shirley and tim

in one month, we're going to cancun! it was a last minute thing. randomly last week, tim started looking at vacation deals in the caribbean, but nothing was that cheap, so he switched to mexico. he found a good deal at the westin in cancun, which is convenient for his starwood gold membership... and then he found a first-class plane ticket for 60K miles. not bad, right?

then thursday he messaged me online saying that the 60K miles was only for 1 person, and searching for 2 ppl made the ticket unavailable. he wanted to book it for 1 person and then try for the other ticket. i told him not to do it, b/c the second one would be more expensive, but i was too late -- he'd already booked the first ticket.

what ended up happening was that he booked himself a first-class ticket for 60K miles. and then my ticket cost 85K miles... and it's only first-class on the way back! it would've cost 100K miles for all-first-class, but 100K miles is steep, and plus, i didn't even have that many available. the flights are jam packed, probably b/c they flank valentine's day; even though the first class seats are mostly available, there are only a few open coach seats each way.

so, i'll be 'tim' sitting first class the entire trip, and he'll be 'shirley' sitting coach on the way there and first class on the way back. :p i'm not particularly thrilled about it, but once the first ticket was booked, we were stuck. we're only going saturday through tuesday, but i've never been there, and it'll be nice to take a little trip! i'm excited. :)

we had bailey spayed on friday. i'm not sure what kind of anesthesia they used, since her belly was shaved for the surgery, but no other part of her was shaved for an IV... hmmm.

we met at the vet to pick her up, and when they brought her out of the recovery area she didn't look very happy, despite the wagging tail. she kept her head down the whole time, as if she were mad at us. :p after inspecting the surgical wound, we were both surprised that her incision was a vertical 2 inches held together w/ only 2 stitches! nice.

she was sent home w/ 4 days of a "pain medication" which upon googling was just an NSAID like motrin. the first evening she softly whined sporadically, and whined more fiercely when shifting positions. she also eyed us as we ate dinner, but she didn't do her usual begging. in fact, she didn't even bother to move from her position on the blanket. we thought it was due to pain and post-anesthesia grogginess and nausea.

then yesterday morning as she was trying to get out of her crate there was whining, followed by terrified squealing, followed by a pitiful howl. i thought she'd caught a part of herself on her crate, but tim said it was all from her trying to bounce up from lying on her side. he was like a doting dad, all "poor bailey" and gently petting her head. but after she took her NSAID she was fine, and ever since then she has been her usual jumping self.

compare that to a human after abdominal surgery? dogs do way better.

i'd been looking for new knee-high boots, and i finally got them!

around thanksgiving 2008, i found boots i liked (stuart weitzman prance) but wasn't 100% sold on them... and they weren't on sale. i continued to try on boot after boot after boot, but none of them caught my eye and felt as easy to walk in as the prance boots. over the holidays i continued looking both in CA and in MI. by that time i'd decided i wanted to try it on in a size 6 again, but none of the stores had them in that size. not even the stuart weitzman stores, which sucked b/c they were half-off! :(

i looked online for them, but i couldn't find any in my size! i was annoyed but decided to just get a different pair. i never did though, since i just didn't looove any others. (btw, i can't find the prance boots anywhere online now.)

well, around thanksgiving (again), i discovered stuart weitzman streamline boots, but again there was a problem. they sold out of size 6, so i had to try on the size 7. the sales lady said she could order a size 6 and ship it right to me, but i was like... no i like to try on the actual shoes and make sure they fit just right before buying. so we went to neiman marcus and saks fifth avenue, and both had them in larger sizes. i even looked online at zappos and they also didn't have my size!

over the holidays we tried again. first stuart weitzman -- no sale. saks fifth avenue -- not on the sale rack, and not on the stuart weitzman rack. but then i saw a familiar black boot on a 30% off table, and there it was, size 6! i was giddy as i asked the salesman for the other half. the ankles are a tiny bit baggy, and they were still expensive, but tim was like, "just get them! you've been looking forever for boots, and even on rodeo drive none of the stores had them b/c you waited too long. and now this is their last pair of any size." i hemmed and hawed, and finally bought them!

tim says someone probably beat me to the punch before thanksgiving but then returned them. well her loss is my gain! i haven't worn them yet, but i'm excited to bust in my first pair of suede knee-high boots. :)

happy new year!

we had a great christmas in michigan. we hung out w/ family and friends, did some shopping, and ate a lot of food. one good thing about being back in michigan is that we had the opportunity to eat at all the old regulars. we even had dimsum w/ tim's parents at shangri-la on christmas eve, which was nice b/c as much as we like dimsum, tim's dad isn't the biggest fan. believe it or not, we actually tried to have dimsum again on christmas w/ cheryl at jade tiki, but when we got there we found out that they no longer offer it! big fat boo for that.

we celebrated tim's birthday w/ his family at shiraz, had drinks w/ chris & salina afterwards... and then had more drinks at champps w/ cheryl, grace & dave. tim is now 34 years old! he kept saying his age and commenting on how old he is. it does seem weird that he's 34 now. it's even weirder to think that he was 26 when we first started dating!

we walked around umich's campus, and it was interesting to see what had changed and what was still the same after so long. we scouted out all the apparel stores there in hopes of finding me some new hoodies, and we scored! i got 2 of them at moe's. the thing is, they are sooo long that they end on my thigh. not upper thigh, but mid-thigh, and probably more like lower thigh... but they fit fine, and they're made by adidas so tim approved. haha.

on new year's eve we met up w/ teddy & heannie in D.C. at this restaurant the lafayette. it's in the hay-adams which is known for the view of the white house, but 1) it was so dark outside that i couldn't see anything anyway, and 2) all the windows were covered w/ wreaths or smthg on the outside. even though prices were expectedly jacked way up for the special occasion, the food was amazing and totally worth it.

w/ every new year i always feel like the last year flew by, and 2009 was no different. it was full of adventure and changes, but all were good. we also did a lot of traveling. it's funny but i blogged last january that 2009 wasn't going to have as much traveling as 2008, but we actually traveled more. we had a fantastic 2009... here's to a wonderful 2010. *cheers*