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January

With the end of 2010 quickly approaching I've been going through this year's pictures and reliving all of our adventures. I wanted to do a quick year end review for our blog since my posts have been rather infrequent lately. So here is a collection of some of our January pictures. You can click on the collage to see it enlarged. I'll be doing one for each month in coming posts. So stay tuned!!

Fly away!!!

As we were leaving La Push yesterday I spotted a huge flock of seagulls resting in a field. I wanted to get out and take a picture of them. So we stopped, and Chris just couldn't resist the urge......

I hope he never grows up.

Goldie's first excursion

Yesterday  was the first Sunday in I don't know how long that we had nothing planned. So we made the last minute decision to drive out to Forks and La Push. Chris had never been out there and it's such a beautiful place, I thought it was time that he see it. It's a bit of a drive from us, and we left a little later than we originally planned. It took us about 4 hours to get there. The boys did really well in the car considering that Sawyer hates sitting in his seat too long, and Brandon gets car sick. Luckily we had our portable DVD player so they just watched movies most of the drive.

We drove up around the Olympic National Forest. I've always wanted to visit the park, but that will have to wait for another trip. It was rainy and wet the whole way up there and pretty overcast, so we wouldn't have seen much if we had stopped. I do regret not stopping at Lake Cresent to take a few pictures of the gorgeous fall foliage though. The hills surrounding the lake were so pretty, but I was tired of making stops and just wanted to hurry up and get to Forks.

We first stopped at La Push first. I was dreading having to get out of the car on the beach with the boys in the pouring rain, but I knew they needed to get out and stretch their legs for a bit. Luckily we had brought extra clothes for just this occasion. As we got closer and closer to the beach though, it stopped raining. Right on the edge of the ocean was starting to clear up. I was overjoyed. When we arrived at First Beach there were half a dozen cars and twice that many people standing right on the edge of the parking lot right before the beach access. The reason why was clearer the closer we got. It was not possible to get down to the beach. A storm had blow in a ton more wood that usual along the sand, and had covered everything in a thick brown mess of sea foam.The water was very rough and the waves were huge, making it impossible to walk the beach and avoid getting blown over by the sea. Even though it meant we couldn't walk along along the water, it was amazing to see the power of the ocean attacking the coastline. So we just kind of wandered around the edge of the small rocky cliffs like every body else. So we spent our time their watching the seagulls and the waves, getting blown away by the wind, taking a ton of adorable pictures, and, in Sawyer's case, seeing how much effort he could put into breaking away from Daddy over and over again.

After we left La Push we headed down the highway to Forks. It was raining (of course) so we didn't get out of the car too much. In case you don't know, Forks has been made famous thanks to the Twilight books. The popularity of the series these past few years have turned the little town into a tourist trap of sorts. People visit in hoards to catch a glimpse of a certain vampire (or werewolf, whatever floats your boat). But on this particular day, the town looked a bit dead (no pun intended). I don't know if it was due to the heavy rain, or the fact that it was a late Sunday afternoon, but probably a little bit of both. The visitor center was closed, so we were unable to get a map of all of the Twilight sites. Since Chris had never been before I really wanted him to see everything, so I had to go on memory to find them. After we drove around town for a bit we stopped at the Dazzled By Twilight store so the boys could get fangs and a few other little corny souveniers. Then we stopped at the local pizza place and had dinner. Once we got on the road again we popped another movie in for the boys and made the nearly 4 hour trek back home.

Sickie baby

When Sawyer had his 18 month check-up, Chris took him for me. While there he mentioned that his breathing was a little raspy, so after a test they determined that he had a bronchial infection of some sort. So they were sent home with a nebulizer and a prescription for Albuteral. Saywer had to have a breathing treatment 4 times a day to help him breath a little better. The first few days he dreaded it. It took both Chris and I both to hold him down and the boys holding up books and toys to try and distract him. But he got used to it and would even climb in my lap on his own and tilt his little head back into position. It made a huge difference and he's doing much better. He always seems to have a rasp though and often gets days where it's difficult for him to breath properly (especially if he spent the night before crying too much), so we might be looking into the possibility of asthma as he gets a little older. For Sawyer's sake though, I really hope not.

The Melting Pot

So I was going through some recent pictures and noticed a ton of stuff that I haven’t blogged about! I’m so bad. So here’s something that should have been posted weeks ago.


One of Chris and my favorite places to go is The Melting Pot. If you have never been there or have no idea what it is, you’re really missing out. It’s a fondue restaurant. And it is like heaven on earth. We have always been big fondue fans (I have something like 5 fondue pots). But it is kind of a hassle and spendy to do your own dinner. So we try and get to The Melting Pot at least a couple times a year. Usually once in the Fall and once in the Spring. That’s how it always seems to work out. On this occasion we took Brandon and Logan with us. We figured they were old enough now to be able to handle it.

On our way into the place we were walking towards two couples leaving. As they were approaching us one of the women rolled her eyes and in a very snarky voice proclaimed to her friends (and not so subtly to us) “You don’t bring kids to The Melting Pot!!” I wanted to kick her in the knee and take her down. I was so mad. But I just kept my head held high and marched right into the place. After a few seconds though, I started to panic. What if that’s how everybody viewed this place? What if they had a rule about kids? Were they going to put us in a back corner where nobody could see us? What if my kids burn the place down?! Chris told me not to sweat it, that it was no big deal. Our kids are well behaved in nice places and they were going to do fine. I calmed down a little bit but the women’s comment, and mostly her tone, kept playing over and over in my head, making me extra stern with the looks I was giving the boys as they fidgeted in the waiting area. My fears weren’t relieved as the hostess came to seat us and gave us a “Oh no, not kids!!” glance.

At The Melting Pot your meals are prepared on a hot plate in the middle of the table. So you get to interact a lot with your server. As ours was mixing and melting our appetizer of cheese, she asked how our evening was going. I proceeded to tell her about the rude lady outside and she was just as disgusted as me. She told us not to worry. They have kids in there all the time and it’s never an issue. She herself brings her own daughters, the same ages as our boys, to eat there often and they always have a good time. That really made me feel a lot better after that and I could finally relax.

And of course, Chris was right, as always. The boys were awesome. They were so well behaved. They had so much fun cooking their own food and picking out everything they wanted to eat. I was really glad that they liked the food. They don’t have a “kids menu” there, so we weren’t sure how much they would actually eat. But they chowed down right along with us. The next day Logan asked "When can we go to The Melting Pot again". I told him when gets a job and takes us.

 Daddy showing Brandon how to drench the bread in cheese.

 Logan Approved

 Brandon reading us the dessert menu. They decided on cookies and cream, with milk chocolate instead of white chocolate.

 And she poured in extra cookies, for extra well behaved boys.

 It's good.

Walk-a-thon

Every year at the boys' school they have a walk-a-thon in September to raise money for the PTA. This year it fell on a day that Logan doesn't go to school. So I had the pleasure of taking him and walking the course with him for the 90 minute duration of the event.

I was really looking forward to spending some time outside with the boys......until on the way to the school I realized that Sawyer's stroller was in the trunk of my sister's car....in Snoqualmie. My heart fell into the pit of my stomach as I realized my situation. Sawyer is going through a phase right now where he WILL NOT walk. I don't mean he doesn't like to walk, quite the opposite actually. He runs. Fast. If you try to have him walk along with you and hold his hand, he throws a fit and takes off. So then you have to pick him up to carry him, and that doesn't really help much because he just flings his body around until you're forced to set him down to avoid tiny flying fists hitting you in the face. Then it's back to the chasing all over again. So I started to go into a little bit of meltdown thinking about how joyful my afternoon would be.

When we pulled up outside the school and started to unload, we saw Logan's friend JD and his mom getting out of their car too. We said "hi" and she asked me how my day was going and I told her about the stroller prediciment. She immediatly got wide eyed and exclaimed that she had a stroller I could use. She does daycare for a 3 year old little girl and so she brought it for her to use, but said that we could let the little ones take turns. I could have kissed her.

So off we went to start on the course. Logan and JD took off like little bullets together and left us moms in their dust. Brandon found me, gave me a hug, and ran to catch up with some friends. So much for a nice afternoon walk with my boys, huh?

Logan was cruising around the course. By the time we were done, he went around 7 times! I only went 4. I will say though, I spent about 20 minutes lolly-gagging and standing around looking for Logan. I was nervous when I couldn't see him. I didn't know if I was supposed to stay right with him the entire time since he technically wasn't there for an actual school day or not. What I didn't realize is that while I was standing around trying to find him, the kid passed me twice! I think it's safe to say he enjoyed himself.

During the last half of the last lap, Brandon came and walked with Sawyer and me. He was bored and tired of walking. So we just kind of strolled together. Sawyer was really getting sick of being confined, so we decided to take him out and he walked along with Brandon for a bit. I guess walking with a big brother is funner than walking with Mom. It didn't last very long though. Unfortunatly I had Jeanine go ahead and take the stroller back and the "pick me up, put me down" game began. Just my luck though, we were done. I gave Brandon a hug good-bye, Logan said "so long" to his friends, and we headed back home.

What are you lookin' at?

Yellow Belt

Logan passed his taekwondo yellow belt test! The testing was a long process. Longer than what I had thought it was going to be anyway. He had moments where the boredom kicked in and he got a little distracted and acted up a little bit. I was sure that it cost him his belt. But luckily his teacher paid more attention to his score than his behavior. We are so proud of our little martial arts master!

Finger painting

Sawyer got to finger paint for the first time a copule of weeks ago. Daddy had to show him how to smash his hands in the paint and smear it around the paper. He wasn't a fan of the mess all over his hands. But overall he seemed to enjoy himself.

My little princess

Doesn't my son make the most beautiful little princess? He got a hold of one of the crowns from Auntie's bachelorette party and threw a fit until I put it in his hair.

Say cheese

I asked Logan to pose for me so I could try something out with my flash and this is what he does. Can you tell this kid likes to get his picture taken? He is such a weirdo sometimes. Probably the cutest little weirdo God ever put on this earth though.