Christmas Cruise

Every year around mom's birthday we spend the day together, just the two of us. It is one of my favorite days of the year. It's a day to celebrate her birthday and also to transition into the holiday season. This year we started the day at Fidalgo's in Seattle. We hadn't been to their new store but we used to love the old place down by the stadium. The new store is a lot smaller but still very nice. From there we headed north to Molbak's in Woodinville. We really should've gotten an earlier start because we were a little rushed to see everything at Molbak's. We took a nice picture in front of the Poinsettia Tree too but unfortunately it's on mom's camera so I don't have it to post on the blog. After Molbak's I sprung the surprise on her- we were heading to Kirkland to board an Argosy Christmas Cruise!

Here we are in Kirkland. It was a sunny, beautiful day. Cold but not so cold that we needed our coats and very sunny.

Getting ready to board... we had tickets on the lead boat they call the "Christmas Ship". It's the big one on the left at the end of the dock up ahead.
It was crowded on board. Many people had obviously arrived very early and had selected all of the seats by the windows. We had some hot chocolate and found some seats in the center of the boat but soon realized it was more fun to wander around and go up on deck.
So we explored the ship and took pictures in front of the big tree on top. As the sun began to go down it got a bit colder; time to put coats and hats on.
The sun took its time setting. It was a very prolonged, beautiful sunset.
The small parade of boats made three stops along the way. On shore large groups of holiday revelers gathered around crackling bonfires awaiting the well lit-up ships and the choir singing on board.

As the choir beautifully heralded the holiday season the sky darkened and the colors of the sunset deepened.

Soon it was dark enough for the lights on the boats to be seen...

...but still the Heavenly sunset outshone them.

It really was a beautiful day and a very beautiful sunset.

I'm not sure which jolly fat man looked better by mom...

...me or Santa.

As night crept in and darkness overcame the gorgeous day we retired inside and found seats where we could enjoy the final performance of the choir.

Outside we could see the other well-lit ships passing in the night.

The Seattle Girls Choir Allegra sang songs of holiday cheer.

Rudolph came along in a speed boat and pulled up alongside the Christmas Ship. He delivered a package to Santa... could it be the pictures of each of the passengers that were taken as we boarded the ship?Finally our beautiful lake cruise had come to an end. We appreciated the other boats bedecked with lights and decorations as we made our way back down the dock.

One last view of the Christmas Ships as we drove away...

Famished, we headed to Bellevue for our dinner reservation at P.F. Chang's. Probably I should've left enough time for a quick lunch after Molbak's... oops! Our hunger might've influenced our opinion but either way we had one of the best dinners ever! The lettuce wraps were mom's favorite and I especially loved the crispy beans but everything was exceptional. And the blueberry jasmine iced tea...mmmmmmmm!

All in all it was a fabulous day. One that we will carry the memories of for years to come.

And we are already looking forward to mom's birthday next year!

Mom's Birthday

We celebrated mom's birthday down at Aunt Carol's house. Carol cooked a very nice dinner & invited the whole family down- it was quite a crowd! It was a very nice day. Aaron and Dani got mom a nice sweater. My present hadn't arrived yet... there was more to come!

Friday night we celebrated the end of a long hard week by going Roller Skating. Marina and Sydney skated and skated for hours, talking and laughing. They are so cute and sweet. Sydney took skating lessons from when she was very young and is a speed skater but Marina is a pretty good skater too so I don't think she slowed Sydney down too much.

Dakota didn't have a friend along this time so he was a little bored but he did have fun. Next time we'll have to plan just a little further ahead so that we can arrange to have one of his friends come along too.

Dakota has learned to be a really good skater!

Skating along... I'm not sure how I accidentally cut Sydney out of this picture... it's kind of hard to get the digital camera to "snap" at just the right time when the kids are moving so quickly!

Still going!By this time Dakota was pretty much done.

We had a fun night skating! Next time we'll get some of Dakota's friends to join us too. And Marina and Sydney are looking forward to getting their whole group of friends to join them as well. It's kind of fun to see her growing up and entering this teenage phase. Bittersweet.

Halloween 2009

On Halloween the kids and Carol went Trick-or-Treating with the Ramirez family- Marina's good friend Summer and Dakota's buddy Reece. A lot of Marina's friends also joined them. Marina and Summer made matching costumes: Ketchup and Mustard.
Here they are joined by their friend Dorothy. Er.... Sydney.
Here's the whole gang. Carol didn't take any pictures of just Dakota but you can see him on the left in his awesome Hillbilly costume.

Marina wore her Mustard costume all day Friday at school and paused to take this picture with her awesome fast-pitch coach.

They had a great time on Halloween. And I had an OK time staying home and handing out candy to the neighborhood kids here too. I was pretty tired after staying up LATE Thursday night sewing mustard and ketchup bottle dresses!

Pumpkin Patch Time

After our walk in the woods Dakota and I went to the Pumpkin Patch. Halloween was only a week away and we didn't have a single pumpkin yet! We called mommy and she met us there at the pumpkin patch. Marina was, of course, at Megan's house for the weekend. So no pumpkins for her!

We went on the hay ride. We're a little older now and the excitement has shifted from the sheer fun of riding around in a trailer full of hay pulled by a tractor to the fun of hoping that the tractor will run over some pumpkins.

One daddy pumpkin, one mommy pumpkin and one teeny little baby pumpkin. Well, actually the "baby" pumpkin was daddy's... I suppose it's a sign of being "old" that I have gone from looking for the "perfect big pumpkin" to looking for one that looks "good enough and pretty cheap." Oh, man, I really am getting old.

Dakota is getting pretty good at pushing the wheelbarrow, even with the pumpkins rolling back and forth in it. He wouldn't offer me a ride in it though.

Time to weigh and pay.

We're back to having just one kid in our annual "Pumpkin Patch Picture". Seems like such a short time ago that that "one kid" was tiny little Marina when she was little!

Dakota did still enjoy "driving" the tractor. He would've been a lot happier if he could've gotten it started though... there was a whole field of pumpkins just waiting to be smushed-up by a tractor!

Dakota did such a great job of carving his pumpkin! He took his time and carefully carved out a big crescent moon and a whole sky (er...pumpkin) full of twinkling stars all the way around. It turned out great!

Later in the week, one night after school, we stopped by the pumpkin patch for Marina to pick out a pumpkin. She carved the crazy cannibal pumpkin below. Dakota got another tiny little pumpkin and carved a funny face into it.

Don't they look awesome lit up?

It seems that I entirely forgot to take pictures of the adults' pumpkins. So now, 2 weeks later, I went out to take pictures of them for the blog. Mine still looks pretty good...

But Carol's has suffered the undeniable, unavoidable fate of the Jack-o-Lantern...
(It was a cool spider surrounded by its web. Rats... sorry we didn't get a picture before it went all smooshy!)

A Walk In the Woods

Dakota and I went for a walk in the woods. The girls were out shopping & then Marina spent the night Saturday at Megan Ward's out in Key Peninsula. So Dakota and I had the day to ourselves. We had a picnic lunch and then went for a nice walk in the woods up at Federation Forest. It was a beautiful crisp but sunny autumn day. We didn't see much wildlife but enjoyed the giant trees and fall colors.

Some of the old growth Douglas Firs are very large!

This was a pretty cool tree. Apparently it blew over in the wind. When it fell it got caught, wedged between two other trees. This caused the root ball to come completely free of the ground where it remains suspended in the air.

Another gigantic Douglas Fir tree. Dakota was most interested in the "nurse logs" and "nurse stumps" that were hosting Western Hemlock saplings of various sizes.

Eventually the trail took us to the White River and followed its shoreline.

We took a side trail down to the river and threw rocks and sticks in for a while.

When our hike was finished we drove on up to Crystal Mountain. At the tops of the hills we could see where it had recently snowed but there was no snow down at the ski area where we were. Driving back down the mountain we noticed, looking out over one of the vast valleys, a single yellow tree nestled among a forest of deep green. It was really stunningly beautiful. Unfortunately, taking the picture into the sun and with a soft fog coming into the valley the picture is not very clear.

Dakota had a good day in the mountains.

And so did daddy!

Sunset

The sunsets this fall have been gorgeous. To me a sunset is a tiny little gift from God. It reminds us of how he can create something beautiful out of absolutely nothing. The colors are so intense and so beautiful that you want to cling to them- to make them last and last- but they are so fleeting. Here and gone. To me a picture of our time in this life on earth. Fleeting. Sometimes I just want to cling to things- for them never to end- but so quickly they are gone. When the kids were babies it was like that; I would hold them and just want the moment to go on forever. But now they are growing and changing so quickly. And as I look back over the first half of my life it all flashes by so fast. Which is why I don't want to spend my life clinging to the things of this world- the things as temporary and as fleeting as a sunset- but want to be looking toward the promise of an eternal day. And thank God every day for the little things, like the sunsets, that inspire me and encourage me to think beyond the temporary.