Vancouver

In honor of Chris's birthday and coming of a new baby, we decided to take a little vacation up to Vancouver, British Columbia.  It was a quick trip, we left Friday came home Saturday, but so happy.  The Dyer's were kind enough to watch Esther (thankfully Amber still hadn't had the baby) making it a true getaway and very relaxing.   Even though we talked about Esther at least hourly,  we also loved having so much time just with each other and to feel young and a bit carefree.  

Highlights of the trip:

- Staying out after 7pm! (Thank you Dyer's for watching Esther!)

- A free stay at the Westin downtown thanks to Starwood points

-The fact that Vancouver is only 2-ish hours away

-Visiting Canada for the first time (sort of embarrassing)

-Being outside all day in AMAZING weather

- Having bikes so we could ride around the city and along the seawall at Stanley Park.  Bikes are such a fun way to see a city and especially Vancouver which is very bike friendly.  There were even cyclist-specific traffic lights.  Tres cool.

-Yummy food: Lebanese, Indian, good hamburgers, and even  a gluten-free bakery for breakfast. 

-Not knowing the exchange rate and therefore assuming we were getting a great deal on our food.

-People watching.  Although it was a bit disturbing to see the amount of people, especially women, with many tattoos.  Never a good idea. 

-Admiring the cool architecture and blue-tinted glass on many, if not most, of the towers making them appear to match the surrounding sky and water.  Lovely.

- Did I mention that we LOVED riding bikes around Vancouver?   We did. 

-Watching planes come and go from a mini-airport on the water.  The terminals were a floating dock and the floatplanes somehow managed to take-off just fine even though they weren't going all that fast along the water.

-Exploring and relaxing in a new place 

-Spending so much fun/non-stressful/uninterrupted time with Chris! 

Canada Place: there was an outdoor "Canada Trail" with lots of Canadian history that mostly centered on the war of 1812.  Apparently this war that most Americans overlook was a pretty big deal for our northern neighbors. 

Summer Nights market in Chinatown.  Especially memorable was the performances (on the stage behind me in the picture) from the Happy Singers whose slogan was "We Sing to Make People Happy."  It was true, the one-notch-above-karaoke songs were very entertaining!  I will never listen to "How Am I Supposed to Live Without You" the same way again.

Gastown: the once commercial center of Vancouver and now filled with restaurants and fun furniture and clothing shops.  I particularly liked the flower baskets hanging from the lamposts. 

This clock is run by steam and emits the Big Ben whistle on the hour.  It was kind of cool.

Dinner at Nuba: a tiny and very cool Lebanese restaurant we happened upon.

Lovely views from Queen Elizabeth Park 

Thanks Canada!

Happy Birthday Chris

We recently celebrated Chris's 29th birthday with his favorite breakfast (German pancakes, whipped cream, and berries) and having some new friends over for dessert of German chocolate cupcakes, fresh fruit, popcorn, and Trader Joe's grapefruit soda.  We also took a long weekend and made a trip to Vancouver the next day while the Dyer's kindly watched Esther.  It was a great birthday.

To celebrate his 29 years of life, here is a list of 29 things you might not know about Chris:

1. He used to be extremely shy.
2. When he was little, he would only wear long sleeve shirts because wearing short sleeves felt too exposed.
3. He still sort of thinks he has blonde hair like he did as a boy.
4. When he was little he didn't like root beer or ice cream.
5. According to his Grandma Judy, Chris was one of her most cuddly and sweetest grandchildren.  I couldn't agree more.
6. He likes to tease. 
7. He did not take notes in college.  
8. He doesn't like to talk about himself.
9. He likes to talk about ideas.
10. He likes people to challenge his thinking and will likely challenge your's
11. He thinks cloudy weather is bad weather.
12. He loves to take walks in cities, especially at night.
13. He has a prolific talent for inventing nicknames, especially for Esther. 
14. He likes to hike, bike, climb mountains, snow shoe, and rock climb.
15. He aspires to live in a converted industrial urban space with exposed brick and a wall of windows.
16. He is either absent minded...or excessively focused on one thing and one thing only.
17. If he spends all day working in Excel, he will dream in cells and charts all night.
18. If he decides, he will teach himself to do most anything (plumbing, electrical, and web design to name a few)
19. He is in love with his laptop.
20. His favorite retail store is REI.
21. His greatest annoyance is inefficiency.
22. He rotates wearing the same 4 polos and about 5 tees everyday for years now and many of his clothes are starting to look quite threadbare.   He would rather Esther or I buy new clothes instead of him.  
23. He gives excellent back massages without expecting one in return. 
24. He lets me cut his hair to save money, even though I had never done it before and once it was so bad we had to shave his head almost bald.
25. He used to think people sleeping with their mouth closed were only faking.  That is, until he had his deviated septum fixed and realized the you really can breathe through the nose.
26. Despite his adamant refusal to sing in public, he has a lovely voice and uses it often.
27. The harder the challenge, the more Chris is motivated and excited to work on it. 
28. Most nights he goes in to check on Esther while she's asleep and then asks me if we can wake Esther to play with her.  I say no.
29. He is often Esther's preferred source of comfort and always her preferred source of play.

Happy birthday to my best (and sometimes only) friend!!

Evergreen State Fair

Turns out Monroe's claim to fame is that it hosts the Everygreen State Fair.  Amber, some other friends, and I made a visit on the free admission day and here are some pictures of the highlights.  We especially liked the animals and spent a long while visiting the beautiful horses, a momma pig with 11-day old babies (my heart went out to her), some sheep, goats, bunnies, and chickens.  Another much anticipated event was the Alaskan Pig Racing.  Those little pigs were surprisingly fast AND they jump.  Who knew?

 So adorable.  

This pictures was taken during a horse floor show where a teenage girl dressed in colorful, sequenced cowgirl apparel, walks around with her horse while the animal does its fancy steps.  All this is set to music, and in this particular instance they were blaring Shania Twains' "Man! I Feel Like a  Woman."  Esther LOVED the song and I had to cringe a little bit inside at the thought of her someday aspiring to become a rodeo queen.   If she starts showing interest in horses, we'll have to encourage English riding.   

It's a BOY!

Sometime around January 25th Esther will be getting a baby brother! He is a wiggly one and we are excited to meet him.  Here is a picture of the bump at 19 weeks. 

 Since we were all looking quite dapper before church we did some family pictures too.  Esther is wearing a vintage blue corduroy dress with a smocked bodice that my sister found at a consignment store in Virginia.  She is not allowed to outgrow it. 

Lake Washington

Esther and I had a fun afternoon at Juanita Beach with Amber, cousin Sarah, and two of Amber's friends.  Although the bay is in Lake Washington, the water wasn't too cold because the bay is so shallow.  Also, we were experiencing a "heat wave" with temperatures in the 90's.  I was in heaven.

The best part was watching Esther, who used to be wary of water and avoid touching sand at all costs, playing in the water and crawling in the beach.   Such a lovely day.

Mad Skills

Some of her ladyship's abilities at 18 months of age: jumping (sort of), dancing, singing, climbing, growling like a tiger, helping mom wash dishes/create a swamp, helping mom sweep, doing what she's asked (occasionally), walking up and down stairs holding as many stuffed animals (aka "babies") in her arms, scavenging for food, giving Eskimo kisses to dad and juicy open mouth kisses to mom, saying "no!", learning names of body parts, and repeating just about every word she hears.  We couldn't be more in love with her.

Do Girls Love Chocolate?

 A few days ago Chris and I realized Esther had been downstairs by herself for a while and we hadn't heard any noise.  Since that's never a good sign we rushed downstairs and this is what we found:

Pure gluttony.  She managed to climb up on the pantry shelf, snag a ziplock bag containing half a bar of Ghirardelli semi-sweet baking chocolate, and proceeded to devour it.  I still can't get the stains out of her dress, but at least she's developing a fine taste in chocolate.