A Year of Dates II

As you may remember we started a new tradition in 2015-2016 to do a Year of Dates.  It was my Valentine's Day present to James in February 2015.  I gave him a stack of envelopes and on the 1st of each month, he opened the envelope and a date was pre-planned for us.  I captured that year of dates in this post.  We enjoyed the idea so much that I gave the same gift to James for Valentine's Day 2016 as well.  It's such a fun strategy because it gets us out of our date rut and because the initial idea is already planned, it's much more likely to happen.

This year's Year of Dates went a bit wonky at times for some reason.  As you'll see below, either our original idea didn't work out or that month was too busy or whatever.  But we still managed to get in some pretty quality dates and great memories.  The other fail this year was I didn't do as good of job of taking photos.  Bummer.  But I still have record of what we did and it's fun to look back and remember.

So here's the recap of A Year of Dates II:

March: March Madness

• Here's a prime example of the Year of Dates plan going wonky on us.  For this date I originally planned for us to go indoor rock climbing.  Sadly I got a badly pulled muscle in my back which prevented us from going.  Then we went on a family trip to Phoenix and never had a chance to fit the rock climbing back into the schedule.  So date fail in March.  :(

April: Laugh Out Loud

• We redeemed ourselves in April.  For this date we grabbed burgers, fries and milkshakes at Dan's Burgers in the U. District (YUM) and then caught a comedy improv show at Jet City Improv.  We hadn't done that in years and it was really fun.  Sadly no photos though.

May: Kamanawannaleime

• Sorry for the risque title.  We took a trip to Maui in May and our date took place during the trip so I thought this funny title was fitting.  This date took place at our forever favorite restaurant--Lahaina Grill.  We had an amazing meal as always and celebrated our 7th Wedding Anniversary.  

June: Choose Your Own Adventure

• For this date, James had a choice between a hike or golfing.  He chose golfing.  We hadn't golfed in awhile and were a little out of shape so we did a short 9-hole executive course at Willows Run Golf Course.  It was a beautiful day and good for us to work on our short game.  Then we had a yummy dinner at Matador and Blizzards at DQ.  Sadly just after this time my phone got dropped in water and I had to get a new one.  I lost some photos--including ones from this date.  Boooo!

July: Love Boat

• The plan for this date was to kayak in Portage Bay.  But sadly the evening we planned to do that, it was cold, overcast and potentially rainy.  So we bagged that idea and went to dinner instead.  We had arranged for Ryan and Carly to babysit the boys at their house in Ballard. Since we were in Ballard, we decided to try a restaurant recommended by Ryan called Stoneburner.  We are so glad we did!  We had an incredible meal and it's now a restaurant we can't wait to go back to.  We sat at the bar for dinner and the bartender gave all these drink samples to James as they were discussing different types of whiskeys and scotches.  He of course was in heaven!  So although missing the kayaking was a bummer, it was a blessing in disguise.

August: Like Kids Again

• August date plans got changed as well (see I told you it was a wonky year).  The original plan was to go to the Family Fun Center in Tukwila and do go cart racing, mini golf, arcade games, etc.  James wasn't too thrilled by that idea and since we were so bummed to miss out on kayaking, we decided to kayak for our August date instead. We rented a kayak from Aqua Verde and kayaked over to Lake Union.  We lucked out with a perfect Seattle summer evening and it was also a great workout for our arms.  :)  Then we grabbed dinner at Aqua Verde and watched the sunset.   Sadly no photos on this one either.  

September: The Glass House

• For September we veered from the original plans again.  The title of this date is kind of a spoof because back in college, I was an extra for a day for the filming of a movie called The Glass House.  You can even catch a quick glimpse of me going down a flight of stairs in the middle of the movie behind the main characters.  It's my one claim to fame.  :)  The plan for this date was to go to the Chihuly Glass Museum which I've wanted to do forever.  We were all set to go and then a last minute check of the event calendar revealed they were closed for a private event that evening.  Bummer!  So instead we did dinner and a movie: dinner at Peryssol (one of our favorites in Renton) and saw Hell or High Water at the movie theater.  Still a quality night.  Hopefully one day soon I'll get to see the Chihuly museum.

October: Faith, Hope and Love

• This was one of my favorite dates of the year.  For this date we went to Compline at St. Mark's Cathedral in Seattle.  Every Sunday night they have a group of priests do a service of chants and singing that is so beautiful and spiritual.  I used to go with friends all the time in high school.  It was nice to experience it together and start our week off feeling peaceful and closer to God.

November: Seeing the Big Picture

• The plan for this date was to see a movie at one of the theaters where you can order drinks/snacks while watching.  But November was such a crazy month with a trip to Salem, Thanksgiving, etc. that date night never happened in November sadly.  

December: Christmas in the Northwest

• Our new tradition is for the December date to be a fun and productive time of Christmas shopping.  This year it seemed we went all over the place to get all our Christmas shopping done and then we grabbed dinner at Yummy Pho in Redmond.  Although it was busy, it was a fun day of being together, planning gift giving for our families and checking off our to-do list.

January: Downhill Delight

• We copied our January date from last year and went skiing again!  Any chance we can get up in the mountains and stretch our ski legs and see the beautiful scenery we'll take it.  This year has been a banner year for snow in the mountains.  We chose a perfect day to go because we had fresh powder and it was much more forgiving on our out of shape legs.  We went to Alpental and were able to get in about 10-12 runs.  So fun!

February: It's Getting Hot in Here

• The final date of the year was a delicious cooking class called A Night in Paris taken at the Sur La Table in Kirkland.  This was something we did years ago and it was fun to do it again.  The night started off with a delightful small plates dinner and drinks at Vovina in Kirkland.  Then we cooked the night away making goat cheese fondue, a yummy salad, Coq au Vin, and chocolate suffle.  We were stuffed by the end of the night.  But we were paired with a really fun couple to do our cooking and our chef teacher was pretty entertaining too.  Luckily we got to bring all the recipes home too.  I can't wait to have that goat cheese fondue again!

And that's a wrap!  The baton has officially been passed and for this next year James will be planning all the dates.  I'm excited to see what he has in store!  I'm sure I'm in for some definite adventures.  :) 

A Christmas Recap in Photos

Well the start of 2017 has been a little rough in our household.  The second week in January we all came down with the flu (which apparently is a flu epidemic here in the state of Washington).  James, Nate and I stayed home from work/school for 3 days.  Cameron came down with it first and was mostly over it after a weekend.  Nate and James healed up in about a week.  Unfortunately for me the flu decided to hang around and turned into bronchitis and then pneumonia.  I haven't coughed so hard for so long in a really long time.  And trying to sleep was really frustrating.  Finally after the doctor did some x-rays and determined that it had evolved into pneumonia, I was put on antibiotics and now I'm feeling much better.  But whew what a rough couple of weeks!

So now that I'm on the mend, I want to make sure to capture our Christmas memories on here before we're into spring already.  Here's our Christmas recap captured in photos:

Picking out our Christmas Tree!

It turned out nicely this year.  And it didn't dry out thankfully--way less needles than last year!

Uncle Dean and Aunt Carol came to visit to help celebrate dad's birthday.  Our annual trip to Molbaks.

Visiting the Bellevue Botanical Gardens light display

Celebrating dad's 70th birthday!

Nate and Cam made their first Gingerbread House

Nate was in the Christmas play at church.  Cutest little shepherd.  He sang "Go Tell it on the Mountain" and "Away in a Manger"

Making Christmas cookies

Annual tradition to Nielsen's Bakery on Christmas Eve to pick up and eat danish

Presents!!!

Sweet photo of Barb and Jay

My favorite activity over winter break was sledding up at Hyak Sno Park!  The boys loved it!

Sadly I didn't get enough photos when we were at the Spauldings' on Christmas.  I need to be better about that next year.  What a wonderful holiday this year though.  So many blessings and fun memories.  And such a magical time with the boys being the ages that they are.  Nathan is definitely into Santa and asks tons of questions about him which is fun.  I just love this time of year and I'm sad it's over already.  But now we have spring to look forward to.  And hopefully no more sickness!

Thanksgiving Weekend

One of my favorite times of the year is Thanksgiving weekend.  I think Christmas is my ultimate favorite holiday, but Thanksgiving comes in at a close second.  And I love the entire Thanksgiving weekend not only for Thanksgiving day itself, but also because it kicks off the Christmas season. Thanksgiving is so good because it's all about family, reflecting on what I'm grateful for, and experiencing/building traditions. This year was all of that and it was a special weekend.

We started out Thanksgiving day with our new favorite tradition for just our family of 4.  Issaquah does a great Turkey Trot run that benefits the Issaquah Food Bank.  I've always tried to do something active on Thanksgiving day and this event forces us to really make it happen and it's a great way to start out the day.  Last year it was bitterly cold.  This year it was a downpour.  But both times we got our butts out of bed, bundled up, and made the best of it.  I decided this year I would easily take rain over bitter cold.  And our boys did great in the stroller--kids are so resilient!  Nate started out running with me and then rode the rest of the run until the finish.  Both boys loved finding the stations to get their card punched so they could get a prize at the end.  Fun times.

Afterwards we raced home and the boys watched the Macys Thanksgiving Day Parade (another tradition) while we got ready for the day.  Of course we couldn't leave the house until good ole Santa Clause came down the parade route.  :)

This year we enjoyed Thanksgiving dinner with my family.  And our special guests were Carly and her sister, brother-in-law and nephew.  It was a really nice day of great company, yummy food, good conversation, and relaxing. (I realized after going through photos--we need to get my mom in more pictures!  She's always the one taking them.  Sorry mom!)

Annual tradition of putting out the "village" for Christmas

Pops and his boys

After the meal we went to the Spauldings to have dessert and enjoy time with the other side of the family.  Sadly I didn't get any pictures from that part of the day.  But we had delicious pie, watched football, digested, and enjoyed great conversation as usual.

We were ecstatic on Friday to watch the UW Huskies clobber Wazzu in the Apple Cup while hanging out with our friends the Ridges.

Then Saturday was another annual tradition of going to downtown Seattle to enjoy Black Friday sales and all the fun Christmas activities including seeing the Macys star and the Westlake Christmas tree lit up, watching the model trains in the Macys display window, riding the Carousel, and seeing the Gingerbread Houses at the Sheraton Hotel.  This has always been one of my most favorite days of the year with my family and I love getting to experience it all with my boys now and have it be a special tradition for them too.

Riding the Carousel!

This year the gingerbread houses were Harry Potter theme!

To cap off the weekend of fun we ended the Thanksgiving break with a visit to see Santa.  Nathan was fully prepared this year with his list of 47 ITEMS!!  Nana helped him compose his list a couple weeks ago.  Santa was astonished and a little overwhelmed.  He asked Nate to narrow his list down to 3 things.  :)  No tears this year with the big man.  I thought maybe Cam would be scared this year because Nate melted down at his age, but he was fine.  Just curious as to who the weird man was with the white beard and red suit.  Both sets of grandparents came along and then we all enjoyed a fun dinner at Red Robin.

Cheers to a successful, memorable, special Thanksgiving weekend!

Annual Mountain Drive...resurrected

For many years we enjoyed doing an Annual Mountain Drive in the fall with my parents.  That tradition was put on hold when little kids came along because we couldn't imagine that long of a drive and day with 2 little ones. But the event has finally been resurrected!  We finally felt like the boys are at a good age that we could probably manage the trek this year.  And it was a great success!

Starting from our home we drove through Carnation, Duvall and on to Highway 2 to the town of Sultan.  First stop: Sultan Bakery for a yummy breakfast complete with enormous doughnuts.

Second stop: along the Wenatchee River after going over Stevens Pass to enjoy the beautiful colors of the leaves.

Third stop: the bavarian-themed town of Leavenworth complete with lunch at a very German establishment

Final stop: Smallwood Farm to get apples and enjoy the kids activities including a crazy train ride through the farm and orchards

It was such a fun day and the boys did great!  They actually slept the entire way home through Blewitt Pass since we tired them out so much.  We're so happy to have brought back this annual tradition and now we can share it with the boys!