Double Happiness

Weekend in Seattle

Our friend, Elizabeth, got married recently so we flew up to help her celebrate.  Elizabeth and Andrew were in high school together so they've been friends for... ahem, at least 10 years <wink>.  

Our girls are really good at this air travel thing.  They're just barely five years old but we fly so often that they could probably navigate the entire process completely on their own.  A handy skill should we ever decide to take separate vacations while they're still in elementary school. 

Elizabeth has a beautiful house and family and the most amazing Bull Mastiff I've ever seen.  Her name is Ellie and she's a sweet and gentle giant.   Gwen loved her immediately (Gwen knows no fear) but Maddy was horrified.  We stepped into the house and she took one look at this 200 pound dog and her beach ball sized head and couldn't get away fast enough.  She looked like a cartoon as she raced around us three times then practically climbed Daddy like a tree!   The rest of the weekend, Maddy and Ellie always had to be separated by a locked door. 

Gwen doesn't usually have much interest in art but she wanted to draw her pal, Ellie.  She did this all by herself (I told her how to spell Ellie though) and I think it's a pretty good likeness!  Seriously, I'll treasure this one forever because it's the first drawing she really put her heart into. 

We brought the camera to Washington but, unfortunately, forgot to bring it along with us for most of the weekend.  So no pics of any of our time in Bellevue (the city, not the mental institution).  That means the picture of Ellie, below, isn't really Ellie.  But this blog is about memories and I wanted something that would remind the girls of Ellie.    We left for the airport a little bit early so we could do a little sight seeing and we did remember the camera for that!  Of course, no trip to Seattle is complete without seeing the Space Needle.  I thought it would be impressively tall -- like the Eiffel Tower -- so it was a bit of a disappointment from that standpoint but still interesting and the view from the top was spectacular! 

While we were up on top of the Space Needle, we bumped into Kevin and Carolina (Andrew went to high school with Kevin too).  Of course, they were at Elizabeth's house with us earlier in the weekend but we didn't plan to meet up with them in Seattle so it was funny to find ourselves up on top of that historical Washington State landmark at the same time.  Especially considering we're both from California.

Gimme the beat, boys

Last night, we headed over to a local park with friends (and about 2000 other people) to enjoy some warm evening breezes, a picnic dinner, and an earful of good old fashioned live rock and roll.

Gwen and Maddy LOVE live music.  Since they were babies, we've noticed that they'll stand, mouth agape, and stare unblinkingly at anyone wielding a musical instrument or a microphone.  Last night was all that and more and Maddy danced for two straight hours while Gwen was extra stoked to take it all in from her perch atop a perfect climbin' tree.  

I'm not exaggerating when I say there were a few thousand people here.  They were mostly local families who probably hiked in pulling a red Radio Flyer wagon loaded with small kids and buckets of KFC.  We used to live here and might have easily been one of them -- Michael's old high school is spitting distance away -- if we'd only known that they do this (the music -- not the spitting) every Thursday night in July and have FOR THE LAST 6 YEARS!  Yeah, we're always the last to know.   

The demographic was mostly parents in their late 30's to late 40's with children under age 10.  And the band was good.  They played a nice danceable mix of classic rock from the 80's (plus or minus a decade).   Andrew and I killed a fair bit of grass underfoot as we danced in our horribly inappropriate shoes to recognizable U2, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Aerosmith and Michael Jackson tunes.   And do I dare confess that our "dance" consisted of nothing more than the six or seven steps we can remember from our West Coast Swing classes of 2002?

Okay, I know how pathetically I've dated myself by using such phraseology as 'stoked' and 'tunes' so I'll stop embarrassing myself and give you what you really came to see:  Pictures.

Aunt Laura and Aunt Judy

 
I've known Laura and Judy for more than 20 years (Judy is Michael's God Mother) and I'm so lucky to have them in my life. Obviously, the girls adore their Aunt Laura and Aunt Judy too. This photo was taken last weekend in San Francisco near The Cliff House restaurant.

Here we are being silly in the Golden Gate Park while Gwen tries to figure out what the heck we're doing.

 
We rented a quadracycle and the girls thought it was peachy. They kept telling us to pedal faster. As if we were holding back.

These things are pretty fun but they're not as easy to pedal as they look. Even with four people sharing the labor! We rented this in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco.

 
A pretty photo of Maddy at the Arboretum. It's a fun (and beautiful!) place for the kids to explore.

 
The squirrels are very friendly. They'll come right up and eat out of your hand! Here's a pretty one posing for a photo.

 
The Japanese Tea Garden (also in Golden Gate Park) was also really beautiful. This was my favorite photo of the day.

 
Today, we skipped preschool and took Aunt Judy to Gilroy Gardens then we drove straight from there to the airport and said goodbye. Hopefully we'll see Laura and Judy again soon. We already miss them!

Daddy is not 100!

Yesterday was Daddy's birthday.  We started the day with snuggles and four or five enthusiastic rounds of The Birthday Song.  Then Gwen told us how to make a birthday cake:

• 5 eggs
• 4 pounds of sugar
• 4 pounds of chocolate
• mix it up
• bake it in a hot over for three minutes

 Maddy said Daddy was more than 30 but not 100. 

 
 Maddy made Daddy this pretty birthday drawing.   Then we headed to San Francisco for the day.

Daddy demonstrates the super hero pose.

This is a cool photo Daddy took of the Jewish contemporary museum and St Patrick's church, reflected in an adjacent window (Mommy did a little bit of post processing, perspective correction, cropping, etc).

Gwen is understandably skeptical about the extra feet and fingers on the "Shaking Man" but you really have to see the next photo to appreciate how Maddy felt about this bizarre statue...

  Daddy took this photo looking over the shoulder of the statue.  Maddy's expression is priceless!

 

 

We call this photo "Dancing in Bear/Bare Feet"

 

 

This heart (also in Yerba Buena Gardens) is really pretty.  We wanted Gwen and Maddy to pose sweetly and this is what happened.  Can't you just feel the love?   This was one of many clues that our girls still can't really function without naps (they slept all the way home).

Minor skirmishes aside, this was a really fun day!   For Dinner, we all went out to Krung Thai (Michael met us there).  None of the girls in our family like Thai food but it's a favorite of the guys so it makes the Birthday Dinner list every year.  No worries though - rice is always good!  Happy Birthday, Daddy!  We sure do love you!

Backyardigans Live

We're big Backyardigans fans here so when we saw an advertisement for a live performance of our favorite singing fivesome, we jumped on it. It was pretty fun! The girls totally loved it and they've been begging all day to do it again. However, at about $40 per ticket, that's not likely.  But we're happy to have done it once!

Who's your favorite?  My favorite is Uniqua.  I have no idea what the heck she's supposed to be but she's cute.  I get the pirate song stuck in my head and it's there for days!