Salmon Days

There is a festival every October in Issaquah called Salmon Days that celebrates the salmon trek up the rivers and streams to spawn. It is a very fun festival with a great parade and lots of booths and activities. It reminds me of Swiss Days at home (for all you Utahns reading this) except we got to see the actual salmon themselves struggling up a local stream on our walk back to the car! Pretty cool!That is my little man with his Aunt Crystal dangling out over the water trying to touch the salmon! (his favorite thing lately is to say "I touch it!" about pretty much everything... including the unreachable like airplanes, power lines, and salmon swimming far below in a stream!)

I have to say the low point was NO CANDY in the parade - poor Gabe got gypped after I hyped up the whole candy part of the day. Uh oh. However there was a really cool pirate float...complete with swaggering, yelling pirates smoking real cigars and setting off "cannons"! They threw out some pirate treasure and Gabe got a big, fat, silver pirate coin!! That almost made up for the lack of treats. I wish I would have gotten a picture of the pirates- they were great! Later on Ronald McDonald came along... and by Gabe's reaction you would have thought he was the Grim Reaper! He was terrified!! My little guy was shaking with fright, literally crawling up my arms to get away from that horrible clown! It was awful! Long after Ronald had walked on, Gabe kept peering fearfully down the street to make sure he wasn't coming back!! The best part of the weekend was that Eric's mom and sister Crystal came for a visit. It was Crystal's first time to Seattle so we did all the fun things for newbies! Gabe especially enjoyed being lavished with attention the whole weekend!

Oooooh! I really cool carved wooden lobster in a trap. There are a ton of neat fisherman carvings downtown on the waterfront- Gabe loves them!Gabe getting a free ride while clutching his beloved Sea Otter from Grandma!

How do you break the most exciting news there is?!

Well... I heard a picture says a thousand words...

For those of you that don't know what the heck you're supposed to be seeing here, I'll help you out...

We are expecting a baby!!

Gabe is going to be a BIG BROTHER!! Eric and I are thrilled that we are being blessed with another sweet baby. We both love being parents so much and have been waiting for this newest addition for a while now! He/she couldn't be welcomed with more love and excitement! My due date is March 29th and as of today I am 15 weeks. That means I'm more than a third finished with this pregnancy, which is a great thing! That ultrasound picture was taken at 12 weeks. It is a side shot with the head on the left (and a left hand floating into view above the face) and a leg and foot on the far right. You can see the spine along the bottom of the picture (the white line). Everything looks perfect so far. We are SO HAPPY!!

snapshots

These are all snapshots of the time we got to spend with Mindy, Griff, and Jack. We did a lot of low-key things like parks, walks, even hanging out at home...but every minute was wonderful! I had such a great time with my little sis and her cute fam. I can't wait for them to come again!

fishies and baseball

We all went to the aquarium one day while Eric was working. Mindy and Griff loved it! Baby Jack thought it was pretty cool too... he wanted to army-crawl all over the floor, regardless of where we were! He is such a cute little dumplin'!

We lucked out since they were feeding the sea lions while we were there. They would throw the fish and and the sea lions would catch them in their mouths. Those animals are huge, muscular beasts!Here we are introducing Mindy and Jack to our pals the sea otters!

Gabe made a new buddy at the aquarium this trip... a friendly, and very persistent, pigeon. Gabe fed him a few crumbs of bagel and that bird was his best friend after that!

Take me out to the ball game!

Later that night we got a babysitter for the boys (the little ones at least, I can't imagine Mindy and I leaving the big boys at home for this one!) and took a night out to see the Mariners vs. the Yankees! We had incredible seats - man, that makes it so much more exciting. The game itself was amazing. We were down 1 run at the bottom of the 9th inning... 2 outs...a guy on first... and Ichiro gets up to bat...and hits a homerun!!!!! The Mariners won! The energy in the stadium was electric! It was a blast! Griff (who is a big baseball fan like Eric) said it was the best game he had ever been to - wow! We were so happy we got to see such a fun game with Mindy and Griff!

During the game...that is A-Rod playing third right in front of us!These were taken after our thrilling victory!! :)

My sister fix...finally!

Mindy, Griff and Jack all came for a visit! I have been so excited to see my little sister...counting down the weeks, then the days. No joke. The Seattle area is exciting and beautiful but nevertheless I have been so very homesick. I miss my entire family to the point that it feels like this constant ache around my heart...and if I think about that ache it becomes a lump in my throat. I had no idea how hard it would be to leave Utah. I miss everything about my home, but most of all the people that I love. It's awful being parted from the ones that mean the most in your life. I know a lot of you know what I mean... I'm certainly not the only one out there that has moved away from home and had a hard time with it!

So before I really get into a crying jag I'll just move right along and tell you about all the FUN we had with Mindy and Griff while they were here! Eric and I have been so excited to show them our new beautiful city and give them a taste of Seattle. First we went to Pikes Market, of course, and then later that evening out to dinner at Elliott's. It was wonderful! The bustle of downtown, the smell of the ocean, the seafood, the boats...everything! We even got to see the sun set across the water which was amazing!

I'll post more later...I have to go rescue my child's brain from turning into a turnip from watching cartoons all morning while I blog!! :)

Seattle Center

We finally made it down to the Seattle Center this past weekend...it was a party! It was so fun - a total carnival atmosphere with crazy rides, sticky cotton candy, screaming kids, and lots of sun, all under the shadow of the Space Needle. It was so cool. There is a really neat Sci-Fi museum next to it to (the outside was really cool...I don't think we would be too interested in the exhibits inside!) After taking Gabe on a few rides, we walked around and saw city parks with big fountains and beautiful landscaping, the Children's Museum, and even a Korean Ethnic Festival with some beautiful dancers and amazing drum players! At first Gabe was afraid of the loud pounding but once we showed him what it was and how cool it was, he really got into it. By the end he loved the drummers! My favorite was the Ferris wheel and all the hanging baskets just dripping with vines and flowers...wow.The Ferris wheel ride! Gotta love Gabe's expression in half these pictures! :) Weeeeeee! Going down, down, down on the Ferris wheel!! Gabe is so affectionate! We love those kisses!!At a cute little park filled with iron sea creatures!One of my favorite all time pictures of Gabe! Here he is riding the winged little piggy, with a tight grip on its ears, yelling "WEEEEEE HAAAWWWWW!!!!!!!!"