Too many errands and chores ate up my Sunday and made me a lazy blogger.  In lieu of updating you with anything that happened this weekend, I’ll talk about something far more important: hot dogs.

Ever since he had his first hot dog with cream cheese from Dante’s Inferno Dogs at the Ballard Farmer’s Market last month, Mike has been obsessed with them.  Obsessed.  We now have hot dogs and cream cheese sitting in our refrigerator in bulk in case a craving strikes when he’s at home.  So last weekend when Ben was in town, we obviously had to share the joy.

Ben, who is not a fan of cream cheese in general, was suspicious of Mike’s enthusiasm, but he bravely agreed to try it out.  I think he just wanted to see the cream cheese gun in action.

Yeah, they use a caulk gun for cream cheese delivery.  It’s pretty awesome.

You see how excited Mike is about the stupid hot dog?

Ben gives good face.

Chicken sausage + carmelized onions + ketchup + cream cheese = Mike’s moment of food bliss.

Ben wasn’t as enthusiastic as Mike, but he did admit it was a lot better than he expected.  For a cream cheese hater that’s pretty good.  Maybe one day I’ll get over my hot dog phobia and try one…  but probably not.

Ben came and visited us this weekend!  Since Ben used to live with us back in Anaheim, having him around really made it feel like we were back at home.

We did a lot, thanks to some fantastic weather- ate some awesome meals, caught up with some old friends and wandered around in the sunshine.  Ben is one of the owners of Hibbleton, a really fantastic art gallery back home that he runs with some friends (Mike’s brother Tony is one of the Hibbleton honchos too), so we made sure to make time to check out the SAM (Seattle Art Museum) while he was here.

The SAM was better than I expected.  They had a nice mix of modern and more classical pieces, but mostly I was surprised at how much I liked the featured exhibit.  Based on the name, I had kind of written it off.

If you have a chance, definitely check it out.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get to take many pictures thanks to the standard museum “no-photo” rule.  Boo.  Luckily for us, the most entertaining thing we found in the entire museum wasn’t part of any official collection and therefore could be photographed freely.

As you leave the museum, you walk by a tiny room dedicated to the SAM’s 75th birthday.  They have some pictures of the museum over time and some notes about some of its greatest exhibits.  Standard stuff.  But then we struck gold- in the middle of the room was a guest book where people could sign their name and wish the SAM a happy birthday.  Some people simply signed while otheres wrote deep philosophical notes about the nature of art itself.

And then there were these random ass entries:

Obviously some kid who really likes Transformers wandered away from a tour group.  I love this kid.

Awesome.

No words.

Day = made.

Ironically, my very busy Saturday began with me flaking out on plans I had made with my friend and business partner, Anne.  We had planned on making an early morning trip to the Huntington Beach Swap Meet, but my late night discovery of Castle Crashers led to me making a groggy phone call at 7:30 AM to tell her that I wouldn’t be making it.  Thankfully, Anne sounded just as sleepy as me due to her (in)famous insomnia.  We made plans to meet up later and I immediately went back to sleep.

Eventually I woke up though and indulged in some retail therapy with my mom.  In a mere 2 hours, we successfully navigated through Nordstroms (yay triple rewards points weekend!) and were able to find a super cute dress for her to wear to a Quinceanera that afternoon.  Awww, look how adorable my mom is:

Ugh, and look how awesome those boots are in the background.  ::sigh::

After my mom found her dress, I scored the world’s greatest cardigan and then made my way to my old workplace, where I showed up just in time to join my two favorite scrub techs for an awesome sushi lunch at Fish in a Bottle in Placentia.

Evidently, everybody wants to be a knitwear model now:

(Sadly, besides demonstrating how well Kris can pose for the camera, this photo also captures some of Warren’s last minutes with his iPhone.  On the way to the restaurant, Warren left his phone on top of his car and drove off.  Needless to say, the iPhone didn’t survive the accident.  I am trying to convince him that it’s a sign that he should become an early adopter of the new Android phone.)

Even though he was sad about his phone, Warren still entertained me during lunch:

After lunch, we said good-bye and took self portraits:

Best way to top off a good meal.

After leaving POMC, I met Mike at the frat house, where Ben and An were engaged in a serious game

An, in his signature shirtless modus operandi…

Ben, wearing the best shirt ever (it reads “McCain is Insane”).

After all that excercise, Ben proceded to eat more cake than I’ve ever seen anybody eat all at once, ever:

Just before I left, Jimmy came home, and I made him model the hat that I knit for Tony.  Seriously, I am so lucky to have such a wealth of professional models:

Isn’t my baby brother in law adorable?

After spending most of the day with boys, I needed some estrogen, so I met up with Anne and another knitting friend, Kim, for a 100% vegetarian dinner at Happy Veggie Garden in Rowland Heights.  Dinner was good, but dessert was even better- crepes at Genki Living!

Anne and Kim seemed a little overwhelmed when it came to deciding what to put in their crepes:

I immediately went for Nutella, ice cream, strawberries and Japanese cheesecake (which, I found out, is way better than regular cheesecake.  I am tempted to try and make one of these at home).

A good end to a good day.

Sunday summary coming tomorrow.  I promise it won’t be as long.

(Disclaimer: I hate picture-less posts, but this is one.  I suck.)

This weekend was quickly devoured by a last-minute trip to Orange County.  It was a bit hectic, but even a hectic trip that involves seeing some of my favorite people in the world is one of my favorite ways to spend a weekend.

Since everything was so last minute, there were a couple things that I didn’t end up accomplishing.  I had planned on spending most of Friday baking some goodies for a bake sale organized by the Capitol Hill Knitting Group here in Seattle to benefit the Obama Campaign, but packing and cleaning devoured my day and I ended up just donating napkins and trashbags.  Definately not as delicious, but useful nonetheless.  (For those wondering, the bake sale was a success!  The group raised over $400!)

The trip didn’t start off great.  We had different flights on different airlines: Mike was flying on Virgin America while I was on Southwest.  Needless to say, I was jealous.  It turned out that I didn’t need to be though, because his flight ended up getting delayed over an hour AND the RED system crashed as soon as the plane took off, so he didn’t even get to take advantage of the free TV, movies and games.  Boo.

Eventually, he landed, we met up, and our friend Justin was kind enough to pick us up, even though we had flown into LAX at 11:30 PM.  Thank you Justin!  We can’t wait til you come up to visit in a few weeks!

Even though we were tired, we decided to stop by our old house to say hi to our friends/best tenants ever, Derek, Ben and Jimmy, who share the house along with Justin.  Seriously, our house could not be left in better hands.  What was supposed to be a quick hello turned into us staying til 1:30 AM playing Castle Crashers with Ben.  If you have XBox Live, you should download this immediately.  Pure cartoon-y princess-saving bliss.

Eventually though, we were completely exhausted, so we headed to my parents’ house, where we stayed for the weekend, and passed out immediately.  It was a tiring but entertaining start to an equally exhausting but good-to-be-home trip.  I’ll continue with more entertaining recaps of Saturday and Sunday tomorrow, when I’m a bit more well-rested.