Yum!

We've been trying to eat healthier lately, which means coming up with interesting ways to cook things like chicken, fish, and lots of veggies. Last night's dinner was one of our most successful healthy meals, in my opinion. It started with some chicken breasts coated in bread crumbs, Italian seasoning, pepper, and ground almonds for crunch (the boys love this part). Then I added some roasted potatoes and sweet potatoes. The sweet potatoes were the best. I got some multi-colored potatoes because they look pretty, but they were not nearly as tasty as the equally pretty sweet potatoes. I had some leftover sweet potatoes on my salad at lunch and it was the best part. I need to make more of these soon. They were easy, too. I just sprayed a little olive oil on them, sprinkled them with garlic salt and Italian seasoning, and put them in the oven to bake.


Notice how more than half my plate is veggies. So of course, I needed a little yummy salad dressing for flavor. This is one of my favorite Central Market finds.

It is pretty reasonable calorie-wise, if you only use a little; and notice that it is 100% natural, so that has to be healthy, right?

And here, totally unrelated to food, is a short video of Simon at swimming lessons. I'm just trying to test the quality of video from my new camera and figure out the best way to put videos on here, so even though it looks like two videos, it is the same video with two different ways of uploading.

The B.I.

We took an exploring trip to "the island" today because there wasn't much else to do. I wanted to be outside enjoying a little sun and we needed to do something that didn't cost any money. "The island" is an interesting place, but we don't live there, because, well, we just can't afford the 2.75 million dollars it costs to live life on the B.I. Exhibit 1:

$2.75 million home on the water, but with less than spectacular views of Seattle. You might have to pay a bit more for a view like this one:


After envying those lucky B.I. residents with their fancy houses and spectacular views, we stopped for a bit of history. We weren't sure what we had found at first. We noticed all the rotted pilings and thought there must have been some sort of dock a long time ago. I thought maybe the ferry had gone there; Steve thought maybe a saw mill had been there. It turns out we were both right.



After our trip I did a little Internet research (seriously, how did we survive before the Internet?) and found that in the late 1800s the largest mill in the world was in Port Blakely. Apparently, people used to give directions to Seattle by saying, "you know, it's that city across the water from Port Blakely." Later, it was home to the car ferry from 1923 to 1937. Here's what it looked like around 1900.


We did a little more exploring south of Port Blakely. We went up the hill toward Fort Ward State Park, which was closed for winter. There are a few old brick houses and buildings left near the park that once stood out, but now have been overshadowed by new building developments. I guess those islanders who also can't afford 2.75 million have to live somewhere.

We ended up near the water at the end of the island overlooking Blake Island (I think), and headed up Toe Jam Hill. I'm not sure what kind of name that is for a street, especially in a place as high class as the B.I. But there we were, driving up and down Toe Jam Hill and then onto Country Club Rd, which sounds much more fitting for those big multi-million dollar homes like this one, which I wouldn't mind if I owned:

Since that is not going to happen anytime soon, and most likely ever, we needed to get off of the B.I. fast. And we did.

Why is there no TJ's in Silverdale, or Poulsbo, or least Bainbridge Island?

This little video is fun and makes me wish we had a Trader Joe's closer to us.

Old Dogs, Peanut Butter, and Other Random Things

FYI: TMI heading your way...Getting old must suck. Really. Zeus is getting old and I'm sure it's not pleasant for him, but also not so pleasant for us. He's been sleeping most of the day, meanwhile letting a seriously rancid smell escape from his rear end. I've been laying around being lazy all day, trying to mind my own business with TV, facebook, and other time wasters, and then he ruins it with a room-clearing stink. And that isn't even the worst of it. After dinner tonight, while I was working on cleaning the kitchen, he wandered on by and dropped a poop on my foot. It's so disgusting, but I feel bad for him. I don't think he even realizes that it's happening. I just hope I don't get that old someday.


There's been a lot in the news lately about problems with peanut butter. This could be bad news for us because we love peanut butter. Perhaps it's genetic, because I remember watching my dad eat the peanut butter out of the jar with a spoon, and now I do the same. But no worries here, because Central Market sells organic peanut butter that you grind yourself at the market with organic, locally grown peanuts. It's so good. I just made myself some today and it's super yummy on day one. (I also picked up some freshly ground almond butter, which was equally good.) I contemplated eating the whole container, but I'm supposed to be watching what I eat so that I do not have to be fat for our trip to Hawaii in June. I compromised by eating a big spoonful of the PB and skipping the tortilla for my taco dinner. I know it's not really a taco without a tortilla, but it was worth it to allow myself to eat the peanut butter. (We can just pretend that I didn't eat any of the Swedish fish Simon talked me into getting or any of the chocolate chips that will never make it into a cookie, right?)

Are you as excited as I am that Amazing Race will start tomorrow? I haven't been looking forward to anything on TV lately, but AR is one of my favorites. I'd love to be on the show just to travel around the world, but I am too much of a wimp to try bungee jumping, or scaling a high rise building, or other similar tasks that the contestants are usually given to do.

B-Day Update

After some Blokus, we got the call that baby Patrick had arrived. Analise was very excited.


So of course, we all went to see him. He was very cute and very small and everyone had to hold him.














All in all, I'd say it was a pretty good day. Congratulations, Mike and Lismarie!

Happy Birthday Patrick!

We are hanging out with some kids today while we wait for baby Patrick to be born. We met up with a couple of the cousins at the hospital this morning and waited while the youngest tornado whipped up some dust in the lobby. I think the security guard sighed with relief when we were finally ready to leave.






This kid just has too much energy to sit somewhere and wait, so off we went to the waterfront park. We were the only people there even though the sun was out and the cold was not so bad (at least after we warmed up with a little movement). We did some running around and swinging on the swings (Steve included) and even walked a little on the beach. And anytime you have boys and rocks, there will be rock throwing. When my boys were that young we went out to throw rocks in the water a few days a week. They could do it for hours. It must be a boy thing.










Now we are back home waiting for the baby to come and things are getting a little bit crazy. I think we may need another trip to the park or something. It sounds like a game of Blokus will help.

Well, we just heard that the baby was born, so now what? I'm not really sure.

What we've been up to lately

Did you know that Simon likes to make crazy faces for the camera? In fact, it's pretty hard to get him to have a normal face in a picture unless he doesn't know you are taking his picture.

Here are a few pictures from a couple of weeks ago when the Volvo had an appointment in Bellevue. It was a long appointment, so we took a loaner and visited Rob. It was our first visit to his apartment. While we were there, he entertained the boys with a little guitar lesson.



We also visited the cousins in Redmond that day, but the photographic evidence of that visit is weak.

We had lunch with the cousins here:


If you get the chance to go there, you should. It was yummy!

A rare bit of sun in January

I guess I am starting a blog. Because I was told it is my job to blog about the family and whatever. I'm not sure I have a lot to say, but I do take a lot of pictures. Sometimes they turn out pretty crappy like this one:

This is from MLK day, when Rob and Stephanie came to visit and we took all the kids to Poulsbo to see the Marine Science Center, but it was closed. So we had no choice, but to take them to the bakery instead.

After a cookie, we headed to the park for some play time in this rare sunny winter day. It wasn't even cold. Too bad we don't have more days like this.