just wanted to let you know that you can check out all the photos that the professional photographers took online.
linky link

clicky the linky and then enter in “michellejon921″ for the username.

awesome, huh? yeah. awesome.

oh, and if you want any prints, we can make those for you. the prices on the photographers site are pretty high, but we’ve got all the high resolution images and can get them printed anywhere.

ok. nice chatting with you.

Tasty, yet rather quiet thanksgiving this year at Jim’s house in Bremerton. We made a lemon turkey, to which† jon lovingly stuffed compound butter under its skin. It was… a sight to see. Kind of creepy.

We also drank a bottle of red sparkling wine from Mumm that we’ve been saving since our trip down there. It was awesome. Went really well with the food - it was rich and full bodied with sweeter berry flavours than most sparklings.

This has been an incredible year for us and we have quite a bit to be thankful for, markedly so because of the financial crisis elsewhere in the world.  Jon and I are doing great.  We have each other, we have secure jobs, we have international travel plans in the next two months. And despite the fact that I still own a condo in a state that I don’t live in, there’s very little to complain about.

When we live in the same country.

I’ve been doing a bit of freelance work lately.  I’m excited to be doing design work again. Thrilled to be building sites and learing again.  But boy, it really stinks to ALWAYS be working.

I think we’ll start posting more again.  Stay tuned.

“do you know what the flag of tawaiin loks like?! !!??”
“no”
“it’s REEEEDDDD” “and has a blue field. and a white sun.
“oh.”
“isn’t that interesting!?!?? !!!” “what about morrocco?” “do you know what ELSE is interesting?!”

you know… i feel like I’m married to one of those really smart nine year olds that just wants to know about *everything*. You know the type. Sometimes they turn out to be engineers. and other times they turn out to be autistic.

Okay. Right. Wine festival! Jon and I are going to the Seattle Food and Wine Experience today. That’s right. It’s an experience. I’m stoked there’s going to be 1000 wineries and a bunch of local restaurants with munchies and cooking demonstrations from local chefs! So. Excited.

Last night, jon took us to the Umphree’s Magee show. It was so awesomesauce. I dont think I’ve ever really appreciated them before. Jon’s always raving about “the umph.” and I had always just thought he was super retarded.
Hm. Showed me!

Everyone told us that we shouldn’t wait an entire year to take a honeymoon, and we should take a weekend getaway somewhere shortly after the wedding. Heeding that advice, jon and I went up to Victoria a couple weekends ago and had an awesome time.

I’ve added the photo highlights of our trip to the photo page (link to the left). It’s at the bottom. Here are a few thoughts:

True to form, a picture of jon feeding something and me petting something. We’re an odd bunch, it turns out.

Sunday night we had the most incredible dinner at Café Brio. We did the 5 course chef’s menu, where the chef just… cooks for us. It was great. Some things shined better than others, but even the low points of the meal were still incredible. We had an amazing Bordeaux style wine from BC that the staff chose and… all around it was an incredible foodie-night-out.

Saturday we wandered around downtown Victoria, visiting a handful of breweries and just enjoying our time together. (read: michelle freaked out and jon had to rescue her back to reality). Really though, we had a great time. I just got a little tuckered out for an hour or so.

We visited the Butchart Gardens on Sunday after brunch at the Blue Fox (awesome!), drank our bottle of Dom Perignon that my dad gave me for graduation and had a really nice breakfast in bed on Monday. After Monday’s bubbly breakfast, we walked around the park / waterfront of southern Victoria, and ended up at Fisherman’s Wharf, where we met a seal named “Sammy” and had some great fish-n-chips.

But.  If you ARE on the fence, thinking about switching teams, or just want to chat about Obama’s platform, call us!

Okay,  my political propaganda for the day:  I’ve just added the Obama-Biden tax calculator to the sidebar.  It will show you what YOU would save under both platforms proposed policies.  I have to say, I was amazed.  I would save $1036 each year with Obama’s tax plan and $0 with McCain’s. It only takes a second.

Oh, AND you should watch the debate tonight. It’s on at 6 Pacific and 8 Central. Hopefully they’ll talk about more specifics from their economic plans. I’m stoked

As a general life update, Jon and I are doing spectacularly. With the exception of not seeing each other often (because of the soon-to-be-over-swing-shift), married life is awesome.

This Saturday we’re going to Victoria for a mini-honey moon. We initially decided to take a trip abroad (Greece?) for our honeymoon, and to wait until after the wedding to plan it and save for it. Everyone seems to think that was crazy-talk and we should go somewhere (local) for a weekend trip. So, thanks for the advice and the insistence! 

We’re taking the ferry up, staying at a great hotel, and have some un-solidified plans to eat out well. A couple breweries and a trip to the gardens, and we should have a nice little weekend.

All in all it’s going to be pretty great. If you’ve been to Victoria and have recommendations, let me know!

If anyone happened to take photos that day, we would love to see them.  It seems that we left our camera sitting on the table all day long!

Mahalo.

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