Happy Easter

We spent Easter in the islands, mon. Mom and Dad hosted a fun Easter day at their house on Fox Island. Seth, Alistair and I went to church in the morning. We missed last year's Easter service due to Alistair having the stomach flu (and nearly missed going this year due to everyone being in some stage of a rough cold). But we made it and it was very enjoyable. Not only did they have the choristers and an organist, but they also had a brass quartet playing along. I really, really enjoy the music the music director arranges for each service. He does such a great job and I look forward to seeing what neat surprises he plans for special occasions. The first time we ever attended a service at St. Thomas they had a Scottish Pipes and Drums band to lead in the procession and then stick around to play after church.

In addition to us and my parents, Seth's parents and my brother, Michelle and Natalie joined us for Easter. The Easter Bunny left some eggs for the kids to find and also each had an Easter basket to paw through. We had a very delicious meal and just a nice, relaxing day. We watched the various storms come in off the water and either sock us in with fog and mist or pour down rain or hail with little bits of sun in between each system.

Papa helping Alistair find his Easter basket!

Alistair and Natalie in thier Easter duds courtesy of Nana and Papa

Uncle Jeff doing Alistair's goofy smile with him!

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Busy Weekend!

We had a fun, but busy weekend. Seth had a lacrosse game, we had dinner guests, we were dinner guests and we had a kiddie concert to attend! So much to do, so little time! Alistair and I went to the park on Tuesday afternoon after he got up from his nap. We had a fun time. His favorite thing is to sit in the little club house and watch the big boys play basketball!
Friday night we went to family night at the YMCA for our first kiddie concert. They had a group called the Recess Monkeys. They are a group fo 3 teachers from Seattle who formed a band and perform music for kids. They aren't bad and actually it was kind of fun!
Alistair is in this photo...you may have to click on the photo to see him better. He would wander away from us, sometimes almost across the gym and then come right back. He was pretty funny. He also liked to chase the kids around who were running in the back of the gym.
This afternoon we went to Jen and Ethan's for a delicious St. Patty's Day meal. It was a good time and was a chance to see Elizabeth and Joe one more time before they headed home! Alistair was quite entertaining after dinner. Apparently he likes celtic music (well he IS Irish!) because he was dancing like crazy, or maybe he was attempting a jig or something! Either way it was more than Seth and I have ever seen him do. He was hilarious to watch. Here is a link to a video of him doing some of his dancing. Of course I waited too long to grab the camera and so I didn't capture the full extent of his jig! (:
Alistair Dancing

Judy's Retirement Party Weekend

Judy has officially retired from Deloitte and Touche. Well, she actually retired at the end of last year, but it took until now to get something organized to celebrate the occasion. So this weekend we headed out to Cape Disappointment State Park outside of Longbeach for camping. There were 3 trailers and the rest of us stayed in yurts. We had pretty great weather all in all. It rained on us pretty good Friday night but all day Saturday was dry and sunny. We got about 30 minutes of rain Sunday, but again it was mostly dry.

Part of the festivities for the weekend was heading to Astoria to The Seafood Center for a cooking class and dinner. We cooked salmon with a balsamic red onion glaze, butternut risotto, marinated roasted vegetables and garlic bread. Everyone did a little part of the meal whether it was chopping, cleaning, stirring or spreading. It was a lot of fun and the meal was delicious! Alistair did a good job hanging in there. He wore his chef outfit from New Year's (minus the hat) but wasn't really interested in the cooking aspects. They had a big hanging screen and system for playing movies or music. We brought Finding Nemo (not realizing until we got there how appropriate it was!) and they put it up on the big screen for him. That made it more enjoyable for everyone! (: He had his booster seat on the floor to sit in and got to have dinner while watching the movie (what a treat!). He also got his Dino Nuggets grilled on the flat top grill, how fancy! (:

There was razor clam digging again this weekend. Everyone, minus one person, got up early (the morning after daylight savings time mind you) and headed out to the beach for the morning tide. There were 8 of us that had licenses and a limit is 15 clams. We were out for 2 hours or so and got 11 clams TOTAL. It was a group effort with people spotting clam holes and someone else digging. Despite the small take, it was fun and I think those who stuck it out had a good time!

We had 15 people and a toddler camping together. We all wanted to be able to eat together, so we made accommodations accordingly. Judy added the finishing touches with her 2 candle abras - very classy!

Alistair is a true outdoorsman. He LOVES camping. He spent all day wandering around, exploring areas and playing in the dirt, puddles and anything else that looked like fun. There was plenty of people to keep an eye on him, so we just let him go. He was so crabby when we got home yesterday and we firmly believe he wasn't happy to be home! (:

Our camping group!