Number 513 of my wishlist checked off

Last Wednesday evening at 5:15 pm my mom and I went to the Crab Cooker. I guess this was a place that she and my dad went to a few times back in the day, before they had kids, and still had hopes and dreams. Idid not take my children, knowing they would not appreciate the crab. Instead I ordered pizza for them. They were so excited about getting pizza that is actually delivered to your door. Don't they realize all the pizza they get is delivered to their door......by their MOTHER! :)


We split and order of Alaskan King crab legs and crab cakes. Came with a side of cheesy mashed taters and slaw. Very good taters and slaw. But the star of the show was the crab. Served with lots and lots of butter.




Yes, I admit it. I looked.

You are served on paper placemats on paper plates with plastic cups and plastic utinsels. Very, very swanky joint. Water is served only upon request.

Surprisingly we did not try the "worlds best clam chowder" because it was Maine clam chowder and mom and I both prefer New England style clam chowder.

We both walked home full as could be. And then proceeded to have terrible nightmares all night long. Weird. We concluded it was because our bodies were not used to such rich food. I have come to the conclusion that I need to eat like that more often so my body can adapt.

One week already?

we have visited lots of local spots in between getting sunburned at the beach. for a few days we had a very strict "No slapping anyone on the back." rule. One of our stops was Balboa Pier. It has a merry go round which the girls flocked to almost as fast as they flocked to the cottoncandy.

Daniel and Ike did the ferris wheel. it took me 12 shots to finally get one of their cart. Ihave a lot of the cart behind them.

They have a nifty nautical museum too! With Ike's love of fishing he was more than happy to pose with this giganitic fish. I am stunned I finally have a picture of him smiling!

Jake

Maria

Anna is at the wheel.

They had touch tanks too. the kids got to touch starfish and sea slugs. i was all for the starfish. as for the sea slugs.turns out i like them as much as their relatives, the land slugs.

one of the MANY model boats they had. the kids had a lot of fun looking at these.

I have a variety of bedmates. The other night i walked in and was suprised by this princess. I love how she had herself and blanket all laid out just so and how her toes are peeking out.

Then on another day we went to Balboa Island. The candy shop and toy store were very popular stops. Of course we had to get a picture of Bessie. The girls were more than happy to pose.

Anna magnifying her magnificent smile for me. I did not notice this until i uploaded the pictures.

Maria begging me to take them out into the ocean to jump waves.

An end to another wonderful day of playing on the beach. Ice cream out on the patio. :)

Ike burying Anna.

Anna and Maria building castles in the surf. I guess they have not gotten the gist of the primary song, " The wise man built his house up on the rock."

Well as you can imagine i have a lot more pictures to share. I will try and get those posted soon.

Pickles anyone?

This post does not contain any cute or clever pictures. So those of you who still don't read books that don't have pictures will have to ignore this post and wait for the next one.


Wednesday morning Maria was in the fridge looking for a snack when one of the door shelves fell off. She freaked out, because this is not the first thing she has broken in this house, and started to cry. I went over to assess the damage, and mental rack up how much this is gonna cost me, and was pleasantly surprised to see it would be an easy fix.

I stuck Maria in the corner of the kitchen because the fridge door being open blocks the doorway out of the kitchen. As I was jimming the shelf back on I knocked off a jar of dill pickles. It landed on my foot and broke. Maria quickly shouted that it was not her fault. My mom, realizing I was in way over my head, started to come over. Luckily Jakey beat her there. As he walked by he felt the need to say, "Mom, the pickle jar broke." I calmly stated that I was aware of this fact. Then once he realized that I probably was he then asked, "Can I have a pickle?" I was stunned for a moment then answered back that no he could not have a pickle at this time because they are all over the floor and my foot and chances are they have shards of glass mixed in also.

I see a bright future for him as an EMT.

An update from the road

This post reminds me of writing a letter home from camp because really I am posting this to keep my family in cheney up to date. so.....

Dear Mom and Dad, Katie,Amy,Jenna and Susan,


We made it to the beach, but no worries lots of adventures were had along the way. We went through the John Day pass on the way to Reno. It is a very twisty, turny, windy road. I think you know where this is going. Luckily only one kid barfed. Poor sweet Maria. She gave us plenty of notice to pull off the road and shove a towel under her chin. So the mess was at a minimum. Anna started feeling cruddy too.

The scenery was lovely, but i will not be going home that way.

We stopped for lunch at the John Day museum. They had creepy mannequins. They scared the girls. By girls I include myself.

They had a dress up box so the girls tried on some hats. the first picture I took of Anna had her blinking. So I asked her not to blink this time. The following picture was the result of this request. I think I am gonna get this one blown up and framed.It makes me smile everytime I see it.
Maria looking saucy as always.

Just hanging out and looking at everything. there was a lot to look at. They liked the two headed calves.

We spent the night and all day friday in Reno with the Lindh's. It was a much needed break after driving through four states in one day. Anna and Maria spent the evening and night barfing and having other digestive problems. Just too long of a car ride for them I think. They were feeling like their spunky selves by Friday. We went and took the kids downtown. Had to get our picture taken in front of the famous, "RENO! Biggest Little City in the World" sign. As you can see when Lanae and I get our families together we make quite a crowd.

The kids were less than impressed with the smells inside the casino. They said they would much rather smell the exhaust from the cars on the street. Yes, we took them inside a casino. Circus Circus does free circus act every hour. Good thing it was free because the kids were less than impressed.

So we took the kids walking down the the "river" and I use this term loosely. It was more like a large shallow creek. It was moving fast but nothing like the rivers they are used to seeing at home. It was hot and they did have a lovely water feature. The kids started out looking at the water, then sticking their hands in it and before I knew it, they had a full blown water fight in which I got nailed twice!!

They came back and played boardgames, chased lizards and basically became wonderfully lazy. It was a wonderful afternoon.

We also went to a park near Lanae's house that morning. All of the kids, yes big ones too, had a great time. They all played tag and basically took over the huge four story play structure they have there.

Anna, Maria, and Sarah.

Obligatory family picture infront of giant frog. I like how it looks like Ike and Bumpski are having a stare off. One of many.

Daniel took his turn at the wheel to. I only let him drive for an hour at a time. Which was more than fine with him. Driving Big Red is not easy at highway speeds. The winds tend to push her around.

The crew totally at ease with daniel at the wheel. Wish I could say the same! Ike is in the back passed out.

We are at the beach house. Having fun collecting shells and jumping in waves, and of course sporting some fantastic sunburns!!

A wonderful success at failing

I know, what a fantastic picture to start off this blog with. No, Geoff is not the failure. If anything I consider this picture of him to be a stunning success. Geoff was the newest member to our merry band of travelers that thought it would be a great idea to bike from Seattle to Portland.
So we, (Anna, Monica and I) met up at Geoff's place for a wonderful carbo loaded dinner of homemade seafood fettuchine. Due to un forseen circumstances and a misplaced cow Anna was not able to join us that night. We ate, then thought it would be a fantastic idea to draw on eachother cool pictures for the race. Geoff did my race number on my leg.

Turned out pretty cool. Too bad it was short lived. Yes, the marker lasted longer than I did. ha ha ha

Anna, Monica and I camped out in the parking lot in BigRed so we could be at the start line bright and early. Meaning 4:30 am. It was early. But none of us were anywhere near bright.

Here we are at 10 mile water stop. Oh the look of hope and joy on my face.

This is mile 25. Breakfast time. We hit here right before 8 am. I was feeling pretty sick and the thought of eating food repulsed me. I watched my friends chow down and was digusted. Hmmm, something is not right here. I normally am a huge fan of eating.

There are no picture from the lunch pit stop. As most of it was spent with me bent over in the bushes vomiting. I ran out of water five miles from our lunch stop. Kept trying to keep fluids in me but I kept barfing them up. I was very, very angry and frustrated at myself and my stupid body. So I placed a call to Carlos, trying my best not to cry. ( I totally cried) He called his buddy Scott because I was quite a ways away from, well, pretty much anywhere. Scott drove an hour down from Olympia to drag my sorry butt and bike back to his place where Carlos, Rachel and their kiddos drove three hours to bring me back to there place. Scott's house was really nice, the bedroom he put me in was really nice, the carpet was really nice. Oh how I prayed everytime that I would make it to the bathroom and not black out in the hallway.

So I hung out with my brother and his family Sunday, getting updates from my friends on the trail which sadly, made me cry because I wanted to be there, accomplishing something! Instead of trying to hold down a friggen cracker!!

Rachel drove me back to the U District in Seattle around 10 pm to meet them and drive them back to Geoff's where we crashed.

Monday started early for some reason. So Monica and I headed down to the piers to get a look at downtown Seattle and play the dorky tourist. Turns out I do dorky really, really well. Anna was not able to join us for this adventure either do to the mis placed cow from Friday. I now know why I don't eat beef. HA HA HA HA

Nothing important about this picture. I just loved the irony of it.

It is a picture of fishermen on a boat. Yep, told ya I was good at being a dork.

We went to Pike Street Market and saw someone buy $707 dollars worth of salmon. Not hard to do at $18 a lb. Tasted some delish smoked salmon that was $30 a lb. Monica and I figured the sample alone was about $5 worth of salmon. Yes, I did lick my fingers.

I am getting better at dealing with my failure of not finishing the STP. But I have to be realistic here to. First off I did a triathlon 14 days before this race. Secondly I promised Daniel I would come back alive. He was worried who was gonna cook meals for them. I am so happy for his concern.

My very first triathlon sprint. Lake Padden Tri (Try, try, and try again)

Warning. This post has picture of a middle aged fat lady in a wet suit and swim wear attempting (and succeeding) to do really stupid stuff.



This was my transistion area. The goal is to be here as little as possible. I don't have my transition times yet but i think the longest i was there was under 5 minutes and that was getting out of the wet suit and putting on my running gear.


This is me in the ever so sexy wet suit. I am so lucky I could not see this picture until after the competition or I would have spent the swimming portion in the car, under a tarp, weeping softly to myself.

We all go to wear these lovely neon green swim caps. They said it was for visablility. Daniel quickly found a flaw in their plan. As he witnessed several swimmers going under. "Once they go down, mom, you can't see the swim cap." Hmmmm.

I trained a whooping one week for the swim. And only because I am cheap. I did not want to spend the money of an actual gym membership and I did not want to pay for two weeks.

About 50 yards into the swim it occurred to me that I am tired, I am in over my head, and I am tired of having water splashed in my face, nose, mouth and getting kicked. Really tired of getting kicked. The water was less than warm. A lot less. 99% of the swimmers had on wet suits too. 99% of the swimmers in wet suits looked a heck of a lot better than I did. Luckily, I did make it through the swim. I found my pace, and found my happy place and took it one stroke at a time. Exetremely happy to see the shore and have my feet touch solid ground.

I covered myself in Body Glide before I put on the wet suit and the stuff worked fantastically. The suit slid right off. Hopped up on the bike and was off! I really, really love that they started the course off on an up hill. Just like I really,really, love this picuture of me.

About 10 minutes into the ride I realized that I am very, very wore out. My legs are noodles and I am breathing really,really hard. I felt myself panicking again just like I did in the water. I had to remind myself of my goals, first was to hydrate while I rode and the second was to make up for lost time in the water.

DONE!! you can tell by the ecstatic look on my face how happy I was to be done. I reached my goal of under two hours. I did not die, vomits, pass out or crash. those were my other goals of things NOT to do.

I can say at this point and time I do not see myself doing a full triathlon again. First off the training takes up a lot of time. Secondly, it is insane. I am used to doing crazy. But insane was a whole new gig. They do have a relay team option. Any one wanna sign up?

I was worried my kids would be bored during the race. But no! They got to see people drowning and being pulled out of the water, people wiping out on bikes around sharp turns, and someone got hit by a car! They did not get to see the actual accident but did witness the clean up. I would call that a successful day.

Road Trip!!

This weekend I had a Triathlon sprint at Lake Padden which just happens to be down the road from my brother's house. WOW! how handy is that??

well on the way over we stopped at the usual points of intrest...every friggen rest stop between Spokane and Bellingham. There are approx. 10. Of course we stopped off at Vantage and took in the lovely sights.

Kids by native american pictographs.
My little Maria cheesing for the camera while eating cheesy gold fish crackers.

My crew.

After the race Carlos, Rachel and the their kiddos took off to a wedding so I took the kids down to Larrabee Bay and let them check out the tide pools.

The found lots of little crabs and limpets.

Anna with her collection of sea shells

Maria found a purple sea star at the end of this out cropping of rocks.

Jakey with his pet crab he tried to take home.

My merry band of travelers.

It was a nice weekend. Very busy, but we had great weather, which is amazing for that side of the state. I get to go back again on the 9th of july. the kids get to stay with friends. I am sure they will be happy to not have to make the trip again.