DC dinner with friends!

Friends from South Carolina came to DC for the weekend and we grabbed dinner with a bunch of other friends at a pizza place.

Of course, the kids were watching TV. (Guess how old the boy is. Just guess. Nope—he’s 6.5 and in first grade! I know, right? I told you we grow them big. 🙂 )

Owen’s cool crayon sculpture!

As a sidenote. We had a perfect example of why I say I hate people. Parking in downtown DC is always a nightmare, but we were thrilled to realize there was a parking garage right next door to the restaurant. Except some asshat parked next to us in a NON-PARKING spot which necessitated a 23-point turn to exit our space. ‪(Parking is tight in the best of cases, so with him there it was ridiculous.)

50#!

I DID IT! I lost 30# in 10 weeks on Naturally Slim (my goal was 25!)…and 50# overall in just 14 weeks! Hopefully I can lose the next 50 in another 14 weeks!

I debated posting my official “before and after” pics because they’re actually not all that impressive—plus me in yoga pants/tank tops isn’t very flattering!—but decided to go ahead because I’m still damn proud of myself!

I owe all this to Tivo friends Brad and Bryan who brought NatSlim to my attention, Tom for being amazingly supportive (he lost about 25!), and all my TCF friends for the daily online support!

And my Fitbit app congratulated me as well!

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Tivo 10 Year Reunion

Ten years ago, there was a huge Tivo meet in DC. While we weren’t at the original party, we were still invited to the reunion! :p (We were on the Tivo forum but didn’t attend our first meet (and meet people in person) until New Year’s Eve 2006-2007.) 

We don’t take nearly as many pictures as we used to and the parties start dying down around 11p instead of 2a…but we still have fun!

With two of my favorite peeps—Andrew and Sheryl.

Most of the attendees:

 

Fun with Atlanta friends!

We stopped to see our good friends in Atlanta. It was actually Bodi’s 6th birthday weekend, so they had a bounce house set up for the party the next day and the kids had fun in that! (It was also a Ninja Turtle-themed party, so that’s what the masks and weapons are for.)

But first, the boys about 4.5 years ago (November 2010):

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And today…

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Housewarming Party!

Prepping the bar!

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My Andrew!

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The kitchen table ended up being the center of the party. We definitely need a bigger kitchen AND a bigger table! 🙂

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Skyping with a good friend who couldn’t make it!

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About 1/3 of the food that we had. Which was way too much. 🙂

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The sign comes out! I gave the background story and told them that since he’s five, you know even if I HAD tried to tell him to do it he would have likely screwed it up, so it had to have been completely random! Everyone LOVED it!

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The only two guests who weren’t Tivo peeps—our realtor (who helped us find this house) and her friend “Moral Support.” 🙂 They got along with everyone and had a good time!

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I learned later that they were making fun of my pantry labeling—this ketchup was the “LAST ONE.” 🙂

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Maggie got along with everyone and actually wasn’t too much of a pain!

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Charlie was right in the thick of things, too. I know she’s the people person cat, but we didn’t think she’d stick around with 25 loud people…but she did. She was in the middle of it for the most part…and didn’t mind the attention! 🙂

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Amy wanted to steal the kids’ minion backpack.

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Those of you who know…KNOW what this box means!

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Rivals…on the chair of truth. I’m not quite sure how it got called that, but by the end of the night it was THE name and probably half the people had been in it. 🙂

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The kids came home from the sitter’s at 8 and stayed up for a bit since there was just so much going on it was way too exciting to go to bed. 🙂

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One of the many, many things I never saw happen until I was looking at other people’s pictures!

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The night was pretty much wrapped up by 10:30 or so, with most of the major cleaning done and the last people leaving about 11 (gone are the days when we were partying hard until 2am!). 🙂

We agreed the party was a great success! There was too much food, lots of laughs, and lots of wine…and no one got hurt and nothing got broken! There was one red wine spill at the very end of the night, but considering how many people were drinking and sloshing red wine glasses it could have been lots worse many times over.

And we can’t wait to do it again!

Housewarming Party–Prep

Morning relaxing…Eddy was encroaching on what Maggie thinks is her new bed. 🙂

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So this just blew. my. mind. Owen apparently brought this home from school Friday—just a completely random art project they did. But the letters? TCF? The abbreviation for the Tivo forum where we all met and how we have always referred to the group! I asked Owen how he came up with those letters. No reason, he liked them. He knows NOTHING of TCF. He knows the word Tivo, of course, and knew we had Tivo friends coming, but we have NEVER said or mentioned TCF in any capacity. I KNOW, RIGHT?!?!?!?!?!?!? I decided right then that we would have to incorporate it into the party later!

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Katie said she wanted to help…until she actually stuck her hands in the bowl and got flour on her. That was all she wrote.

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Eddy finishing mixing the sausage balls!

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Mark and Karen are BIG Ohio State fans so there’s a loving rivalry between them and Tom, of course being an MSU fan. And the MSU-OSU game was going to be on the night of the party! They had stopped at our house to say hello and as they were leaving, Tom slapped the Sparty S magnet on the back of their car! 🙂

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Housewarming Weekend—La Tasca

My Tivo friends all promised they’d come to our housewarming—and they came through! Eddy flew in from Florida, Sheryl drove down from New York (as seen in the last post!), Amy and Bill drove down from New Jersey (not seen below), Mark and Karen drove over from Ohio, and multiple people came in from around the entire metro DC area!

Tonight we went out to dinner at La Tasca, a delicious tapas place. I had never done tapas but I’m a convert now (it’s great for large parties because you all get to try a little bit of everything).

Our gnomes got to hang out with an old friend.

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Our sangria flights. YUM.

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Just pretending, but I really could have drank that entire thing with a straw. It was GOOD.

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The whole group!

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Katie was actually shy. At first.

Katie was napping when Sheryl arrived and had asked if Katie would be shy. I said NO WAY, she doesn’t have a shy bone in her body, she will be a total show off, and will warm to you immediately.

Ha.

She spent the first 45 minutes laying in the bean bag with her hands over her eyes and then when we made her get up, this is what she did:

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Then she started to come alive and be her cute self. 🙂

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TiVo friend visit

A TiVo friend was in the area so he came over for a visit with his wife and two of his kids. Tom and I had met him before in 2008 at a big TiVo meet but we wanted the boys to meet. 🙂

The kids all had fun in the police car, except it was a little crowded so the threesome didn’t last too long. 🙂

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His son, Josh, is one month younger than Owen. By now you shouldn’t be surprised at size differences. 🙂

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Agnes and Camel reunited at last!

This should have been posted way back on February 1… The gnome that I bought from a Tivo friend (who pulled an epic prank on a friend and as a result had a few gnomes to sell) was finally reunited with the gnome that was sent to Tom in Afghanistan. 🙂

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When Owen saw them together he said “Is that mom and dad?” 🙂

Nanny Alice, Day 4

Naptime project!

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Alice said he completed 90% of it on his own!

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Their final dinner:

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Post-dinner bike ride!

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Both kids were in bed when we rolled in about 7:30…and both got a good report overall! Katie has lots of attitude now and Owen had a few grouchy spots but nothing major. Neither missed us, which is a good thing! And Alice wasn’t waiting in the driveway (though she was packed to leave!)…so we consider it a major success!

HotAmi 2014, Day 2

Good morning!

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We ran some errands then headed to our group lunch spot:

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Waiting for drinks:

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It sounded (and looked) better than it tasted:

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The whole group:

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Then it was back to the house for visiting, games (trivia, which my team came in fifth of five!), and fun! I missed pictures of the delicious catered Cuban dinner we had!

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Cigars with Sheryl—a tradition!

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Tom and Elle!

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We knew we’d have an early morning so we said goodbyes around 11!

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Aside from my usual 4:45am potty trip, I slept in until 7:41! WOOHOO!

We went to our host’s house to carpool to a Cuban lunch:

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Then we joined him on errands…which included Costco and Total Wine:

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Then it was back to the house to visit and hang out before dinner.

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And then Sheryl was having issues getting the iPad to take a picture so we were laughing. 🙂

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On our way to meet for the “high end” dinner!

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We were originally going to do the “budget” dinner…but then learned that a forum friend from California that I’ve really wanted to meet was going to be attending as a last-minute surprise so we switched. So we got to sit next to Brett and hear lots of Apple stories (super interesting to me)—he was a top engineer at Apple for many years and just recently retired. You know Siri? That was him. HDR on your phone? Him. AppleTV? His team. Just fascinating.

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Our table of 17:

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Recreating a photo from last year (substituting Katie for Nancy who couldn’t make it this year):

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And another California peep, Darren:

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After a nice dinner and dropping people off at hotels, it was back to the house to visit for just a tiny bit until we called it a night—the previous night was 12:30 and tonight was 11:30 and we were exhausted!

Pre-HotAmi Dinner

After we checked in to the hotel it was straight to the sushi restaurant for dinner with friends. We had seen most of the small group last year but I was SUPER EXCITED to see Katie, one of my very bestest friends whom I hadn’t seen IN SEVEN YEARS! SEVEN YEARS! (It hadn’t felt like that long since we do talk online and text/call now and again…but it’s obviously not the same as seeing each other in person.) I think she was even more excited than I was, and we hugged hello for a good two minutes!

It’s a long-running joke that the two of us share a brain because we think a lot alike, have the same views, like the same things, have finished each other’s sentences, etc…and it was proven again tonight—remember we haven’t seen each other in seven years and really only talk on forums…yet we both wore black capris, a purple shirt, and a black jacket.

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We visited with friends until after midnight then headed back to the hotel to crash—we hadn’t been up that late since I don’t know when…and were exhausted from a long day on the road.

Nanny Alice, Day 1

Our friend Alice (actually a professional nanny—though usually for much older kids!) is staying with the kids while we go to Florida. The kids met her about two weeks ago when she came for two nights to meet them and Owen was excited to have her back.

This was the first picture we got on the road—some pre-nap cuddles!

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Maggie and the kids enjoying the nice weather, the bubbles Alice brought, and playing swords!

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She spoiled the kids with a fun dinner: Owen got a caterpillar hot dog and Katie got hot dog palm trees. Both got strawberry flowers:

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And she braved giving Katie yogurt:

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My honest first thought was What is she doing to me? Now the kids are going to expect fun dinners all the time?! But my immediate next thought was Oh what a super special surprise that only Miss Alice does! 🙂

TiVo friend + Etsy + Fate

A TiVo friend of mine throws pottery and has an Etsy store. I’ve been looking at this large vase for over a year but couldn’t bring myself to buy it because I just didn’t need a vase. But I happened to be on Etsy recently looking at something else and thought if it was still there, it was meant to be mine. Amazingly it was, so I ordered it! 🙂 He threw in the small vase as an unexpected bonus! (As a side note, he’s the same guy I did the smoothie in a bread bowl for and the same one Tom and I got our gnomes from. Which reminds me I haven’t told you about the gnomes yet. That will be another day.)

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Star Trek Patio Party

We headed to DC this weekend for another Patio Party (the last one was in 2008) with the TiVo peeps. The two main events were—obviously—a viewing of the new Star Trek movie and a party on a patio. 🙂

Tom cleaning off the patio:

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Me at my first Coke Freestyle machine:

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The best seats EVER at a movie theater—electric reclining leather seats (no flash on my self-taken photo because a lady two rows behind us threw a hissy fit that people were using their flashes…before the lights even dimmed and WAY before the movie was even close to starting):

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Our group that saw the non-3D version of the movie:

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One of our good friends, Andrew:

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My obligatory self-portrait pose (taken specifically for Andrew because he gives me grief about taking those pictures):

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A recreation of a 2008 Patio Party photo:

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And that’s about all the photos. We take a lot less pics now for whatever reason…

The only bad thing about the weekend was that my drink of choice for the evening—vodka and Monster [energy drink]—apparently reacts completely different with my body than it used to and I did not get one wink of sleep Saturday night. 😐 This was NOT the best time or place to have to realize this…away from home with a 6-hour drive ahead of us and nighttime plans once we do get home.

Once we got on the road and grabbed a quick hot breakfast at Panera, it was off to Ikea for a quick visit to pick up Owen’s present (he always gets a present when we come back).

So overall it was a good—though short—weekend!