The Imagine Children's Museum, Everett

Dick and I took Mason to the Imagine Museum in Everett on Wednesday.

The pizza parlor was a hit.  He never let go of the spatula.  We were served ice cream sundaes, too!

This is the water table.  There were sharks in this section.  He loved getting everyone wet.

This is the Everett bus.  I can see he likes being behind the wheel.

Being a pilot was a hit.  The lights and buttons worked.

The outside deck was open, and the dinosaur pit, the live insects, and the climbing area were a great hit.  We ate lunch there and made a mobile in the craft room.

Emmett's quilt is quilted!

Today was a busy day.  This morning I had a session at the Apple store on my Mac. computer  There is so much to learn and I am trying to learn it all.  I almost never get to my list of things to do.  I have a new email account, linked with MobileMe.  Now I have 3.  I remember struggling with 1!
This afternoon I booked time on the long-armed quilting machine at The Quilter's Garden in Duvall, WA to finish the Teddy Bear quilt made for Emmett Huhman, son of my niece Katiey and husband Dan.  He was born on April 9, 2010.

It is good to finish projects.  I enjoyed making this quilt and loved the colors and fabrics.

Uncle Bud's Funeral

My Uncle died last week and it has been very sad.  He lived a great and full life and has a wonderful family who love him.
I was so happy that I was able to make the trip to Tampa to be with my cousins and my wonderful Aunt Marianna.
I saw cousins that I hadn't seen in a very long time and I got to meet some of their children.  Meghan's son, Jackson, said that he thought I should be one of his aunts.  I guess cousin is a young persons title.
Jill and Jim were there from our side of the family and Karen is representing us at a Memorial that they are having today in Detroit.  The family plot is where our grandparents are buried and Mom and Dad.

This is Nathan and Aunt Marianna.  He is Trisha's son.













Tommy and Terry, my cousins.














Meghan, Calvin and Josh, Cousin Terry's daughter, her husband and new baby.












Macey, Aunt Marianna, Calvin, Terry and Jackson.
They are really cute kids.











My Uncle Bud, me and Aunt Marianna, when we went to Florida to visit them.  So sweet.

Musings on seeing the devastation in The Gulf of Mexico

I flew home from my uncle's funeral on Wednesday.  Tampa to Dallas, then Dallas to Seattle.  What I didn't expect was an eagle eye/airplane at altitude view of the oil damage to the Gulf.  We started to fly over water around Pensacola, FL and my view if the oil was pretty immediate.  We flew for approximately 35 minutes, the my eyes could not believe the vastness of the damage.  You could see what I think are oil platforms, surrounded by boats, I never saw the big rig area, but I certainly could see the oil.  It looked like the chocolate river in the new Willie Wonka movie.
Harder to comprehend was the areas of wetlands, marsh, boat lanes, all chocolate color.  Remember I was flying at 31,000 feet, so the ships in the shipping lane looked like little toys.  Once in a while you would see a lake, with a nice clear clean surface.  I have been sick about this ever since I saw it.  I really didn't understand the size, and scope.  Nothing we have seen on TV or on the news or in the papers conveys how huge this thing is.
The flight attendants said that the airlines weren't allow to fly over the area in the early stages of the oil disaster.  I don't think a few Coast Guard skimmers is going to make a dent in this devastation for a very long (years!) time.

KITH Fundraiser

Yesterday the Kiwanis Club hosted a pancake breakfast fundraiser for KITH, which is Dick's charity.  He has been the treasurer for a long time, and will remain active as he passes that job on.  I went to church early yesterday just to be there.  The pancakes were great, as was the sausage.  A rare treat for me.   Matt, Kate and Mason came, and Mason was quite the little man, wearing his sunglasses sitting in a big boy chair.  Theo, one of his playmates from daycare and my library group, was there, and we got to meet Cyrille's wife, Sara.  They were there with their new baby Matthew and Cyrille's mom, Mary.  I love running in to people we know.  Mason recognized Theo first, then Dick said, "is that Theo?", then Sara asked, "How do you know Theo?"  Funny moment.  That is when Cyrille and I got involved.  Everyone met everyone.

 KITH is having it's 8th Memorial Day bike ride.  This year we had a little less than 1200 riders, which is amazing.  It was a rainy morning, so we lost a lot of people who sign up the day of the ride.  They can choose 3 rides; 7 Hills is 38.7 miles, Metric is 58 and the Century is 100.  As the name implies, there are a lot of hills.  One of the pictures is the route map.  I used hand-warmers in my shoes and wore long underwear.  It was toasty that way.
Theo's mom was there helping with the Rotary club.  That is her with another friend Kay.

A fun week!

Mason's day, Monday, May 10, 2010

Mason was over on Monday and we had planned on a day at the Discovery Museum.  When we got there we discovered that it is closed on Monday!  Not a problem, Mason didn't know where we were going, so we headed home to the library.  He is playing with the Raven puppet, and just finished playing with one of the puzzles.
He loves playing with the wooden train set that Evan and Shannon had outgrown.  He tries so hard to put the tracks together.  He loves the blue bus and the wooden apple tree.
I am reading a silly book to him on the bottom of the page.  It is "Pirates Don't Change Diapers", written by Melinda Long and illustrated by one of our favorite illustrators, David Shannon.  Guess why!  Actually we like his art work.

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Mother's Day

We were invited to a Mother's Day brunch at the lovely new home of Ming and Suzanne. Such a wonderful floor plan and they are so settled having just moved it. Jayce and Cole are darling, and it was fun to see their dad, Ming's family and Kate, Matt and Mason. Thank you for the great eats!
We had Rick, Michele and Rio over for dinner with Matt, Kate and Mason. It was a lovely day. Loved the plants, gardening hat and resourceful watering device which uses used wine bottles and is cleverly called, "plant nanny".

Day Three, Hearst Castle

I started the day with a walk on the beach. Unbelievbably it was again sunny and clear. We took 2 tours at the castle; the Garden and Vista tour, and then one of the living spaces in the Casa Grande. The Hearst Castle is just north of Cambria in San Simeon, CA. and it is a 5 mile bus trip just to get up there. The statue is Three Graces; Aglaia, Euphrosyne, and Thalia, daughters of Zeus.
As some of the girls hadn't seen the Elephant seals, we took a little trip to the Elephant Seal Vista Point. This is the Piedras Blancas rookery and has grown from an original population of 19 to 15,000 animals. The seals spend 8 to 10 months a year in the open ocean, but they come here for birthing, breeding, molting and resting. They are huge!
Our dinner was a Robin's, a very cute little place.
After dinner we voted for next year, and we will be going to Portland, Oregon.
Tomorrow we will be lunching in the town of Paso Robles, a tasting at the olive oil store, and flying back to Kirkland.
A great time, well planned by Margurite and helped by Marlene. Loved it!

Day Two, Wine Tour

Another lovely day in Cambria. We boarded our wine tour bus at 10:00 AM, ready to sample the wine of Paso Robles, CA. We visited Summerwood, Castoro Cellars, Veris (formerly Jan Chris), Hunt and Four Vines. Ray was our driver and very well informed about the area and wineries. We were very impressed with the wine of Paso Robles. Sherry from Castoro instructed us on proper tasting techniques. We bought a lot of bottles of delicious wine.
Marlene's husband, Tim, has a small vineyard and he sent a few bottles for us to sample. Zinfandel, syrah, and a blend of zin and ? He is a great vintner and his wine could compete with any of the vineyards we visited.
Lunch was served in the garden at Castoro.
Mary Ann thought she was going to bed early, Shauna and Emily had other ideas!

Day One, Route 1, Nepenthe Restaurant, Fogcatcher Inn

Mary Ann and I took off from SeaTac early Monday morning, destination Cambria, California. Marlene picked us up at San Jose Airport and we headed South. We wound our way to Route 1 and the drive is simply amazing. The day was sunny and clear and we were having a great time. Lunch was at Nepenthe Restaurant in Big Sur. We stopped here and there at the vista points and just couldn't believe our eyes. We saw the Elephant Seals on the beach. There were thousands - the adult males are already gone, these guys are the babies and some moms. They grow to 2 1/2 tons!
On a lighter note, we had pizza at the Inn and everyone caught up. Great day.

Michele Birthday

We had Michele over for dinner for her birthday. Kate was not feeling well, and Rick was on the road, so it was Dick, Cathy, Mason Matt and the birthday girl. It was fun to have them over for dinner.

We had a simple dinner of chicken (barter, anyone) Hasslback potatoes, green beans and chocolate cupcakes with yummy butter frosting. Mason helped me make it and he was really surprised when the yellow frosting turned pink. He now really likes pink.

Cousins get together

How fun when family gets together! Last night, Dick's cousin, Cathy, and husband Don and 4

of their 6 kids; Nicki, Heather, James and Jason came over for dinner. It was a balmy night

and we spent most of it catching up. I have put a lot of photos on my new Mac, and was able to

catch them up with our family. Their kids are great at the computer, so we caught up with

them on their various Facebook pages. Heather and I are now Facebook friends.

Cathy just retired, and she is doing a lot of ancestry research, which is great for Dick, because he has no photos of their shared grandparents. Cathy has a satin quilt that was signed by family members in NY a long time ago, and we hope that it will help getting the names correct. People used a lot of nicknames, which makes research hard.

David's 38th Birthday

David, Robin, Shannon and Evan drove out after the kid's soccer games. With the kids busy schedules they don't get out to see us as much, but it still is very special. They have been to this house 3 years, so are very comfortable here. We swam, hot-tubbed, had the Family Birthday cake after dinner. The photos are Shannon reading Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. It is a long book and she wanted to finish it so we could watch the movie. She did, and did well on her comprehension test in school.
David and Evan were playing Wii Sports Resort in the other photo. Dick was just coming in from the pool. Evan is a master swordsman.
I mostly take the pictures.

Lego Land in California

We arrived at Dave and Robin's on Friday in time for me to help out in Evan's kindergarten. I did it with Shannon and I loved seeing her with her classmates as most of them learned English or Spanish for the first time. Sr. Regueros is an amazing teacher and has lots of assistants to make it all work. They have 33 or 34 in each class, so it is pretty amazing. Evan is understanding more than he can say, but I could tell he was getting it. He has changed a lot this year.
We took them to Legoland on Feb. 28. As you can see the weather was beautiful and we had fun watching them on all the rides. The park wasn't very busy, and I thought the time on each ride was a little short. I can see cutting it during a busy time.

First Playdate with Mason's Library friends

I was a little nervous setting this up, but I love the kids who are in the library group with Mason. Actually there are about 80 kids and parents, but this group formed before the library remodel was finished. Mason did a good job of sharing after the first toy. The mom's and kids stayed about 1 1/2 hours and it was a lot of fun. I think it was great that Kai and Sora's older brother, Shin, was there as the other little kids liked following him around and letting him chase them.
I got out the chalk board, picnic table and folding table, there where play area's in the living room and family room. Having a lovely sunny day helped every ones spirits. Maki brought home-made rolls, which we all enjoyed.
I love being a grandma with time to really get involved with Mason's day to day life.
Before the kids came at 10:00 Mason wanted me to turn on the TV. He says, "TV", in a very compelling way. I said, "No, not now, your friends are coming over soon." He gives me the cow-eye pleading look, taps his arm and says, with his five fingers out-stretched, "Minutes?" He was negotiating a five minute time frame. Clever kid!

Girls who lunch

The board from last years Ladies 9 Hole Golf had such a good time together that we decided to get together for lunch every month or two. The first was at the new Neiman Marcus restaurant in the Braven, and today was at the Restaurant Paradiso. I love getting together with people who you really like and don't see very often. Of course we will be golfing together soon, but we did a lot of catching up in 3 1/2 hours.
Good friends are . . . Good!

Finishing up Christmas gift

I set off to make a quilt for Robin for Christmas. She had picked out a frog pattern and the piecing part went very fast. The frogs are so cute, and I love the colors. It was a pretty big quilt, and a friend told me about a quilt shop in Duvall, WA that will rent their long-arm quilting machine by the hour after taking a class. Took the class, not too hard, and quilted the top of another quilt for practice. I zipped Robin's quilt on the frame and quilted the background. I planned on quilting the frogs' in a diamond pattern, realized it would be very difficult to manage on the big machine, and discussed alternatives with my instructor, Tina. She really loved the look of the diamond quilting for each frog and convinced me to try to quilt it at home on my small machine. This was all before Christmas. I am a little nervous to start, hating to ruin a pretty cool looking quilt. I mentally quilted it many times, and finally, yesterday, got out my machine, threaded it and went to work. Alas, I had forgotten how to use the quilting foot. I packed up the machine, and went to the sewing machine shop. They put me on the path and here I am finishing up Infrognito. It really does look good! Merry Christmas, Robin!

Valentine's Day

Dick cooked Surf and Turf (lobster tail and filet mignon) for dinner. Yum! These are the flowers he brought. Just had a call from Kate that Mason is asking for us. They are on their way over. It was fun to get my first responses to my blog. Now I am trying to download photos from my camera. It seems like they transferred, but neither Dick nor I could find them. Our new Mac laptop just arrived, so I will be even more techie, I hope!

At the Mall. Feb 12, 2010

It was rainy in Seattle and Mason had a little energy to release, so we took him the a play area that was created when the Bellevue Art Museum moved to it's own building. The floor is very cushy and all the play toys are hard foam. At first we thought it was total chaos, but didn't notice as we tried to keep up with Mason. He had a ball.

Mason's 2nd Haircut

Dick and I took Mason for his 2nd haircut on January 26, 2010. He sat in the chair on a booster seat and was great. Our big job was to keep him from moving all around. I was pretty nervous after her first swipe with the clippers. She assured me that it would look great when she was done. I said, "you don't understand, I'm the grandmother!"

South Pacific

My girlfriends and I went to see South Pacific at the Fifth Avenue Theatre on Thursday night. It was so much fun to see a play that I grew up singing the songs to. The acting was corny, the stage sets were very beautiful and I thought of Mom and Aunt Marianna all night.
Before we went, we had dinner at Palomino Restaurant in the City Centre building.