Another SNOW DAY

Better ruler.


Snow on my hummingbird feeder.

Snow on the cedars.

Snow on the pond.

We live in a snow globe. Outside of Arlington, no snow. Nada. Zip.

And of course, no school.

Happy Birthday Ben!

Sorry Ben. I'm a little late getting these pics on the blog (not like he ever reads this but I felt I should have some excuse for missing his birthday; I've written about everyone else's).

We went to PF Chang's for his dinner. It was yummy. I haven't been there in years.

Here he is, blowing out the candle.

It was a yummmmmmy cake! Enough forks for everyone to take a stab.

And this is what it looked like AFTER everyone took a stab. And it does look like it's bleeding, eh?

Robee asked me to take this one. It is a great shot of the stone horse statue outside of the restaurant.

And, true to form, Ben had TWO birthday celebration cakes - his favorite of course - yellow cake with chocolate frosting. What birthday would be complete without the yellow cake?

Holy Cats. Is that boy really 27? I remember meeting him when he was 13. He had spiky bleached hair, wore zany socks, never got up for school until it was absolutely necessary (he would sit on his bed until the bus pulled up the street and then make a run for it ... in his multicoloured socks), listened to The Beatles all day long (and I'm totally serious .. all day), would never eat breakfast but would have an Artic Circle combo everyday (we miss those here in Washington ... mmmmmm!), and would sleep until 2 pm every weekend. How time flies.

Happy Birthday Buh. May the next 27 years be a wonderful experience!

Snow Day and Night Lights in December

The kids are THRILLED!! First snow day of the season. I know we live in the Northwest but every once in awhile, we do get a snow fall.

PEEEEETY!!!

That's a shot outside the sliding door. It's such a great view. Unfortunately, you can kind of see the new atrocity that's been built next door. I plan on planting trees this spring to hide it. =)

This place is so weird about snow weather. I do think that they have one snow truck for the entire Northwest. They don't know how to drive in even a skiff of snow. And every school district started two hours late the next day. The NEXT DAY ... after the roads were dry. Seriously. Very wimpy when it comes to inclement weather.


This WAS supposed to be a great pic of a ruler showing you that there is four inches on the railing, but I'm using my phone and the light ain't s'great.

But there is four inches and that's quite a bit for up here.

This is how Jen dresses for the weather! Kidding. Actually she was rescuing Owen from the snow. He wore one of Robee's boots over his foam cast and then his own boot on the other foot. But he was getting cold and really didn't want to walk anymore, to the rescue went mom in shorts.



Last night, we all bundled up and went to Warm Beach "Lights of Christmas." Warm Beach is an area right on the sound, owned by a church and it hosts camps in the summer for kids and conferences and such. There is also a senior community and care facility. It's very beautiful.


Anyway, during December they decorate the entire area with thousands of lights and open it up for tours. They have musical groups, food, all sorts of entertainment; very festive. It's kind of like "Temple Square" without the Temple. (for those of you in Utah)


The Talking Christmas Tree. Felix and Robee talking to the the Talking Tree. I'm not sure, but there is some guy somewhere talking a microphone watching us the whole time and cracking lame jokes ... which is a little spooky when you think about it.


But you can have your pic taken with the tree! The line was almost as long as the line for mini donuts.



Robee inside a tree light.


Getting warm and eating and drinking.

Owen in the stroller. With his foot still healing, he rode most of the time. =( Poor Little Foot.


This was my favorite. This was an entire mountain scene made from little lights. I cannot imagine the time and sweat it took in putting this together. But it's beautiful.

Another one that I loved. I call this one "Falling Lights." There were strings of lights coming off the tree branches and then bundled at the bottom for a firework-effect.

Another fav of mine: Lighthouse of Lights.

Thomas looking at the Lights. He was very taken with the whole thing as you can see.

This is Leah, a friend of Felix's. She came along for the ride and stayed the night. She had the unfortunate luck of sitting next to Felix while we ate and then experienced Felix's hot chocolate being flung all over her during dinner. My child.


We had a GREAT time and I'm so glad Jen suggested we go. I've always wanted to go but never made it in time. I sent the kids to the day camp the first summer we were here and have always love Kayak Point too (the park on the beach near-by). It was even snowing a little which made it even better.

My funny child

Usually Robee hates going into Claire's. "It's a girls' shop! There is nothing for me to do! Nothing for me to look at! I'll sit outside."

However this day, he found something to look at and something to do:
The clerks were in hysterics. They didn't realize at first that he was a boy.


And this is when he was trying out his new shoes. Most people walk around, move their feet .. you know ... make sure the shoe feels good on their foot. Not Robee. This is how he tests out a potential shoe:

Peaceful Life of a Spider

I was moving pictures around late last night and found this video I took with my phone one day. It is of a spider, spinning it's web.

I came across it when I was walking into the office one day. I was late but I saw it spinning around and around and I had to stop and watch.

Mind you, I'm not a huge fan of spiders. I am not paralyzed with fear as I used to be, but it's not like we're best friends either.

However, when I saw it outside the door, I had to watch and then video it for next five minutes. I was so enraptured watching it do what nature had intended it to do.

I remember talking to a friend of mine and we were discussing our daily schedules of shuttling kids here and there and we're in martial arts so we're at class quite a bit and Thomas is working crazy hours with the economy ..........

And here was this spider, silently, peacefully, instinctively spinning it's web. True, it probably will be destroyed in a day when a fly or some destructive person comes along. And true, the spider has a precarious life span; each day is spent only to survive.

But still, it did seem to me as I watched it go around and around, that maybe G-d didn't mean for us to have such chaotic lives.

You decide.