Easter for My Keister

Happy Post-Easter Weekend! I want you to know I refrained multiple times from posting weather related status updates on Facebook these past three days that contained an annoying number of exclamation points and poetry (because I hate status updates involving weather even if they don't contain exclamation points and poetry because WHO CARES)!!! I will leave my blog for such shouting from the rooftops. Ready? There has been WARM SUNSHINE here in Seattle for three - count them, THREE - straight days, and it has unleashed an unadulterated joy from my inward bowels and bosom that was very hard to contain. PURE JOY, I tell you. JOY. We sing Joy to the World at Christmas? Well, now we sing it at Easter, too.

So, Saturday was an Easter egg hunt with friends at a park. It was very low-key, meaning no lines, no boundaries, not really any rules, and plenty of candy for both kids and adults. And it was over in a matter of minutes. Cool.

Here are our pint-sized contenders. Sienna, ready to beat the egg-glare with her sunglasses. Noah, ready to chill on the blanket, forgotten, while the parents cheered and photographed the contestants.

Here's dad, prepping Sienna.

And, they're off! There's Wally and Matthew as well. (Sidenote: apparently Matthew's younger brother, Seth, has a li'l crush on Sienna. Adam taught Sienna the word "boyfriend" when referring to Seth, much to my chagrin! No worries, though, Sienna, our little beauty who will not be allowed to date for many decades to come, remains clueless.)

There's an egg! Nice hiding. NOT.

OH NO. This one came open! Sienna is OCD, so things like this are huge disruptions in our everyday life. I had to hurry and put down the camera and run over and close it up so she could continue on the hunt!

Noah, chillin' in his Union colors. (Thanks, Grandma!)

Post-race, Sienna's mouth filled with candy.

A proud mom looks on.

Did I tell you Noah is my man? Yes? You want me to shut it already?

After the egg hunt, we did some spring cleaning in the garage. Fun Seattle Fact: daffodils grow WILD and in abundance around here. I have stopped the car to snatch some off of roundabouts around my neighborhood, assuming that's okay.... There's now a nice bunch of them on my kitchen table. They might be my favorite flower ever - bright yellow (the color of happiness), intriguing petal pattern, and they smell amazing. Noah is holding one that my neighbor had just given to Sienna. (Did I mention Sienna is getting so much better at sharing? It's a nice change.)

And, now, the only photo of Easter attire.

Not that we bought anything new or went all out or anything special. But Noah and Sienna did look adorable. (She wore a brown and white polka-dotted hand-me-down from the neighbor girl.)

Easter dinner was delectable, if I do say so myself (which is why this post is called Easter for my Keister ... turns out I don't need bad weather to eat loads of comfort food). Ham, cheesy potatoes, broccoli, and banana cream pie. We fed the missionaries, plus my neighbor, Pat. I've been wanting to unite the elders with Pat for a long time and finally decided to just go for it without telling either party. Risky? Yes. I was nervous about it all day. But, I didn't want any preconceived anything. It did turn out pretty well, even though the dinner started with one elder "complimenting" 70-something Pat on her "nice purple hair." Yikes. She took it good-naturedly, thank heavens. Further proof of my theory that missions are 90% for the young men to grow up and 10% for the people they actually help.

Anyway, our Easter was lovely. And we have the leftover ham to prove it.

Notes on March

March marched away too fast, so I'm going to backtrack a bit.

For two glorious weeks in March, Adam was out of school for spring break. The first week was rainy. We hung out and went swimming and escaped that weekend to Wenatchee to visit my cousin Carrie. The second week was fairly sunny and nice. My mom visited and then Adam left that weekend to a "man-cation" with his college buddies during which they skiied for several days in Utah. Then spring break ended and we told ourselves it was time to grow up. From here on out, we will not be luxuriating in things like 2 week Christmas vacations and 2 week spring vacations. But we sure enjoyed it while it lasted! Full-time school life definitely has its perks.

Now Adam is in his final quarter of school and he has purposely made it a pretty cushy one. He doesn't have classes MWF (except a night class on Monday), and his classes on TTh are 11:30 am - 5:30 pm. It rocks for all of us! He wants to enjoy the calm before the storm of working full-time for Amazon.

Which brings me to an announcement of sorts, even though many people who read this blog already know: we are moving to Phoenix in June for 12 - 18 months for Adam to work as a finance person at one of their fulfillment centers. It should be a pretty unique opportunity for him to see Amazon behind the scenes. After he's done, we will be back up here in Seattle indefinitely. I'm excited for what will be, for me, an extended vacation in the sun. We are excited to reconnect with a lot of old friends who live in Phoenix area, too!

Now for pictures.

Wenatchee is a beautiful place and I'm so glad we can escape there sometimes. It is always the antidote I need for the sunless, drab Seattle. Ruby, my cousin Carrie's daughter, turned 4 and had a Tinkerbell party. Here's Ruby and Sienna in their fairy wings.

Eating one of Carrie's masterpiece birthday cupcakes. They were gooood. I would like to eat one right now, in fact.

A family walk toward the apple orchard behind their house and along the Columbia River. They have the most stunning view of the river and mountains from their back windows. Makes me want to move in next door.

Here is a swing in the orchard. Is this not an idyllic life? What kid grows up with a swing in an orchard behind their house? I'm jealous, Carrie!

When my mom visited, the kids suddenly got all throw-uppy sick. Despite this, we were able to get out and see some sights and eat some food, which, in turn, made my mom sick. But she kept being sick after she left, so she might have just gotten sick from my kids. Sorry, mom! (Last time she visited my kids were throwing up, too! What the?!)

Behold the Space Needle on a glorious and rare blue sky day. Sienna now spots the Space Needle from the freeway and says, "It's the Space Needle!" Yesterday we were going down a hill overlooking part of our neighborhood and she said, "Oh, look at the city, mom!" Not really the city, but, hey, she's a city girl now, there's no denying it!

 Near the Space Needle is the Children's Museum, which I'd never been to before.

It was basically an over-priced indoor play area. But a fun over-priced indoor play area!

We went to The Crab Pot for dinner, which is where my mom got sick. Don't go there. It wasn't good. And it made my mom sick. Enough said.

Noah threw up at some point during dinner. It was amazing. Pretty much made my life complete.

I wanted to take mom to eat something good before I drove her to the airport, but alas, my favorite brunch spot, The Fat Hen, was closed for a family vacation! Come on people! Don't vacation during my hour of need! So we went across the street to my favorite bakery, Honore, for some ridiculous French pastry goodness.

Nothing in life will get you down when you've got a kouign amman or almond croissant or lavendar macaron or blue cheese, bacon and leek quiche in your mouth. Am I right or am I right?

Did you know that Sienna has always had substantial-sized hands? Now they are starting to thin out as she grows into an adorable little girl. It makes me so sad. But here's what's left of them, reaching for her macaron.

Hey mom!

Noah's head looks almost bigger than mine here. Odd.

The almond croissant straight from heaven now looks bigger than my head. If only!

Mmmmm.

And, finally, a photo kifed from Curtis' FB page (thanks, Curtis), what might perhaps be the only photographic evidence of the mancation that was enjoyed by 7 good friends who met many moons ago on the BYU swim team. Ahhhhh. So sweet. I'm really happy Adam and his friends made this trip happen. Good friends are worth gold, are they not?

Family Photos

Despite rain and cold and family strife, we got some good photos under the blossoming cherry trees at UW campus! 

Family photos are always the hugest pain in the hiney, but they are always worth it.

Sienna found this giant sucker I had in my bag for a bribe right before we started. It sent her into a tizzy. It was all we could do to get her to smile for anything.

We had to work fast (we used my tripod and camera timer) but when she couldn't take it anymore, we took her back to the sucker, breaking off huge chunks that she stuffed in her mouth.

Which made it so we had to wait even longer for her to finish her chunks so we could get back to taking photos. While waiting, I shot some of Mr. Noah, who is 10 months now!

Isn't he a cherub?! He is my boyfriend.

See? We are in love.

Sienna has a sucker chunk in her mouth here. Aren't these three cute? They are my favorite.

Outtakes next!

I AM 30

I AM 30. Well, 30 years and one week, if you want to get technical. In reflecting about what that means to me, all I can conclude is that I've done a lot of cool things and I have a lot to be happy about. So, in short, life at 30 is spectacular. Plus, I don't feel a day over 20.

Here's how the celebrating went down.

Friday morning my friend, Morgan, and I went to breakfast at my favorite neighborhood spot, The Fat Hen. I met her last October when she and her husband and son moved into our ward. Only a couple weeks ago we discovered that we were BIRTHDAY TWINS! We were both born on March 3, 1982. I think I'm several hours older. GET OUT. Seriously. I've never met a birthday twin (although there are two other men in our ward who share the March 3 part), and it was perfect timing to have met mine. She loves all things food related (just like me!), so I thought it would be fun to have a preliminary birthday celebration by eating good food. Heeeeeere's Morgan!

Here's the hot chocolate, a spoonful of ganache mixed up in warm milk.

She and I split two dishes. Here's the bostock, or brioche French toast topped with almond paste and sliced, toasted almonds with a side of whipped cream and orange marmalade.

Here are the remnants of our baked egg dish that boasted tomato sauce, pork sausage, mushrooms and eggs. Kill me now.

Here she is saying, "30 year old Martha is sooooo much funnier than 29 year old Martha." Psst, we don't turn 30 until tomorrow, Morgan. (Can you see some of that decor? I want to live there.)

And here are the smiling almost 30 gals. Food makes us happy. Especially when enjoyed sans kids.

Speaking of which, here are they. Thanks be to Adam the babysitter!

And then there was the birthday DAY. My two desires for this milestone birthday of mine were: (1) To feel free, and (2) to eat more good food. A friend babysat during my least favorite time of day, 3:30 - 7:30 pm, and Adam and I got our free on! I've been wanting to rent scooters for awhile, and I knew this was the perfect time to go for it.  We planned on renting two scooters but Adam forgot his driver's license, so we scooted Dumb and Dumber style. I was the only authorized, legal driver, so that left Adam scared for his life! Cue evil laugh: bwhahahah. But, nice, trusting husband that he is, he did not confirm that he was indeed terrified until our hour was up and we were back on safe ground. 

We drove to the Magnolia neighborhood and enjoyed the beautiful view of the Puget Sound and the downtown skyline (you can kind of see it in the distance in the picture below).

It was a gorgeous day for a scoot. It was sunny but windy and chilly. Hey, if it's not gloomy and rainy, we are not complaining.

Adam actually did drive for half the time. It was nice to be on the back and take in the view instead of worrying about not falling over on turns and using my blinker and changing lanes.

We had a funny moment at the very end when we had to go fill up the scooter with gas. We were running out of time and getting stuck in impossible traffic, so we got off the scooter and Adam walked it on the sidewalk and across several cross walks to get to the gas station. No shame! Just a couple of scooter novices trying to wrap things up and hurry back to the rental shop without being charged extra. And now, I really want a scooter. Like really, really bad. Next birthday?!??

Adam planned dinner to be a surprise. Love that! We went to a little place in Phinney neighborhood called Stumbling Goat Bistro. It has a big focus on local food, so it took our server a ridiculously long amount of time to describe everything on the menu because he had to mention which farm everything came from. It made us laugh and reminded us of this Portlandia video. Locavores: they are real. And they exist all around us.

This cheese plate was fabulous. That little spoon contained a tiny dollop of heavenly honeycomb, I believe from a closely-guarded beehive in Puyallup. And that tiny apple that I pushed apart is a Pink Lady, possibly from a farm in Tukwila. The crackers were house-made little wonders, and the almonds and walnuts were candied somewhere nearby, perhaps in their very own kitchen! We were getting fatigued listening through all the cheese facts, but I do know the one on the right is called Little Boy Blue because I've had it before at the Phinney farmer's market. Maybe I'm a locavore and I didn't even know it!

The lighting was terrible for pictures of ourselves, but here we are anyway.

I'm holding a tiny wedge of the tiny apple that was bred, born, and raised in the loving arms of a farmer in Tukwila. Oh, how I love this tiny apple wedge.

I forgot to get photos of our dinners, which were out of this world, so I shall describe them in as much detail as possible to make you feel as if you can see them with your own eyes and taste them with your own lips. My dish was braised wild boar ragu on house-made fettuccine. Do you need me to repeat that? I ate wild boar!! Wha?????? That's what I said. But I was trying to decide between that and the wild mushroom risotto and the server told me that the ragu was, hands down, the way to go. He was right. Wild boar actually tastes a lot like slow roasted beef. And in a ragu on house-made fettuccini. Gah! It was amazing.

Adam had sturgeon on a bed of miniature black beans with a brown butter sauce. It was good. But I think mine was better.

Our dessert was probably one of the best I've ever had. I don't even know what it was called except that it had the word Frangelico in it. Does anyone know what that means? Me neither. It was like a chocolate dome filled with Bavarian cream and whipped cream that lay on a nutty, nougaty crust topped with a blood orange slice and blood orange sauce.

MMMMMM.

As you can see, it was a great birthday.