLR, but i wanted a small point and shoot that i could just keep in my pocket or purse and we woulnd't be paranoid about losing it or damaging it. i LOVE my new camera! it's really small, really fast, takes great pictures and amazing video, and has some really neat features! my favorite feature is the color accent, which allows you to pick a color to be "accented" while the rest of the picture is black and white...soooo cool! so today, we played with the camera a bit...

at lunch, playing with the color accent feature:


testing the macro feature:


more color accenting:


snow feature pics:


just a squirrel:


so now i am ready to take lots of pictures of celebrities next weekend! hopefully they'll be there!

:: joyce 2:48 PM [+]::
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.:: Saturday, January 13, 2007 ::.

i actually finished my hourglass sweater (from last minute knitted gifts) back in november. but the only thing i hate about knitting is finishing! and sewing up seams (luckily this sweater is knit in the round or else it might still be in pieces!). so finally, 2 months later, it's completely finished!



i like the shape of the sweater, but i made a few changes to the pattern. i made the length a bit longer and the sleeves not as bell-shaped. i brought the neck opening up so it's not so boat-neck like. i realized a while ago that raglan is not my most flattering look, but i like knitting it the best for some reason! and i'm not thrilled with the yarn either. for one, it's super heavy! when i lifted up the sweater, it felt like it weighed 5 lbs (a lot for a sweater!). i used knitpicks shine worsted cuz it was super cheap, but it sheds like crazy...i have teal fuzz everywhere! if i make another one, i will definitely be using a better yarn.

i finished knitting a scarf over a month ago too (thanks for the lace patterns, emc!), but still need to block it. i'm telling you, i love the knitting part, just hate the finishing part. so if someone out there wants to finish all my knit stuff, i'd probably complete my knitting projects in half the time! :)

so now i have 2 more sweaters i want to knit. and thinking about making another sweater, meshing 2 patterns together (the cables from the big sack sweater from stitch 'n bitch, and the overall shape and edging of the hourglass sweater). but i need to find a good, soft, light-weight, machine-washable yarn for that one first!

:: joyce 2:49 PM [+]::
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.:: Friday, January 12, 2007 ::.

omg, the nuggets traded my favorite player!! i'll admit i've only just recently gotten into the nuggets, but i like watching boykins cuz he's little but really good (he's only 5'5"). what a bummer. :(

:: joyce 6:16 PM [+]::
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.:: Thursday, January 11, 2007 ::.

last night we went to the nuggets/spurs game with G & J (who are here on business). it's always funner to watch sports live. we got pretty good tix, lower level, center court. it's funny, the court looks a lot smaller, but the ppl look a lot bigger. except earl boykins, he's tiny! :)

so my manager introduced me to the best salad ever, from CPK, the waldorf chicken salad. i decided it would be easy to make my own, so that's what i've been eating for lunch, almost every day this week! start with a bed of mixed baby greens, add shredded carrots, seedless red grapes sliced in half, granny smith apple sliced thin, a tiny bit of gorgonzola (not a huge fan, but surprisingly tasty in this salad), grilled chicken, and glazed walnuts (the BEST part). toss with dijon balsamic vinaigrette (i just mix a little bit of dijon in my newman's own light balsamic vinaigrette). i must say, it was quite tasty. not as good as the one at CPK, but really really close. yum.

we are very very close to finalizing some travel plans for italy. yea!! i really want to learn to speak spanish and italian. nothing fancy, just the basics. ;)

it's starting to get very chilly already. it will be below 0 degrees this weekend. i'm not looking forward to that. but i am looking forward to having monday off! whee!

:: joyce 7:36 PM [+]::
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.:: Monday, January 08, 2007 ::.

well, it's officially official...we're going to spain! we bought our tickets for the formula 1 race in Catalunya, Spain (just outside Barcelona). i knew they'd be pricier than our usual race weekend tickets, but $207 per person for general admission?! are you kidding? grandstand seats ranged from about $400 and up. insane. but i guess that's the price you pay for seeing a world-class racing event in europe. *sigh*

it's supposed to snow again on friday. okay, this is getting ridiculous. we've basically had a good dumping of snow every week for the past 3 weeks! enough already! and there was a HUGE avalanche on berthoud pass, which is on the way to winter park. W decided he wanted to go boarding on saturday, but i just wasn't feeling it (okay, my tailbone wasn't feeling it!). so he went with his friend D, and luckily they got to the resort before the avalanche hit. scary! it took them over 3 hours to get there, when it normally only takes about 1.5 in normal winter driving conditions. then they only rode/skied for 1.5 hours til they started hearing ppl talking about an avalanche and road closures. when they found out what happened on berthoud pass, they rode/skied back to the car and made their way back home before they really got stuck. well, the avalanche was 100 feet wide, and 15 feet tall, so there was no way anyone would be going thru anytime soon. they had to go a very backwards, round-about way and got back here about 7 hours later! holy sh*t. i'm really glad i didn't go, cuz i would've been freaking out. the drive wasn't any easier with the blowing snow advisory in the mountains. i read that parts of colorado had winds over 100mph! what?! wouldn't that be like a tornado or something?! last night the wind was blowing so hard it woke me up and i was afraid our roof would just fly away! i don't know what exactly is going on with the weather this year, but it is really starting to freak me out. we seem to be getting all the snow for the entire country, as witnessed by all the out-of-towners at our resorts. i heard that NY has no snow, and is too warm to even make snow. even minnesota isn't experiencing the usual snowfall this time of year. i just hope that we really don't get snow every week like someone predicted. now would be a good time to invest in a snow blower.

:: joyce 8:48 PM [+]::
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.:: Thursday, January 04, 2007 ::.

they say we're getting another snow storm. supposedly we're getting anywhere from 4-8 inches. okay, the first storm was fun. the second was kinda funny. but this is already getting old. the snow from the other storms hasn't melted yet! so we're just adding more snow to the now packed ice. greeeeat.

while L, D and baby G were here, W got to practice taking pictures of a very active baby with his new camera (which was quite challenging in low light). here are my 3 favorites...

:: joyce 9:11 PM [+]::
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.:: Tuesday, January 02, 2007 ::.

first of all, happy new year!!

well, after some tinkering around, i decided not to switch my blog, and stay with blogger. you might have noticed that there are a couple changes to this blog. i'm hoping it will help alleviate some viewing issues. (please let me know if it's still not working well on your browser.) it's still not perfect on all browsers, but i've realized that if i want a custom layout, i'm just gonna have to deal with that.

so we got a little lucky with this last storm, cuz it wasn't as big as everyone predicted it would be. that meant that L, D and baby G made it to denver just fine, and even baggage claim was pretty easy. i wish we could've spent more time with them, but i was glad to see them for the amount of time we did. and baby G is just so much cuter in person! he's developing quite the little personality!

it was reeeeeally hard going back to work today (especially getting out of bed), but then i realized that next week is the only full week i'll be working in january! whee! we get the 15th off for MLK day. then i have the friday before my *big* birthday off (cuz we'll be on our way to the sundance film festival). yippee!

well, i hope everyone's new year is off to a great start!!

:: joyce 10:18 PM [+]::
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