Photography

The other night I told Mike that I wanted to start taking pictures of things that epitomize the Pacific Northwest before we head back to the central part of the country. We came up with a few ideas:

I want a picture of . . .
1)the road signs pointing the way to the ferry landings.
2)a QFC grocery store. (We never had heard of QFC until moving here.)
3)a Fred Meyer store. (Again, never encountered one until moving here.)
4)the "Tsunami Evacuation Route" signs that we occasionally see.
5)the Salmon spawning signs along the rivers.
6)the view of the Space Needle from our house.
7)guys in shorts, wool socks and sandals when the weather is cold and rainy.

I'm trying to come up with other ideas. Anyone have any unique photo ideas for me?

Fiction: "Super Kitty" by Alec

My boy Alec has written his first book. He's always telling us "Super Kitty" stories and I decided he needed to get one of them down on paper for prosperity. I'm going to post photos of his book, even though they are a bit fuzzy. The words are his; I only acted as a scribe. The illustrations are also his. I think it's very clever, especially considering the author can't actually read or write yet. :-)

Once upon a time...

A kitty changed into Super Kitty!

She needed a cape. She got her cape at the cape factory. (This is my favorite line.)

A bad guy stole ice cream from Cloud the dog. Super Kitty tickled the bad guy and got Cloud's ice cream back.

Super Kitty saw a monkey in trouble. He lost his balloons. She caught the balloons and gave them back to him.

It had been a long day so Super Kitty flew home to be with her boy Alec.

Super Kitty and Alec were best friends. They lived happily ever after.



The end.

Or perhaps I should say, "To be continued." Alec says the next installment will be called "Super Kitty Goes to School."

EIGHT YEARS OLD?!

I'm not quite sure how it is possible that my sweet boy Zachary is now eight years old. I still vividly remember the shock of him being pulled from my body and the nurse laughingly informing me that my baby was certainly not a little Madalyn Nicole. The shock was quickly followed by abounding joy and that joy has never abated.














We had a birthday bash here at the house on Friday night. LEGO was the theme. We had five boys and two girls on our guest list. Alec and his special friend Scott (Mr. Scopp) were also on the list. Scott is 20 years old and he and Alec are mutual fans of one another.

The kids were fun and funny. They loved the LEGO competition. We paired them into teams and each team had 25 minutes to construct two items. One item had to have wheels and the other could be anything. We gave prizes for creativity, for going above and beyond, for attention to detail, and for originality.




















This is Zach with his team member Tyler. They are displaying their prize winning creations in the creativity category.





The highlight of the evening was the cake made by my dear friend Tracy. She also made Alec's tiger cake (see previous post). She's AMAZING and this LEGO cake was beyond amazing. It was almost too pretty to cut and eat!











Happy birthday to my sweet Zach, and happy Easter to all my readers!

Update

My thanks to all of you for prayers last week. I'm happy to report that my trip to Tennessee was successful. We're in the process of buying a sweet little house in Bartlett, TN. http://www.crye-leike.com/memphis/3161922 I'm very happy with this house and can't wait to get settled in it. The backyard is wonderful and the current owners have done a great job with the landscaping in the front yard. The best thing though is that the neighborhood is nice, with wide streets and nice sidewalks. I'm thrilled with this because the street we live on now has NO sidewalks and I'm scared to walk in our neighborhood because people drive too fast on our road. I'm looking forward to sidewalks!

We also celebrated Alec's fourth birthday a few days ago. He had a Chuck E Cheese party and walked around all day saying, "I love my party at Chuck E Jesus." I'm sure that is probably somewhat sacrilegious, but it sounded so funny that I never corrected him. Below is a photo of him blowing out the candle on his "tiger" cake. (He requested that he have a tiger cake for his party. The kid loves cats.) The second photo is with his buddy Zachary from preschool. I think it is so funny that the one kid from preschool that Alec is really attached to has the same name as his brother!

Zachary's 8th birthday is on Friday and we're planning a big party for him here at the house. He's already beside himself with anticipation. It should be fun. More pics to come from that later.

While I was in Oklahoma last week, we celebrated three birthdays: my dad turned 62 on March 31; Alec turned 4 on April 1; Zach will be 8 on April 10. It was a special celebration to have all three of them together for a combined birthday bash. I'm not really sure who enjoyed it the most (probably my dad!)

I also had a good, productive talk with my dad about my mom's condition. She's still declining, but I'm happy to report that she enjoyed her time with the boys. She doesn't always know who they are, but she never fails to comment on how cute they are. They entertain her and it's nice to see her enjoying them. Dad and I have a plan of action now on what steps to take next. I feel better after talking to him.

So, that is my update. This is also my 100th post. I need to get busy on one of those "100 things about me" posts! I think it'll have to wait until AFTER Zach's party though. Things will be busy around here this week!

Have a great one!