Welcome Frances Jeanne Lorimer!!!!

Today Sarah and Katie welcomed Frances Jeanne Lorimer into the world! After a LONG 28+ hours of labor (they were admitted into UW at 2:30AM on Monday), Katie gave birth to the beautiful Frances at 4:24 this morning. Emily, Abe, Hannah, Ruth, great-gramu-Jeannne and myself went to go visit the two new moms (and two new grandma's as well - Paula and Ellen were there) when Emily got of work. Now Abe has his first Second Cousin that he can play with!

Frances Jeanne Lorimer at 7 pounds, 8 oz., 19 3/4 inches long. And a beautiful head of hair.
Abe and his cousin Frances posing for the first of probable thousands of photos together.
Great-gramu-Jeanne, Frances, Emily, Abe, Paula, and Ellen getting cozy.
Frances felt like a little cloud compared to Abe. She is very cute.
Abe being gentle with his new cousin.

500th blog spectacular!

This is our 500th post to our blog!!! That seems like an awful lot of posts, but I guess we've been at this for over three years, so it's not that crazy.

Today we bought some paint samples to help us decided how to paint the rooms in our new house. It's a good thing we bought the samples, because the two colors we thought we liked for the living room/dining room were WAY too orange. We have a better idea now of what colors we like, so it's back to Loewe's tonight to pick up some actual gallons of paint, and a few more samples.

We even had our first visitors - Sarah and Katie. They brought over very useful housewarming presents - toilet paper, garbage bags, and some drinks!

Emily and Abe posing infront of our new house.
SOLD!!!!
Abe and Banjo enjoying the vastness of their new backyard.
We went to Maruta's for sushi for lunch - a Seahawks playoff game tradition.
Emily and Abe making creative use of a step stool.

We're home owners!

Today we closed on our first home. We are now the proud owners of a nice house (with a large, fenced back yard) in the Seward Park neighborhood of Seattle. We received the keys at 5 PM tonight, and after we put Abe down to sleep for the night we dropped off a few cleaning supplies and looked around a bit. Of course we had to bring Banjo with us so he could check out the new digs, and have some runs in his new yard. On Saturday we'll start painting some of the rooms (while we listen to the Seahawks playoff game of course). I couldn't think of a better way to start off the first day in our new house!!!

Not the best spot for the family shot (sans SaanZai). This is part of the kitchen.
Banjo was getting ready to explore his new territory in the back yard.
Emily giving Banjo some love.
The 'Dood made himself feel right at home on the hardwood floors.

2011!!!

So it seems that I have not been so good at updating our blog since we've returned to Seattle. I'll try and be more consistent in the New Year. Happy 2011 everyone! Now where's my flying car and holodeck???

Here is the family getting in the Christmas Spirit. It's hard to see, but Abe has two Christmas trees on his headband.
If there is one thing Abe loves doing these days, it's hugging Banjo. Those guys are best buds.
More Banjo-loving going on. This is Abe at 16 months.
I wish I could pull this off, but I don't think it would look at cute. Plus, I'm pretty sure Emily couldn't hold me like that.
On New Year's Eve Day, Emily, Calvin and Ruth went clam digging. Abe and Banjo are checking out the catch. They made some darn tasty clam jook (rice porridge, and toss in the clams right before you eat it so the clams just get cooked).

Abe

Unlike his parents Abe seems to be into cleaning and organizing. Two of his favorite things are sweeping and taking things out of one place and placing them neatly in rows somewhere else (maybe he's ocd). It was quiet after dinner and I found him in the kitchen taking all of the bowls out of the cupboard.

Yesterday Abe was testing out his new broom, and I held out the dustpan for him to "sweep" into. Then he picked it up and ran into the other room. We had no idea where he was going, but I guess we should have known. He went into the kitchen, opened up the cupboard under the sink and "emptied" out his dust pan. Monkey see monkey do.

What does Santa say, Abe?

On Tuesday we took Abe and Banjo to see santa. Neil went and waited in line and then I walked over and met him and Abe and Banjo. We were 2nd in line, which sure beats the 4 hour wait that people had the day before. I was worried that Abe would pull a blue face and hold his breath, but he actually didn't do too bad. We got Banjo posed in front and then I placed Abe on Santa's knee. THe photographer had a whistle to get banjo's attention. I think it will be a pretty good picture. Abe cried a little but nothing too histaricle.

On Christmas eve we went downtown to see the gingerbread houses at the Sheraton (we didn't end up seeing them, because there was a big line and Abe was a little fussy). When we walked by Santa's workshop at nordstrom I pointed out santa to Abe. He burried his head in me and grabbed on. Nevertheless, Santa was good to Abe. He got 3 stockings! He could have cared less about opening presents or what they were. But, all and all it was a great Christmas.

Some things never die

For our first christmas in Alaska, Neil and I went with our good friends, Kari, Rachel and Jared, to chop down a Christmas tree. The first year we went snow camping the night after thanksgiving and then went out and got our trees in the morning. The next year Neil, Abe, Scott-who was visiting for thanksgiving, and Banjo and I went out to the same place and got a great tree for our house. So, this year we wanted to keep the tradition alive. We drove up to the pass and hiked out to find a tree. Quite a few other people had the same idea. We saw a lot of other cars out there. The road that we took up to get the car had been recently plowed, but it was still a little tretrous. Even with 4 wheel drive we didn't make it all the way up, but we found a great little spot and a great little tree. Apparently the really nice douglas firs were up a bit higher, so next year we'll need to get some chains.

Seattle Marathon

Emily, Neil & Hannah ran the Seattle Half Marathon (13.1 miles) in times that would have won the full marathon. The race started at the Seattle Center then to the I-90 tunnel, along the lake to the Aboretum, to Eastlake and back to the Center. They look pretty good for someone who just ran 13 miles. The individual competition was won by Hannah who gets her training as a professional dog runner.

15 Months

Abe's catching up to Banjo.

A few new pictures

So it's been a long while since we have made a blog. Here some random pictures from the last month or so.

Here are Abe and I outside a Starbucks on the Big Island. Notice the matching outfits. We bought these at a swap meet in Honolulu with Keri and Jared back in 2009.
The fam at the beach. Check out the super-cool 100-spf flame suit for the boy.
Back in Seattle. Abe likes to play with his little IKEA kitchen. On this day Emily was cleaning the real kitchen with a Clorox wipe, which inspired Abe to wipe down his kitchen with a Clorox wipe. Monkey see, monkey do.
Emily made some super-delicious cookies for her Grandpa and my Dad for Veterans Day. They were very large, and made Abe very curious.
We introduced Abe to yogurt a little while ago, and he loves it! He basically can eat an entire container, although he doesn't quite get it all into his mouth.

Nothing says 'Seattle' like snow before Thanksgiving. We took Abe outside so he could experience the snow again (although he was probably about 8 months old the last time he saw snow). As you can tell, it was a little windy when Emily took this picture of us.

Abe was not the biggest fan of the snow. Either that, or it was too close to bed time. After little Abe went to bed, Mom, Dad and Banjo went for a cross-country ski down to Maplewood park. The snow was a little thin, but it was a lot of fun to go out and ski again.

We let Banjo off his leash so he could play and frolic in the snow like back home in Anchorage. The 'Dood loves the snow!

On Tuesday I took Abe and Banjo for a walk around Jefferson Park. It was super sunny and nice out, which reminded me of Anchorage. The wind did whip around during one part of our walk and put a chill in us.

Happy Hallows Eve!

Yesterday Abe had his first trick or treating experience! Banjo went as a jack o lantern and Abe was dressed as Banjo dressed as a jack o lantern. I even had a costume! In order to paint on Abe's gumdrop nose, I let him try out the pencil on me first. And, because Abe refuses to wear anything on his head, I got to wear his pumpkin hat with dog ears along with Neil's giant orange coat.

Check out the little video!

Boogie Down

Check out the surfers. Lunch was at the Kona Brewery.

Aloha

Hawaii is always a lot more fun when it is cold & raining in Seattle. Although we did experience some of that weather when we visited Volcano. In Kona, the weather is the same boring 80 degrees everyday. The pictures in the forrest are at the lava tube. You couldn't see any hot lava, but we did see the steam vents.

On the way to Volcano we stopped at the Black Sand beach, which is really just ground up lava. Too bad we couldn't get a picture of Abe riding the turtle. You are supposed to stay 15 feet away.

I played golf at Makeli where there are wild peacocks & turkeys roaming around. There were also wild pigs that dug up the grass, although I didn't see any.

Harvest time

Ever since college I have had a special fondness for corn mazes. I've taken Neil to a few around Seattle, but we hadn't yet found any that came close in comparison to the one that Molly and I went to in Walla Walla. This year I think we may have found a winner. We went to this farm in Kent that had 2 mazes--one that looked like a vampire and another that looked like a castle. We took the vampire. Being a corn-maze purist, I refused to use the provided map to navigate, but Neil, not so pure in corn mazing used the map and seeked out the numbered posts along the course (kind of like a scavenger hunt). It was a pretty cool maze! The only draw-back was that unlike the one in Walla Walla where you could go in after dark. This one is only open during daylight.

Our main mission in going to the farm, however, was to take Abe to the pumpkin patch. He loved all of the pumpkins sitting out in a row. In fact, he kept trying to run away from us, out of the corn maze, to go back to the pumpkins. We chose a nice tall pumpkin that we later carved. Since we're going to Hawaii tomorrow it is on display down the street at Sarah and Katie's.