Elena, Zachary and Lilli in Halloween Costume

Each year my friends Jim and Kristina bring their little girl Elena to my office on Halloween. Jim works just upstairs and when they go to visit dad's office it's usually convenient for them to stop by at my office for a visit too. This year Elena came with her little brother Zachary. They were in costume, of course. Zachary was dressed as a bat and Elena came as a poodle. Very cute!



And speaking of cute, we were also fortunate to have our first Halloween visit from Todd and Wendy's little girl Lilli. She made an adorable strawberry in her little red outfit.

The little ones were the talk of the office of course and everybody enjoyed seeing them. I took a bunch of pictures and had trouble picking the best ones. You can head over to my Webshots album here to see all the pics. Just click on one picture to enlarge, and you can use Next and Prev from there to see the rest. Or, for easy viewing you can see an automated slideshow here.

Thank you to Elena, Zachary and Lilli for coming to visit. We love seeing you!

My apologies to the parents for taking so long to post these. Sometimes life gets in the way of updating the blog. Enjoy!

Volunteer Recognition and Evening at the Symphony

I have previously mentioned my volunteer work for the Debt Clinic which is one of about 25 clinics in the King County Bar Association's Neighborhood Legal Clinic (NLC) program. Today I continue to volunteer at the Seattle Debt Clinic as a Clinic Assistant.

About 2 years ago I also took on the role of Scheduling Coordinator for the clinic. It’s a pretty detailed job which is my thing. Scheduling is no easy task, but I find it fun and challenging, and I get to work with some of the nicest people around. Yes, I’m talking about attorneys! Attorneys who volunteer their time to help people who just need some legal advice and probably can’t afford to retain their own attorney privately.

About 6 weeks ago I received a voice mail from the woman in charge of the NLC programs. She wanted to know if I would be available on the 20th of November for their volunteer recognition event. Why? Because they wanted to honor me as outstanding scheduling coordinator! What a surprise. Well, shock is more like it.

I try to do the best job I can, sure, but I had no idea anything like this would happen. I certainly don’t do this for accolades. The work is so rewarding by itself especially since the clients are very appreciative and you know you are making a difference in some lives.

As for the event, of course I would be there. The evening was held at Benaroya Hall (Seattle's symphony hall). It started with a reception followed by the awards ceremony. And after that we attended the symphony concert for the evening which included Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet.

One of the first things I did was call my friend Kimber to see if she and Mike would like to come along and enjoy the evening with me and Walter. Lucky for me they said Yes!

The evening was really nice. It was fun to get a little dressed up. We met Kimber and Mike at my office building (next door to the symphony hall) and walked over together. We all wore name tags and since I was receiving an award I got a red rose corsage. Thank you to Kimber for figuring out how to get it attached to my blouse. That was no easy task!

In fact I really want to say thank you to Mike and Kimber for making the evening even more special and certainly more fun than it would have been without them.


Walter and I enjoyed watching the awards ceremony and chatting with them about various topics. When it was my turn to receive the award, Kimber cheered me on (Yay Carm!). She also took some pictures for us.


I participated in a group photo of all the award recipients. We enjoyed some cheese and cookies and drinks and more chatter. And then we went off to the symphony concert.


As you can see from the photo we had pretty good seats. I was very pleasantly surprised as I was afraid we might be at the back of the hall. Not only could we hear well but thanks to Mike and Kimber we had fun picking out some of the more interesting characters in the orchestra. (Imagine a violinist with a beard down to his waist and a cellist with Einstein hair!) At intermission and at the end of the concert we enjoyed more conversation with Mike and Kimber about symphony orchestras and what goes into them. It was a really great way to spend an evening with our friends.

Thanks to the King County Bar Association for sponsoring this special evening. From now on I will plan to attend the annual volunteer recognition events if for nothing else than to support all the other volunteers.

Random Silliness

A friend on 43Things shared this wonderful video as an after-Thanksgiving pick-me-up. It's just something fun to make you laugh. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Walter and I celebrated Thanksgiving with my Mom and my sister Jozi in Olympia today. It would be a bit difficult to transport a full Thanksgiving dinner from Seattle to Olympia and of course my mother doesn't cook any more, so we all went out to eat at J J North's Grand Buffet.

We weren't the only ones who had that idea. The buffet was full of people with some waiting, although the lines were not as long as I've seen them in a past year. We didn't have to wait long (less than 5 minutes). We saw a lot of folks with canes and walkers which makes sense as those people would be less likely to make a big meal at home.

It felt like we were eating with the community instead of just eating alone at home. People were not afraid to talk to each other and everyone seemed to be in a good mood. We enjoyed it. The food was good and we all ate way too much. Here's a cute picture of Jozi and Mom.


I hope each of you had an enjoyable Thanksgiving feast and time spent with family and/or friends. Happy Thanksgiving!

Walter's Birthday

Yesterday was Walter's birthday and he chose to go out to The Old Spaghetti Factory for his birthday dinner. It was a fun evening. The food was delicious (gotta love that spaghetti with the mizithra cheese!) and they sang Happy Birthday to Walter after lighting a candle in his ice cream dish.

I had to wonder if people only came to the Spaghetti Factory when they were celebrating birthdays – Walter’s was the fourth table we heard get birthday singing in our section! When I first told them it was his birthday and they mentioned the singing he protested a bit. I told him if he didn’t want the singing we didn’t have to have it. But he said “It’s okay.” When they actually did it I think he really enjoyed it.

I told him after dinner I wanted to go to our local mall and pick out a card for my sister who has a birthday in a few days. He said fine. At that point he had no clue that I had previously ordered his birthday gift online and had it shipped directly to the mall’s Radio Shack. Radio Shack is Walter’s absolute favorite store in the world and he loves to spend time in there.

When we got to the mall I deliberately parked near the mall entrance where we would have to walk past Radio Shack to get to the card store. When we walked inside he said “okay, you go to Hallmark and I’ll just be here in Radio Shack!” He was kidding, but I knew he would love to go in there so I said “no, we have to get a card first, then maybe later.”

We went to the card shop and it didn’t take long to pick the right card and we were on our way. As we approached the Radio Shack on our way out, Walter started pulling me in that direction and made another joke about going inside to look around for a while. I asked “you want to? We can if you want to!” He said “naw, that’s okay.” But I told him “no, we can go inside for a few minutes, let’s see what they’ve got.” And of course he gave me no argument.

We went inside and he started looking at some stuff and I pretended to look at other stuff. He called to me to let me know “hey the good stuff is over here!” So I looked at what he considered “good stuff” and then drifted over to the counter. There I handed the sales clerk my ID, the credit card I had used to purchase the gift, and the printout from my email. I told him “I believe you have an order in for me.” Walter was busy looking at more “good stuff” and paid me no attention.

It took a while for them to bring the box out from the back room and then finish up my order paperwork. In the meantime Walter stayed busy looking around and I floated between him and the counter. Finally everything was done, and I got to take the large box with me. I set it down next to Walter’s feet and he asked what I bought.

I told him “I don’t know … just something! But you can carry it for me!” When he picked it up I told him it was his birthday present. He decided to wait until we went home and he could open the box to find out what it was (it was in a shipping carton).

On the way out he said something about how I must’ve had that all planned out. I told him "Yes, and it wasn’t difficult to get you into Radio Shack either!" He said “You know all you have to do is walk me past it and it’s like a magnet!”

The gift was an HD radio. He has been hinting for one for months. Today he hooked it up and played with it. He called me at the office to let me know how much he loves it.

Happy Birthday Walter!!

Tap Your Toe, It's a Bluegrass Concert!

Walter and I traveled to Greensboro, North Carolina last month to visit his mother and her husband Lee. Walter's brother Rusty and his wife Cathy drove up from Florida too, and we had a great time visiting. It was just so good to see everyone.

I will write a little more about the trip and share some family photos soon. In the meantime, I wanted to share one special evening of our visit.

Lee has played with a bluegrass band for several years. One evening while we were there the band came over and played music around the dining room table. We had the pleasure of meeting a couple of really fun neighbor ladies - Angie and Patsy - who live on either side of Walter's mother and Lee. They came over to enjoy the music.

The band is called Crabgrass (like "bluegrass", get it?). It was impossible not to at least tap your toe while they played. Of course I had to take some video so I could share with all of you.

What you see below is a YouTube player. I recorded 6 songs. When you click Play it will play them one after the other (with credits in between), you don't have to tell it to move on to the next video. Of course if you don't want to see more just press the Pause button.

I think I did a pretty good job of keeping the camera still - I didn't have a tripod and it's not easy to shoot video while tapping your toe! You will see Lee on the far right of the video. He's wearing the dark cap. I hope you will enjoy this "bluegrass concert" half as much as we did in North Carolina.

I want to say a special thanks to Lee, Henry, Bob, Jimmy and Jerry for the toe-tapping fun.




I will be away from the computer for about a week, so the next new posts will come after I return.

Anniversary of Meeting in Person

In addition to our wedding anniversary the end of August also brings the anniversary of the first time Walter and I met in person. Why do we celebrate meeting "in person"? Because we met online while Walter was living in Kentucky and I was here in Seattle. We developed our relationship first online then over the phone lines. Finally we decided that what we had was more than friendship and we decided to meet in person.

Walter came here to Seattle for the first time on August 31, 1986. It is no coincidence that our wedding anniversary is so close to our meeting anniversary. We planned our wedding date for the closest Saturday to a year after Walter's first arrival in Seattle.

During Walter's first visit I played tour guide and showed him a lot of Seattle's fun tourist sites. On our very first day we visited the Ballard Locks and then had dinner at the Totem House fish and chowder place across the street. In celebration of our anniversary we went back to the Locks and had dinner (as we do each year on this anniversary) at Totem House. We don't usually go there the rest of the year because really their fish is pretty greasy. But it's a fun thing to do in commemoration of our first meeting. It's too bad we can't repeat the rest of that week which included a visit to Expo 86 in Vancouver. That was fun!

I was taking a picture of Walter at the locks and a friendly stranger offered to take our photo together. We love tourists!


The official name of what we refer to as the Ballard Locks is "Hiram M. Chittenden Locks and Carl S. English, Jr. Gardens." The locks which are run by the US Army Corps of Engineers were built in 1911 so that coal and timber could be easily transported by boat. They serve to allow boats to pass between the saltwater of Puget Sound and the fresh water of the Ship Canal connecting to Lake Washington and Lake Union. Just like the locks in the Great Lakes and the Panama Canal, our locks help the boats move from one water level to another. Surprisingly there were not a lot of boats going through the locks this time otherwise I would have some video for you. Usually the locks are very busy with boats coming and going, especially on a summer day.

I liked this photo of the locks showing moss growing on the sides and reflecting in the water.

There is a fish ladder at the locks which simulates a salmon's natural return from salt water to freshwater where they will lay eggs and die. There are windows to the locks where you can watch the salmon as they rest between each step of their journey. We saw a few fish in the ladders during this visit and I got this photo through the glass.

I noticed some new art on the premises too. Here is one of several new mosaics in the fish ladder area (this one is above the fish ladder windows).


Of course in addition to the locks we also enjoyed the beautiful botanical gardens on the premises.

It's hard to believe that 22 years have passed since Walter first came to Seattle. I'm so glad he decided to stay and make Seattle his home and me his wife!

If you would like to see more photos from the day you can get to them here.

Our Own Anniversary

Last Friday the 29th Walter and I celebrated our 21st wedding anniversary. I had to work that day but I took off a little early so we could head down to our favorite restaurant, Bahama Breeze, for a celebratory dinner. Bahama Breeze serves Caribbean food and we always love whatever we order there. Of course we have some favorites (too many!)


Walter loves the Cuban Black Bean Soup and I love to order the Roasted Cuban Bread appetizer. The food was pretty as well as tasty so I took some pictures. But not before digging in, so most of these photos have some pieces missing from the food.


For our entrees Walter ordered the Pan-Seared Salmon with creamy mango butter sauce which came served with yummy cinammon mashed sweet potatoes and green beans. I went for the Seafood Paella. Mmm mmm!


For dessert we shared this incredible Key Lime Pie. Walter is from the South and he loves his key lime pie. He insists this is the best you can get in Seattle. I don't know if you can tell from this photo but this is one HUGE hunk of pie.


Fortunately for our tummies we brought home some leftovers. The portions are not skimpy there and certainly there was more than we could eat in one sitting.

Not only does Bahama Breeze serve delicious Caribbean food but their decor and landscaping serve a tropical feast for the eyes. As we headed back to our car I took a few photos of the landscape plantings. If you would like to see them you can check out a slideshow here.

In addition to the dinner out as our celebration we also plan a day or two visit to the coast a little later this month.

Thirty Years of Marriage - Wow!

Walter and I would like to send a big congratulations out to Walter's brother Rusty and his wife Cathy. Yesterday they celebrated 30 years of marriage. Way to go!! Here is a photo of the happy couple taken on our recent trip to North Carolina.



Anniversary Toast

Here's a toast to the two of you
As you celebrate together;
You're the poster kids for happiness,
In sunny or stormy weather.

Your love continues, warm and bright;
May it shine throughout the years;
You’re an example for the rest of us,
So here’s to you: Three cheers!

By Joanna Fuchs

Happy Anniversary Rusty and Cathy! And best wishes for many more wonderful years together.

Sisters

Sisters are a good thing. And I count myself fortunate to have several! I know I've mentioned my sisters Diega and Jozi here several times. And I've spoken of Pitas (we call her Petra). But did you know I have a fourth sister? Her name is Susan.

Pitas and Susan grew up in the Philippines. They have the same father, but a different mother than Diega, Jozi and me.

Until recently I had never met my sister Susan as she had not been to the U.S. before and I have never been to the Philippines. I remember as a young girl hearing about my two sisters in the Philippines. I always wanted to meet them but so far they were a mystery to me.

One day as a teenager I was walking home from the school bus stop and a taxicab passed me heading to our home. Taxicabs are extremely rare in Nisqually Valley so I was very excited to see that one was heading to my house. I had heard rumors that perhaps my two sisters might come to the United States. I envisioned that perhaps that taxicab contained my sisters coming to visit. Excited, I ran all the way home. The taxicab contained a sister, all right. It was my sister Diega who had missed the school bus. My Dad was at work and my mother doesn't drive so the taxi was the only way for her to get home. Diega was in a bit of trouble!

In 1980, a few years after the taxicab incident, Pitas and her husband Obet moved here and made their home in Renton - close enough that we could see her fairly often. Their children soon followed and eventually Pitas' mother came over too. Although we didn't grow up together it has been a real joy to get to know Pitas and her family over the years. They are great people!

Fast forward to a couple months ago, the day before my great-nephew Niko's first birthday party. Pitas called me on the phone. We had not spoken in a while and she was apologizing for not having called me earlier. Well no need to apologize, I too had been busy and had meant to call her. At first I didn't realize she was saying that because she had something to tell me. You see, Susan and her husband Freddie have moved here and are now living with Pitas, Obet and Pitas and Susan's mother! She was calling to tell me because I would get to meet Susan for the first time the very next day. Wow!!

And indeed I met Susan at Niko's birthday party for the first time. It was really great to finally meet her after so many years. I liked her immediately, and as many in the family had told us, we share a family resemblance. (We both look like Dad.) Our meeting was a bit emotional for both of us as I'm sure you can understand.

We got to see Susan (and Pitas and the whole family) again on Saturday when we attended niece Pam's wedding. (Pam is Pitas' daughter.)

Here is a photo taken at Niko's birthday party. From left to right that's Pitas, me, Walter, Pitas and Susan's mother, and Susan.


And here's a beautiful photo of Susan and Pitas all dressed up for Pam's wedding.


Welcome to the States, Susan. I am looking forward to getting to know you better!

(By the way, Pam's wedding and reception were wonderful and I will share pictures as soon as I have a chance.)

Vision Report

Walter had his quarterly eye exam on the 20th of August. His vision has not been what we hoped for lately. It's not scary bad like we saw last year, but it's not at the benchmark I always hope for - where he can see the big E on the eye chart. It seems Walter's vision has been slowly declining since the last good report in February.

If they show you the eye chart and you cannot quite make out the big E at the top they measure your sight by how far away you can count someone's fingers when they hold up their hand. The assistant will hold up a certain number of fingers maybe 4 feet away and ask how many fingers she is holding up. I'm not sure what the outcome of that test was, but it was disheartening to watch the woman hold up 5 fingers and have Walter say he saw 3 fingers. They also gave him a device that has pinholes to hold over his eye because sometimes when you look through the pinholes you can see a little better. When he looked at the E with the pinholes he said it was little better. But I think he still would have hesitated to identify it as the E.

The good news is that the three things the doctor looks for were doing well:

1. the cornea looked healthy and not inflamed
2. the doctor could see the retina and it looked good; and
   
3. his eye pressure was well under control thanks to the valve implant they gave him last year.

Of course my goal is always for the best vision. But I get the feeling the doctor's goal is to have the three elements above be healthy. After that Walter's eye is so unique they don't really know what else to do to improve his vision.

The decline in eyesight is discouraging, especially to Walter. He finds that he runs into walls a little more easily when going around a corner, and I see that when I hand him a glass of juice he has to study it more carefully before he can reach for it successfully. We have to be especially careful when going out at night or when he goes into a darkened restaurant from daylight. We just take it slow and so far we haven't had to curtail any activities except for hiking (which is just too scary given tree roots and other unexpected surprises).

Our hope is that Walter can hang onto his eyesight without further declines for as long as possible. We really appreciate all our supportive friends and family and those who have expressed their good wishes and prayers for Walter's sight.

In case you were wondering about the photo above, that's a picture of a rubber ball I picked up in the little store in my office building. We've had a lot of focus on eyes lately between Walter's recent checkup, my own annoying issues with dry eye and friends who are suffering from one eye ailment or another. When I first saw this ball I told the lady at the counter that the eye looked like my own eye felt! Then she told me to bounce it. So I did. When you bounce the "eye" ball the white of the eye lights up and flashes blue and red! I had to get it. Walter and I have been having fun playing with it.

We're Back

Walter and I had a great time visiting his family in Greensboro, North Carolina. Unfortunately there has been a bit of a delay in getting pictures and video off my camera due to technical difficulties. Yes folks, I filled up my computer’s hard drive. I am having to make some room (backups and moving files around, good things like that) so I can offload my camera and then share with you. I’ll get them posted as soon as I can.

Niece Pam's Wedding is Coming Up!

Here is a photo of my niece Pam and her fiancé Jonathan. The happy couple will be getting married on Saturday, August 30th in Kirkland. I can't wait! Pam is going to make a beautiful bride. They will be honeymooning in Kauai.

Congratulations, Pam and Jonathan. We wish you every happiness.

The Bite of Seattle 2008

Walter and I attend The Bite of Seattle each year. We enjoy being outdoors with a lot of other people enjoying the good food, sunshine and music. You might recall that last year there was good food and music but not so much sunshine. This year things were back to normal. The weather was sunny and beautiful and the food festival attracted 500,000 visitors!

We usually go on Friday afternoons to avoid the biggest crush of the crowds but work projects kept me busy and I couldn't get away. So we went on Saturday evening. Lots of people had the same idea! Yes, there was quite the crowd gathered at the Seattle Center grounds.

The Bite features music on three good sized stages. It was sad last year to see the performers working so hard for little appreciation since there were few in the audience. But this year there was lots of merriment and dancing and a good time was had by all.

And the food? I know at least one person is going to ask me what we had to eat. We ate some delicious BBQ and some yummy Filipino food. Of course we had to have the obligatory strawberry shortcake. And the big thing this year was mango lemonade. It seemed like every booth from every culture had their version. We had to get some of course and I'm happy to report it was very refreshing on a warm sunny day.

Last year I remember there were no lines to get food. That was not the case this year! In fact here is a photo of Espi's Philippine Style Foods - taken while we were in line for their food!


Did you know there is a panda mascot for Panda Express? We found him/her in the crowd posing with these two lovely ladies:




One of my favorite things about this year's Bite was watching all the people playing in and around the International Fountain. Here is a one minute video so you can watch too. As you can see the fountain was very popular with both the little kids and big kids.



If you would like to see a few more photos from The Bite you can get to a slideshow here.

Office Outing at the Olympic Sculpture Park

Most summers my employer organizes an event for the employees to get together and have a good time. We've had some really fun outings and this year's was no exception. Last Wednesday evening we were all invited to the Olympic Sculpture Park where we enjoyed appetizers in the pavilion and on the terrace overlooking the park. Folks brought their spouses and/or little ones to enjoy a beautiful evening visiting and enjoying the art, the views and the sunset.

They couldn't have picked a better evening to host this event. The weather was perfect - not hot and not too chilly even later in the evening. The setting sun only added to the spectacular views.

The sculpture park is a good sized place with paths allowing you to walk a zigzagged path all the way down to the waterfront if you wish. Many of the sculptures are grand in scale and fit well within the natural beauty of the area from Mount Rainer to Elliott Bay (with ferries crossing of course) and a little Space Needle thrown in for good measure.


I felt this photo of Linda and Jack (I call it "Happy Feet") embodied the spirit of the event. But of course I took many photos of the park, people and art as well. To see a slideshow of all the photos click on any of the three photos shown here. The photos got rave reviews at the office and I hope you will enjoy them too.

If you have not been to the Olympic Sculpture Park I highly recommend you visit. It's at the north end of downtown between Belltown and the water. If some of the pictures seem a little deja vu it's because Walter and I also visited the sculpture park last year on our own.

Todd & Wendy's Baby Shower

Sometimes life seems to happen at the speed of light. It moves so quickly, in fact, that I don't get a chance to share things here that I intend to before I'm being pulled on to the next thing. Hopefully you will forgive me for being a little tardy with some posts. Case in point? We threw a really fun baby shower for Lilli Anne (Todd and Wendy's baby girl) at the office back in May. Lilli was born on April 15 so she's less than a month new here.

The shower was a lot of fun. Good friends, delicious cake, and as you will see in the photos an excellent opportunity for some of us to get our "baby" fix. Lilli is a very special little girl (just ask her parents!). We were happy to have her as our guest.

Postcard from Holiday, Florida

I haven't been trading postcards in a while but a few weeks ago I decided to start up again. This time I hope to trade at a little slower pace so it's easier to keep up. This lovely card came from Vianna over at sendsomething.net. Holiday is a small retirement community on the West coast of Florida. Thanks for the card Vianna!

Elliott's Two!

The 6th of July was our small friend Elliott's birthday. It's hard to believe, but Elliott is two years old! His folks Doxey and Cynthia threw him a great birthday party.

There was homemade pizza, some of it made by Elliott and his little friends - Yum!! Instead of a big birthday cake, there were these wonderful little mini-cupcakes for Elliott and all of his friends. As you will see in the pictures Elliott enjoyed them. For the big people there were ... big cupcakes of course!

We had a great time visiting with Elliott's friends and family. Elliott's grandparents were visiting from New York. Friends Todd, Wendy and baby Lilli were there. It's always good to see them. And of course lots of other nice folks.

Doxey (Elliott's dad) gave us the grand tour of the family garden while we were there. We saw everything from lettuce for salad to hops that reached the roof to fields (mini-fields?) of wheat, barley and oats!

To see more photos from the party click on the picture of Elliott above. You can click any photo in the album to start your tour then use the Next and Prev links to navigate.

Thank you to Doxey and Cynthia for inviting us to join in the fun. Happy Birthday Elliott, you're a big boy now!

Happy Fourth!

What's everybody doing for the Fourth? We are going to head out to Ikea for some looking around and then just relax at home. We will probably watch the fireworks on TV.

I was talking to my Mom earlier and she reminisced a bit about her family's traditions when she was young. Mom comes from a family of 10 kids. They always got a nice big watermelon on the Fourth of July. And her dad always made homemade root beer. Yum!

My own childhood memories of the Fourth include backyard fireworks with the neighbor kids and picnics with hot dogs and potato salad (and of course watemelon!). Do you have any special memories of the Fourth from your childhood? If so we would love it if you would share them in the comments.

In the meantime, whether your holiday will be busy or quiet, I wish you a Happy and Safe Fourth!!

Happy First Birthday Niko!

It seems only yesterday I was writing this post to welcome my great-nephew Niko to the world. Can you believe it has been a whole year?! Niko's parents threw him a big Filipino-style birthday bash at their home in Kent. Walter and I were there of course.

There were LOTS of people at this party. Boyboy and Roxanne (Niko's parents) have a nice sized home and it was full. Many people were in every room, and there were folks outside on the lawn and even in the garage. It was a lot to take in for little Niko. He was a trooper though and stayed well behaved throughout. He took a little siesta partway through and came back rejuvenated after only a 5 minute nap. I wish 5 minutes were all I needed to return to full energy!

As is the case for all Filipino parties there was lots and lots of good food. Boyboy makes a great meatloaf and he also put together a yummy tilapia dish. There was lasagna, pancit (Filipino noodle dish), lumpia (like eggrolls) and lots more. Of course there were desserts from birthday cake to leche flan (yum) and finger jello.

Walter and I really enjoyed visiting with everyone. It is not often enough that we get to see folks on this side of the family. We had a great visit and enjoyed seeing how big little Niko is getting! In fact here are a few pictures.

Here is Niko pre-birthday cupcake:


With brother Jevandre. Enjoying the cupcake.


Hanging out with Grandpa:


Relaxing with Grandma:


You can see more of the party pictures at this link.

Happy Birthday Niko. Don't grow up too fast!

Erika the Graduate

Earlier this month Walter and I had the pleasure of attending a graduation party for my good friend Charyl's niece, Erika. Erika and her family celebrated with a good old fashioned picnic meal and lots of warm sunshine - something that had been previously missing from such events in the Northwest!

Erika's mom Brenda is a great cook and she put together lots of yummy eats. There was a really delicious bean dish, a yummy orzo salad and pasta salad and more. Erika's dad Don is handy at the grill and he served up some awesome burgers and dogs. I took my finger jello along and the little ones especially loved munching on those. For dessert Brenda whipped up cute little graduation cupcakes in wafer ice cream cones!

Walter and I really appreciated being included at this event. It was great to see the rest of Erika's family and meet a couple people I hadn't had the pleasure to meet before.

Brenda put together this great photo wall of Erika pictures.


And here is a picture of Erika and the family dog Snowball taken at the party.

You can see more pictures from the party here.

What's next for Erika? Well the whole family is leaving on a cruise to Alaska in about a week and I'm sure she's looking forward to that. In the fall Erika will be attending Cascadia Community College in Bothell near her home. Congratulations Erika and we wish you all the best for your future success and happiness.

Congratulations Jim and Kristina

Friends Jim and Kristina recently welcomed a new addition to their family - baby Zachary! Zachary entered the world on June 11 at 3:09 a.m. He weighed 7 pounds 6 ounces at birth and was 19-1/2 inches long.

You may remember that Kristina writes a blog for Zachary's big sister Elena. Now Zachary has his own blog too! You can find it over here and both blogs are also listed under Bloggin' Friends over in the sidebar. Check them out, there are already lots of great stories and pictures on Zachary's blog as well as Elena's. Kristina is an awesome blogging mom!

When not blogging, Kristina and Jim get out and about with the kids. Jim took some time off work when Zachary was born, and before he had to go back the whole family came downtown to visit Jim's office and they stopped by to see me and other folks at my office too. Zachary was still so new - only 8 days old at the time of their visit.

You know I had to take some pictures. The photo above is Elena holding her baby brother. If you click on that photo you can get to more pictures on Webshots. Just use the Next and Prev links to navigate through the album. Zachary was a sleepyhead that afternoon so his eyes are closed in the pictures I took. But if you want to see his beautiful eyes just check out some of the pics on his blog.

Welcome to the world, Zachary, and thanks for coming to visit. It was so great to meet you!

Birthday Dinner at Carmelita

This past week was a fun yet busy one. Wednesday was my birthday. I started the day out at my eye doctor appointment which went well. Then we spent a few hours doing a walking tour of Fremont. I will post more about that as soon as I can get the pictures organized a bit.

For dinner we went to the restaurant Carmelita in Phinney Ridge just a couple miles from where we live. Carmelita is an upscale vegetarian restaurant with reaallly yummy food. When the restaurant first opened about 11 years ago it caught my awareness because of course Carmelita is also my name. Doesn't everyone have a restaurant named after them? If you do I think it's mandatory that you go there and have a meal.

Back when Carmelita first opened we tried to eat there but encountered a long wait for dinner even early on a weeknight. We decided to go somewhere else that evening and left with the intention of returning another day. I don't know why it took us over a decade to do so.

Our friend Doxey lives just a couple blocks from Carmelita. We had not told him we were going there, but as luck would have it we arrived at the restaurant at the same time Doxey got off the bus on his way home from work. Before we went inside I was going to take a picture of the "Carmelita" sign out front.

Just as I was framing up the shot I heard a voice behind me exclaim "Walter and Carmelita!" When I turned around it was Doxey! When we told Doxey we were going to have dinner at Carmelita he offered to take our picture in front of the restaurant with the sign.

What a a fun surprise to run into Doxey. Thanks for taking our picture Doxey!

When we went inside the restaurant we were happy to see that there was no long wait as we had experienced years earlier. In fact we were the only couple in the place! Later on there was one more couple but that was it. We enjoyed a leisurely and delicious dinner in an elegant atmosphere.

We had some yummy bread and a tasty cheese plate before our meal. For dinner Walter had Potato-Gruyere gratin with Swiss chard, leek cream, and fennel-radish salad with croutons. And I chose the Baked Roman-style gnocchi, lemon cream, rapini, pearl onion, pine nuts with blueberry sauce. The presentation was a work of art and both our meals were just to die for delicious.

Walter is pretty open minded about food and isn't a strict meat eater. Before dinner though he told me he "had a protein jones." So I was a little nervous about whether he would enjoy his dinner. In the end he loved it and his meat craving went away entirely.

If you are vegetarian or enjoy vegetarian food from time to time I recommend this place for a special occasion. It's a bit pricey for every day (at least on our budget) but definitely worth a visit if you want a special evening out.

Our Wacky April Weather

The weather in Seattle has gone through quite the gamut this month. On Saturday, April 12 the high temperature was 79 degrees fahrenheit! That was a record breaker for the date here. We all felt it was summer and many people ran to the store for warm weather annuals and spent the weekend planting in their yards.

Then came Friday, April 18th. A few days before the weather forecasters had said we could get snow, but few people wanted to believe it. This time they were right! Sure enough, in the late afternoon of the 18th the snow started to fall and people scurried home in it. Those who had put in new flowers started looking for something to cover the tender plants.

I grabbed my camera and turned on the date stamp functionality. I figured if I see these photos years later I might not believe how late it was in the year without the date stamp for proof. I went for a short walk and took a few pictures.



After my walk Walter and I went out to dinner in Shoreline. We were not in the restaurant too long, but when we came out the car was covered in snow. Good thing I still had my snow brush in the back seat!

We needed to stop at the grocery store for a few things. The snow was coming down hard and fast now. We were only in the store 10-15 minutes but when we came back out the car was covered again! And this time the wind was blowing it sideways. I once again wielded my snow brush and we headed home before it could get too deep.

It's a good thing I took these pictures when I did because the next morning the snow was all gone - or at least it was in my neighborhood. People to the north in Everett, to the east in the foothills, and to the south in Olympia and Centralia got even more snow the next day. Some up to 5 or 6 inches! But it left quickly.

Before this year the latest we had received snowfall at SeaTac (our official snowfall measuring place) was April 17. We had surpassed two records in the space of less than a week - for opposite types of weather no less.

This last weekend (26th and 27th) it was warm and sunny again with temperatures in the upper 60's. Today we had everything from warm sun to cold and hail.

I actually love having some variety in the weather, especially if it's not so extreme as to cause hardship. It's kind of interesting and the surprise makes me laugh. But I sure hear a lot of people complaining that they don't know how to dress. The answer? Layers!! And don't put away those winter woolens until May 1. :)

Congratulations Todd and Wendy

My friends Todd and Wendy are the proud new parents of a daughter, Elizabeth Anne. Lilli Anne (as her parents will call her) was born yesterday at 5:48 p.m. She weighed in at 8 pounds 15 ounces and is 21-1/2 inches long. She came with a full head of black hair. It's hard to tell in the photos because she's swaddled so snugly, but she's a real beauty!

Lilli Anne, who is Todd and Wendy's first little one was much anticipated. Her arrival took a while but Mom and Dad proclaim her to be worth the wait. Lilli Anne is a lucky little girl to have such great people as Todd and Wendy for parents.

While I was visiting them in the hospital Todd's family arrived and I got to meet them as well - what a wonderful surprise! I took 11 photos while there. If you would like to see the rest simply click on the photo above to see a slide show.

Congratulations Todd and Wendy. You are going to be great parents!

Mom's Flower Beds

We've had some gardeners over to work on my mother's yard a few times in the last month. The first couple times they pruned some fruit trees for her. On Monday they came and dug out all the weeds in her flower beds.

I didn't think to take "before" photos but trust me, it was looking pretty bad. Three workers spent all day out there. They got everything cleaned out pretty well and created a nice edge on the beds. There's even room to put in some new bushes and shrubs if she wants them. Here are a few pics:


Next time we will have her rhodies pruned up. She has about seven or eight of them on her property.