Marie is Two!!

Marie turned 2 yesterday.  This is her at her birthday party. We invited her friends to the zoo and had all the kids dress up. Marie was a lion with a tutu, or a Circus Lion if you prefer. It was a zoo... ha ha.. laugh.. go on, laugh.  Can you imagine? A dozen kids dressed up as animals running around the zoo, high on chocolate covered peanuts and cupcakes?

Marie has been a practicing 2 year old for a couple of months now, seeking independence, testing boundaries, and just learning about all sorts of things in ways that often lead to messes, breaking things, etc.

She talks all the time in full sentences. We are working on moving from "eeeaaa" to "mama can you help me?" and there is some progress.  She loves to sing and most mornings wakes up in her crib and lies there and sings until we go in.  Since we potty trained her at 18 months, she has done brilliantly and picked it up so quickly.  She has even had around 5ish dry nights before turning 2!  She is generally a very happy and energetic force in our lives. She dropped naps completely around 22 months, and as a result sleeps brilliantly at night - 11 or 11 1/2 hours uninterrupted.  That change has been worth it to me.

It seems she is understanding this whole new baby thing. Because we have so many people in our lives who are pregnant or new parents, she has seen the whole process and before and after. She goes to my midwife appointments with me, and has gotten to hear the baby's heartbeat. She does think that she has a baby in her belly, but that's okay.

Happy birthday, precious!

one

Happy birthday, Marie!  She is one year old!  We celebrated with a pumpkin extravaganza at the farm. Lots of Marie's friends came, ate cake, sang happy birthday, rolled around in the pumpkin patch, and generally had a grand celebratory day in honor of Marie's birth day.

Marie has been learning lots of new words lately. She now answers "what does the kitty say?" with "aaow" and "what does the doggie say?" with "woof woof". She picked up the latter while we were farm sitting last week and there was a dog. Some other words she says include touchdown (complete with raised arms), kitty, poop, mama, dada, toes, cow, moo, quack...

She also walks! She started taking steps a week or two ago, and yesterday took ~15 in a row. Watch out, Ginger kitty.

Here are some photos of her pumpkin birthday.  It is beautiful to be able to celebrate our precious daughter, and the whole year she has been with us. She is loved!

Our little pumpkin

What.. did you think we were joking about rolling around in the pumpkin patch?

They are all looking at the camera! Miracle! So many boys...

First cake in an overstimulated environment

I'm in love with this girl

This girl loves exploring grass and flowers! Also apparently has a taste for gravel - we were at the garden plot and I had left her on the blanket for two seconds to fill the watering can. When I got back she had a mouth and face full of gravel and was going for more. She was pretty angry with me for ruining her fun.

Marie's first solid food - sweet potatoes. She was confused and skeptical. She has since had avocado and banana (and that gravel), and wavers between accepting solid food and loudly declining.

Day out at Gasworks Park with a wonderful group of friends!

You can see some of the gasworks behind her here. Read some history here.

Look at my beautiful blue eyes!

This girl is now sitting up on her own, with occasional but harmless topples. She is slowly growing more hair, but no teeth yet. She loves rolling all over the place and has no interest in learning to crawl, although she loves to stand (with help).  Her laughing spells are unexpected and despite our focused efforts, come on when we are not trying. Whereupon we continue doing whatever we were doing until we hurt with the repetition. We covet those sweet laughs.

...And... the Cutest Person in a Hairnet EVER Award goes to....

Marie!!She rocked it better than anyone else! We took Joel's parents on a Theo Chocolate Factory tour the other day. It was wonderful... besides eating lots of chocolate, it's interesting to see the process of making chocolate. They really focus on the reasons they are organic and fair trade, and by the end I am pretty sure I'm not the only one who pledges to herself to stop buying chocolate that isn't fair trade. They are the first organic fair-trade chocolate makers in the US, and they are here in Seattle! We will take each of you there when you visit us.

They also made Joel wear 2 (!!) beard-nets this time, because one just doesn't cover it all!

Our habit

Many mornings a week, right around the time the baby starts to show she's ready for her first nap, I bundle us up, put her in the carrier, tie on my walkin' shoes, and head out. We walk to Twin Ponds Park, just a few blocks away from home. Once we enter the park, our walk is through the Trail of Cedars, between the two ponds full of ducks, around the soccer field, over the bridge where we hear all sorts of birds we don't know how to identify, through the 'Future Community Garden'* space, around the always-empty tennis court, all over the arboretum, and then back around one of the ponds and back through the Trail of Cedars, to back home. The baby is usually asleep by the "between the two ponds" part, and stays asleep until we reach our door, and my rhythmic walking stops.

Setting out, it is clear we are not out of the urban jungle yet, if you spy the graffiti. Baby Marie's hat is one that was made for one of my brothers when they were a baby - anyone know who knit it? I suspect Grandma Berwold.

Baby woke up earlier than usual this day, and took in some of the return walk.

*I will know Thursday if I get a spot in the Community Garden. I hope so!

first things first

Joel's first day of school!

Joel started his new job today - Adjunct English Instructor at Green River Community College. Our home is full of thankfulness and peace right now, with the timing of his job being so perfect (and so last minute! A rushed syllabus was created, a commute quickly established, and a chair at home with the cat is now empty during the day).

The transition of the seasons, with the blustery comfort of autumn just setting in, is really reflected in our life right now. Joel's new job, the baby coming soon, me settling in to the wonderful idea of a long (by American standards) maternity leave... many changes, but all such comforting and peaceful changes.
Joel found today that he likes, enjoys, appreciates his teaching position. He is fulfilled and satisfied in his role, which is such a surprising thing for the both of us after years of uncertain times in academia. None of you in the academic world will see his job as particularly spectacular, but it is exactly what we have been hoping for and needing. An entrance, an opportunity, a chance for Joel to do what he has felt has been his passion - teaching introductory level courses. And a step towards us being able to transition from relying on my salary to relying on his. That is something, however old fashioned it may seem, that we've both craved for some time.

This is a celebration, friends! Have a dram of scotch in honor of Joel today!(Other photos are from our annual trip hiking at Mt. Rainier. Oh, out of town friends, we must take you there.)

Why you haven't heard from us

We have been taking advantage of summer!
*Aweing at North Cascades Highway
*Loving Washington State, our home
*Making strawberry wine to be ready about the same time the baby will be :-)
*Eating more and more and more vegetables from our CSA
*Camping. Lots.
*Beaching it
*Nesting

Have we mentioned we will never again complain about the weather here?

Across Washington in the Winter

This post is for all our non-Washingtonian friends. Every time Heather and I drive across Washington between the Seattle and Spokane areas, we wish we could bring all our friends from other places to show them what our state is like. Of course, we assume you would all actually want to come. This time, as we were driving back from my parents' house in Newport to Seattle, I decided to photo-document the five-to-eight-hour, 320 mile drive. Imagine that you are riding along with Heather, Ginger, and me, as I drone on about each interesting landmark or geological feature. Please try not to fall asleep, as this will be very interesting and educational. After all, you're getting the condensed version!

Feel free to click on any images you find particularly pleasing to see them at a higher resolution.

We woke up in Newport to fresh snow, so Heather had to clear off the driveway with my parents' snowblower. She truly lives for this experience.

Newport is at about 2500 feet (762 meters) above sea level, and there are hills and coniferous trees. The drive from Newport to Spokane, south on Highway 2, takes about an hour.


We pass Diamond Lake, which is frozen over, and the building where my church used to meet, originally Rogers High School, and now for many years the Diamond Lake Grange.


Heather handles snow driving expertly, but some situations are more difficult than others (British friends: the 'lorry' you see in this picture is actually called a 'truck'. The second image features a 'snow plow').


We drive through Spokane, then out on Interstate 90, past the trees into the center of Washington.


The center, which includes such wonderful areas as the Columbia Basin (technically a much larger area), the Palouse, and the Channeled Scablands, is mostly flat with rolling hills or plateaus, and gets less precipitation than the western side of Washington, lying in the rain shadow of the Cascades.



The town of Moses Lake – the lake is also frozen over.


Next, we approach the mighty Columbia River, which flows down the middle of the state, then goes down to form the Oregon border. Driving down into the Columbia Gorge:


The Columbia Gorge is a very windy place, and a large wind farm was recently built on the west side, at Ryegrass.


The land gets a little more hilly, and we approach Ellensburg, the home of Central Washington University and about 600 fast food restaurants aimed at travelers halfway across the state (British friends: after returning from Glasgow, Heather and I had a very hard time remembering how to pronounce Ellensburg properly--hard 'g'!).


Hey!


Now we are starting to climb into the Cascade Range of mountains - to most Washingtonians, the border between Eastern and Western Washington (completely ignoring Central!). Not a very good day to photograph them, but I tried anyway.


Going over Snoqualmie Pass, traffic was reduced to one lane because of an overturned tanker truck. This added at least an hour to our trip, and we had to stop in the tunnel for a while.


Nighttime in the Cascades.


Then home to Seattle! Thanks for riding along. We'll do it again in the summer sometime, and give you a better look at the Cascades!