9 Drinks and 2 Shots Later

......because that's how every good story starts!  ;)

 

Friday evening was my firm's holiday party. Since they cut out most of the fun alcohol at the actual party, it was a requirement to have both a pre-party AND an after-party, both of which had an excellent group of people. And the end of the night definitely left all of us calling for a ride home. That greasy cheeseburger and fries Saturday though......mmmmmmm.

 

 

 

 

 

Paint 'n Sip

This week has been crazy hectic. At home, we are training the puppy. At work, the post-trial madness is in full swing. In addition to the post-trial stuff, I had another shareholder request that I be his paralegal. So that now makes four shareholders and a few associates. Needless to say, I'm not at all concerned about that billable hour requirement anymore. Whew!

 

Last night, a group of us ladies from work headed out to do a paint 'n sip to celebrate a birthday. Some had done this before, but I never had. I like to think I'm somewhat artistic, simply because of my love of scrapbooking. But painting is totally different. I'm more of structured "artist", versus freestyle - hence my dream house that I designed many moons ago when I wanted to be an architect. But I thought, hey, this is beginner painting....can't be all that hard, right? We all met up for drinks and appetizers beforehand, and it was a fun night!

 

The first thing we did was prime the canvas. This simply involved taking the large paint brush and lightly brushing water all over the canvas.

 

 

The next step was to prepare our outline. We did this with yellow paint. We were using acrylic paint, which dries in a couple of minutes and allows you to paint over it with any color.

 

 

Brenda and me creating our masterpieces.

 

 

Some of our group.

 

 

 My finished product. The instructor used some strange color combinations, which didn't impress me, but hey, it was all about having fun and we sure accomplished that!

 

 

Our full group!

 

I Sure Love These Little People

The last few weeks have really, REALLY limited my time with my kids. I have missed them so much. Now that trial is over, they keep asking me what we are going to do. Is it lame that I just want to hang out with them, cuddled up on the couch? And I certainly need to measure them from head to toe because I swear they have each grown six inches.

Victory

We turned our case over to the jury Thursday evening and got a call late yesterday afternoon that the jury had reached a verdict. We ended up winning on four of five counts, which is a great success.  I'm so happy that the attorneys and I were able to pull this in for the clients.  However, after putting in two 80 hour weeks in a row and obliterating the monthly billable hour requirement, I'm pretty much taking the rest of the month off to get back into a normal life routine again.

Smelling the Color 9

 

Does that sound like the statement of a delirious person?

 

When your boss asks you to come in for two hours on a Sunday, run. Don't believe it. Just RUN. I was at work until 2:00 this morning, got home at 2:30, set the alarm for 5:30, and was back to the office at 7:00 this morning. I say it again:  screw this trial. 

I also remind myself:  OVERTIME.

On Top Of The World

 

 

As part of a donation I made through my work to LLS (http://www.lls.org/), I got to tour the penthouse and deck of the spire today, which was really cool! I work in the tallest building in the state of Idaho, the Zions Bank building, downtown Boise. It's brand new and pretty dang fancy! I love being in the heart of downtown. The penthouse offers some spectacular views of the entire valley, but the spire deck (19 stories up) takes the cake. It's quite the hike up a very tall ladder, through a roof hatch. But well worth it! The rep for The Gardner Company really gave us some great information about not only our building, but the surrounding construction projects, including the J.U.M.P. and the transit station. And quite possibly some insider information not yet known to the Treasure Valley. As part of the construction downtown, there will soon be the largest crane in North America. Here in Boise! And due to that, the U.S. Bank building will not have the ever-present Christmas tree atop the building this holiday season. The crane will be so tall, it will swing over the top of the U.S. Bank building, thus not allowing the Christmas tree. It's planned to only be a one year absence, but dang I will miss that tree! Apparently there is something in the works to distract the general public from the missing tree.....I guess we'll see what they come up with!

 

 

 

 

When I took this shot, I leaned out over the wall. One of the ladies on the tour was freaking out, wanting me to step back. Lady, 19 stories up is nothing once you stand on the top observation deck of the Empire State Building. Settle down.

 

 

 

My firm takes up the entire 13th floor, so we are fairly used to these views. But there is something special about standing up in the open air, taking it all in.

 

 

Looking up at the spire. We got to see the hatch where they can adjust the lighting for decorative purposes.

 

 

Work Summer Party

Last night was my firm's summer party. They rented out the zoo, after hours, and we had a great private party with dinner, ice cream, and animal interactions. It was a great evening with lots of kids for Carter and Kendall to play with.

 

 

 

 

One of the animal encounters was feeding the giraffes. Carter was all over this!

 

 

 

 

 

My Aunt Brenda wanted to kidnap the giraffe and take him home. She was warned that there was no petting allowed and I'm shocked she didn't try to sneak in a cuddle!

 

 

 

 

 

I held Kendall, but she wanted nothing to do with the giraffe, which didn't surprise me. If it's not a dog or a cat, she's really quite scared.

 

 

Another animal encounter was petting a baby skunk and a snake. Again, Carter was all over this.

 

 

 

 

Go figure - she'll pet a skunk. Maybe it's a size issue?

 

 

And she touched the snake, too.

 

 

 

 

Carter was doing rapid-fire with the questions about snakes. The lady could hardly keep up with him. I guess all of our reading in the science books is paying off!

 

 

 

 

We walked by Mr. Fox so many times throughout the evening - he always looked to cuddly. I wanted to take him home!

 

 

As we roamed throughout the evening, the later it got, the more vocal the male lion became. According to the employees, he does this nightly as a way to claim his territory. Not that there is much to claim in that "habitat", but his instincts still run through his blood. It was the most eerie noise. So noted, Mr. Lion, it's all yours! Watch the video here:  http://youtu.be/5jwF6T3UzXk  You could hear it all the way across the zoo, so I'm not kidding when I say that standing right there, it was LOUD.