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.