Dan Zanes

I helped put on a little pre-party with Dan Zanes before his afternoon concert. We had about 80 lucky readers of our magazine who won tickets to this fun pre-funk.

















What a nice marketing photo for my job, eh? :)














Dan Zanes is cool! He even had a guest tap dancer come for the show, it really was a lot of fun.

Last game for The Scorpions

Asia had such a fun soccer season. Shortly after I took this picture she set the ball up nicely by kicking it over to the other kid in the yellow shirt and he scored--team work at its finest!













Once again, the ever-popular parent tunnel at the end of the game.













Coach Jimmy and The Scorpions. Good times.

Vote for Tina!!

I recently was connected with Tina Orwall who is running for State Representative for our district. She wanted to meet people involved in our community so she came over for a cup of tea last week and invited us to come to her kick-off party.

It's really exciting to form a personal relationship with someone who has a voice in the state capital! She's a lovely woman. I'm excited to help out a bit with her campaign, not sure exactly what I'll do for her just yet. But hey, blogging about her is a start, right?

Vote for Tina!!













The kids enjoyed the kick-off party too. Tina's daughter is an incredible teenager, she had an area all set up to entertain the kids.

Grey skies and rainbows

Neighborhood Bowling

A bunch of us from the 'hood went out for a fun evening of bowling. Rob was looking super manly with his hot pink bowling ball... Good times!














I won on our lane! Honestly, that never happens. Ever. But it did this time!! Had to take a picture of the screen for proof, of course :)













At 8pm the lights go out and it turns into quite the hip alley. Here's Asia waiting patiently for her ball to get to the end of the lane...

Seriously? Seriously!

Yup, it's past the middle of April and we got snow/hail/slush/whatever-the-heck-it-was dumped on us from the heavens above.














I mean seriously! Our street is covered with the stuff. I thought it was supposed to be the middle of spring at this point?! A few days ago it was in the 70's. I'm just sayin.


















Might as well have fun with it, eh?!

April is National Donate Life Month

Darren went with me to a lovely Organ Donation Awareness Fundraising Luncheon. We sat with others who are in an organ donor group with me--all of us donated at the same hospital in Seattle.

The place setting at each seat included a lovely box of chocolates and a pack of Kleenex! You know you're in trouble when they assume (rightly so) that you'll need Kleenex...


















If you need a little inspiration to sign up as an organ donor, check out this video about John, a guy who is in the donor group and photo above. (Sorry, I can't include a pack of Kleenex with this blog post...)

Bed head is cool

My Munchkins

T-ball is here again!

Ezra's second season of t-ball. Check out the action shot! Looks impressive, eh? ;)

What the...

Andy just doesn't get how to eat/open/deal with artichokes!

The Scorpions

She *almost*made a goal!! (click to enlarge the picture, you'll see her about to kick the ball...)














Meanwhile daddy was having fun with Bailey's pink DS on the sidelines...













The best part of every game--the parent (and sibling) tunnel at the end!














The Scorpions heart Coach Jimmy!














On our way home from soccer...

Fun in the spring sun

Asia and Byung cruising the hood














An upgrade to a hot ride!

A day full of adventures!

First we slayed a fierce dragon...














Then we got thrown in prison by the wicked witch...














We finally escaped and celebrated with cupcakes!

Mother/Daughter Night Out

Lily, Asia and Sylvie making bath bombs at a fun class at Waxen Art.














Then out for dinner. I heart Zao Noodle Bar!

It's hard to say goodbye

Opa and Oma will soon be heading off on a looong RV trip to the other side of the universe! Well, the other side of the continent anyway... Same thing.

Time to take out a 2nd mortgage!

Here we go... Asia has started orthodontics! For now she just needs a retainer worn at night, the orthodontist "promised" us that around the age of 13 she'd start with full on braces. So much to look forward to!













Luckily she LOVES her retainer and thinks it's really cool. You might have to click on this photo to see it bigger so you can see her big toophers with the retainer on.

Camping Close to Home

Opa and Oma took the kids camping in their RV for a night during spring break.














They camped at a lovely state park about 20 minutes from our house so the next day Andy and I went to meet them for lunch and our arrival interrupted Ezra reading Dr. Seuss (his current fave).














The kids enjoyed scootering around the little campground loop. So pretty! Makes us look forward to warm camping weather. Hopefully we'll actually get a chance to go camping this summer...

Welcome to Restaurant Omar Al-Khyam

Opa and Oma took the kids camping in the RV for the night so Andy joined me at my yoga class (I know, I really should've taken a picture of him--but I just couldn't do it. It didn't seem very yoga-like to do such a thing to someone who is so incredibly inflexible. Aww, but he enjoyed it even though he looked rather like a giraffe trying to bend...).

Then we went out to dinner at a super local Lebanese joint called Omar Al-Khyam which one of Andy's friends recommended to us. Unfortunately we forgot the camera so I had to use my camera phone.

If we'd had the real camera, we would've taken a picture of the lovely sign that says "Welcome to Restaurant Omar Al-Khyam". This place was legit!














Here's Andy with the combo plate of various types of kebabs. Our favorite of all from the meal was the hummous. You can find more about our fine dining experience on Andy's flog.

Chess

Opa has high hopes that his granddaughter will actually enjoy playing chess with him! Poor guy, he tried teaching me and my brothers when we were kids but none of us had much interest. Asia really got into it so he was pretty pumped...