Mar. 30: Spring break adventures

We went to Seattle for part of spring vacation this year. We go up there several times a year, actually, and Victor lived up there forEVER, but it had been a long time since we’d played for-realsies tourists. It was a quick, jam-packed trip. Here are the deets. (Most of the images are clickable.)

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Just sit right back and you’ll hear a tale…

After leaving Portland, our first stop was the Nike Clearance Store in Centralia.
It’s different than the Nike stores at most outlet malls
—better deals, better selection—
and is always Jack’s favorite part of heading up I-5.
He even talked us into stopping again on the way home.

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We drove on to Lacey and I got to visit Shipwreck Beads, the biggest bead store you ever did see,
while the rest of my family wandered a preferable (to them) bead-free shopping center.

The massive store was completely overwhelming, and I didn’t even spend much $$.
I can’t promise that the next time I go, though.

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We had dinner at BBQ Pete’s, a Kent restaurant that’s been around for years.
You don’t think of Kent as being a city of good eateries, but WOW, Pete’s was fantastic.
I mean, ribs, beef brisket, pulled pork, delicious sauces… it’s all good.
We might have had another meal there before we left for home.

Jake had a track meet in Woodinville one afternoon,
which was actually the event that led us to Seattle in the first place.
It was fun to see him compete, especially because he (and his team) won every dash and relay in which he ran.
We were a proud uncle, aunt, and cousins.

 

We were grateful for rare nice weather, and spent as much time as we could out in it.
One day was all about Pike Place Market.

 

 

We tried the world’s best macaroni and cheese,
saw a very long line at the original Starbucks,
watched those dudes toss fish until I couldn’t stand the stench anymore,
and spent way too much time searching for the Gum Wall.

  

 

It was disgusting and funny.
(We didn’t create the “K & J” but couldn’t resist taking a pic of it.)
Katie tried to put a piece of her gum on the wall but it fell right off.
Oh well. At least we tried to play along.

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We made a quick detour to Wallingford to shop at Archie McPhee,
where Katie got a handicorn and I bought a silly Jane Austen treat for Mother Mary.

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Jack and I visited the Seattle Aquarium.
I loves me some otters.
They have river otters and sea otters, and in case you don’t know the difference, here’s a pic of the sign.
(The only river otter I’ve seen before was at the High Desert Museum and he was a dick.)
The Seattle river otters wouldn’t sit still for a pic, but they sure did poop everywhere.
The sea otters were silly little goofballs and fun to watch.
I’m pretty sure they love putting on The Show.

  

The jellyfish were mesmerizing,
and the harbor seals were cute.
Not sea otter-cute, but not I-want-to-club-them ugly.
Lucky for them.

 

I thought the Seattle Great Wheel would be huge, like the wheels in London and Paris.
This thing was puny, like it was borrowed from a parking lot carnival.
Vic, who is not a fan of heights, thought it was pa-lenty big.

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We did the CenturyLink Field tour, and while the field was
disappointingly set up as a soccer pitch, the tour was still fascinating.
Our guide showed us how to see into the Seahawks’ locker room:
put a camera phone up to the crack in the door and zoom in.
Sure enough, it worked!

     

“The State of Football” was a really cool display of all
the high school football helmets of Washington State.
My favorite moment of stadium-related things was being on Edgar Martinez Drive.
Edgar is my all-time favorite Mariner.
(“It’s a light bat!”)

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Thoughts on Seattle:

• OMG, the traffic sucks. It is soooo much worse than Portland, and at all times of day, and turned us into potty-mouths. Someday I want to make the trip by Amtrak.
• Seattle kinda seems like Portland on steroids—the environmentalism, overall pride in its weird-ness, Starbucks saturation, weather. (I don’t hate that.)
• There were “12”s everywhere, on everything. I like seeing the city band together as fans of their team. (No wonder Loveliest Lori hates Seattle!)
• They sure do miss their NBA team. You make the mistake of mentioning it to the wrong person and get a lot of bitterness tossed back atcha. Jack got a Gary Payton jersey at one of the many, many team gear stores we visited. There’s still a LOT of Sonics stuff around. I don’t get that, but whatevs.
• There are a lot of casinos in the outlying areas of Seattle. Just… a lot.
• Mt. Rainier is beautiful and majestic, but nothing beats Portland’s beautiful peak. Mt. Hood was all aglow as we crossed the I-205 bridge, almost like she was welcoming us home by reminding us how pretty she is.

One of the best ways to end a vacation like this is to have your husband drop you off at Val’s house before you even get home. That way you don’t have to help unload the car AND you get to see your best girls and clink many glasses. Then the next day you’re reminded that vodka is your enemy but still don’t wish you’d gone straight home. And then the NEXT day, when your sides are still aching from Buddha-knows-what, you have to have someone drive you over to Val’s to pick up your eyeglasses and wonder if MAYBE you should’ve gone straight home from Seattle after all. In fact, how did you even get home from Val’s? You don’t want to know. (But some pathetic person might have puked in Vic’s car and Val’s driveway at the same time. Someone might have really bad aim. Someone might regret so many, many things.)

Happy spring! :)

Jan. 3: Where I see happiness

I wrote the other day about how eager I was to un-decorate the second Christmas was over, but there’s one thing I leave up as long as I possibly can: Christmas cards.

Update, 4pm… Four new photo cards arrived in today’s mail! Here’s the new pic.
I will not do this every day.
I promise.

The photo cards get taped up on the inside of our front door as soon as they arrive. I walk past them many times a day, for weeks and sometimes months, and I love the constant reminder that we have friends and family and that they sent us cards and might even think of us warmly. I hate taking the cards down. Last year I finally did it while readying the house for Victor’s birthday party—that means they were up until July. I think that’s my record for the latest I’ve put them away.

I was thrilled to notice last year that Val still had her friends/family cards up long after Christmas, and for the same reason; they simply make her happy. Why does that happiness have to come only at Christmastime? That’s what Val and I want to know. And not a single person has come up with a good enough answer to make us take the cards down any earlier than we want to. Right, Val?

The batch was smaller this year. I have theories about why:

• Maybe the holidays snuck up on everyone, not just us???
• Maybe people didn’t have a decent photo to send and decided not to bother with cards??? Maybe they’re ashamed of their children and/or pets??? (That would actually be hilarious.)
• Maybe there just wasn’t enough Christmas spirit to get cards made and in the mail??? I know a lot of people had a rough year. 2014 wasn’t exactly a non-stop carnival for anyone.
• E-cards. I don’t love them, but they sure are convenient. I send out more every year.
• Maybe people don’t like us??? Naaaaaahhh…

There’s at least one photo card that doesn’t show in the picture; the Lassens’ card was so beautiful that I couldn’t hang it because the tape would’ve ruined at least one photo. Instead, it’s propped on a shelf with the pile of non-photo cards. Still perfectly displayed, just in a class by itself, so to speak. ;)

As they do every year, a few more cards will probably trickle in over the next month. The Devitts’ card will arrive in 2016, the photo dated 2013 and the letter from 2015 (I dare you to deny it, Mike). The late ones don’t bother me at all. Keep ‘em comin’!

Your faces? They make me smile.

Dec. 31: Month in review

Buh-bye, December.

special days i celebrated this month and how:

• Well, duh. Christmas. It was pretty great.
• For our celebration with the Nienhuises, Sonya did a Grinch feast—roast beast, Who hash, Who buns, Grinch bean casserole, Grinch salad with artichoke hearts (two sizes too small), and Who pudding… our contribution was the Grinch cocktails, which were green and contained booze and that means they were good and that’s all that matters.
• On Christmas Eve, we did our traditional Chinese dinner. Yum.
• We had a few ideas for what we’d do on Christmas Day, but it turned out that we all stayed in our jammies and spent the day enjoying our gifts. No complaints.

i saw things with my eyes:

• Guardians of the Galaxy. Action movies are probably my least favorite kinds of movies, but I like Chris Pratt and the movie didn’t totally suck. Best part: the Howard the Duck cameo after the credits. Did you know Howard the Duck was a Marvel character? Me neither! Crazy.
• I’ve been watching The Comeback on HBO. The Valerie character drives me nuts, so I spread the episodes out over quite a bit of time. The last few episodes really were well done. It’s a funny show, and deserved its return to TV.
• Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee. If you’re not watching it, well, I’ll watch it enough for both of us and I’m totally fine with that.
• We went through the regular Christmastime viewings of A Christmas Story, Christmas Vacation, The Polar Express, Elf, Olive, the Other Reindeer, Mickey’s Twice Upon a Christmas, and White Christmas. It wouldn’t be the holidays without seeing those movies at least fourteen times each.
• I started reading Yes, Please, by Amy Poehler. Love her.

this month’s good and bad:

• Good: Christmas was fun.
• Bad: we were all sick for way too long. Vic got hit hardest.
• Good: I’m done with physical therapy! I hated physical therapy! I mean, it wasn’t as bad as breaking my ankle, but it still sucked. And yes, it did some good, and yes, my range of motion has improved, but you are totally ruining my cheer over being done so just STAHP.
• Bad: my mother-in-law had her hip replaced. That makes it sound like no big deal—“she had her hip replaced,” like “she got a new blender”—but, of course, it wasn’t just a teensy little procedure. Once they decided it needed to be done, she wanted to get it over with, so the surgery was just before Christmas and kinda messed up their celebration. BUT she feels much better, so the good part is that she’s on her way to dealing with much less pain than she’s had in the past year.
• Good: we got new iPhones. New gadgets are mostly not annoying. I’m loving the camera quality most, I think. Victor likes the bigger screen.
• Bad: my blog design got all messed up. I noticed some weird stuff a few months ago, but yesterday it was completely farked. It wasn’t me trying to tweak things; it was Blogger and that gives me frowny face. I’ll work on it. Eventually.
• Good: Mother Mary and I got a bunch of house projects done while she was here for Christmas. I love feeling productive, but I especially love my extremely clean floors, the new things in our family room, and my very organized kitchen.
• Bad: our kids’ winter break seems especially long this year, and I know that makes me a rotten mom, but I really, really hope they go back to school soon.

i likes to share pics I’ve found on the ‘net:

 

This one’s for you, Dina. (And me.)

 

sooo… what’s next?

I’m going to try to kick-start my blog back into action by posting every day in January. I know, right?! Don’t worry, you don’t have to read it.

This year wasn’t our worst one ever, but it won’t exactly be featured prominently in our memory books, either. Bring on 2015!  

Nov. 30: November in review

Well, I really went crazy posting in November, huh? I have a good excuse for a quiet blog. Kinda.

special days i celebrated this month and how:

• Thanksgiving! It’s my favorite holiday; this year I had a minimum of foodstuffs to prepare, AND got to hang out with some of my favorite peeps. Lucky me! I hope you found plenty of reasons to be thankful too.

 

Cousins: Presley, Jacob, Jack, Julianne, Katie

• Jack turned 13. Thirteeeeen! He behaves every bit like a teenager, so it shouldn’t be surprising. It just seems like only yesterday he was that goblin of a baby (warning: do not look directly at this photo—ye shall surely regret it).

• Ed and Sheila had birthdays too. I didn’t really celebrate them. Hopefully they did though.

i saw things with my eyes:

• We saw the local high school’s production of Fiddler on the Roof. It was better than I expected it’d be.
• Jack’s football team lost in the first round of playoffs. As the game-time weather had become quite frigid, I can’t say I was very sad they came to an end. I felt bad for the boys, though. They worked really hard this season.

Jack and a few teammates with their awesome head coach

 

• The biggest, most excitingest event this month was definitely seeing Justin Timberlake in concert. Sherilee invited me along to enjoy the tickets she’d been given for her birthday. It was an incredible show, and I wasn’t even close to being the oldest person there. Yay!!

 
  
 
A selfie for our Christmas cards!

 

My neighbor took this pic from his suck-y seats. ;) 
You can see me and Sher way down yonder, waiting for Loveliest Lori and her sisters to arrive.
(When they finally got there, they passed right by us riff-raff and were ushered directly to the front row—WHATEVS.)
Anyway, I love this because it shows how flippin’ close we were to the stage! 
THANK YOU, AGAIN, SHERILEE, FOR LETTING ME ESCORT YOU!
AND BIG THANKS TO JANE, TOO—THE GIFTER OF THIS MEMORABLE EVENT!!

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WHY i HAVEN’T BLOGGED THIS MONTH:

I’m having my first open house for Dear Girl Jewelry on Dec. 2, and have been working like crazy to get it ready. I’ve made tons of pieces just for the show, which has probably taken the most time, but I’ve also had a bunch of orders from Etsy all of a sudden. All the sorting, pricing, and displaying is much more time-consuming than I anticipated. I’ve never done this kind of thing before, but because I insist it must be absolutely and completely perfect, I’m pretty sure I’ll have made myself completely bonkers by Tuesday at 6:30pm. Ugh. Wanna be there? Here’s the info (click to embiggen).

I’ll do my best to post more frequently in December, but no promises.

Sometimes I just don’t have anything to say. It’s true.

 

i likes to share pics I’ve found on the ‘net:

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s Christmastime! Enjoy it, unless you’re one of the assholes who gets all upset when someone wishes you a merry Christmas when you don’t celebrate Christmas yourself. Or if you’re one of those assholes who hates when people say “happy holidays” as though they’re horrible for suggesting you might not celebrate Christmas. I think the thing is, just don’t be an asshole.