Pike's Place Flowers

Justin and Brandon surprised me with these beautiful flowers from Pike's Place Market on Saturday. They are absolutely beautiful. I love walking down there looking at the flower vendors and the beautiful boquets they make right there. They are just huge and so cheap! You can get a big boquet for $5-$10. It's quite amazing. I'm really enjoying these on our table right now. Another fun thing about living downtown! It's quite common to see people walking around with a big boquet from the market.

Love it!

Fathers and Sons

This weekend Justin took Brandon on the stake Fathers and Sons activity up at Ensign Ranch here in Washington. Did you know that the Church owns 5 ranches here for the use of wards and stakes and families? They are very cheap to use and are run by missionary couples. Ensign Ranch is the only one that has horses for horseback riding. Brandon especially liked that part....

And he really liked canoeing on the lake....

And he thought he really wanted to to down the hill-sized slip and slide. When he got up there in his swimming suit, he realized how cold the sprinklers were, he changed his mind. But at that point it was too late. He was committed. So he went down anyway! He had fun, but was very cold after that. Is this the biggest water slide you've ever seen?

And of course how often to you see waterfalls spontaneously falling off the rocks on the side of the highway? We're really enjoying the beauty here.

We are going back this weekend for the Ward Campout. It should be lots of fun....there is so much to do! And there are heated cabins with beds, full bathrooms with showers and paper towel dispensers, a huge kitchen to feed hundreds, pavillions, the lodge with stage and sound system, fishing, hiking, etc. Now that's my kind of camping!

Poor Katelyn

I've got to enjoy that cute 2 tooth grin while I can. She will soon have a 6 tooth smile.

This cute little girl has been cutting her front four teeth on the top all at the same time for about 2 weeks now. I got a clue when she started gnawing on my shoulder. Her gums have been very swollen and we could see the four bumps where the teeth were trying to come down. One of them was even bleeding a little yesterday. So today, three of the four teeth have broken through the skin. Now we're just waiting on the last one, which will be any time. It's right there. She's been more irritable lately, and I'm sure that this has been a big part of the cause. I hope that she starts feeling better soon. In a strange way, I can partially realte to her, as any of you who know what's going on with my braces and teeth will know. I'm just glad that this traumatic experience of all of your teeth coming in happens when we are too young to remember. That's gotta hurt!

Higher Than the Birds

Today we ventured out into downtown and this time took a different route to get up to the library. I am very happy to report that not all of the streets that run east-west are steep like San Francisco. It is well worth it to detour up a couple of blocks to walk up a much more gentle incline. We even found a Walgreen's a few blocks away where we were able to pick a few needed things. We enjoyed the library this time (as opposed to last time) and then walked a couple more blocks to the south to meet Justin at the Columbia Center Tower for lunch. He took us up to the 73rd floor of the tower afterwards and what a sight!

This is our neck of the woods. Our 25 story apartment building is one of those little ones down close to the water front. It's amazing how little it looked.

Here is the view to the south and the 2 stadiums:


Amazon's headquarters:

So close to the clouds!
It was a fun morning. I guess we'll go to the library again after all!

Our New Calling

First of all, you must know some things about the Seattle 1st Ward. They are incredibly friendly. They are very diverse, in race, in background, in economic circumstances but they are a vibrant ward family. We've never been in a ward quite like this one, and it's very fun. The ward has a good number of older couples that have been pillars in the church here in Seattle for years and years. Then there are the younger families that have just started to move back into the city in the last 3-4 years. So in that time the primary has grown from 7 kids to 40 or 50. The nursery has 17 kids and it's still growing with the summer interns still moving in. Last year they had about 50 convert baptisms. So this ward is changing in many ways and it is very exciting.

We knew when we talked with the Bishop on the first Sunday we were here that he planned to give us callings while we were here for the summer. We were pleasantly surprised that the ward wanted us to be so involved, even though we were only going to be here for 12 weeks. We figured that they'd probably give us a small calling to fill in some corners in the ward while we were here. Well, last Sunday we found out what we were going to be called to do, and it is quite different than we had expected. We have been called to be ward missionaries with two other couples that are here for the summer internship. But this is not your ordinary ward missionary calling. We were given the assignment to contact all of the inactive members and find out who they are, what their situation is and invite them back to church. Why aren't they already on top of this you might ask? Well, they have about 300 active members and about 450 inactive members. And many of those records have been rolling in in just the last few months. It seems that the big city is a good place to disappear if you want to. The Bishopric cannot keep up with it, so we have been asked to contact as many of the inactive members as we can (that means in person). We're hoping to get through at least 300. We've only got 10 weeks!

This is a huge undertaking for us! We spent Sunday evening getting all of these contacts onto our spreadsheet and mapping them all out (with Justin's cool mapping program that he built for his Elder's Quorum calling in Topeka). This way when the couples go out (one couple watches all the kids while the other 2 couples go knocking on doors) we can be much more efficient because we can get everyone that lives in a close proximity, rather than just jumping around to different neighborhoods. Justin and I have already been out once and it was a very interesting experience. It feels like a mini-mission. And walking around certain parts of town at night made me very grateful that the wives will have our husbands with us. We are trying to dedicate 1 weeknight and every Sunday afternoon to this effort. I think that we will be able to make a huge difference in the ward by doing this work this summer. I hope that we have some success with it!

Another Fun Weekend

The kids and I enjoyed taking Daddy to go and see the temple last Friday night. It is just so beautiful. And we are lucky because it only takes us about 15 minutes to drive over there. We can't get over how many different beautiful kinds of flowering plants and trees they have.

On Saturday we decided to drive over to Snoqualmie Falls, which probably is about 40 minutes away from us. It was a beautiful drive and when we got there we could definitely hear the rushing water! We went up to the lookout and started to feel a thick mist. It was almost hard to see through it down to the falls. It's amazing how much water comes up in the air because of the force of the water falling down into the river. Now I understand why we saw people walking around with rain jackets! Then we went on the 1/2 mile hike down to the bottom of the falls. It was a nice hike and so beautiful!

We made it! In the evening we went over to the Ballard Locks which is where ships and boats must go to go from one water level in the ocean (Puget Sound) to the higher water level of the lake (Lake Union). They go into the locks and secure themselves and then the water level in the locks either rises or falls to get them to the right level. Then they go out the other side. It was very neat to watch!

Before:

After:

We will have to go back when the salmon are "running" in July. They have a salmon ladder where the fish go from one body of water to the other when they're migrating. They jump out of the water, so it must be quite the sight to see. I tell ya, this summer is just like an extended vacation with all of the sight seeing we've been doing lately!

The Lovely Stairwell

Yesterday was quite interesting. The kids and I were hurrying out the door to meet the other MBA spouse Megan to go to swimming lessons and do some grocery shopping. The only problem was that when we got to the elevators, there were no lights, no response. I thought, "oh great!" So we headed to the stairwell. I was holding the diaper bag, jacket, swimming towel and Katelyn and holding Lindsey's hand while Brandon did the stairs by himself. We got to the next floor down and tried the elevators, but no luck. So I realized that we were going to be going down 10 flights of stairs. When we were between level 6 and 7, the lights turned off and it was pitch black. Brandon was down to level 6, so I tried to keep calm and asked him to try to turn around and head back up the stairs. Lindsey was starting to get really nervous, so I just kept telling her it would be okay. The lights ended up coming back on, but Brandon was very careful to stay very close to me so that we wouldn't be separated if the lights went out again. We made it down to the bottom and then had to find a way down to level D in the parking garage. Needless to say, we were very late for Lindsey's swimming lesson. At least we don't live on the 25th floor!

I wish the story ended there, but unfortunately Megan had her own mishap when we got home. She lives in the other south tower, so I always drop her off on her end in the parking garage so she can take her elevator up. Well, her elevators were not functioning. So she carried 4 bags of groceries and her 18 month old son up 12 flights of stairs. I felt so bad for her! I wish we would have known! I hope that the next time they decide to test the elevators they do it in the middle of the night, or at least let us know that we will be in a predicament. It's so funny....I feel like every time we head out we have some kind of adventure. I guess it makes for some good blog entries!

Happy Memorial Day!

Today we did something that was really fun. We spent the day with Justin's cousins down south of Seattle. We went on a hike in the forest close to Enumclaw, WA. The terrain up here in the northeast is very different than what I'm used to. Here's what home looks like to me:

Things here in the northeast are much different. Look at all that moss!

And some of the trees were so huge!

But it really is just beautiful here.

The kids loved playing after lunch too.

A very full, fun day!

Happy Birthday Katelyn!

I cannot believe that we celebrated Katelyn's birthday yesterday.
This last year has just flown by!

We had a fun time yesterday morning at the Seattle Aquarium looking at all the fish
(and that scuba diver guy).

Then we headed to Pike's Place Market. It is an outdoor market that is just about a block away from us. They are famous for their fish. They also have tons of beautiful flowers and farmers market produce. We got some delicious fruit and veggies and we're sold!
We'll definitely be going there often!

In the afternoon we took the kids swimming in our pool here. As soon as we put Katelyn in the water she started to laugh and kick her legs.

The kids had a great time swimming around in their inter tubes.

Katelyn was excited about her cake,

And she enjoyed opening her presents....
well, I guess the kids really enjoyed helping her open her presents!

And when it was time for cake, Katelyn tried a little frosting....

And then she decided that it was yummy!
Well, really yummy!
Bath time!
Happy Birthday Katelyn, we love you so much!