Wednesday, July 30, 2008

The Runner Bunch



My friend Sandy and her family, husband Micah, children Raider, Haylie & James, a.k.a The Runner Bunch, came and stayed with us in Seattle. They spent 3 action-packed nights with us.

The first night we took the kids down to the beach near our house. Jack and Haylie were thrilled to play together and they loved taking a tubby together before bed.





Sandy's birthday was on Sunday and we had a little party for her. Our friend from high school, Jason, lives in town. He and his wife, Sarah, his sister Jen and her husband Dave, all went with us to pizza. Then we headed back to our house for cake and ice cream sundaes.





The Runners last night in town we met at the wharf, had dinner, took the kids to the park for an evening play time and tucked them all into bed exhausted, but happy, at 10 pm!

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Uncle Ben



Marty's youngest borther, Ben, is staying with us for 3 weeks while his parents are in Italy. Jack just loves having Ben to visit with. They are enjoying lots of outside adventure while Ben stays with us.

Thursday, July 17, 2008

Good Morning Sunshine



Usually Jack comes to wake up Mommy & Daddy first thing in the morning. For the past few days though, Jack has woken up, grabbed his lovies "Blue Dog & Rags" and headed for the white chair in the front room.

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Hair Cut

Jack was long overdue for a haircut. This was his best haircut so far. He usually refuses to wear the cape and cries the whole time. Mommy still had to help out by holding Jack’s head steady, but all in all it was a great experience!

Before:






After:

REI

REI has it's Flag Ship store in Seattle. Darrick is an avid kayaker and outdoorsmen so we had to take him for a tour. I don’t know who had more fun, Darrick looking at all of the gear or Jack trying out all of the gear!





Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Underground Tour



Brandy, Darrick & I went on Seattle's Underground Tour. We learned a ton about Seattle's early history. Most of the information was pretty fascinating. The tour it self was so-so. It would have been better if they didn't tell so many rat jokes. Bran & I were wearing flip-flops so we were a little worried about rats. We're both very literal, once the rat concept was thrown out there, we couldn't relax.



This old bathroom may have been the highlight of the actual walking tour. Either that or this "sky light" that is a glass design in current side walk.



Sunday, July 13, 2008

A Sunday Hike

Our good friends Brandy & Darrick came to Seattle for vacation. They couldn't have picked a better time to visit. The weather was beautiful! Their first day in town we took them on a short hike.







Marty has a new hand-held GPS he wanted to try out. We took Jack, Brandy & Darrick on their first "Geo-cashing hunt." The way geo-cashing works is a person logs on to www.geocashing.com web site and searches for a geo-cash in the area they are hiking (most trails you visit have a cash). The site gives the GSP coordinates for the cash, you store the coordinates in the GPS, and you are ready to hunt.






We had to search a bit for this geo-cash. It was really well hidden. Brandy endured several mosquito, bites, Tucker splashed everyone after his swim in the near-by pond, and Jack was not too interested in keeping up with the group. In the end: Jack found a miniature red fire truck in the cash (we call a "treasure chest") so he was pretty happy, Marty loved using his new GPS, and were not sure if Brandy & Darrick really liked our treasure hunt, or if they were too nice to tell us their first outing in Seattle was a bust.



Thursday, July 10, 2008

Italy

Marty and I went to Italy for a week- long trip. Marty's college friend Clif got Married in Florence. We were excited to be part of Clif & Melissa's beautiful wedding!







Jack stayed with BoBo, JiJi and Uncle Ben. Marty and I enjoyed exploring Italy together. We had a great trip. It was also a good opportunity for us to further strengthen our relationship as we prepare for baby number 2. Nothing can strengthen a marriage better than driving from Florence throughout the Tuscan Hills, in a small, stick shift car, trying to navigate, aviod getting lost, hit or run down; while still enjoying the view and one another.





We spent the first 2 nights in Florence. We were there for the wedding festivities. We attended a cocktail party the first evening and the wedding the second day. We managed to squeeze in some time for a whirl-wind city tour & gelato before we headed to the country.

Florence:









Our 3rd night we stayed in the Tuscan Hill town of Voltarre. It is a charming walled city that dates back hundreds of years before Christ. Our inn was just across the road from the main city gate. "La Argo" is the towns gate-way, an arch dating from 400 B.C. The town motto is "the city of wind & rock." We found it most interesting that the town now uses the large castle as a prison to house 60 Sicilian mafia criminals.

Voltarre:









The next day we stopped in San Gigamano & Monteriggioni in route to Siena. Once we checked in to our hotel and Marty took a dip in the pool, we headed into Siena for dinner. We met up with Jimmy, Sarah & Kenny. Sarah made reservations at a great restaurant. It turned out to be the best meal we had in Italy!!









After visiting Siena we started out going South toward the town of Pienza, but we got lost and our gps wasn't working very well so we decided to head toward a main highway and go back north. We stopped at the inCoop, picked up some foods to lunch on, and ate in a small town. The town was near Asciano. It was so small it was not even on the map and it only had one small square with a church and water well. We arrived at our inn by mid-afternoon. We lounged by the pool, checked out the vineyards, relaxed and headed to the town of Castellina en Chianti for a dinner. Castellina en Chianti turned out to be our favorite small town. It had so much charm.















We had a planned lay-over in Amsterdam for one night. We enjoyed walking round the city, but our hearts weren't really into the tourist thing. All we could think about was getting home and seeing Jack.







We had a fantastic trip, and we really enjoyed our quality time, but we both missed Jack and felt quite home-sick when we called to check on him and Jack said, "Can you come home now?" in such a sweet soft voice.