a spontaneous visit to whidbey island

Zoe and daddy had a busy time at the beach.
The ferry trip over is always a favorite part.
a second before she asked what the birds were doing while they were tracking the boat.
Their hair matches!
She placed the last one on top.  Dad is just too short.

Our Gigi...

This week Zoe's Gigi (Great-Grandma) died. 

We are having a celebration of her life at her home

22902 58th Ave W. Mountlake Terrace 

Sunday, October 12th from 12:30 -4:30pm

How to talk about death with a nearly 3 year old?  I found myself not sleeping over this question. We ended up finding a couple books, including a book called I miss you (a first book of death).   Zoe found the books before I was ready to read them without crying, but I pulled myself together and was able to read them to her.  She had several questions, and related the picture of the elderly woman to Gigi.  Then I told her that her Gigi died.  That was the end of talking about death and she was off playing with something else.  

I wasn't even sure if she got it,  but did tell Daddy that that Gigi died.

We have much work to do today, so I need to sign off for now.

Love to all, 

Amanda

Just a Quick Link that Made Me Sit Still

http://paperforest.blogspot.com/2008/08/singing-papers.html

enjoy

Mommy's Mondays: Forest Park, Now and Then...

Here we are, Renee and I at Forest Park, August, 1988.  

Yes, 20 years ago.  

Working for the State has been just about one of the best decisions I have ever made.  One of the many reasons is that I am now on a 4 10 schedule and have every Monday off with Zoe.  

We have had some great Mom and Me time together so far, and wanted to share with you last Monday's adventure with our friends Renee and Connor.  

We decided to head over to Forest Park right here in Everett which is a 100 acre wooded park with a great playground, water park, petting Zoo among many other activities.  We had a great picnic and play time.  Needless to say, we were very late on our nap time!  

 Zoe loved feeding the horse the grass that he was reaching for.  I am not sure that it is actually allowed, but we sure had a great time, and the horse seemed to love hanging out with everyone at the fence.

Here are Connor and Zoe trying to get as wet and cold as possible!

  Zoe loved how soft the calves were.  

Connor and Zoe playing in the train.

 Renee had a great idea for using business cards as train tickets to get on the train.  All the kids loved that!

Any Third Sunday in June

A visit to our favorite Speck family midway point for a Grandma Speck's Birthday and father's day picnic turned out the sun and the smiles.  Point Defiance Park wasn't as crowded as we thought it was going to be and these dads' couldn't have been happier.  Plenty of room on the swing-sets and lots of fresh air.The girls loved this playground and Kassidy waited (almost patiently) for Zoe to finish her slide so they could ascend again.

Just so, for the picture wouldn't be the same without two swinging monkeys.
And when the slide got too congested for hanging out, they opted for the jungle gym.  Zoe climbing way above Jeff's comfort level every chance she got.  Grandpa Speck just laughed and winked and reminded Jeff of some eras of history he may have wanted to block.  
But luckily no falls that weren't planned and only some scraped knees from the nature hike down to the sound (not pictured here).

Happy Father's Day to all you dads out there and enjoy it while you can.  Seems to me it should be illegal how fast they grow up.

A fairly appropriate link for the day:

http://www.makezine.com/

With a Capital T and that Rhymes with P...

and that stands for pool.  There seems to  be trouble in river city.  Sometimes it's quiet upstairs. Sometimes it's too quiet.
So there she was standing mid-stair, looking like something just got out of the bag.... or the tub perhaps.
"And this is where it all started" she says.
"and right here is where it all ended."

"Do you want some?"

and for your linkage pleasure:

http://www.zurqui.com/crinfocus/paper/airplane.html

Windin' isn't Breezy

This is just genius on so many levels.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mTLO2F_ERY

Turn them out, knaves all three

A butcher? A baker? A candlestick maker?, who knows who owned this rub-a-dub beauty before us. This last weekend (memorial day), was all about the tub. We spent the weekend combing through some of the Puget Sound's home and business salvage warehouses. Zoe is beginning to understand a little bit about re-using older materials (jeff thinks), "she does seem to recognize that these aren't your normal stores." We are very happy with our choice and can't wait to get the bathroom finished so we can soak in the tub to alleviate all the stress and aches from finishing the bathroom to get the tub in... etc... etc...

http://www.earthwise-salvage.com/

http://www.seconduse.com/

http://www.re-store.org/

The missing tub has been the bottleneck to our downstairs bathroom remodel/restoration. Since we didn't have a tub to put in, Jeff didn't know where to move the existing plumbing (if at all). We found the tub at Earthwise Salvage. It turned out though, that the hardware included in the deal (which is clean and really cool; and a really good deal too) wasn't going to work with our existing plumbing.

The drain will still work, so we won't discard the originals, but we did have to visit another salvage warehouse to find a replacement set for our original plumbing (we have to move the faucet set further up the wall to fit with the new tub). This new set matches nicely and will work just great. Except for the faucet itself, which is just long enough now to fill the bathroom itself with water (completely missing the tub). So we are looking at ways to bump the faucet out with some molding or maybe some sort of sculpted piece (we even toyed with the idea of a trough - haha).

Now if we can just carve the time out to actually do the work. (haha)


And here's your random link for the post:

http://www.buildingreuse.org/directory/washington

and just for fun

http://www.epa.gov/kids/game.htm

Hot Hot Hot

So, it was like 100 degrees down in Castle Rock this last weekend.  The party we went to was a combined (60th)birthday/retirement party for Papa Speck and two family friends (Bill Todd and Larry Sigler).

The party went over well, but the heat drove all the elderly (squirm) into the shade of the back yard cherry tree and all the kids into the sprinkler,  and the resulting mud puddles.  Then into the arms of formerly dry grandparents (haha).

and here's your daily (sort of) random link:

http://www.newdream.org/

All about the random link

Amanda is still mulling over the photos from this last weekends excitement: Grandpa Speck's 60th Birthday party. So stand by for photos.

Just wanted to get this link on. It has been cracking me up since i got the link from my uncle Martin.

The tag on the website (a web log created by an artist called Travors) itself says it best:

"Who would have guessed that when you remove Garfield from the Garfield comic strips, the result is an even better comic about schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and the empty desperation of modern life? Friends, meet Jon Arbuckle. Let’s laugh and learn with him on a journey deep into the tortured mind of an isolated young everyman as he fights a losing battle against loneliness in a quiet American suburb."

sometimes it takes a minute for the different layers of humor to soak in, but they usually do.

oh yeah, here's the link and an example:

http://garfieldminusgarfield.tumblr.com/







have a great week.

This Beautiful Mother's Day

The moment a child is born, the mother is also born. She never existed before. The woman existed, but the mother, never. A mother is something absolutely new. ~Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh

Well, Happy Mothers Day. If it weren't for mother's I just don't know where we would be. The girls couldn't have been happier today. We didn't go out and run around and try to be this place and that. Just stayed in. Jeff drove out to the Maltby Cafe this morning (highly recommended by the way: http://www.maltbycafe.com/) and picked up one of their giant cinnamon rolls

for breakfast (the picture doesn't really give you any scale, but let's just say it is about a foot square). Along with some Starbucks, it was one wired breakfast.

Zoe and Mom worked on some collages (Zoe is scary with the scissors - a good scary).

Aunt Renee stopped by for a while with Connor Thomas and sat for a spell.

Then the girls spent the rest of the afternoon up front gardening. They both were glowing with that joy you only get when your hands are dirty and you don't care.

You don't really understand human nature unless you know why a child on a merry-go-round will wave at his parents every time around - and why his parents will always wave back. ~William D. Tammeus

and here's your random daily link: (recommend the garrett reisman interview)

http://www.colbertnation.com/

A Visit from Faraway Friends

Back in April some old friends (who recently moved to California) came to visit.  Zoe and Ashley's moms were in the same birthing class. They had a lot of fun dressing up (the kids - haha).

Random Link:

http://disney.go.com/magicartist/coloring/

The Princess and the Pee

While in the middle of attempting to potty train little bug, i often have to remember the calm times, the smiling times, the times not filled with so much... hmm.. contrariness (i think that about says it)...

here are some recent photos that can help.

a few dress-ups and trip to the park with papa and grandma.

oh yeah, your daily (mostly) random (for the most part) link:

http://www.simpleliving.net

Twice Upon a Time

I recently found this web log (see first link below). I can distinctly remember seeing this movie when i was a kid (although it may be self deception - you get too far back in time, and the memory plays little tricks on you). I also remember some cousin or another (a jones if i'm not mistaken) having the picture book version. I must have poured through that book every chance i got. The movie is not available on dvd (yet). Hopefully some kind soul at Warner Home Video will take a liking to it and release it... or maybe some star in the firmament will become the champion of this gem and push to get it released... anyway for now... you're stuck watching a youtube version of a vhs copy of a vhs copy of the original. The soundtrack is a little (haha) dated, but the movie itself (especially the characters) is the bomb.  Who couldn't use the help of an all-purpose animal every now and then.

http://twiceuponatimemovie.blogspot.com/

your daily (mostly) random (well...) link:

http://www.paperforest.blogspot.com/

back track I

This is one of the many wonderful photos taken at Amanda's brother Jeremy's wedding.  He and his wife Abbie had a superb photographer on hand.  He seemed to be everywhere at once and also not obtrusive.  He got some gorgeous shots of everyone.

This is the first time the Zo-bug had flown (or even seen) a kite; and she was blown away (pun intended) by the whole experience.

Your daily (mostly) random (well...) link: http://www.arch.ced.berkeley.edu/kap/gallery/gallery.html

the dropper

the set up... blog 1 2 3

blog 123

and... umm.... photos to drop in.

I will be dropping random links into these web log postings.  I've visited all the sites and recommend them as entertaining at the very least, educational when appropriate, and all around cool places to visit.  So here's your first (kind of) daily (mostly) random (well... ) link:

http://www.homestarrunner.com/

Nowtro?

To paraphrase the folkmen "The blogs will be retro then, but they aren't retro now. They are 'nowtro' now".

Your daily (mostly) random (well...) link: http://www.instructables.com/