Feb. 19: Everyone's a critic

Busy week. Between working--both at home and at the hospital--transporting children, rearranging rooms in our house, and coddling two still semi-sick kids, I'm exhausted. Vic probably is too, though I'm guessing. Our paths haven't crossed much in the last few days. I hate that. Next week is our anniversary (#8!), we're both taking a few days off work, and Katie and Jack will be at Grandma and Grandpa's.

I've made a few changes to the site, mostly to the cascading style sheet. If there's anything that looks really "off," please let me know. I didn't take the time to check every page.

Tried a new restaurant on Wednesday: Vitis Enoteca. Not your standard Italian fare but absolutely delicious. My salad was watercress, prosciutto, and pear--wonderful! The pizza I chose for my entree was prosciutto, potato, fresh mozzarella, and pesto on a thin crust. I had a fabulous dessert; a poached pear cored and filled with mascarpone, then drizzled with caramel. Ed's walnut popovers were tasty, and one of the main reasons I can hardly wait to eat there again. We also had antipasti, and Ed and Stefan shared some of their dishes with me too, so I feel well-qualified to highly recommend this place, especially if you enjoy wine. Dana, the owner/chef, is friendly and obviously very skilled. Vitis Enoteca is just over 405 from the Pearl. Go. NOW!

Olivia is being released from the hospital on Monday! Her body shows all signs of reproducing the cells from the transplant, so things are looking good. There's still a long way to go for them, and they'll stay at Duke for at least another few months. The silent auction and benefit dinner that was held in Enumclaw this month was a HUGE success! Read more detail in the journal Mark and Annalee have been writing on her web site (www.oliviaswish.com/), and please keep Olivia and her family in your hearts.

I just shake my head over why gay marriage is such a controversial issue. Besides the fact that it should be a religious issue, not a political one, it's simply unfair. Allowing gay couples to marry has NOT ONE EFFECT on me or my marriage. It changes nothing about my life. It takes nothing away from me. How could I be against it? love is love is love has some important and eye-opening info. If you've never given this issue much thought, please do.

Oh but wait, I'm not off my soapbox yet. I hate bad drivers, tomatoes, clowns, loud TV, and when people don't smash big hairy spiders. And I'm not too fond of poodles.

There, I'm done.

Katie, Jack, and Jonathan posed for some fun pictures the other day. Check them out. I'm sure there'll be more to come, because today Katie got four more outfits in the mail from Appie, and as soon as Jonathan sees them...

Vic and I had a decent Valentine's Day. He gave me a bouquet of flowers (gorgeous!) and I gave him a Starbucks gift card (yawners!). Darlene offered to watch Katie and Jack so Vic and I could go out for dinner that evening, which was such a treat. It was so last-minute, though, that we had no reservations and were too hungry to wait an hour for a table anywhere. We ended up at a quite desolate Burgerville. No matter, it was still nice to have a quiet meal together away from home and the hospital cafeteria. Besides, V-Day just isn't as big a deal for us because our anniversary is nine days later. Seems odd to make a huge thing of it when we'll be celebrating again so soon.

We're in the middle of our room transitions project in the house. What a lot of not very fun work. We've decided to keep the front room as a family room and subtly add some of our office furniture and stuff. If it doesn't work we'll do the bookcase divider thing. However, the upstairs room is still being converted to a playroom for Katie and Jack, and we've got tons yet to do in there. Our motivation is the lofty dream of toys and all the rest of the kids' stuff being on ONE floor. Having a place for everything. Being able to truly straighten/clean to make the house presentable.

IN SUMMARY,

Vitis Enoteca:

Olivia's Duke University medical team:

Opponents of gay marriage:

Kids giving me belly laughs:

Valentine's Day:
(I still love the holiday even if we don't celebrate much)

Mile-long to do lists:

People who visit manullang.com: