Simpsons in Seattle

We haven't been to Leavenworth in a few years and definitely have never been in the winter, which is when everyone says is the best time to visit because of the snowy fun, so we took advantage of the long MLK weekend to do an overnight stay. The drive was easy, with snow on the ground the entire way from Snoqualamie to Leavenworth! Nora was SOOOO excited. She was literally shouting and point out every big snow mounds she saw. Cute but annoying. We got there in about 2 hours and decided to try sledding before lunch. Sadly, the sledding hill in the town square was icky (no fresh snow = dirty, muddy, crowded sledding hills) so we walked around Waterfront park instead. The girls liked being towed on the sled all around the park. We lucked out because this weekend happened to be Ice Fest and while that meant big crowds, we also got to enjoy the ice sculptures and fireworks. Plus, the town kept all their Christmas lights up so it was really magical to hang out i...

I love that Evie likes to read! Sunday was the first time I saw her deliberately bring a book with us when we went out for the day so that she can read while we waited for food, and then read diligently instead of being distracted and playing with Nora. Yay for bookworms, and I hope I don't jinx it!

oooh boy! It's been a LONG time since we last posted. So much to catch up on! I'll post more in the next few days, but for now, here's a quickie photo. Nora started a Karate trial lesson (5 classes) and the first session went fantastic! She jumped right in, was all smiles, and was kicking around and sparring with the best of them. The second lesson was not nearly as good. Here's hoping the rest of the lessons go as good as the first! Our little fighter

Wow! How did the weeks go by so fast? We haven't posted since Thanksgiving! Here's a quick recap to catch you up to today... Scott and I got gussied up and went to the T-Mobile Marketing holiday party at the Museum of Pop, which was fun. Too bad I didn't get a picture of my outfit. Here's the best we could do: Grown up night! I can't believe that I've worked with some of these people for 10 years! We had a playdate with Lance, aka Nora's "best friend" from school. Lance has an older sister, Loritta, who is a year younger than Evie, so a playdate with all the kids worked out well. We did gingerbread houses and the older kids were very neat and orderly while the younger kids couldn't stop eating the candy. So much concentration! These two crack me up.  Evie and Nora have been practicing their Christmas Carols and have been performing on this makeshift stage, with spot lighting and all. We've been trying to tell them the...

We had a great, restful Thanksgiving weekend up in Orcas! This was our 3rd year up at the house for the holiday so does that mean it's a tradition now? The one new thing we did this year was we went to watch the "Olga Symphony, more or less". That was literally the name of the show! We weren't sure what to expect and ended up having a ton of fun - while the orchestra was small (total of 8 players, including 4 that were guests!), they were super talented and played fun, folksy songs instead of classic pieces. There was some yodeling, lots of clapping and singing, a Christmas mashup of "O little town of Bethlehem" and "YMCA", and even some saw playing. Yes, you read that right - she played the SAW and it was so neat to hear and watch. We liked the show so much we may have to add this to our agenda next year! Here's links to previous years up in Orcas:  2017 The green bean incident 2016 Thanksgiving Best part of Thanksgiving is the...

We've been listening to the Wow in the World podcast for quite some time now, and we all love Mindy and Guy Roz. When they said they were doing a pop up party in Seattle, I literally bought tickets to the show as we were listening to the podcast several months ago - we were that excited!  The show did not disappoint. It was held at Kane Hall at UW, and since we don't know the campus very well we were rushing to get there (there was a Husky game at the same time that caused so much traffic!!!) and wandered around before we finally located the building. Anyhoo, we made it JUST in time.  There were lots of fun parts to the show, but my favorite was watching Nora scoot to the seat of her chair to try to figure out how Mindy shrunk Guy Roz. She was floored that you could really shrink someone in real life. =) All smiles cuz we got there in time! Getting ready for the show 3rd row seats. Yay! There's Mindy and that's Guy Roz walking on eggs. ...

We went to the Seattle Car Show last weekend and surprisingly, had fun! The last car show I remember going to was in LA and it was super crowded and really just not that fun. I think this time it was more enjoyable because the crowds were too bad and because we lots of time in the kids areas, ha. It was like going to a fair, there was so much fun stuff to do!  Nora at the color your car table. Checking out the army vehicles. Super tall! Got a free face paint of a dolphin... ... and a unicorn! and then drove around the mini course in this SUV!