Back on the grid. Sort of.

A deer in the meadow at Hurricane Ridge. Freakishly pastoral, no?

Well, that went quickly! I meant to check in a few times during the week but our vacation kept us pretty busy. So far we were on the most horrid flight ever, ate at some fantastic restaurants, took the kids to the beach, took the kids to the zoo, spent time chatting and catching up with Ken and Mindy, went to a movie, sampled several delicious flavors of cupcakes, visited a couple lavender farms, picked two huge buckets of raspberries a U-pick farm, went to a wild game park and fed zebras and buffulo from the car, and hiked around on the Olympic pennisula.

I love blogging but it was nice to have a bit of a break from my self-imposed daily posting schedule. But now I feel recharged and I’m eager to share the photos I’ve taken. E and I are flying back on Tuesday (N flew home a couple of days ago to get back to work) and I’ll be back to daily posting later next week.

…and we’re off!


We’re heading off this morning to visit family in Seattle and Olympia. We didn’t get E his own seat so hopefully he’ll be happy chilling on our laps. We got him a portable DVD player so he can watch his beloved Yo Gabba Gabba on the plane. Let’s hope our nefarious plan to lull him into a media-induced catatonic state works. For the sake of the poor sap sitting next to us I really hope it succeeds.

While we’re away I don’t think I’ll be able to keep up the daily posting but I’ll try and check in when I can.

YAY!!!

It’s official. I’m no longer allowed to whine about how I never win anything. I entered a giveaway on CityMama’s product review site a couple of weeks ago and today Stefania emailed me to let me know that I had won! I’m still ridiculously excited about the whole thing. N had to put up with me exclaiming, “I can’t believe I won!” over and over at random moments all last night.

The Breville grill I won looks great. I’ve been wanting an indoor grill for a while now. Since we don’t have an outdoor grill we’ve never cooked steaks or that sort of thing at home. I can’t want to try it out. It looks like it’s really well made and easy to use. I would have never dropped the cash necessary to get a nice grill like this so I’m grateful to have won. I’m not sure when it’s going to arrive, but I’ll definitely post a review after I try it out.

If you haven’t checked out CityMama, I would recommend it. I’ve been reading Stefania’s blog for 2 or 3 years now. She’s a great cook and I like seeing the food she makes her family. It enables my daydreaming about being a good cook some day. She also has a background in marketing/PR and has some great insights about the business end of blogging. She was one of the founding members of Kimchi Mamas (another blog I follow) AND she’s half-Korean and has cute kids. ‘Nuff said.

Thank you Stefania and thank you Breville!

At the Dinosaur Museum

These are some of my favorite pictures from our visit to the local dinosaur museum last weekend.

E and his friend L thought these fish were great.

The huge water/sand table was also a big hit.

I thought E looked pretty cute in his oversized smock.

E was terrified/fascinated but this model shark.

Even after we had moved on to the next display E kept wandering back to stare at the shark. I think he wanted to make sure it wasn’t going anywhere.

It’s a pretty decent little museum. E was too little to get anything out of the actual dinosaur skeletons they have, but he really liked the water table and this sand pit where the kids brush sand away to uncover fake fossils. If you’re local and you want to meet up there, let me know. My membership gets guests in for 50% off. I’ll hook you up.

Sweet Chili Chips


I know it doesn’t sound like they would be that appetizing, but these sweet chili brown rice chips are really good. They were sampling them at Costco and both E and I liked them. They’re wonderfully crunchy with just the right blend of spicy/sweet. And they’re made from brown rice so eating handfuls of them is healthy! (Ahem.)

They’re also good for people with food allergies. They don’t contain milk powder and they’re wheat/gluten-free for those with celeriac disease.

We came. We saw. We ate hot dogs.

It’s strange to think about how this was E just a year ago. He’s such an active part of our lives now but I can’t remember him doing a lot back then.

Anyway, the weekend was nice. N had the day off on Friday and so we went to the local dinosaur museum with our friends Earl and Judi and their kids. Then on Saturday we had lunch downtown with my friend Amber and in the evening we went over Earl and Judi’s house for a barbecue and to watch their city’s fireworks display. They live just up the hill from the launch site and so the view was great.

E hates loud noises and so at first he was really freaked out by the fireworks. But after a while he got used to them and enjoyed them a bit.

Part of the big finish.

Kids setting off fireworks in the street.

Swinging in the hammock was more E’s speed.

The weekend was great but I didn’t get anything done around the house (funny how that happens quite frequently around here). We fly to Seattle on Friday morning and there’s quite a list of things I need to do before we leave. It’s going to be a busy week but I’m looking forward to this trip.

Fancy Fast Food

Yum, sushi…sushi made out of Popeye’s chicken! (Wha-wha-WHA?!?)

Fancy Fast Food is the brainchild of Erik Trinidad, a New York advertising designer/amateur food stylist. Trinidad creates haute cuisine out of fast food meals and photographs the results.

To see a step-by-step slide show of the above meal’s transformation see here. Time has more info on Trinidad here.

Lucky Girl

It started with the haircut.

I like E’s hair on the longer side but lately it’s been threatening to enter mullet territory so this morning on the way to the gym we stopped at this place that specializes in kids’ haircuts. I was bracing myself for the worst: the first time E had his haircut he cried and almost fell out of the little car he was seated in, the second time he really freaked out and repeatedly tried to to stand up.

But this time E was a dream. He was excited to sit in a little car and watch an Elmo video and graciously condescended to let the stylist snip away at his hair. He didn’t cry once, even when the stylist trimmed around his ears with the clippers. I felt so proud of him. He suddenly seemed a lot older. (By the way, if you go to the local Cookie Cutters ask for Weston. He’s great.)

The beginnings of a toddler mullet–it had to go.

The long suffering customer.

The dapper young gentleman.

After the haircut the rest of the day was a dream. We went to the gym and E went into daycare without fussing. I worked out on the stair machine and read a good book. Then we went home and we ate lunch. E went down for a nap and I folded laundry and watched an episode of Primeval. When E got up we went to the store to run some errands. As we were leaving the store it started pouring rain–it was coming down in sheets. I hadn’t brought an umbrella so I bought one at the store and gathering my bags and holding E I ran out to the car. E thought the rain was super funny and even though my pants and shoes got soaked I was laughing too.

N was already home when we got home and was doing the dishes. E and I played the piano (i.e. he sat on my lap and banged away at the keyboard) for a while and then I fed E dinner. It was N’s turn to make dinner and so he made a delicious kimchi jjigae. While the soup was simmering I did some stuff for work and then we ate and watched a tv show. And then I went to bed.

I know it sounds like a fairly uneventful day. Nothing really newsworthy happened. But all day long I was struck over and over by how blessed I am. I’m writing this down as a reminder to myself for the occasional days when everything seems to be going wrong and I wallow in self-pity: I’m blessed with a wonderful family to love and who loves me. I enjoy a standard of living that 98% of the world can only dream about. I have a healthy body as does my family. I have the means of working for my own satisfaction and to help my family. And I have enough income that if I need to buy a $12 umbrella I can do so without worrying about if I’ll be able to pay my other bills.

Pretty awesome stuff.

How about you? Is there something that you’re especially grateful for today?

E’s day out

I didn’t get a chance to post these pictures yet: last week when Ken and Mindy and their kids were here we went to a local “farm” and then stopped at a park. It was a nice outing.

E anxiously waiting for a pony ride.

E enjoying said pony ride.

E and N saying ‘hi’ to some horses.

E swinging with his cousin C.

We’re looking forward to spending more time with Ken and Mindy and their family: in a few weeks we’re going to fly up to Seattle and stay with them for a weekend and then E and I are going to visit my family for a week while N returns to work. It’s going to be a fun trip–I love visiting Washington. I miss living there.