{ Slices of Summer, Part II }

:: Family date after church ~ ferry ride to Kingston ::

:: Fascinated by the wake ::

:: She ALWAYS gets this distracted by airplanes--she loves 'em! ::

 

~*~*~

:: A recent date night {date date night} included a trip to Fainting Goat Gelato ::

:: Mike had mango habanero and raspberry, I had lemon grisbi and honey lavender ~ so delicious! ::

 

~*~*~

 

:: Baby loves milkshakes, too ::

 

~*~*~

:: Who knew this face happens when you put her in a leotard with rhinestones and a tulle skirt? ::

:: Or this pose... ::

:: Or that our little photoshoot would end in such sorrow! ::

 

~*~*~

 

:: Saturday stroll with Daddy ::

:: "I heard a boat! Or an airplane! OVER THERE!" ::

 

Summer's not over yet, but this post is plenty long!

{ date }

Yesterday

baby at Grandpa and Grandma's

crowded coffee shop

caramel lattes with

perfectly-swirled foam

oatmeal raisin cookie {for him}

sweet potato sage scone {for her}

good conversation
giggling

kisses

hand-holding

Skip-Bo {he won}

a perfect Sunday afternoon date



 

 

 

 

 

{ On a Weekend in February }

It's been a good weekend, y'all.

Started on Friday evening, when we babysat Julia--our friends' daughter and the only other baby/kid in our Bible study group. Julia is two and a half months older than Lainie, and let me tell you: Watching them interact is a hoot.

Julia crawls. Julia crawls fast. Julia explores, licks, tastes, opens, closes, pushes and pulls rapidly and thoroughly. Julia jabbers and growls and eats with gusto.

Lainie sits and watches, shocked, as though there is an invader in her home but that invader might actually be a lot of fun but she's really loud and it's kinda intimidating that this moving-growling-other-baby apparently is more skilled at playing with Lainie's toys than Lainie herself is.

It was so much fun to see what the next stage is--what Lainie will probably be doing in a couple of months! And it made me realize how very un-child-proofed our house is. *sigh* I am not looking forward to childproofing. Though Lainie was a bit intimidated by such an active playmate in "her" space, I think they had fun together.

Saturday I got a haircut, but there are no photos yet so we aren't going to talk about it. At least not photos I'm willing to post on the internet. There are a couple self-portraits Mike and I took on our date {see below} but we both look slightly crazed and incredibly anemic, so just use your imaginations.

Saturday evening Julia's parents, Travis and Krissy, babysat Lainie for us so we could go on a date. Because we are so young and adventurous and full of excitement and don't go on dates as often as we should nowadays, we chose to spend our date night at home...making dinner...followed by a little TV.

I can't believe we are those people!!!

I mean, I can, and it's not all bad, it's mostly really really good, and I think all of our other dates post-baby we've gone out, so it was really nice to just chill at home, just the two of us, but still!

In our defense: Lainie has been so hard to get to sleep at night {usually crying off and on for a couple hours} that the idea of a nice, leisurely, quiet evening at home, relaxing and enjoying a really yummy dinner and uninterrupted conversation without keeping things at a whisper and taking turns getting baby back to sleep, seemed divine. And it was! We made homemade macaroni and cheese--one of my absolute favorite comfort foods--followed by oreo-stuffed chocolate chip cookies. I saw them in Pinterest and knew we had to make them--what could be more decadent than a mashup of our two favorite kinds of cookies?




 Be forewarned: These babies are monsters. I think we were a little generous with the cookie dough, but regardless, each "cookie" is the equivalent of two chocolate chip cookies plus an oreo. They are ridiculously dense and filling.

And the ultimate "eat it with milk" cookie. They were a fun experiment, but I don't think we'll make them again--too huge, and rich, and just too much. As a matter of fact, we gave half our batch of 12 away!

 

Then we headed to a restaurant to meet up with Mike's parents, sister Amaryah, and her fiance Lawrence. Yes, Lawrence finally popped the question on Friday night, and Amaryah said yes! {We had to make a little detour to Travis and Krissy's so I could feed Lainie, since she is refusing all bottles these days, but that is another story for another day.} We had yummy drinks {Mike and I were too full for anything else} and hung out and talked weddings and watched the ferries twinkling across the water. It was fun because it's the same restaurant where we went on our first date, and on the night Mike proposed--we could see the pier where he asked me to marry him from our table. We couldn't be happier for A + L and are excited to see them transition from boyfriend/girlfriend to husband and wife. And I'm excited to see what Amaryah comes up with for their wedding...she works as an event planner, so I'm sure it will be a really lovely affair.

 

And then Sunday: I managed to get Lainie and I to the 9am church service on time {Mike was already there since he helps with setup} and for the first time, Lainie stayed in the nursery for the whole service! Apparently she cried a lot, but not to the point where they had to call us to take her. It wore her out, though, and she fell asleep within five minutes of getting in the car.

 

Now it's just a nice, quiet Sunday evening. Baby Girl is playing with her food. Mike is working {still crazy busy for a week or two}. I am slowly whittling down the monstrous pile of dirty dishes that used to be our kitchen. I'm hoping the kitchen will be visible by tonight. Because somehow, we have to get to the fridge, and that leftover mac and cheese...

{ Midweek Date Night }

Last week, Lainie and I ventured down to our local farmer's market. It's quite small; just Wednesday afternoons from 3pm-7pm, and less than two dozen vendors, but it's fun and very picturesque {in the lighthouse park, the Puget Sound a few steps away}. I suggested to Mike that we go there for our date this week, so we did.

Disclaimer: You won't see evidence of Lainie or her stroller in any of these photos, but both were definitely present.

.

:: picking out sandwich bread {I just now noticed the tablecloth--love it!} ::

:: My dinner: pear and Gorgonzola pizza with caramelized onions ::

:: the pizza stand--cool oven, huh?! ::

:: One of the pizza guys pretended he was going to photobomb the shot, and Mike encouraged him to actually do it! ::

:: fresh two-patty cheeseburger {is anyone surprised that's what he chose?} ::

:: blackberry lavender ice cream bar for dessert ::

:: coconut lavender ice cream bar...it was SO delicious! {See the bouquet of dahlias Mike got me?} ::

Happy Date Night, Honey!

{ Let's Go On A Date }

Last Saturday, Mike and I went on a date. Like, a most-of-the-day date.

Recently we've become increasingly aware that while we are really good at being shoulder-to-shoulder friends {working together towards goals, etc.}, we invest very little time and energy toward being face-to-face friends {spending time together, talking, building our relationship, being friends}. We decided to take a Saturday and spend it face-to-face. And while it didn't turn out exactly as planned, we both had a lot of fun. And spent a lot of time just talking and hanging out and being friends. Which was the point!

We started off with breakfast at a local breakfast joint. This establishment is no longer on our list of places to go for breakfast. It has been hovering on the brink for a while, but the less-than-stellar service and just-okay food pushed it over for us. Bye-bye, Patty's Eggnest!

Then we headed up to Chuckanut Drive, that beautiful two-lane, cliff-hugging highway that winds in and out of steep, evergreen-thick hillsides to reveal breathtaking panoramas of the Puget Sound and San Juan Islands. We have so many fun memories along Chuckanut, from a couple random dates to a big portion of our engagement day.

Once we reached Bellingham, of course the streets in the part of town we wanted to visit were blocked off for a St. Patrick's Day parade...free parking was virtually nonexistent...and there were some tense, crabby moments in the car as we drove hither and yon trying to find parking and figure out what to do. We made up, finally parked, and found a lovely coffee shop called The Woods Coffee. Ohmygoodness. Love. In the photo below, you can see a glimpse of their decor: original pressed tin ceilings, vintage light fixtures, reclaimed metal barstools, a wall "papered" with burlap coffee sacks--plus original hardwood floors, beautiful exposed woodwork, comfy leather chairs--the place was an aesthetic feast! My coconut latte was pretty good, too.

We meandered around town on foot for a couple hours, dodging rainshowers and exploring random shops. We bought Strong's Exhaustive Concordance at a used bookstore {I have been meaning to buy an exhaustive concordance for months}, and Mike even ventured into a fibers shop with me--full of exotic yarns, spinning wheels, and various kinds of locally-raised and beautifully dyed fibers {wool, alpaca, llama, rabbit, etc.} waiting to be spun or felted.

For lunch, we stopped at Bayou on Bay, and boy oh boy, was it good!

Mike's BBQ pulled pork po' boy sandwich came with the best sweet potato fries I have ever tasted. I ate most of them. And I would like some more, please.

I had gumbo and an Arnold Palmer. Both delicious.

On our way back home, we stopped at one of the scenic overlooks to take some pictures.

Miss Peanut likes Chuckanut Drive.

It was a good day, and a good date.

~The End~

{ Valentine's Day }

Valentine's Day is so last week. I know.

Once upon a time, I thought that if I ever had the good fortune to be a stay-at-home wife, I'd blog, like, every day. Now I am in that season, and am continually astounded that I still blog so irregularly. Just yesterday, I was on the phone with my Mom, and she asked what I've been doing lately. My {incredibly intelligent} response: "Ummmmm...cooking...cleaning...the elliptical machine...church......uh, I really don't know. People always ask what I've been doing, and I always feel like I don't have anything very significant to tell them, but I'm always busy doing something!"

My Mom's {very comforting} comeback--she's been a stay-at-home-wife-then-mom since 1979: "That's just the way life is, kiddo!"

Back to Valentine's Day. I have no plausible excuse for writing this post a week after the fact. Remember the Great Wall Leak of January 2012? Nearly a month ago? Repairs took much longer than I expected: When they estimated 20 hours of work {if they didn't have to repaint the entire ceiling}, I assumed that to mean three days. I mean, c'mon, I was rounding up and giving them four whole extra hours, right?

It seems I've forgotten how long home improvement/repair projects take. Once the wet drywall was ripped out, it took several days for the walls to dry. Then the contractors had to schedule to come out and put in new drywall and spray texture. Then the texture had to dry. Then they had to schedule to come back and paint the replaced portions of the wall and ceiling. Then they had to schedule the manager-person to come out and see whether or not the ceiling paint color matched the rest of the ceiling closely enough {we had extra wall paint, but had never painted the ceiling, so they had to color-match it}. The manager-person agreed with us that the ceiling color definitely didn't match, so they scheduled the contractors to come back out and paint our entire living room/dining room ceiling. The next week.

I should pause here to say that the decision to paint the entire ceiling--at no expense to us--was met with much rejoicing by both Mike and Nikki. When we painted the walls last summer, there were several areas where we--ahem--splotched paint onto the ceiling. And being less-than-perfectionist-types when it comes to a sloped ceiling that is 25+ feet high at one end, we decided to live with a few spots on the ceiling rather than paint the entire ceiling. And now we're getting our entire ceiling painted for us, without having to do a thing!! Awesome!

So, they were scheduled to paint on Monday, the day before Valentine's Day. They called that morning and cancelled because the lead painter was sick. We rescheduled for Wednesday because we didn't want to have a freezing cold, paint-fumey house on Valentine's...I had planned to make a nice big dinner for Mike, and that would be impossible if I had to be out of the house all day to avoid paint fumes.

When I was growing up, V-Day was never an event for my family. Period. Mike, though vocally and vehemently opposed to the commercialism of what he calls "the holiday that Hallmark made up to generate revenue," has always made it a special day for me. He makes it very clear that he doesn't need a special day to show me how much he loves me, and that every day we're married is Valentine's Day. Sweet man. This year, I wanted to bless his socks off. I started with Pinterest {where else?} and used red-and-white baker's twine to tie doilies and construction paper hearts around different-sized Mason jars with candles in them. I made a little heart bunting strung on red yarn, and framed some Valentine-y printables I found on Pinterest and set them out.

Then we had to move everything out of the living and dining rooms in preparation for painting. *sigh*

I ended up filling the dining table with candles, temporarily hanging the bunting on the mantle, and putting most of the other stuff in our bedroom. It wasn't what I had envisioned, but it worked well.

The evening's menu:

Green salad with feta, walnuts, and cranberries

Pioneer Woman's ribeye steak with whiskey cream sauce

Pioneer Woman's twice baked potatoes

14 Hands 2009 merlot {or water, for the pregnant lady}

When Mike asked what I wanted for V-Day, I told him 1) flowers, and 2) chocolate ice cream. He came home with a dozen red roses, two half-gallons of frozen chocolatey decadence, and an assortment of candy bars to chop up and put on top. Needless to say, dessert was delicious! We finished the evening by watching "The Man from Snowy River," which Mike had never seen. In spite of no curtains and rooms stripped nearly bare, it was a really, really good Valentine's Day. The best yet.

P.S. The ceiling did actually get painted the following day! It looks beautiful. We have yet to re-hang the blinds and curtains, so we're still practicing exhibitionists working on 5+ weeks of bare windows, but for the most part the house is back together.

{ Date Night }

Right now our church is going through a sermon series called "Real Marriage," based on the book of the same name that our pastor wrote {it was just published a couple weeks ago}. All of the "community group" {what churches usually call a Bible study} are also going through the material, with individual homework assignments {tailored specifically for husbands, wives, and singles}, group discussion questions, and weekly "experiences" to put into practice what we're discussing. This week's material was about how important it is to be friends with your spouse: not just roommates, or just lovers, or just people who happen to be married, but friends. So the experience assignment was to go on a date that's just for fun: No heavy conversations, no "let's make running errands a date this week"--something fun.

Mike and I are both prone to busy-ness and can be very list- and goal-oriented; we are good at being very shoulder-to-shoulder and working together towards the same goals. It's far too easy to let those traits become prominent in our relationship, so that we're sometimes more like two people {who happen to be fond of each other} working toward the same goal, and having fun together isn't always a priority. And let's be honest...even after just 2.5 years of marriage, it's easy to get into a "rut" and just go to the same handful of restaurants, get takeout, watch a movie, or veg in front of Hulu, rather than making the effort to do something that is intentionally fun. So I was getting excited for Friday night!

Many of our dates before marriage took place in Edmonds. We have a lot of good memories there, but don't go there often anymore. So I wasn't surprised when that's where we headed. For dinner we went to The Loft, a really cool little restaurant where we went for drinks a couple times when we were dating. The inside part is tiny {and I seriously want their wallpaper in my home}, but they have a large outdoor patio in the back that's partially enclosed...meaning that it's bounded on one side by the back wall {glass} of the restaurant, on two sides by the walls of other buildings, on the fourth side by a tall wooden fence, and there's a sort of high plexiglass roof. Two of the walls have tall stands of bamboo growing against them, so it feels very outdoorsy, and yet at the same time you can look inside through the glass wall. There is also a bar with granite countertops, and lots of heat lamps, and twinkle lights strung all along the roof, and at every table there's at least one blanket in case you get chilly. I was thoroughly enchanted: Yes, let's please eat outside in January surrounded by twinkle lights and bamboo and good music and heat lamps!

We talked and laughed and flirted and took pictures of each other, just like when we were dating. Mike ordered a burger, and I had a delicious pear and gorgonzola ravioli dish. And then Mike wrote on my hand, as he is wont to do, and so I wrote on his hand, which he always tries very hard to prevent. Looks pretty good, if I do say so myself:

On the way to the car, I was sidetracked by a new frozen yogurt shop. It seems like cute little frozen yogurt shops are cropping up everywhere, and I've wanted to try one out for a while. It far exceeded my expectations!! There were probably 10 flavors to choose from, and at least 30 toppings: everything from smashed candy bars to fresh fruit {even pomegranate seeds and sliced kiwi!} to breakfast cereals to gummi bears and cookie dough. You choose your flavor{s} and toppings, and pay by weight. We decided to try pineapple, strawberry banana, and ginger lemonade, but bypassed the toppings--a good idea because it turns out that froyo ain't cheap. All the flavors were delicious, and if we lived closer I think I'd find excuses to go back regularly. Very, very regularly. Unfortunately there are no photos because we scarfed it down too fast, and because the place was swarming with high school students and we ended up eating in the car because there were no tables. {Funny side noted: as we were leaving, three teenage girls were about to go in, and one of them stopped outside the door and said, "Oh no! It's all sophomores in there!" We managed to get inside the car before we busted up laughing.}

Thank you for a wonderful, wonderful date, Honey. I love hanging out with you. I love having fun with you. I love it that we're friends.

{ Weekending }

What are your plans for the weekend?

I have a scratchy throat, so I'm hoping for a sleep-in sort of Saturday morning.

"Sleeping in" is something I'm not very familiar with of late...at least not since last month when Sunday became a 5:00 AM alarm sort of day!

Next I'd like a few hours to read the next chapter in the Redemption Group book, browse Pinterest, and blog. It would be fabulous if someone could bring me a salted caramel latte, too.

via

My imaginary housekeeper would take care of the laundry {even folded and put away!}, clean the bathroom, vacuum, and do the dishes. This most beloved figment of my imagination would also fix a double batch of the Pioneer Woman's comfort meatballs so I wouldn't feel bad about eating so many in one sitting.

via

Then, in the afternoon, Mr. Husband and I would do something really fun and romantic and outside our little domestic workaday rut.

Like go on a tour of Theo Chocolate with our friends Luke and Joanna and taste delicious organic chocolates with unusual ingredients like coconut curry or bread or fig, fennel & almond and laugh till one of us girls threatens to pee our pants. And then maybe...maybe...we wouldn't have had enough fun together yet, so we'd go find other adventures in the urban jungle of Seattle and laugh some more and maybe find a brewpub and enjoy a pint.

Doesn't that sound like a good plan?!

And it's actually going to happen--the part from Theo Chocolates on, that is. The reality of my Saturday morning is probably going to involve a lot more laundry, cooking and cleaning than Pinterest and blogwalking, but that's really what we're going to do tomorrow afternoon! {I'm so proud of us! We're not old married folk all the time--though I give people plenty of reasons to think I'm an antique!}

For now, I'm enjoying a mug of hot spiced cider. And I think I'll get a head start on that laundry.

Happy Weekending!

{ Spring Is... }

 :: daffodils, daffodils everywhere ::

 :: hi, daff! you are so beautiful! ::

:: sunset on the edmonds pier after a lovely date with my husband ::

 :: warning: ferry approaching over left shoulder ::

:: watching ferries skim into the sunset ::

:: a newly-springified chalkboard window cheering up the entryway ::