Nikka's First Dance Recital

My little friend Nikka (age 5) had her first dance recital yesterday evening. Walter and I went and had a great time. The program was two full hours with dancers of various ages and abilities. This area has some very talented young people.

Nikka's group was among the youngest and they performed two numbers: "High Hopes" and "Happy Feet." She did a fabulous job!

It was difficult to take photos because I wasn't allowed to use flash and all the dancers were moving so quickly, but I managed to get a couple. Nikka is in the front center of this picture - she's the tiniest one.

At the end of the recital they had some of the girls' fathers do a "Dancing Daddies" routine. Here's a picture I got of Nikka's dad Wayne. He's the one on the left.

And last but not least, here is a very short clip of Nikka dancing in "High Hopes." Nikka is the first little girl on the left.



Nikka Dance Recital

Welcome to the World Little Niko

Finally the hospital has posted photos of my little great-nephew. Isn't he adorable?? Along with the posting they listed statistics and I see I still had some vital information wrong. His first and middle name are Niko Esmile. I spelled the first name incorrectly before but have since corrected my post.

Following Filipino tradition Niko's middle name is the same as his mother's maiden name. Esmile is pronounced Es-MEE-lay. His initials will spell "Ned."

Niko, I heard you were a bit shy to come out. We are glad you decided to join us!

A Little Sleep Deprivation

I haven't been getting enough sleep lately. Sometimes when we are running a sleep deficit we do some dumb things. This morning while getting ready for work I decided to clean a piece of jewelry. I have a little jar of cleaning solution for that - basically the cleaner is an acid.

So here I am with my vat of acid and a necklace. I put the necklace inside but the level of the cleaner had gone down to where the necklace was not totally immersed in the acid. No problem, I just used my finger to poke the necklace down into the acid - of course immersing my finger in the liquid at the same time.

That's usually fine so long as I wash my hands before I rub my eye or something. But this time I forgot ... I had a paper cut on that finger. A paper cut I got the day before because I wasn't careful enough due to lack of sleep. Can you say OW?! At least the sink was nearby and I was able to quickly rinse away the acid.

I need to get more sleep.

It's a Boy!

I got an excited voice mail from my sister Pitas today. My nephew Boyboy and his wife Roxanne became the proud parents of little boy Niko at 4:25 this morning. Boyboy was exhausted when he called his mother so she didn't have the full details from him yet except that everybody's happy and healthy. Congratulations Boyboy and Roxanne! And welcome to the world little Niko!

Update 6/23/07: Niko's arrival time was actually 4:21am. He weighed in at 7 lbs 15 ozs and is 19-1/2" in length. The birth was a bit more difficult than expected, but mom and baby are fine. I will share pictures as soon as I can get them.

Don't Get Crabby

Did everybody out there have a good Father's Day? I hope you got a chance to enjoy family and/or friends and to honor a special father in your life.

I would like to dedicate this post to my own father who is no longer with us but remains a strong presence and influence, especially when our family gets together and also to Obet and Boyboy - the two fathers with whom we celebrated on Sunday.

One of our favorite places to eat is also a place my Dad loved - the Main Chinese Buffet in Lacey. Most of us take after Dad and that means we love seafood - especially crab legs!!

My Dad had a favorite saying whenever eating crab:

If you eat too much crab ... it will make you crabby!!

Then he would laugh and proceed to stuff his face with crab. So guess what we did on Sunday? We went to the buffet and stuffed our faces with crab.

I got a few fun pictures of the event which you will find here. And below are a couple very short but fun videos. As you will see, lots of crab and other yummy things were consumed and we all had a good time.

By the way, I'm working on improving my jerky video technique. And if you are looking for Walter he was sitting directly to my left and I'm afraid I didn't capture him on film this time. Sorry Walter!

The people seated around the table starting across the table from me left to right and going around clockwise are: Brother-in-law Obet and sister Pitas; niece Pam; nephew Charlie (the recent graduate); nephew Boyboy; my Mom; and sister Jozi seated to my right.

I hope you all had as much fun celebrating as we did. Happy Father's Day!

Dogs and Pigs

This afternoon I decided to do a little pig hunting. On lunch break I took my camera out to capture a few more piggy photos.

I have a new favorite place for lunch breaks on the weekends - Westlake Park. That is such a humming happy place with lots of people moving through or just hanging out and relaxing. It's also the location of "Dog in the Park" where you can get a pretty good hot dog with cabbage and onions on top. Just a few doors down you will find New York Cupcakes where you can get either a really good cupcake or some yogurt for dessert.

I've started a new Webshots album where I will store new pig photos as I acquire them. If you would like to see all the pigs I have so far (along with a few other downtown Seattle photos) feel free to check out the album here. You can also find a link to it over in the sidebar under My Webshots Albums. Below are a few of my favorite pigs captured today.

The Emerald City

Bingo Pig

Pigmillion

Andy Warthog

Rockin' Pig

Bertha is Out, Renee is Back ... Temporarily

Well, it finally happened. Our Windows 98 computer purchased in 1998 (we call her Bertha) has finally bitten the dust. She's was so old and slow it's not worth the money to diagnose and fix her problems.

Unfortunately Bertha was the only computer we had hooked up so Walter could communicate to the outside world. There is a newer computer waiting in the wings, we just need to figure out how to get a modem going on that one.

In the meantime, Walter has pulled Renee out the closet. Renee is an old 8086 Toshiba laptop he purchased in 1988! No, you can't surf the web with Renee the way we think of today, but you can connect to the outside world and get email and news stories. That's Renee and Walter in the photo. The CRG monitor is even older - vintage 1984. Don't get too comfortable, Renee. Your days are numbered.

Charlie Graduates

He did it! My nephew Charlie graduated from Centralia High School last Friday evening.

The photo to the left was taken on graduation day and includes Charlie with his friends Sophie, Shellie and Mallery.

I understand there was a huge party for the graduates that went into the wee hours of the morning. That was just the first of several parties over the weekend.

On Sunday we had a small family get-together in Lacey to celebrate. Even Charlie's brother DJ was able to make it up from Portland to attend the graduation and family gathering. If you would like to see pictures from the family event you can click this photo and then use the Next links in Webshots to navigate through the rest of the album. In case you wonder why there are a couple of plant pictures in there, we attended to a little gardening while the food was heating up.

Congratulations, Charlie. We are very proud of you!

The Pig Hunt Begins

I love public art. And you will find no more fun and whimsical representation of it than Pigs on Parade. If you haven't heard, Pigs on Parade is a fundraising event and a collection of fiberglass pigs in two different poses (sitting and standing) which have been decorated by local artists. The original Pigs on Parade event was launched in 2001. It was a summer of beautifully and creatively festooned pigs adorning our city sidewalks. At the end of the summer the pigs were auctioned off to the highest bidder raising funds for the Pike Place Market Foundation.

I had a lot of fun in the summer of 2001 running around photographing as many pigs as I could find. That was a bumper year for them with about 200 pigs decorated in total. Why pigs? These pigs were modeled after Rachael, Pike Place Market's big bronze piggy bank. You can read more about her here.

This year (2007) Pigs on Parade are back with 100 pigs celebrating the Market's centennial and the Chinese New Year of the Golden Pig.

Once again I will be venturing forth to capture as many piggy pics as I can. Perhaps it will be easier with only 100 pigs instead of 200 this time. The pig at the top of this entry sits in front of Benaroya Hall on Third Avenue. The one below is on Pike Street less than a block from the Market.

Family Pictures

Walter's brother Rusty and his family recently gathered in Kentucky to attend a family wedding. Since they were all dressed up for the wedding and the whole family was together they posed for some pictures. I received these two in my email yesterday. It's always nice to get photos from this side of the family and I think these turned out great. Thanks for sharing them, Cathy.

Here are Rusty and Cathy's three kids (who are not really "kids" any more) Will, Betsy and Russ:


and here is a picture of their proud parents Rusty and Cathy:

Everybody looks so fine!

It's Good to Be Sweet

This morning as I was driving to work through the usual boring freeway traffic I saw something that really caught my eye - in a good way. It was a big ole Metro bus painted in bright stripes to look like a giant roll of Lifesavers! In fact, it was a giant rolling Life Savers ad.

I did a double take and gave a big smile when I first saw it. Then it pulled in front of my car and I saw the back end of it as you see here. "It's good to be sweet." How true!! Of course I quickly pulled the camera out of my purse and nabbed this shot through the windshield.

Of course the boldness of the happy stripes were more evident from the side, but that shot proved a bit trickier. I held out my camera at arm's length and snapped a picture as the bus was exiting the freeway. As you can see I barely caught a glimpse, but you can get the general idea.

It's not often that I look at a Metro bus and think "yummy!" It was a happy way to start my Friday.

Quiet Blog

Looks like it's going to be a quiet week on the blog this time. I have a firm policy of not talking about work here at Cozzie's Corner. Unfortunately, that topic sometimes consumes my life - like this week. Hopefully I can get back to posting in a few days...

Intern Dinner!

Last night was our annual Intern Dinner gathering. Walter and I had dinner with a bunch of friends among them several people who used to work with Doxey and me as network interns. It's always fun to see everybody and you couldn't ask for a more fantastic group of people.

Significant this time was that it was almost-one-year-old Elliott's very first intern dinner. His dad, Doxey, couldn't make it this time, but Elliott did a great job of standing in for him. We were also treated to some great stories of Matt's trip to India.

Click on this group photo to see it larger, then you can use the Next and Prev links to see a few more photos and a couple videos from the evening. Thanks for coming out everybody!

Cent$ Cabaret

Wow, it has been a busy weekend. On Friday night I was fortunate to be able to attend a fun-filled evening which served as a fundraiser for the local CENTS program. Cents stands for "Consumer Education and Training Services." The organization is a Seattle non-profit formed by the local bankruptcy and legal service professionals. Their mission is to empower consumers to take control of their financial situations through education and training programs. The Debt Clinic where I volunteer is associated with Cents and part of that educational effort.

Each year the local bankruptcy community (lots of bankrutpcy lawyers) puts on a fundraising event. This year they called it the Dollars and Cent$ Cabaret. The evening consisted of: a silent auction; a live auction of fancy desserts (can you imagine paying $350 for dessert?!) and other items including dinner parties and Mariner boxes; a jazz pianist during cocktail hour; and a rock band "The Deadbeats" composed entirely of bankruptcy attorneys plus one judge on drums. I was fortunate to receive an invitation to attend this $125 per plate dinner for free. It was a really fun evening - those bankruptcy attorneys know how to party! And all the money went to such a worthy cause.

You can see some pictures and video from the event by clicking this thumbnail: