I just realized that I never blogged about the pie-stravaganza a few weeks ago.  Considering how much I talked about it beforehand, and how much shit I talked on facebook the day of, I am kind of surprised that I haven’t posted pictures yet.  But here they are.

If you have no idea what I’m talking about, I’ll backtrack.  A couple of months ago Barrie decided that it would be an awesome idea to have a pie contest.  So five minutes later, she sent out a mass email detailing rules, judging criteria, entry fees, prize structures and location.  The stage was set.  The pie contest was born.

I signed up to bake.  Now, I don’t claim to be a good baker.  In fact, while I love to cook, I fully recognize that I am rather poor at baking.  For one, it’s too exact.  You have to measure things and think about chemical reactions and lots of other crappy details.  The other issue is the CONSUMPTION of the finished products.  I love dessert.  I have a huge sweet tooth and a distinct lack of self-control.  I am not the kind of person who can eat half a piece of some awesome cake and say, “hmmm…  I think that was enough for now” and put the rest in the fridge.  I am more of the “holy crap this is delicious and I want to put it in my mouth NOW” personality type.  And since Mike DOESN’T have a distinct sweet tooth, if I started baking a lot, we would end up with a massive excess of pastries and those pastries would end up in my belly.  And ON my belly. And my ass.  You get the idea.

But since it was a contest, and I had never actually had an excuse to attempt a pie crust before, I signed up to bake.  And I signed Mike up to judge.  Because while he doesn’t really like pie, he DOES like to judge things.  (This explains why we spend so much time watching dance-themed reality tv competitions.)

The contest was held at a bakery here in Seattle called Curio Confections.  If you live in Seattle and haven’t been here, you need to go now.  If is THE cutest bakery in the world- it’s cute, it’s quaint, it serves a rotating menu of mouth-watering cakes, candies, pies, tarts and cookies, plus a sprinkling of savory options like quiches and pot pies, and they have wine.  Sugar AND wine- is there anything better?

But we didn’t come to eat THEIR pie.  We came to eat OUR pie.  (But we did drink their wine.)

First, Barrie greeted us.

Actually that’s not a picture of Barrie greeting us.  I don’t know what the hell she’s doing in this picture.  I took this picture sometime after she realized that her boyfriend Dominic hadn’t remembered to bring the pie prizes and Mike volunteered to drive him to retrieve said valuables.  I later found out that they stopped at Taco Bell on the way back to the bakery.  Who decides they need a chicken soft taco before they have to go eat 12 pieces of pie?  My husband does.

Once they got back, the judging began.

This was my pie.  Apple and Peanut Butter- it tasted really good (I thought), but let’s just say that I definitely lost points for presentation.  Honestly, it’s a miracle that I even finished the pie in time and in one piece.  Basically, my ugly-on-the-outside-but-yummy-on-the-inside pie had a really, really nice personality.

I didn’t place, but I didn’t have very high hopes.  I mean, look at what some of the other entrants turned out:

Now those are pies.

This shot features the winner right in the middle- amazing, melt-in-your-mouth delicious peanut butter mousse tartlettes.  Seriously, these were so good that I continue to dream of them.

The judging was intense.

Okay, so the only person who thought that the judging was intense was Mike, who, in hopes that the judging sheets would be given to the entrants after the contest (so that everybody could learn from their mistakes), decided to write a 250 word essay about each pie.  He took so long and go so into it that Barrie had to eventually tell him to hurry the eff up because the bakery was about to close.  Like I said, he really was hoping to “help” each contestant.  ::eye roll::

While the judging went on, Ange and I discussed our baking technique.  Or talked about knitting.  Or just gossiped.  Whatever.

But eventually, the winner was announced.  Yay Mary Jane!  And yay for the picture that looks like Barrie is copping a feel!

ps- not only is Mary Jane an AMAZING baker, she is also my mom-hero.  Seriously, if I ever have kids I hope that I am half as awesome as she is.  Plus she is a ridiculously fast knitter.  I am jealous on many levels.

And this is what I look like after having pie and wine for dinner:

Thank you Barrie for organizing the best pie contest EVAH.

Since moving to Seattle, I have been incredibly lucky to have met an amazing group of friends through my local knitting group.  Somehow, the stars lined up in just the right way that the six of us (there are others who come, but Barrie, Brooke, Ange, Kate, and Rita make up the core of the group) really bonded within a few months of meeting each other.  So just like in any relationship, this past weekend we took it to the next level- we pooled together and rented a house in Port Orchard, WA for our first weekend getaway.

Well, it wasn’t just us- we decided to let our significant others come too.  This is partially because Brooke’s husband Shaun is an awesome cook, partially because it’s good to have people around who can lift and fix things, and partially because the boys have all met and actually get along with each other.

Overall, it was three wonderful days of delicious food, really fantastic friends, lots of laughing and a chance to knit in the middle of the day and not feel like a lazy ass.  Here are some pictures, courtesy of Rita, our resident photographer.

It was a gorgeous, sunny weekend and we had a great view of Mt. Ranier from our porch:

There was also a trampoline, which Rita put to use.  She really would have loved our house back in Orange:

Brooke and I did not partake in the trampoline festivities.  Instead, we actually got some knitting done:

Appropriately, the house had sheep on the property!

There was also one overly friendly goat.  I won’t get into details, but when I went to go pet the animals one afternoon, we had a special moment that involved his head between my legs.

Unfortunately, Mike spent most of Friday working.  At least Rita got a really awesome picture of him out of it:

Max and Kate have been married for about a month now.  Max is obviously being domesticated nicely:

On Friday, Shaun made an amazing BBQ spread for dinner.  We feasted on pulled pork and baked beans, followed by Rita’s ridiculous chocolate lava cakes.  Mmmmm….

On Saturday, I tried my hand at feeding everybody.  I bet you can guess the cuisine by looking at the condiments:

I slaved away over dinner while listening to Mike discuss the the different kinds of hotness that female celebrities fall into.

Rita was my sous chef and prepped the veggies and herbs and rolled the salad rolls, which turned out way prettier than she gives herself credit for.

The food seemed to go over pretty well- we had Chicken Sweet Potato Curry (this is probably the best dish I make), Salad rolls, Bo Luc Lac/Shaken Beef (this one needed work, which is sad because it’s one of Mike’s favorite foods ever) and a “fusion fried rice.”  (I’m calling it “fusion” because I had left the Chinese sausages at home and used some of Shuan’s leftover pulled pork instead.  Improvisation is an important skill in the kitchen.)  We also had Mango Sticky Rice and some of Rita’s amazing Chocolate Hazlenut cookies for dessert.

After dinner, we had to make room for dessert, so we went for a walk:

Brooke pointed out some strange berries, which Shaun convinced us weren’t poisonous.  Even though I was nervous, they both said they were delicious, so I tried them.  I’m not dead yet, but I still have no idea what I ate.

I’m just including this last picture because it’s an elusive image of Mike and I together, even if he is facing the other direction and I look like I’m about 9 years old:

It was a good weekend.

So it’s been a week since I last updated.  I feel incredibly guilty about it, but I have two good reasons for hiding away in a little hole.

1. Per usual, I’ve been busy.  Ok, so that’s kind of a crappy excuse- everybody’s busy.  Fail.
2. On Wednesday, I got my hair did, and I’m not completely in love with the results, so I’ve been hesitant to post.  Yes, dear readers, I live in fear of being judged, not just by people I see every day, but by my friends and family who read my effing blog.  (This counts as a double fail.)

But this past Saturday, something happened that was definitely worthy of me climbing out of my hole and blogging about- our friends Kate and Max got married!

Yay!

I met Kate through the incredibly awesome Queen Anne Knitting Group.  (Yeah, we don’t have a better name than that.)  Kate is the baby of the group, but you’d never know from looking at her incredibly speedy, incredibly meticulous knitting.  We quickly discovered that we quickly shared more in common than just knitting- we both have significant others who are obsessed with cars.  Thus, Mike and I hung out with Kate and her fiance Max, and we had couple friends!  Victory!

Their first “official” kiss.  Awwww!

After the ceremony, we ate.  I’m bummed that nobody took pictures of the cheese platter, which accounted for probably 50% of my food intake that day.  So yummy!

And then we reception-ed it up.

Me, Rita, and the infamous orange hair.  I wanted something lighter, but I’m thinking it’s too orange.  I’m also thinking that my obsession with the color orange is getting a little extreme.

Um, in typical Aubrey fashion, I developed some fantastic blisters a few days before the wedding.  Mike took this particularly flattering detail shot.

I love, love, love this picture- Mike is smiling!  But I’m super sad that it’s so shadowy and dark.  Too bad I don’t have a husband with awesome Photoshop skills who could happily and easily fix this for me.

How awesome is this photo?  I really just love the way we’re standing- it looks very Vanity Fair-esque to me.  Sadly, Barrie is missing from this photo because she was hiking through the desert in Moab that day and couldn’t make it to the wedding.  It’s okay though, we’re plotting to photoshop Barrie and Dominic in at a later date.  We just need to find a picture of Barrie simultaneously flipping off the camer and eating an apple to make it authentic.  It shouldn’t be that hard to find a picture of exactly that.

Ok, I have to go and shampoo some gradual coloring stuff into my hair now.  I’ll update again, with much less lag time.  I promise.

While I was in Boise, the super-fantastic-thank-god-i-found-them Queen Anne knitting group had a significant-other friendly get together at Brooke’s house.  I am deeply grateful for having found this awesome group of girls- I think you’ll see why in a minute.  I was deeply bummed that I had to be out of town and was going to miss the event.  Mike has actually met a few of the girls’ boyfriends/husbands/fiances, usually on a one-on-one basis, and actually has enjoyed their company, so in my head, this get-together was going to be the moment when we actually made a bunch of couple friends and all of my dreams came true.

However, once I found out that I wasn’t going to be able to come, my dreams were pretty much dashed.  If I wasn’t going, I wouldn’t be able to physically drag him anywhere, so I knew he wasn’t going to go and meet his new best friends.

But this is where I am reminded how awesome the girls of the Queen Anne knitting group are.  Barrie, ever the obsessive planner, started emailling Mike early in the day harassing him to come sans me.  Kate and her fiance Max joined in on the inviting action and even brought some cookies so that he could say he was contributing to the potluck.  (In case Kate or Max are reading this, what were those cookies?  He keeps talking about them because they were so good but doesn’t remember what they were.)  When I found out that he had been successfully forced into socializing, Rita even secretly took pictures of him enjoying himself for me!

Score!

Mike actually said he enjoyed himself- evidently the boys had some heated, fascinating discussion about knitting (hate), poop (love) and the movie Big Trouble in Little China, which I’ve never seen but Mike immediately put back on our Netflix queue and is now officially declaring “the greatest movie ever.”

All in all, this made me smile.  Yay Mike.  Yay knitting group!

I was really excited about sleeping in today.  That didn’t happen.  This happened instead:

The Urban Craft Uprising is an annual Craft Fair here in Seattle.  As anybody who has ever read this blog knows, I am a craft enthusiast.  I knit obsessively and I like to think about other crafts.  Few of those ever actually come to fruition, but the time I spend knitting definitely puts me in the “oddly preoccupied” category of crafting.

I was originally planning to mosey in this afternoon, but everybody in my knitting group kept talking about these amazing swag bags that the first 100 people who came to the fair would receive.  This intrigued me, but so did the idea of sleeping til 9.  I was torn.  When my eyes first opened at 8:00 am, I laid in bed for 15 minutes seriously debating whether my laziness or cheapness would win out.

Ultimately, my cheapness prevailed, so I blearily got up, wrapped myself in about 8 layers of clothing (besides getting dark here, it’s getting cold) and texted my friend Rita to tell her that I would indeed be joining the swag squad.  Ange, Brook and Kate joined us shortly after we arrived, and we sat there, knitting and having a ridiculously estrogen fueled conversation (topics included love/hate of babies and engagment ring settings) for almost 2 hours.  Not only were we the nerds who waited in line for the promise of free stuff, but we were the nerds who were ridiculously close to the front of the line for the promise of free stuff.

The bags were hit or miss- mine was middling and Rita’s was blah, but Ange scored a hand-screened shirt that sold for $50!  I don’t know if the bag was worth the wait, but hanging out with awesome knitters validated giving up extra sleep.

The craft fair itself was pretty entertaining.  I bought a Christmas present for my bff and a book of postcards to start decorating my cubicle (I’m a sucker for anything monster or robot related).  I also got some good ideas for Christmas presents, but I’ll hit up Etsy.com for most of the actual purchases.

I did take photos (albeit crappy iPhone photos) of some of my favorite booths though:

I will never be too old to admire a good tutu.

A tasteful platter of tiaras by glamscience.

Prints by Berkley Illustration- my friend Barrie bought several of these bad boys.

Monster hats!  (I can’t remember who makes these- I’ll update if I find out)

And Tasty Pasties.  No comment necessary.

I usually spend Thursday nights sitting in El Diablo Coffee Company with the Queen Anne Knitter’s Group doing what normal knitting groups do- namely, we sit, we knit, we talk, we eat, we drink.  Last night was a little different though.  We did sit, and knit, and talk, and eat, and drink, but in a slightly different location.

I’ve said this before, but when I found out about the debut party for Baconnaise, I sent it to my friend Barrie as a joke because of our mutual hatred of mayo.  But Barrie, who is obviously not as squeamish as me, and is the queen of organizing events and outings, immediately posted it on our knitting group’s message board and turned it into a group outing.  Not one to want to feel left out, I went along

It was definitely an interesting experience.  We didn’t actually stick around to watch the wrestling in mayo main event (we decided we were all a little too old and sober to sit through the opening acts), but we did get to take in some interesting sights:

As soon as we arrived at the venue, we realized it was a real Bacon-fest:

The featured drink of the night was a Mitch Morgan.  Yes, that is a real slice of bacon in the drink.

In addition to drinks, there was a BLT bar

There was this guy, whose job was basically to hang out wearing a bacon costume.

We whipped out our knitting while we waited for the wrestling to start.

Barrie modeled Ange’s Fetching gauntlets.

We didn’t manage to stay around to watch any mayo wrestling, (which I was secretly thankful for), but I don’t think they had much of a problem keeping a crowd:

I did get to snap a picture of the wrestling pit, pre-mayo:

And I managed to make it out of there with plenty of bacon-themed swag:

Ironically, when I got home, Mike had a craving for brinner (breakfast-for-dinner).  So what did I do?

I made bacon.

Awww, my dear friend Anne just posted this on her blog, and I have honestly never felt more loved by my friends than I do right now.

And strangely enough, I did wake up with a headache last Sunday morning.

It is no great surprise that I am not the most kid-friendly person in the world. I’m not necessarily opposed to procreation, but it’s just not something that I get all squishy about inside. Pregnancy seems rather involved to me. Babies don’t talk enough for my taste. Watching Jon and Kate Plus 8 just makes me anxious.

However, there are exceptions to every rule. My friends Zona and Jeff have a 5 year old daughter named Gigi and Mike and I ADORE her. She is everything awesome about little girls- she dresses up in costumes to go to the grocery store, she blames her imaginary friends when she gets in trouble, and her favorite word is “fancy.” So awesome.

Plus, she does stuff like this:

Love.

Congratulations, Zona and Jeff, on your new home! I’m jealous that you are already unpacked and I can’t wait to come back and visit you again!

My robotectomy, or “arm removal,” as my bff Mary calls it, was definitely the highlight of my trip back to Orange County this weekend, but I also was lucky enough to be able to see some of my favorite people back home.

On Wednesday, I hung out with my knitters, including Robert, aka Snarky Snark Snark:

I love all the knitters, but for some reason I only got a picture with Robert that night. Maybe it was because he gave me a present. I love presents.

On Friday, Mike and I had lunch with Mike’s Mom and I visited my favorite ex-coworkers.

Nancy (who smiles a lot):

warren (who hates pictures):

and Kris (these are the worst pictures I’ve ever seen of Kris. But I’d have better pictures of him if he’d put down his stupid Sidekick):

I also got to hang out with Mary, Derrick and Josie on Saturday. We had a loser-tastic Saturday night that consisted of watching the John Edwards interview Mary had Tivo-ed, ordering in Chinese rood and watching the Olympics (get it?):

And of course, I spent plenty of time with two of my favorite people ever, my parents:

You can see how happy my dad was to see me again:

I saw a bunch of other people I totally dig too this weekend, but these are the people I got pictures of. The rest of you will just have to come visit me if you want to make the blog