Holiday Parties and Holiday fun

As I sit here writing this Seattle is holding true to it's name wet, rainy and cold. But that has not dampened Jillian and I's Holiday spirits.

With Thanksgiving always falling on a Thursday both Jillian and I were lucky enough to have both Thursday and Friday off, making it a 4 day weekend for us. With these four days off Jillian and I stayed very busy with Thanks giving Dinner, xmas tree shopping (even though we didn't get a real one we went up to enjoy the experience with the family), some live theater for Jillian, a few house projects and a whole bunch of rad family time. It was a really rad weekend.

With Thanksgiving kick starting the holiday season off with a bang. Jillian and I were excited. Our next Holiday season date was a friends of ours festive party called Chrismakwanzikah a blend of Christmas, Kwanzaa and Hanukkah. It was quite a fun night.

The next night Jillian's grandmother took the whole family out for a beautiful x-mas dinner. It was a delicious meal with great company.

Just a few days later than that on December 9th Jillian and I hosted my work Holiday party.

Oh Man, were we excited for this. Not only were we excited to be showing off our newly remodeled house. I had made t-shirts for all my fellow co-workers. Each shirt and a co-workers face on it but I didn't give the everyone a shirt with their face on it. Where is the fun in that? I gave everyone a shirt with a different co-workers face on it. See the picture below. Everyone had a good laugh. 

All the employees received some great gifts from Jay and Dave (Bosses).It was great night,

We still have a few holiday parties to attend and are looking forward to them all.

Hope you all are are enjoying the holiday season.

Matty

Tis the start of the Season.

I must admit it is easy to get wrapped up in the festive season here in the NW of America. Even when you get stuck on a bus for 5 hours on what should be a 40 min drive home on Monday night because of the snow. It seems like the classic American Festive story sometimes all we are missing is a grinch and/or jack frost. 

Jillian and I are always pushing forward on life and currently Jillian is the one to make huge push forward with deciding to get her MBA(Masters in Business). Jillian will starting on January 3rd and will be attending SU Seattle University. It is a part time program and will be lasting roughly 3 years. I am very excited to see Jillian take full advantage of that crazy smart brain of hers.

Jillian has once again been jet setting around the country and spent a week in Denver for work. 

Here is a site that my boss and I worked on Moprise.com . This site evolved alot over time and we are very pleased with what we ended up with.

Happy start of the holidays 
Much Love Matty

Here is a little shot of our house with a layer of snow.

OH Remodel

Oh Remodel, how we love and hate you...

Jillian and I moved into our new residence on July 15th 2010 and within two weeks the fun had started. We were tearing down walls, changing counter tops, ripping floors up, changing doors and the list goes on and on and on and is still going. Jillian and I added a touch to the house today that we feel is up to standard to share now.

Jillian and I ran into many bumps along the way. From uneven flooring, electrical problems, leaking sliding door, waiting on oven and contractors. Overall we changed the counter tops from hideous tile to beautiful slab granite, the floors from linoleum and gross carpet to fantastic red oak hardwood floors. A new slider door for the back door. A new five burner gas oven and a brand new gas fireplace. All of which was done by contractors. Jillian and I tried our hardest to do as much as we could and we ended up painting the cabinets a slightly matte black, with Jillian's Dad's help we did the electrical needed, we painted,  we put in a corrugated iron back splash for the counters, we added handles to the cabinets which all nobs but each one is different and our latest feat was adding some texture to two of our walls in the living area. We did this texture by staining 40 fence palings pearl gray then we attached brackets on the wall and screwed the wood in. Jillian and I are very very happy with how the house is looking and are excited. Enjoy.

The first photos are of the before shots of the house.

Above:
Looking from the Kitchen out the living room to the backyard

 

In the above photo the wall on the left was taken out to create an island and a more open space into the living room.

The below photo is a better view of the wall.

 

Notice the gross carpet above.

Above: The wall goes down. At this point we were were thinking it would be completed in a week or ...Hahahahaha the fools we are.

We lived with no oven for two months. Luckily we lived next door to Jillian's parents.

The projects are not complete, But the big stuff is done. Hope you cats like it.

Back to blogging

Okay I have been off my blog game lately and I know all three readers I have are devoed ( Australian for devastated ). So over the next few days I will try and a few new tid bits. First one is a little something I added to my office. I have been lucky enough to be able to start collecting skateboards And few weeks ago I got a chance to put some of them up.


matty3stars

Milwaukee to Chicago

Here in the states we just had a long weekend. Jillian and I celebrated it by traveling with some friends to Milwaukee Wisconsin to visit our friend Laura who recently moved there for school. To make the most of it we took a red eye Thursday night and had Friday off to make it a four day weekend.
We arrived at six in the morning , after a little sleep in we found some energy to get up and go see some sites of the cheese state. Our friend lives in cool part of town which is a lot like Fremont in Seattle or Freo in WA. That artsy type feel to it. We walk around there and got to see the great lakes and it is crazy to see a lake you can not see the other side of after that we headed in to the main part of the city and man was there history and architecture to boot.
It is cool but seriously the highlight of The day was when we took the pub tour called the "Pedal Tavern". It is a 12 seated table that you pedal around the city from bar to bar unfortunately they are still working out the liquor license, so the tap on board was dry. A lovely dinner was had to round out the day. 
Here is a pic of Jillian and the "Pedal Tavern".
















The next day was was a little bit more chilled out but just as fun. We spent the day with our friend Charlie and his family and friends. Charlie lives in Seattle with us and coincidently is from the same place our friend is now going to school. We spent the day bbqing, having a few drinks watching football, playing games and rounded out with us sitting around fire.














Sunday we made am2 hr trip down to Chicago and man was it great. I don't think I can explain how cool and overwhelming it was, by far the biggest city I have been to. As soon as we step out of the tunnel we get to see one of the city's most infamous pieces of art. Here is a couple of pictures of it.
On the second picture can you pick me out? Cause when you were looking into it, it was hard to find yourself.


























 Chicago is famous for many many things, but we were hungry and hunting for one thing deep dish pizza. Let's just say it was worth the long walk and long wait.
Our now friends Annie and Mike (Charlie's brother in-law and sister) came up with a great idea to do a boat tour. Man what a dam good idea that was. We got see great stuff while learning so much about the city.
On Monday we just cruised around and tried to soak up as much of our friend as we could until our flight.

The weekend was great.

Work on the weeknds has never been so much fun

Every year my school SVC has an event called a Wayzgoose which is the old tradition of celebrating letterpress. And to celebrate this tradition my schools asks local design firms, artist and companies to join in the Steamroller Smackdown as well as many other activities.
The Steamroller Smackdown is where each firm creates a design, cuts it out of a 34in by 44in piece of linoleum and places it under a steamroller for printing.

I was mad stoked about this event anyway, but because my own design had been chosen to represent DC, I was over the moon.
The day was so much fun with DC crew getting under the sun.

Here are some photo's of the design, cutting and the steamrolling with the crew.

Well that is it for now. Much Love

Meeting the president

If you call standing about 50 meters away with a few hundred people meeting him. Then yes I met the president.

Mr Obama was having a meeting or something about two blocks from my work. So a few of us headed down there for a little meet and greet.

Our meet and greet was a little more like bird watching you wait, you need binoculars and you see that presidential bird for two fleeting seconds.

It was a fun time. Here is a picture i took on my phone. Don't worry I pointed him out. He is the one in the white shirt with no jacket.

matty3stars

Wedding and art show

While Jillian, Nick and I are living in the chaos of the kitchen remodel we have all had a few things going. Our friends Teigan and Trevor had a beautiful wedding. There tears of joy, speeches and a whole lot of dancing. All in all a great night.



A couple of weeks ago my work offered me a full time position which I am so amped on. Today August 10th was my official starting date. Yahoooooooo I am
so excited.

While I am on the subject of work. We had a great opening night for our latest art show. The art was by a poster design company called "Patent Pending Industries". It was their ten retrospective show. With a few hundred people strolling through the doors throughout the night, a keg, fresh popcorn(courtesy of my old work) and a whole lot of kick ass art.
A bunch of my friends and family were among the few hundred people to walk through the doors. Here is a pic of Jillian and her cousin Thomas.


Peace to ya all. I'm out.
matty3stars

Big news

Last Thursday my boss asks me to meet in the conference room and before both cheeks could hit the chair he asks me if I would like a full-time position at the company. I was so excited I said yes before hearing what they were offering. Luckily they offered something that I was super stoked with. So as of August tenth I will have my foot firmly planted in the world of web design.
Also the firm I work for has a great crew of people who all have mad skills. There is is such a great work atmosphere that males going to work each day very enjoyable.

Feel free to check out the web site www.designcommission.com

matty3stars

Another place to rest a heavy heart

matty3stars

A month to remember

For this post I am just going to pump out the big things over this month.
First off we moved out of our condo which we rented out for the price we wanted to a lovely young couple. We are living with Jillian's parents while the current tenants are still in the new house. Dammit. Awh well they are out on the 15th.



Jillian spent a week in Vegas for work. Her and her sister Natalie put on a huge conference for her work. Both of her bosses were so stoked and spoiled both her and Natalie as a thank you.

We had so many birthdays over the month of June. Including mine oh man I was spoilt with movies, gift cards, clothing and a whopping gift of tickets to see my favourite band the Black Keys.



Jillian and I had our 4th wedding on July 1st. We spent it apart as I had to work. But we did get to spend the next day together and went for celebratory breakfast. Jillian surprised me with an iPhone4 which I get in a few days. I gave her a poem. I was definitely out shined in the gift department.

After our anniversary breakfast we headed down to Portland four the 4 th of July week end. Our friend Nick parents has a beach house in Lincoln city which is right on the coast. Not on a lake. We had a great weekend with nick and his family. A highlight for me was meeting a pro skater at the local park there. The park was one of the raddest bowl parks I have ever seen. I couldn't skate it for crap. But was still stoked to be there. Food, fishing, games and fireworks made the weekend great.


The Tuesday straight after the weekend away my bosses took me to a Seattle mariners baseball game. We had great seats and fantastic time.



Oh I also played my first game of softball. The game is a social
game but is taken somewhat seriously. So I was pretty nervous when it was my turn to bat but that went well. I was more nervous when I was put in to pitch on my first. That went well with me striking out my first 3 batters. But I had a glitch when I ran into to antelope team mate trying to catch a ball. Idiot I am. I am now the starting pitcher. Let's just in my softball game there was many highs and lows, humorous lows. I made a softball blunder and slide into first. I have the grazes on my elbow and knee to prove it.

I think this enough for now.
matty3stars

Here is a website that I have helped out on

I little while ago I was given the chance to work on a web site with my boss/creative director Jay.
It was a great experience where I learned a lot on the design and developing side of things.

Here is the link to the site http://www.discountlockbox.com/

Full weekend

G'day all,
This weekend was a great weekend full of family, friends and rain.
Friday night Jillian and had dinner over at her parents house. Jillian hungabout there for a while and I went home to work a bit. Saturday was the grandest day.
We went to the Seattle Sounders professional soccer game curtoisy of our grind Charlie. So Jillian and I got to watch the game from great seats with two great friends Charlie and Trevor.


a coworker of mine gave me this star wars keychain so I took a picture of it as if it was on the feild. It is the only photo I have of the game. Our Team Lost but it was a great time. We walked around the city with Trevor and Charlie for a while then I went home to have a nap and Jillian went with Charlie to see Hillary(Jillian's great friend Charlie's girlfriend) play lacrosse. They only got to watch a bit cause it was raining so hard they had to leave.
Later that night Jillian and I took her mother and father out to a delicious dinner at a place called "Cafe Juanita" the Chef there is really really good and is nationally recognized. We had a great time. After dinner which ended around 11 big poppa(jillian's dad)and I headed into the city to go to a siff(Seattle independent film festival is the most attended film festival in northen America) movie that started at midnight. The movies great if you get a chance it is called "Tucker & Dale Vs evil" it is so funny. The main actor and director was there and did a bit of q&a at 2 in the morning. Quite a treat.




Sunday I slept in Jillian was productive as usual. After I woke Jillian and ran some errands then we chilled out on the couch til the Sunday dinner.
All in all a great week end.
Much love

matty3stars

Fun times, good news and a bright future ahead

As most of you know Jillian and I have been given a great opportunity and that opportunity comes in the form of a new house. After 10 months of many ups and downs of this short sale we finally took ownership not possession though, we don't get to move in until the July. Due to the owner needing to stay there to figure out their next accommodations. Other than that little snafoo Jillian and I are very very excited and are looking forward to moving in, painting and doing some touch ups to the place. 

Other than that ginormous thing we have been hanging out with friends and family every opportunity we get. Personally I have been skating as much as I can, sketching, loving work and still trying to be rad not successfully though.

Jillian has been working her but off and has been trying to see her new nephew as much as possible. 

Our plates are very busy at the moment, but it is how we like it. 

Just to give an adoption update Jillian and I will be putting in our application as soon as we move into our new place. Because when adopting your house needs to be certified for the adoption as well and as much as we like being busy we don't like it enough to do that twice.

Also so a shout out to Kevin and Christy who had their second wedding anniversary on Monday. Yay 2 years down only forever to go.

Here is refresher pic a of our new place..