The Week Before Christmas

Welp, good afternoon friends- I haven't posted since the 15th and so much has happened since then. I've just been a busy bee, buying and wrapping Christmas presents and dancing in Snowflake Lane every night, but here's my last week in Seattle at a glance, along with how South Beach went:

Monday: Saw The Hobbit after Snowflake Lane. Had eggs, almonds, and Greek yogurt in the morning and had Starbucks Bistro boxes for dinner.

Nevermind the fact that these two boxes were $13 total...

Tuesday: Co-Hosted a Dinner Detective show, ate the chicken and artichoke hearts they served us (avoiding the bed of rice and cranberries), along with salad and blue cheese, and candied pecans. Then caved when I saw the beautiful dessert plate the kitchen gave us as a holiday treat, and had five desserts. Yep, count 'em, 5. It was around this time when I realized that passing on the somewhat healthy thing (rice + cranberries) for the five desserts was the wrong decision. I started questioning the whole South Beach thing.

Trying to stay awake before Dinner Detective

Wednesday: Conference call in the morning for work, went to yoga, had a doctor's appointment, and visited with my future sister-in-law who stayed with us til Sunday morning. Then we went to Ruth's Chris happy hour after Snowflake Lane where I had half a burger (plus bun), no fries (victory!), and some beef kebab things. Had my first glass of red wine in a while and it was GLORIOUS.

Yo-yo-yo-yo YOGA

Thursday: More normal eating day- Saw Oliver! at the 5th Avenue Theatre, saw Anchorman 2 after Snowflake Lane, complete with half a bag of popcorn. Ate two fried eggs slathered with laughing cow cheese and sausage on top for dinner rather than getting pizza and ice cream like JW and Rachel did. It was actually really good!

Friday: SNOW! Met for Coffee with one of my Dinner Detective friends, had a lemon bar and a peppermint mocha (DELICIOUS)

Ate a salad from Panera Bread, went to Snowflake Lane where my friends finally came to see me :)

photo cred goes to my friend Sam

dancing with little kids, every night!

After the show, we went to Rock Bottom Brewery (chicken sandwich with avocado was eaten, some of the bread left off.)

Then I caved and got this dessert:

YUM.

Then we went to Purple Cafe!

Kevin, Aaron, Chelsey, Rachel

Bobby, Sam, Me, and JW

Yummy wine flight!

Saturday: Packing, packing, PACKING. Yoga in the morning, laundry simultaneously. More of a normal eating day, but then I caved at the end and bought a cheesecake and drizzled (sugar free!) hot fudge on it. haha!!

Yooooooga

Sunday:  Seahawks halftime show, Snowflake Lane, and left that night at 11:20pm!

on our way to the game!

Our view from the tunnel :)

Happy after the show!

All 60 Jingle Belles together for the last time

That night was my last performance. Sunday was a crazy day. I got into Dallas at 5am on Monday and slept until 12:30 - now I'm up and sitting next to this cutie:

Hope y'all have a great Christmas Eve Eve!

Seahawks Halftime Show

South Beach Day 8 (Sunday) was a little better, but not the greatest.

I woke up at 10am to get ready to meet at the mall at noon. Snowflake Lane is performing in the Seahawk's halftime show, and Sunday was our rehearsal day. We'll perform next week, on the 22nd!

I had my breakfast of choice: 3 Eggs.

While I waited for them to cook, I munched on some hummus and cucumbers.

Then I was off to Snowflake Lane! Unfortunately the buses were late, so we had to wait around a while, but then by 1:15 I found myself stepping onto a Big Yellow School Bus for the first time in I have no idea how many years.

Ughhhh

We arrived at CenturyLink field without a hitch.

Inside the tunnel!

It was really cold!

I'll be standing inbetween the South 30 and 35, facing the Visitor's side

It was such a cool experience. However, we had to literally RUN on and off the field 4 times (4 times on, 4 times off) which I'd have to say is at least .5 miles, if not more. My legs were killing me, and my "breakfast" wasn't exactly the best fuel.

It took FOREVER to get back to Bellevue because of the Christmas shopping rush, so I figured I'd just go to Chipotle and get a salad (with guacamole, of course) and call it a day.

I performed in Snowflake Lane that night, and promptly came home and went to sleep at 9:30. Yep. The weekend was non-stop and I just needed some rest!

PNB's The Nutcracker and White Elephant

This weekend has absolutely flown by... I can't believe it's Monday already!

South Beach Day 7 (Saturday) was a doozy. I was running around ALL. DAY. And it was also a day where we had predetermined that we were going to have to cheat some.

The morning started off pretty good, with 2 eggs. Only 2 because that's how much we had left, haha!

Then I left around 8:15 to go pick up my friends to drive to Carnation, WA for the Sweater Dash 5K with my friends Carrie and Sam. Recap is here!

I only had a few sips of this cider..

We got in the car and it took FOREVER to get back, and we hadn't had anything to eat. I had brought my chili with me to eat later, so I was fine- but we stopped at Whole Foods so they could eat. They brought me back a Non Fat Mocha (sooo sweet of them!), which I had about half of. It was sooooo good. No picture, of course.

After we dropped off Carrie, we drove to Sam's apartment to get ready for the Pacific Northwest Ballet's production of The Nutcracker. I was so stoked!! I ate my chili in a hurry while Sam was in the shower.

Old picture, but you get the gist.

We finally got ready around 1:45 and met JW and Aaron to walk over to McCaw Hall. We were cutting it pretty close - the ballet started at 2 and we left Sam's apartment around 1:50. Thankfully she lives RIGHT next to it.

Sam looking super cute in her hat!!

The boys

Thankfully we made it with about 5 minutes to spare before the ballet started!

Check out the little kid behind us, haha!

The first act was WONDERFUL. I loved it and I have to admit that I cried during Snow, at the end of the first act. The music is just so epic! Also I performed in The Nutcracker for 13 years in a row, from when I was 5 til I was 18, in my ballet studio's annual production. I never missed a year!

1994, on the far left! As a Gingerbread.

2005, as the Governess

2006, Snow Corps

During intermission, we took some pictures by the huge Christmas tree.

A nice formal picture by the tree...

Followed by silly ballet poses on the mock stage!

Awesome sculptures in the lobby

Then we sat down to enjoy the rest of the ballet. After it ended, I had to rush home and get ready for Snowflake Lane, so as soon as the curtain fell I was out of there. I was practically running to my car! There were street closures everywhere and I was really worried I would be late to Snowflake Lane. Thankfully, I wasn't! I even had enough time to quickly make a celery-hummus-laughing cow cheese snack.

Snowflake Lane went fine, as usual, so afterwards I booked it out of there and got caught behind all the holiday shoppers walking down the sidewalk - but finally pushed through so I could run to my apartment complex to get to my car, to drive back to Seattle for our White Elephant party. I arrived around 8:15.

The food options were sooo soo so wrong for South Beach, but I had to eat something because I was starving. I had a pumpkin maple cookie, two snickerdoodle cookies, a dark chocolate meringue cookie, a gingerbread cookie, some brownies... you name it, I probably ate it. I didn't have anything to drink, though, so that's good at least??

The Xmas spread (stupid camera, being blurry..)

One of the not-so-terrible gifts - a bacon kit!

"A Geek's Guide to Controlling the Universe"

And then... my gift. YEP.

Then everyone held up their gift and we took a picture. There are some questionable gifts in there, but I won't name any of them.

Silly picture!

Aaron and I got nostalgic for ballet (he used to dance, too) and decided to try the fish pose - seen here by professionals:

And our attempts:

Got it! Not as pretty, but hey, whatever.

We stayed and talked for a while, and left around 11. I had a great time - I was just exhausted from the day's activities!

My stomach really didn't feel great for the rest of the night, and neither did JW's - but thankfully it was only a few hours and one meal of bad eating and not a whole day's worth. Plus, I ran the 5K that morning so at least I worked out??

How many holiday parties have you been to this year?