Enjoy the view...

This is my home...this is my block...this is my street. I really am less than a block away from the bay. It's alright to be jealous...

Kyler-Moo, veterinarian

He loves animals. Any animals will do, as long as they have paws, beaks, claws, snouts, trunks, feathers, fur or pelt. Today's obsession was the seagulls and ducks at the pier. He so graciously took the ENTIRE loaf of (moldy) bread to feed them. He originally threw it piece by tiny piece to each of the seagulls. That is until they started to fly too close and pee and poop while flying near us. At that point he started throwing entire slices of bread into the water...I didn't care what he did, as long as they flew far.far.away from us.

Off we go...shopping, shopping, shopping....

Do you notice that in each of these pictures they are so not entertained. They llooovvee shopping...NOT!

The leaves come falling down

Arriving in Washington in Fall let us experience the beautiful, colorful leaves. There were so many different shades of pink, red, orange, yellow, green and browns around and we couldn't help to admire how beautiful it all looked. Until they all fell off the tree...and into our back yard. Leaving us with tons of leaves to rake.

It was nice out, so I decided it was time for yard work. I gave the boys options...watch the babies for a hour while I rake up the leaves OR rake up the leaves themselves. To my amazement, they wanted to rake up the leaves. So I sent them out with a rake, boots and gloves and got them doing some manual labor. They didn't get very far but we had fun watching them from the warmth of the dining room. The babies had a blast yelling at them from inside and telling them to get to work and stop goofing off.

While they were raking, I sprayed spider and other creature repellent on the windows. I blasted every spider I saw near the windows with a spray of bye-bye. There weren't many, as it's getting cold...but there were enough to justify my time spent spraying the house. Yuck. I also put the pipe insulation on the outdoor faucets. We were supposed to get freezing temps last night, but that didn't happen...so no better time than now to do that.

Ume Takuwan, Zippy's chili, Kikkoman and LAULAUS??!?!??!

Unless you visit the states frequently, you don't know how sad their grocery stores are until you actually live there. While potatoes, pasta and and other "white folk" starches are great...after a week, you really miss rice. Not the long-grain rice...not Uncle Ben's rice...not Rice a Roni...the good ol' short grain calrose rice.

In my sitting-on-the-living-room-floor-throwing-a-I-miss-home-temper-tantrum I somehow found this Japanese market in Seattle. It's called Uwajimaya (www.uwajimaya.com) and it turns out they had a location about 15 minutes away from where we were supposed to go to get the car serviced. They have other locations, too...Seattle, Portland, Renton. So we got out the GPS and found the shortest route there.

When I got there I was in awe. I thought it would be a little rinky dink store with some ramen, rice and some random asian-ness. I digress.

There was a deli that served, get this, LAULAUS. And Kalua Pork. And Roast Pork. And Manapuas. And Potato Croquette. And...and...and...all kinds of stuff. They had plate lunches, and Bubble Tea, and Ramune! They had a full Korean section...with Korean sushi and Korean mochi...just like Palama Market. Anyway, we ate a Hawaiian Plate (laulau, kalua pork, rice and lomi salmon) and it was great. They import the Laulaus from Hawaii and it was pretty good. The plate costs less in Washington than buying it in Hawaii would have!! Kris had curry and rice. The babies ate a Teri Chicken bowl. Good stuff!!

They had Zippy's chili. Kris' favorite Japanese cheetos. They even had poi.

They had natto. They had the Chazuke Furikake. Japanese thick sliced bread. Takuwan...even the Ume Takuwan that I love! They had FRESH, HOMEMADE tofu (made in Tacoma...wow!). Even fresh Okara. They had fresh bamboo shoots by the pound.

They highlight of Kyler's trip here: The fresh longan. Kingston ate most of it though.

After my hour and a half shopping there I was exhausted. My stomach was full of Hawaii and my trunk was full of familiar. <3 Maybe curing homesickness isn't but an hour drive away...

P.S. ~ Random funny: I heard a produce stocker speaking to another worker and I KNEW he was from Hawaii. I asked...and he was. He'd been there for 12 years and I could still recognize his Hawaii-ness.

Oh the huMANATEE....

Well, not really Manatee's but Otters, Sea Lions and all kinda other stuff.

The Seattle Aquarium was amazing. See the pictures. Go to the website. Come visit and I'll take you. Tons of stuff to do...we spent hours walking around, touching, seeing, feeling, loving, watching, playing and looking at all kinds of local sea life. Super awesome aquarium...Waikiki Aquarium must take notes.

To get here we roughed it. No driving this day. We parked at the Port Orchard library, walked about 50 feet to the foot ferry dock, caught the foot ferry (passenger boat) to the Bremerton/Seattle ferry, caught the Bremerton/Seattle ferry to Seattle, walked to the Aquarium, walked to Pike's Place Market, walked to Ivar's (clam chowder, losers!), walked back to the Bremerton/Seattle ferry, caught it to Bremerton, caught the foot ferry back to Port Orchard and then walked 50 feet to our car. It took nine hours...my feet hurt, the kids were tired but it was great. And the weather God's decided to grant us some pity and not let it rain. I mean, it drizzled...but the mega-downpours that were expected were no where in sight.

Oh, and by the way, my feet are KILLING me!

On the ferry to Seattle:





The whipped hot cocoa was sooo good!

Gee...relaxed some?





Photography by Kyler:




Arriving in chilly Seattle:

(Yes, that crazy child is eating ICE CREAM!)






Feeding seagulls french fries at Ivar's after lunch:





Finally at the aquarium:













Bye Seattle!

Big city + long days = tons of fun for the Younge-sters

Seattle is a big place...with tons to do and see. Since we had time in between moving in to our new house and waiting for our boxes to arrive we headed out to Seattle on Thursday to re-enjoy the tourist things for the boys. And of course like the genius I am...I forget the camera. So enjoy the iPhone pics.

We parked at the mall in Westlake and caught the monorail over to the Space Needle.




We found the Seattle Children's Museum, waited around for the free admission to the Experience Music Project (we lucked out, free admission on first Thursdays!) and had a snack. The babies loved the Children's Museum...Kyler did, too (but that's because he's a big baby). Kris had fun playing with the Mini's and running through all the exhibits. It was a great day...the weather held up nicely and the kids had a blast. Weirdly, Chris ran into an old friend right in front of the Space Needle. Shows how much of a small world this really is...millions of people and the one second we decide to go to the Space Needle he runs into someone he knows. Twilight Zone stuff...but moving on...

At the Seattle Children's Museum there was a Clifford the Big Red Dog exhibit, a Hispanic restaurant, a Metro market, a place to build things, a transportation exhibit with tons of trucks, story telling areas, exhibits on gravity and weight, a forest and an under three underwater area. Kyler spent the entire time building a "house" and the babies just ran all over the place. They were just excited to be free...they were in their carseats for so very long. Karson really loved the fish in the fish tank, though. Kingston spent a ton of time "driving" Kris and Kyler in the bus.













We then waited until 5 p.m. to get into the Experience Music Project. It was a great place to visit for free...but nothing I'd pay for. You get to mess around with different guitars, drums, amps...make your own music videos. You can walk through the whole history of music. They also have the Sci-Fi museum right next door. Sorry to be a party pooper..but I really hate sci-fi. We spent about an hour just walking through and being able to say we did it. It was neat...the boys had fun. Needless to say, this is one of the "been there, done that" that we don't need to experience again unless it's free kinda things.

Ma!! Where are the flying fish??!!??!?!

Kyler and I took a field trip to Westfield - Southcenter Mall and Pike's Place Market today. We took our little pocket sidekicks along for the ride but Chris and Kris stayed back to watch the 49ers play on TV.

We got to Westfield and the first thing we did was EAT (duh!) We ate at a Japanese restaurant which was surprisingly good, well at least their chicken and tempura was. Kyler also found Ramune there and had a Lychee one with his lunch. We bought Kyler two new jackets, the babies these awesome fur trapper hats and looked for some rain boots for everyone (none of those around). When we were walking back to our car we found bubble drinks!! Kyler was so excited and he inhaled a Mango flavored one. It was actually really good, it was like his favorite from Shirokiya.

After eating and shopping we went over to Pike's Place Market. Kyler was so hyped to be there because I kept telling him about the flying fish, the magic store and the awesome booths filled with all kinds of goodies. He wasn't impressed once we got there. He didn't see flying fish. He wasn't thrilled with the magic store either. He did end up buying a trick snake in a nut can and a cup in a vase trick set. We also found a little Chinese place selling BBQ pork on a stick (char siu), pork and chicken hambow (manapua), crab rangoons and egg rolls. We bought a few of each. We also found smoked fish...yum!! We ate Piroshkies, fresh hazelnuts (even orange flavored ones!) and saw all kinds of local produce and flowers. The many organic vendors and local grown meat and cheese vendors were so impressive...but Kyler wasn't convinced. He bought a small container of organic strawberries and an organic apple. But none of that made up for the lack of flying fish...maybe next time.

On the parking garage side:

With the famous pig:

And the oysters:

Peppers: