Sunday, February 12, 2017

An Email I got Today

She said I could share on my blog so I thought I would cut and paste a very interesting email from my granddaughter, Catie, who lives in Kent with her boyfriend.  She shared a ton of pictures too but it would take me too long to get them ready for the blog so I'll see if I can't fix up just a few.
She wrote:
It will be three weeks on Tuesday since we've moved into the townhouse. The move was as stressful as all moves are, but we got through it and it has been so entirely worth it. The extra space just feels so nice. Even the cat agrees! Ladybug has been exercising by running from the living room, up the stairs, and then back.

We've been mostly settled, but we got a whole bunch of the remaining boxes taken care of yesterday. I had my first guest over since moving in and I was determined to make at least the downstairs presentable. My co-worker, Shielah, and I decided to have a small sugar cookie party with the kids. Aunt Mary brought Jake over and Shielah brought her son (Isaiah, 7) and daughter (Sari, 3).  We had an awesome time! The kids did most of the dough making, and they got to choose from a good handful of cookie cutters to make their cookies. I do have to say, trying to make cookies with three children is really difficult.

We did end up burning some of the cookies. Child wrangling and cookie baking is a very delicate balance. Totally worth it and the kids didn’t mind the burnt cookies. Haha!
After the cookies were done baking, we set up a frost and sprinkle station. I'm not sure if they enjoyed making the dough or frosting the cookies more. I'm pretty sure Jake's favorite part was eating the dough, and then the cookie.

They, of course, found Brandon's stash of Godzilla toys and put them to good use in destroying some of the other toys. One of the Godzillas will spit a blue stream of fire when you move his legs. I think they enjoyed that toy the most. Jakey was also great in sharing his toys, so they had a lot of vehicles to play with, and also a purple spiky ball. They played keep away with the ball for a little while, and at one point even got it stuck above the window in the living room.

Overall, it was a great visit. I think Shielah and I will have to do something like this again.
Last weekend was pretty great, too. It was my turn to plan Valentine's this year, as Brandon was planner last year. He took me to iFly, and then we went to breakfast. It was great. This year we started with a bit of pampering at the nail salon, did a bit of shopping (we both needed new pants), and I surprised him with a dinner cruise through Lake Union and Lake Washington.

It was a lot of fun! It’s a smaller boat, maybe had about 20 tables or so. You order your food when you make the reservations, so Brandon had picked salmon, and I got steak. The food was fantastic! Unfortunately, the weather was not nearly as great. They have a deck on the upper portion of the boat where you can go outside and check out the views. We stayed on the deck long enough to snap a couple pictures and just enjoy for a couple minutes, then promptly back into the warm, covered parts of the boat.

They also do a little bit of narration of different landmarks you can see from the cruise. They even took us by Bill Gate's house! It was pretty dark, so unfortunately it was hard to see much, but what you could see was really neat. Apparently when you walk on the docks in front of his house, the dock makes music with each step you take!

Last Sunday and Monday we got a good amount of snow. I think we had 6.5" by the time it stopped. Fortunately Brandon had Monday and Tuesday off so he didn’t have to drive in the snow, and I was able to work from home. Unfortunately, the snow pulled the gutter away from the roof on the front of the townhouse. You can see it slipping down in one of the photos. The weight of the snow also snapped one of the branches of the Rhody in the front porch.

My boss, however, had a lot more damage. He lives out on Vashon Island, and he and his husband are huge into gardening. They had this 50+ yr old Willow tree that was a focal for their pond-scape completely come out of the ground and topple over, ruining other parts of their garden. Compared to that, I'll totally take a low hanging gutter and a snapped branch.

Brandon and I went to Ikea on Friday to look for a couple new pieces of furniture. I promised him a real couch when we moved into the new place. We found a couch, and a futon that we like, but we are going to wait until this coming Friday to get them. We did pick up a couple new rugs for the living and dining room, two lamps for the living room, and two mats for feet wiping at the front door.

Today, Brandon will be working 2:30-10:30, and my plan is to continue getting my craft room put together. It’s the only room not complete at this point.











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