Got Coffee?

When I think of Seattle, I think of Starbucks. After all, Seattle is the birthplace of Starbucks and there are so many little coffee shops everywhere. So when I went to Seattle last weekend, I thought I'd be drinking a lot of coffee. Well, there was certainly plenty to drink, but not all of it was coffee!

Our first drinking adventure was in Volunteer Park, where we landed right after lunch on our first day in Seattle. It was a chilly afternoon (for those of us from Texas!) and Katy spied a little stand with a sign that read "Spicy Chai Tea." Sounds yummy, right? Katy and I decided to treat ourselves to some hot tea. Well, let's just say we were a tad disappointed that $3 bought us tea from a packet (a mix, not even a tea bag!), a couple of grinds of pepper, and a whole lot of hot water. It didn't really taste like tea. It mostly tasted like hot water. Katy drank hers, but I dumped mine out. Fortunately, Volunteer Park was pretty enough to make up for the non-chai chai tea.

The next drinking adventure actually did involve coffee. I'm an early riser and Katy shared my room on the Seattle trip, so the two of us were up before anyone else in the house on Sunday. I need my coffee first thing in the morning, so Katy and I went hunting around Leigh's kitchen in search of the coffee pot. Now, at most houses the coffee pot is pretty easy to find right there on the counter. And to be fair to Leigh, hers is right there on the counter. It just doesn't exactly look like a coffee pot. Leigh and Tyler have a Chemex.

See? When it's empty, it looks like a carafe, not a coffee pot! Fortunately Katy recognized this contraption and knew we just needed to find some filters for it. We went through all of Leigh's cupboards, and just as Katy was suggesting using a sock as a filter, we found them and managed to brew some coffee. You really should have seen us, though, because we had no idea what we were doing. Once we found those filters, we did have some tasty coffee in no time. Here we are drinking more coffee and eating Tyler's yummy waffles after our morning workout.

Our third drinking adventure involved some exotic green tea elixir at the farmers' market. I can't remember the name of this mysterious drink, but the gentleman brewing it claimed it was good for your liver, so Katy named it the "Green Tea Vinegar Probiotic Hangover Cure." We did taste it and it was vinegary. We didn't buy any.

But these guys did! Do you see the bottle on the left side of the bar? Maybe they know something we don't...

Next up, we headed over to a cute little wine shop called Portalis for a mid-day wine tasting.
Yum! In back, they had two skylights made out of old wine bottles. Pretty cool, huh?

And now we're on to drinking adventure no. 5. We had burgers and bloody Marys for lunch (well, some of us did). Don't these look beautiful? It's like drinking your salad. The neatest part was that our waiter was from Texas. If you look closely, you can see a Texas tattoo on his arm.
And our final drinking adventure took place near the Pike Place Market, home of the original Starbucks (I did see it but we did not stop there). On Monday morning, after poking around the market, we found this adorable little tea shop called the Perennial Tea Room. I love tea, which is probably why I was taken in by the spicy chai tea in the park on our first day. I bought myself a couple of bags of tea, including a Rooibos Chai. YUM! This stuff is amazing, and definitely has me leaving Seattle with happy tea memories!

So you can see that we had numerous "drinking adventures" on our trip to Seattle, but very little in the way of coffee. But you know, I didn't go to Seattle for the coffee.
I went to Seattle to be with my best friends.

Seattle Farmers' Market

I spent last weekend in Seattle with three of my best girlfriends. My friend Leigh moved to Seattle almost four years ago, and I've never been up to visit her, so Katy, Heather and I headed up to the Northwest for a fun girls' weekend. I have to say that I love Seattle. I can't believe that I've never been there before, considering that I grew up in California and have been to many other parts of Washington (my uncle lives there) -- but this was my first trip to Seattle! I definitely need to go back again soon!

We spent all day Sunday outside, roaming around and exploring Seattle. I'm sure everyone knows that I love farmers' markets. I take the little boys to the very small local farmers' market. They just started one here in October, and it's itty-bitty, but I adore the food I get. It's so fresh and yummy and they all know me and the boys now...

In any case, we were lucky enough to experience one of the many farmers' markets in Seattle. After all, this is Seattle and there are permanent signs marking the neighborhood markets. How awesome is that? Leigh lives in a great neighborhood called Ballard, and so she and her husband Tyler took us to the Ballard Farmers' Market on Sunday. Oh my goodness, I could spend hours at that place. Can you see how big it is? We're only at the midpoint in this picture and there are stalls on both sides of the street.

They have everything there. Literally everything, even a poem store. This lady sat in her chair with her typewriter perched on her lap, and she would write a poem for you! Heather had a poem written about her Jack Russell terrier. Who knew?

Next to the poet was a man selling newspapers. He saw me with my camera and stopped me to ask me to please not take his picture. Hmm. I was taking pics of my friends, so I hadn't planned on photographing the paper seller. Now I wish I had picture just so I could include it on the blog. Sigh.
I obviously couldn't buy a bunch of produce or fresh fish, but I did get some handmade soap from this stall. Adorable, no?

And we didn't try this pizza either, but I had to take a picture of this pizza oven for my pizza-making husband.

Here's one last pic from the farmers' market. Heather was off with the poet so I got Katy, Leigh (in the middle) and her awesome (and patient) husband Tyler. Yep, the poor guy had to put up with four women sharing his one bathroom, but instead of running and hiding, he made us breakfast!!

I have the best friends and we had the best time in Seattle!

A Pizza/Dance Party

What could be better than chowing down on pizza, watching little kids groove to fun music, and hanging out with great friends? The end of April was beautiful here in Houston, and we invited our good friends Kate and Mike and their adorable children over for dinner one evening. Gene made his special homemade pizza (YUM!!!), the kids played outside, and we enjoyed good conversation with two of our favorite people!

Henry helped Gene make the first pizza.

Is it ready yet?

After dinner, the kids headed out to play. When the adults got tired of pushing kids on the swing, Sophie and Henry took over. (Yes, we had TWO Henrys at this get-together!) Isn't it cute that Henry is pushing Henry?

Next up, Will requested that I play his Spider Songs CD outside. Will, Henry and Sophie had so much fun dancing together. This is some serious cuteness.

Sophie added her own ballet flair!

Aren't these two adorable?

We are so sad that Kate and Mike are moving out of our neighborhood, but as Will likes to remind me, they're just moving closer to Nana and Pop, so we'll still see them.

Brotherly Love

My boys love each other. Sure, they fight and argue just like any other siblings, but they really do love each other. On Tuesday, they wanted to have snack sitting in the same chair. Will must have known they looked cute together because he ordered me to get my camera and take some pictures. I think the photos pretty much say it all, don't you?

Now I just have to look at these pictures the next time they fight over whether something is yummy. ("Nummy!" says Will. "Not nummy," says Henry. Over and over again.) And I will remember that they truly do love each other. They're brothers and best friends, after all.

Preschool Program

Last Thursday night, Will's school had an open house and program featuring the entire preschool. The open house started at 6:30pm and the program didn't begin til 7pm, which is late for our little ones. Fortunately, Will had a nap that day, so he did well. Henry, on the other hand, got to Will's classroom and immediately said, "Go home," which he repeated over and over throughout the night. Finally we had to promise him a cookie afterwards to get him to stay!

We weren't too sure how Will would perform at the program. At the Christmas program, he cried and then sucked his thumb the entire time. He thought I was going to be up on stage with him and that led to his little meltdown.


This time he understood what was going on, but he still didn't participate. Well, that's not completely true. He hummed the entire thing. Progress, no?

Do you notice the little boy in green at the right side of the picture? He was really into the music and was standing right in front of a microphone, which led to a number of hilariously loud and exuberantly performed segments!
The funniest part was the very end when the pastor asked the kids to sit on the risers. Every single child, except Will, sat down. I knew he was scared of being up on the risers, so I wasn't surprised the he wouldn't sit down. Finally a teacher led him to the other end where he could sit safely.All in all, it was a successful evening. We saw all Will's schoolwork displayed at the open house and enjoyed listening to the kids sing, and then the boys devoured a cookie and rainbow sherbet that the school provided after the program. We've made progress indeed!

Dress Up

The boys love to play dress up, so I keep their old Halloween costumes and other dress up goodies in a big basket in the playroom. One day last week, Will wanted to be a fireman, so we put on his costume from Halloween '08.

We don't have an ax (obviously!), so Will pretended to knock down the walls with this toy shaker. He's nothing if not creative! I think this pile of books and blocks was the "fire." Whatever it was, he was working pretty hard at containing it! The horse you see is actually the fire hose.

Henry decided to be a monkey, which is fitting because I have always called him "Henry Monkey." This is the costume that he was supposed to wear for Halloween '09. If you recall, Will was going to be the zookeeper and Henry his monkey, but at the last minute, Will refused to put on the zookeeper costume, and instead insisted on wearing the size 12-24 month monkey outfit! So, it was nice to finally get some pictures of my littlest monkey in the monkey costume.

He had fun finding his tail and the banana.

And don't all good dress up sessions end with the fireman reading a story to the monkey?
Surely this is something straight out of a Curious George book!

Spider Songs

It is not news that my boys like music, but Will has recently been asking for music outside. I guess it's not enough that they have CD players in their rooms and playroom, along with CDs scattered around the house and our cars. Now we need to jam to songs outside as well!

I finally gave in and made some room on my iPod for some kid music. Normally I just use my iPod and dock for boot camp playlists, but now I also have the Spider Songs CD that I made for Will's 3rd birthday party on it.

Henry was trying to figure out exactly how this worked.

But then he started "dancing" in place by waving his arms!

They are listening to "Polliwog in a Bog" by the Barenaked Ladies and Will is pretending to be a polliwog. Of course he is!
Just waiting for the next song to come on.

Next up is "Roly Poly" by Roger Day. Will is counting along with the song: "1, 2, 3, 4, Roly Poly!"

And away they go!

Next time you're in our neck of the woods, join us for a pajama-clad boogie in the backyard!