Saturday, August 27, 2011

Eight Years already?!

Ok, I'm getting so behind on telling you about all of the fun stuff that we've done this summer!  So here's  a catch-up post.

For our 8th anniversary HH and I had an overnight date in Seattle.  Grandma N came and stayed with the kids.  Everyone survived (I was worried for Grandma).

It was a short date-- HH isn't one to take time off work, and we wanted to do it ON our anniversary, so we headed down after he got home.  After we checked in at The Camlin, we walked around.  Seriously fun.  We people watched, and window shopped, and I flirted, and we got samples in the food court at Westlake Center. 

I tried sushi for the first time.  A picture just after this one would have been better--when I was struggling to not throw everything back up!


HH got a crepe (from an Asian man....) with blueberries, strawberries, chocolate sauce (I think) and ice cream.  He shared with me : )


People asked us where were from.  When we told them, I'm sure they were thinking, "wow, you guys don't get out much, do you?!"  no, indeed.


We walked down to Pikes Place Market.  It was already closed, but was still interesting.  We saw a man get tackled by the police, and we were asked where a restaurant was when we were standing RIGHT UNDER the sign (but didn't know it, so we said we didn't know where it was).


Then I got hungry, but HH wasn't, so I had to decide on where to eat.  I wanted "something light" like a salad.  We went to Von's, based on good reviews.  The salad that I ended up getting was about as heavy as it comes, but still good.  Unfortunately I'd mentioned wanting the small one, and he brought me the large one, and I didn't realize it, and then we paid more for it than I wanted.  I was kinda miffed about that.  We ate out on the street, which provided more good people-watching, and it also provided a good reflective window for me to take a photo!


Walking home we admired the local art.  Incredible graffiti and a decorated car. 


Here are a lot of pictures of the car, because it was A-MAZ-ING.  Honestly.  There were a couple of other people admiring it when we were there, and I think they put money in the "gas money" bag (there was already some money in it, too).


Then HH made fun of me for taking all of the pictures, and started pointing to mundane things and saying, "oh, look, take a picture of that electrical box."  And then he pointed to a sprinkler and said, take a picture of that sprinkler...it has a leak." 

And that, friends, is something that I love about the man.  He knows so many things--I don't know how he knew that the sprinkler was leaky (maybe some of you can tell too?), but he's full of interesting things and you never know it until one day it just comes out.  Makes me wonder what else is in his head.  He's also good about noticing things like a bad crown molding job, or uneven posts.  Which is funny, because he's not aesthetic AT ALL, but he is a carpenter, so I guess that's that.

Anyhow, the Camlin was neat.  It's been renovated, but a lot of old details were kept.  Here are a couple of pictures, but my battery died at that point.


HH left early the next morning, and I went down to the gym, got cleaned up, and walked back down to Pike's Place to get goodies for the kids and flowers for my Mom.  I should have taken a picture of the bouquet, it was so so so gorgeous.  All white, with peonies and some other bell-shaped flowers that looked like paper.  And if you don't already know, there is nothing that can make you feel better than walking around with a bouquet.  Even if you are carrying around a duffle bag and are riding a public bus because your husband took the jeep to work.  People will stop to tell you how gorgeous it is, and it's really just a lift to the spirits.  I felt very elegant.  The bus ride was fun too.  Uneventful.

It was possibly our most fun anniversary, and I loved getting to spend one-on-one time with my man.  So glad I married him! (and a special thank you to Grandma N, for making it all possible!  Wouldn't have been the same with three kids in tow!).

Friday, August 26, 2011

A few more Zoo pictures








Zoo.

Yesterday we went to the zoo with some of my family.  We had fun.  The highlights were: the company, seeing Ocelots in person (we've been doing a little bit of studying about them), playful Meercats and Otters, and the Snow Leopard (who was quite frankly a bit of a show off).

The zoo is having a photo contest for their calendar-- the winning picture will be featured on the cover of the calendar, and the winner will get $50 zoobucks and a year membership.  I don't have a membership and would LOVE to win, but there were some really impressive looking cameras & tripods, and photographers who didn't have kids hanging on them or hurrying them on to the next exhibit.  {sigh}

But it doesn't hurt to enter, so here are my best pictures from yesterday.  Please tell me which you'd pick if you were to submit one of these.  I find it helpful to hear other opinions.  If there's a "why" behind your answer that would be helpful too.









These other pictures are just other pictures from the day.


 



Other random tidbits from the day:
Monkey's hairclip fell into a turtle pond...she's still telling me that she wants her purple hairclip back.  {sigh, again}.

Moose liked the snakes.  He liked everything that he was able to see, but he took a nap and was in the stroller for a lot of the time.  It's fun that he's getting old enough to experience it with us, though.


Thanks, J and M for taking us! 

Saturday, August 20, 2011

Wedding Reception turned Photo Session

My neice, Emily, got married in June.  Thankfully she had a very pretty location for the reception, and I ended up taking a million photos (not much of an exaggeration) of my girls.  Here are some:

Doesn't Em look lovely?! 
Her husband is rather a hottie too {can I say that?},
so their pictures look like they came from the store in the frame & no one put in an actual picture)








Sugar and Spice. Oh, how I love them.




Thursday, August 18, 2011

Bonjour, Butterfly!

Earlier this summer we got some butterfly larvae and got to watch them grow.  It was really fascinating.  If you haven't ever done it, then you should.  I look forward to the next time.
This first picture is after four of them had become chrysalides, and the fifth (far left) was hanging in place but hadn't shed his caterpillar skin yet.  That fifth guy was funny-- he was about a day behind the others, and he just kept crawling around them and bumping into them (trying to eat them? who knows) and then they'd shake shake shake to try to get him away.  I'm pretty sure they were cursing him inside their chrysalides.

Here is a link to a really great video of the changing process.  It's FASCINATING.  I watched it happen a couple of times, and HH got to watch once.  I woke the girls up to let them see the last one (they'd missed the others), but they could barely keep their eyes open so I sent them off to bed again. 20 minutes later I noticed Monkey asleep in the hallway. 


I got to see two emerge as butterflies, and this time the girls got to see it happen (but I think HH missed them all).  I lucked out to get to see both processes, maybe, since each occurance takes just a couple of minutes.
(Here's an interesting video of the entire process in time lapse)

Anyhow, after all of the butterflies were out we had a "Butterfly Release" Party.  We read the hungry caterpillar book, and had butterfly english muffin pizzas with a few friends. 





Everyone got a chance to hold one before it flew away.  Sorry, little man H, didn't get a picture of you holding it.





 As Fancy Nancy says, "Bonjour, Butterfly!"