9th annual drawing jam

This event was actually a couple of weeks ago, right after I got out of school for the winter break. It was my third year attending and was SO MUCH FUN! Rachel's mom has made the trip up here two years in a row now to go to the drawing jam with me. The art school opens up the doors to its studios to the public for twelve hours of creativity. There are free art supplies, snacks, beer and wine and some very incredible models and each studio has live local musicians playing. One of my favorite studios has local Seattle celebrities doing hour long poses. This year I spent some time in there sketching Father Christmas, his costume was very fuzzy and difficult to draw but interesting nonetheless. Last year Joanne was so excited to spend some time in the sculpture studio, so she convinced me this year to give it a try. We spent four hours working the clay and I really had a blast doing it. The model was in the middle of a circle of ten of us. She was sitting on a tall turntable and they rotated her every five minutes so we could try to capture her from every angle. It was great and I think it will be the first studio I hit every year now...here is a picture that they just sent to me of my little creation:

The snow piles up

This is the walkway I just cleared not even fifteen minutes ago, look at all that white stuff!!

Another holiday post

I'm feeling extra holiday spirit this year for whatever reason, maybe its all the snow, maybe its the extra lights, who knows. We've been taking snow walks at night because its so damn beautiful, I snapped a shot of our lights in the snow the other night, cuz they just look so much better surrounded with the white stuff...

The snow continues...

An update on our radar for you other weather junkies out there. We just got back from dinner at Talarico's and I swept the walk, by the time I finished the walk was already covered in snow again... it is so great!! Favre, the snow king, welcome to Seattle, we rolled out the white carpet for ya. We are braving the storm to make our way down to qwest field tomorrow for Mike Holmgren's final home game, he better put on his snowshoes for his victory lap! Yippee!

A storm approaches...

Seattle is in for it today, this storm is coming in fast and heavy! I have been watching the radar obsessively for an hour now, the leading edge of the storm is only 15-20 miles away and I can't believe how quick this thing is coming. I think the wind is going to be tremendous! It is surely in anticipation of the snow-king Brett Favre's arrival for the football game tomorrow.

Snow dance

Even though I am on winter break right now and off school already, I still feel the snow day excitement. Rach woke me up this morning and said "Joey, LOOK outside!" Yep, you guessed it, more SNOW!  We have been really lucky this week with all the snowfall, that is, lucky if you're like me and LOVE the snow. We spent the day looking for excuses to go out and drive the Jeep around. First we went to the hardware store and bought nothing, then we went to target to buy some pepsi for Brett, then we made a home delivery of the pepsi for brett, then we went to blockbuster to rent movies. Then we went back home to clean the walk and let the dog loose in the snow for a little bit. 

Ultimate Holiday Smackdown 2008

Otherwise known as... our holiday party... There wasn't really any smacking down of anything, or anybody, I just like to give extreme names to things that are not otherwise extreme. Our party was so much fun! We had over thirty people make their way through our house on saturday night it was LOUD and MERRY and so much damn fun!  Highlights of the evening included a late night pacman tournament on the big screen, christmas mai thais, Husky Deli catering (mmmm), Brett's holiday cranberry concoction served from a large fish bowl, 3 inches of snow and, later on, eight man team bobsledding down Andover street. Everybody got so excited when I told them I had an eight person sled, so we all bundled up and headed to the closest hill. Little did they know that by eight person sled I actually meant a long piece of trash plastic that had blown into my yard during a windstorm a few weeks ago. I couldn't bring myself to throw away such a large sheet of plastic, just knowing a use for it would become apparent soon, and it surely did! We had a ton of fun sliding down the hill like a bunch of crazy kids.

xmas tree

Alright, things have finally slowed down enough around here for me to put up a few catch-up posts. We put up our tree a few nights ago, it is wonderful. It smells like a forest in our house! The tree came wrapped up in a big red and white mesh bag... I've never seen one like it. We are off to see the Nutcracker performed by the Pacific Northwest Ballet in just a couple of hours but I thought I'd post a few pictures before leaving.