Easter Weekend

Saturday we went over to my folks' for lunch and an Easter Egg Hunt (capitalizing it makes it sound so official - but it was actually 7 adults watching Gabe look for eggs and giving him advice:  "Look up!  Look in the plant!  Look by the tree!" and me yelling at people to get their legs outta my picture because they were ruining my shot.  Honestly it's like I think I'm some sort of photo journalist the way I run around manically trying to capture the moment.  But I'm pretty sure that looking through all these pictures will keep me entertained in my twilight years, so that's what everyone needs to remember...me telling you that you're ruining my picture today is actually buying you some peace and quiet when I'm looking at those pictures in future tomorrows.  ["future tomorrows"?  does that even make sense?])

And now for a few of those pictures:



My dad and Gabe watched a bit of the Masters and shared some
commentary between them of the action. 





(Really, Christina?  Even for a holy day like Easter - God's
day, no less - you can't give me a normal expression??)



(...guess not).

Incidentally, see that haze over the bottom half of the picture that adds character and mood to the photo?  Are you just so impressed right now with my photography skills?  Are you thinking about commenting on this post and asking me for some tips on taking photos?  Are you wondering to yourself why I don't start a section of this blog soley related to photography tips, like every other "mommy-blogger" out there who has bought herself a DSLR camera?
Well I will save you the trouble of having to ask me:  it was windy and my hair blew in front of the lens.
I'm pretty sure I'm about to quit my job and start a photography business.





I realized later that I didn't take a single picture of my mom that day.  But I did take a picture of the sad little group of eggs we dyed; strange.


 I hadn't planned to dye eggs this year because I thought Gabe might not be very interested in it.  But then I was the grocery store and saw an egg dying kit for 99 cents - right next to kits for $5...FIVE BUCKS! - so I went ahead and got it.  Two eggs into the process, Gabe wanted to go back outside.  (patting self on back for buying the cheap kit)

Abby's dress was cute AND tasty.

(Gabe - are those your legs in my picture frame??  Uh-oh kiddo...guess who just lost himself a day off senile-Mommy duty when I'm 85...)

Laura, Scott, legs?  LEGS!!



This is one of my favorite pictures taken from the day - Gabe was so animated
when he would discover an egg!





On Easter Sunday we did round two of egg hunting.



Gabe was delighted with the discovery on Saturday that he
not only got to play the game of searching for eggs, but that
they had stickers and candy inside.  By Sunday he was shaking
them when he found them, confirming that there was loot inside.
Oh how quickly they learn!



We got a hand-me-down sleeper from a friend that makes Abby look like an Easter Egg.  perfect!

Looking awfully protective of her treasure

This one is from the week after Easter...but since there's no telling when I
might do another post, I figured I'd add it here!

2010 Photo Book

I'm going through my pictures from the last couple of months and playing catch up with blog posts.  So far I've got 4 blog posts in draft status...we'll see how long it takes me to actually get them published!

Mandy had the idea last Christmas to put together a photo book for my parents & grandparents as a Christmas gift.  She asked me, Laura & Christina to contribute pictures we'd taken from the year, and Christina was even able to get pictures of Mom's off of her laptop without her knowing so that the gift could be kept a surprise. 

Mandy worked many hours to put together the book and it turned out SO great!!  She shipped it to Mom & Dad with a "DO NOT OPEN UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE" note on it, and we figured out a way for me and Christina to both just happen to end up at Mom & Dad's house for dinner one night, where we planned to have them open the Photo Book with all of us there to see it together for the first time.  The surprise worked out perfectly because after dinner, Laura and Christina were talking about old Tim Noah songs & videos and Laura found some on YouTube that they were watching.  One had a ringing phone in it, which completely disguised the Skype ringer of Mandy calling.  Brilliant, Laura! 

Mandy did such an awesome job on the book - she'd asked us for pictures and memories from the year, so the book is a fun walk down 2010's memory lane.

Our "seeing the 2010 book" picture, complete with Paul & Mandy on Skype and Mom holding the book...we thought it'd be fun to have this in the 2011 book!

Mandy's hope is to do a book every year - hooray for us!!

Cruise People

Have I mentioned that my parents are Cruise People?

In 2003, my parents and Aunt & Uncle took my Grandma on a cruise through the Panama Canal.  She'd been wanting to do it for years but had never planned it, and when she started to show signs of Alzheimer's, my dad decided that they should just take the bull by the horns and plan the trip so she'd really go. 

Departing for their first cruise...love my Gram's pink velour tracksuit!

The start of an era.

This picture makes me miss my Gram. (sorry Laura, it doesn't really make me miss you, because I just saw you...but I think your hair is cute)

Well the Panama Canal turned my parents into Cruise People. 

I think they've gone on something like 10 cruises now, and they're about to go on their 11th.  Or their 20th.  Who can keep track?  (I'm not worried about being too accurate on this because I'm pretty sure my mom will include the correct number in a comment when she reads this post.)

Last fall, Mom called during their cruise to...Mexico?  Hawaii?  Who can keep track?...and was telling Laura and I how she'd gotten called up on stage again during an evening show by a ventriloquist.  That's right, I said "again".  You see, my mom is a volunteer-er.  Always up for a good time or adventure, and willing to help out a ventriloquist in need of a dummy. 

Haha.  Sorry Mom.  You know I love you.  You're the best mom ever.  And actually, I would be doing both of us a disservice if I didn't take the intelligence and wit you imparted to me and use it to make a pun about ventriloquists and dummies.  (have I dug myself out of the hole yet?  c'mon, i thought that last thing about doing both of us a disservice was pretty clever!)

So after we talked to Mom, we decided to have t-shirts made for Mom & Dad's next cruise.  For Mom, an eye-catching pink shirt to aid her volunteer efforts.  And for Dad, a black shirt with gray embroidered lettering to express his slightly more reserved outlook.

Playing their roles for the camera

I'll leave you with this:  a picture I found of Mom on their cruise to Tahiti in 2005.

Mom's the one in the middle.

Haha. Sorry Mom. You know I love you. You're the best mom ever. And actually, I would be doing both of us a disservice if I didn't take the observational skills and wit you imparted to me and use it to make a joke about telling you apart from fruit animals. (what?  that one doesn't work a second time?  dang.  actually, I love this picture of you, Mom.  I think it completely exhibits your sense of humor and love for fun, and I can totally picture you exclaiming over each fruit animal and the creativity of how they were made.  Love you!)

Mercer Island Half Marathon

Bret, his mom, & his sister are running another half marathon in a few weeks, which means I better get the post done for the one they ran at the end of March.

Yes, I said the end of March.

Ahem.

Anyway, at the end of March, Bret and his mom ran the Mercer Island Half Marathon.  When they did the Seattle Half last November, my sister Christina came along and we scrambled around Seattle to cheer them along.  For the Mercer Island Half, we added my father-in-law (otherwise known as Papa T) to our cheering section as we zoomed around Mercer Island.  And I have discovered that, for some reason, I hear the Wicked Witch of the West music when I am driving in a hurry to get to the next cheering destination. 

We were amateurs back in November for the Seattle Half, checking the Thomas Guide on the fly and driving willy nilly around Seattle.  But not this time, oh no; not this time.  This time I printed out the course map in advance, estimated Bret's average speed per mile, and jotted down several possible cheering locations.  Oh yes, I was taking this Mercer Island Half Marathon much more seriously.

We got to the first location and settled in to wait.  Christina and I ran a few picture drills to stay alert.  We were determined that our picture taking skills this time around would not turn out like before.   (Taking it much more seriously, indeed.)

But alas...

See, the problem is that in the excitement of the moment - the moment of "There he is!  YAY!!" - everything goes all thumbs and all the picture drills in the world haven't helped. Observe:

Bret on the far left of the picture...

Bret on the far right of the picture...

And that's Mary (i.e. Bret's mom/Meemo) waving from behind the woman wearing #1577 in the foreground.

Sigh.

Well at least we got one good picture at this first stop...Go Meemo!

So it was on to cheering-destination-number-two and hopefully better picture taking.  Mission accomplished as far as the cheering section was concerned:

But the fate was not to be the same for our runners. 

I had remembered that my camera has a snazzy "Continuous Shooting" mode.  Brilliant!  Inspired!  Magnificent!  I would simply hold down the button and let the camera click-click-click away as Bret ran past.  Why hadn't I figured this out earlier??

Well, here's why (and please keep in mind that I wasn't looking at the camera's view screen to see what it was capturing in the moment - I was just holding down the button and moving the camera to follow him as he ran by - so the captions are my thoughts as I was reviewing the pictures later):

"Oh good!  This first one caught him on the left of the screen...but it's so blurry! Hmm..."

"Not as blurry...this is where he was getting ready to hand his backpack off...must've been bothering him to run with it."

"Hey, you're not my husband.  Where did he go?"

"And you're not my husband's legs."

"No really:  where did he go?"

"?"

"?????"

"@#%?!"

"Finally!  But he's so blurry...and close!  Was the camera on zoom?"

"What is that?  His license?  Why would he be handing off his license?  Is it a note?  Ok, Cheryl, that doesn't even make sense.  Why would you think he'd written a note while running a half marathon?  Jeez!  (Stop to ask Wayne what it was)  Ah, the remains of a Gu wrapper.  Now *that* makes sense!"

"Well, darn."

"All that excitement about the Continuous Shooting function and I didn't even get a good picture of him!"

When Mary came by a few minutes later, I had zoomed the camera back out and it made a big difference:

So then it was a mad dash to the finish line to find a place to park the car and cheer them their last few steps.  It was here that I remembered that, earlier in the week when I was commenting to Bret that I hoped the picture-taking worked out better this time around than it had for past runs, Bret had said we should just take a video.

Hmm...sure wish I remembered what Bret had said back at the beginning of the run!  (I also need to note that Christina took the videos...my videography skills have yet to be proven under race-day pressure.  Guess we'll see what happens in a couple of weeks!)

After the race, Gabe revealed his team spirit via his onesie:

After the the run we decided that we should spell it "Meemo" instead.  Every time I see the onesie I chuckle...I still read it as "Memo" (i.e. memorandum - but you probably already knew that, right?  Just making sure.  Wouldn't want you confused as to why I'm chuckling.  Although maybe that adds to my air of mystery.  Or lunacy.  Hmm...)

Good job Mary & Bret!

Woefully Overdue a.k.a. Playing Catch-up

There are at least three events over the last few months that I want to post about but feel like it's a daunting task due to lots of pictures and lots of words (c'mon, do you really think I could post without lots of words?).  So maybe soon you'll hear about the Mercer Island Half Marathon that Bret and his mom ran in March...Papa T's 60th birthday celebration in early April...and Bret's 36th birthday celebration in late April.

But until then, here are a few other snippets and cute pictures I found:

A visit to see Auntie Sara in the hospital in February.  Sara had a kidney stone and ended up in the hospital to have it removed. We brought the Gabester for a surprise visit and a distraction from the pain. Timing must run in the family because in early May, Bret had a kidney stone (his second...the first was 7 years ago) and went to the ER three times in two days to get the pain under control. They decided to let Bret pass the stone on his own...thankfully it only took about a week, but MAN what a long week! I've heard that a kidney stone might be the closest a man can get to experiencing pain that's remotely similar to childbirth...I told Bret that I felt sorry for him because at least after I experienced all that pain, I got Gabe out of the deal...Bret only got a jagged rock.

Relaxing with a good (tasting) book. Gabe prefers to eat them rather than read them.

Aunt Laura:  "Yup, my book's pretty good...how's yours?"

Gabe:  "I'm on the last chapter (eating the tag), but I have to say that I'm disappointed with the author's over-indulgent use of imagery and alliteration...and this tag tastes like dried spit from the last time I chewed on it."

Playing with Grandma's reading glasses.  Yet another example of an item that's cute on a kid but not as cute on an adult (sorry Mom, I think you're adorable and all - but I have never looked at you while you're wearing your reading glasses and wanted to exclaim "Ohhh, cute!!").  Overalls are another item that are cute on kids but not adults.  At least not this adult.  It's a shame, too, because they're so comfortable!

Out to dinner for Laura's 25th and Christina's 21st birthdays.  We went to a really nice French restaurant in downtown Seattle and Mom's menu caught fire from the candle on the table.  Yes, caught fire.  Laura had the presence of mind to put her cloth napkin over the flame to smother it, and we all tried to act very nonchalant and inconspicous while the smell of burnt paper wafted through the restaurant.  After the excitement, Laura and I noticed that Mom was sitting directly under a sprinkler head on the ceiling.  Close call!

So, what was I saying about not being able to post without a lot of words?  Even the caption option couldn't discourage me!