Simpsons in Seattle

We had a Terrific Thanksgiving weekend up on Orcas Island that was filled with lots of turkey. stuffing, hugs and stories from Grammie and Grandpa, and unfortunately, rain. That didn't stop us from having fun though! We have so much to be thankful for, including the Orcas house that we got to enjoy so much over the weekend. Here's some proof!  There was lots of squealing and excitement to see Grammie! The girls put on a show. And for the finale: standing still long enough to get a picture! Our Turkey feast! We worked off all the calories by doing flips off daddy.     Nora is so pleased with herself that she can do this now. We had a morning of no rain and walked into town. We spied this lawn art on our walk. Pretty Madrona bark. Evie, taking a picture of Nora.  More snuggle and books time.   A good rainy day activity: baking cookies. Oatmeal raisin - my favorite!

We're usually SO late with taking pictures for our Christmas card. When Evie was 2, we went the weekend of Thanksgiving and her poor lips turned blue from being so cold! I've gotten better since then but only by a few weeks! Thankfully, the weather lately has been pretty warm (low 60s in early Nov is unheard of!) so taking pictures this year was more enjoyable. This time, we trekked to our photographer's farm about an hour outside Seattle to take some outdoor shots. The girls weren't too keen on the petting all the animals (horses, chickens, goats, turkeys, dogs) but we had fun anyway. I'm really happy with how the photos turned out, and can't wait to make our Christmas cards! Here's a sneek peek of the pics, including some outtakes that will not make it on the card. :) Neither girls look thrilled about this pose. It took a while for Nora to warm up. Nora smiled if we had her say "trick or treat!" or, if she said "I like ch

I'm not sure why we even bother asking what flavor ice cream this little one wants because it's always chocolate! This girl loooooooves her chocolate!

We stopped into Big Daddy's, a really cool antique store in Seattle, and had fun poking around and looking at all the neat stuff! Evie and Nora were cutie pies and made friends with the sales lady, who put them on a hunt to find fun items around the store like a giant pigeon carnival ride. While some of the furniture in the store was really cool, I can't picture them in our house! I wish we were hip enough to decorate this way, haha. We brought our lil pup Boo with us, Evie posing in front of an antique merry go round.

Kracken Congee has been on my list of restaurants to try ever since it opened early last year. They do interesting takes on congee, which is one of my ultimate comfort foods. It's sort of out of our way (in Pioneer Square) but since we were headed to the Seattle side yesterday, we decided to detour to go finally check it out! The menu was actually not as modern or interesting as I thought it would be. It had a lot of pan-asian flavors, but nothing very different. We ended up getting lumpia, a plain chicken congee, adobo pork congee, pork belly kim-chi fried rice and a chinese donut. The congee was SO yummy, and the rest were good, but not spectacular. Anyway, I would go again if I'm ever in the neighborhood. Evie seemed to enjoy the food, and Nora was cranky and tired so ate very little. Here they are outside after lunch - Evie was dancing around and Nora wanted nothing to do with it!

We planted a blueberry bush two season ago and have been eagerly waiting for the fruit to come in. Sadly, we didn't get any blueberries last summer or this summer, and we think it's because we might need a pair so that they can cross pollinate. You can imagine my surprise when I was washing dishes in the morning and noticed that we had a blueberry! Evie was so excited she rushed out in the cold to pluck it off the bush. This, here, ladies and gentlemen, is the finest blueberry in Washington! Evie can attest to it since she gobbled it up before we can split it for her sister to share.  

Evie is an old hat at going to the dentist now. She's been great at keeping the sugar bugs at bay so her check up was easy breezy. It was funny to me how grown up she looked hanging out on the chair, watching Pokemon while letting the dentist do his work. Nora was pretty fascinated by the whole ordeal. She didn't get her teeth checked, but it was good to have her go and get familiar with the place so she won't be scared when her appointment comes up in a few months!  Just chillin' Typical Nora

We just got back from another epic weekend in San Francisco visiting Ian, Yee Yee and Uncle Kevin. The girls were SO excited about the visit and it did not disappoint! Flying out to Oakland was pretty uneventful. Scott got upgraded to first class again so I enjoyed my time with the munchkins back in cattle class. This was the first time Nora got a seat all to herself without a car seat buckled in and she was a little squirmy but big sister Evie set a great example and she followed suit. First order of business  when we landed was to get lunch! What better place than to go to In N Out?! The sun was shining so we had a nice lunch outside and us Seattle-lites loved sitting in that warm sunshine! As for the burgers, I was worried Evie and Nora wouldn't like all the stuff on their burgers so got them plain ones. Turns out, they liked mine better and Evie ended up gobbling the rest of my cheese burger-with-everything while I ate hers. That evening, we crammed int the car a

So many posts to catch up! These will be out of order, but oh well!  We've been in Seattle EIGHT years now (how did that happen??!) and we hadn't made it to the Museum of Flight before last weekend. It was never that high on my places to go visit but now that I've gone, I have to say that I enjoyed myself a lot more than I thought I would have! There were lots of exhibits to look at - from learning about space shuttles and space stations, to moon landings, to how the control tower works, to the history of aviation both in general and here in Seattle at Boeing and, of course, looking at all the cool planes! The best part, of course, was going IN the planes themselves. I don't know why I didn't take any pictures, but we were able to go into an old 70's era Air Force One (from Nixon's presidency) that was a hoot because all of the "cutting edge" technology was SO outdated! We also went inside a Concorde and a new Dreamliner. Even the girls had a