Evening Song

Julie Ann tickling Argyle, the greenhouse gargoyle.

We've been busy over the past few weeks. I took the older farmers to see the Picasso exhibit at the Seattle Art Museum. It was awesome, more Picasso in one place than ever before. We waited in line for 3.5 hours!, but it was well worth it!

We've been moving furniture and mountains of books down in our family room in a futile attempt at better organization. I know this is a futile endeavor because we are a household of highly creative people.

And finally, we received our latest power bill. We finally made it into the top 10% for energy conservation and lower usage. It almost makes all those sweaters, thick socks, and slightly coooool (translation: freezing!) showers worth it. Some where penguins and polar bears are smiling.

Evening Song in the Northwest.

New Goal!

The funny farmers have added a new goal (#9) to the list. Whenever possible buy used, good for the environment and the bank account. One of our other goals this year was to do more with less. We'd love to travel more often around our region. Therefore, we are having adventures in buying used.

Today, Anni and I went shopping for cold weather gear for the gals. We hit two local used establishments, one a nonprofit for foster kids and the other our town's Value Village. We scored! Anni found 4 pairs of nearly new cords, a pair of waterproof boots, three sweaters, 4 long sleeved shirts, a tank top, a belt, a Zingo game, and a valentine book. I found waterproof boots for Ari, 12 current books, a down vest, a lacy evening dress, a shirt, and high end sweater. And the grand total for 33 really nifty (some designer) items was, drum roll please, $110. We put the money we saved into our vacation savings account - way cool!

While we putting these items away, we cleared out our closet of things that no longer fit our bodies or our styles. These were donated to another local nonprofit. We love win-win-wins

Colds and Cold!

After a full week of sneezes and coughs, the A team is back in action. All of us had monster colds except for Alex. He credits his immunological defenses to a 'healthy' diet of nachos! (Kidding!) It's also been very cold outside with more chances of snow this week. We had a light dusting this am.

In other news, we found a new fun and free activity! The second Monday of each month, the Pacific Science Center does Science Cafe at one of our local pubs. I took the older future farmers for a talk about crow and ravens. It was very informative to learn about these exceptionally smart birds.

Finally today, we'd like to send a big shout out to our Auntie D. Best wishes for your upcoming surgery! We're sending all our best wishes and blessings your way!

Happy New Year!

Happy 2011 Everyone!

I spent New Year's Eve out with friends. We had appetizers and drinks at Spazzo's and then went to see Carmina Burana preformed by the Seattle Corale Society. It was awesome! Afterwards, it was home for our annual crab cakes and champagne toast at midnight to welcome in the new year.

We said a sad goodbye to one of our pets this week. Dusty cat died. She'd been sick for a while and passed to the great mouse hunting ground quietly during the night. Alchemy never left her side. We buried her in the back garden under the evergreens.
New Year's Day is the annual polar bear dip in Kirkland. Here are the brave souls rushing to the water's edge. The air temp was 28 degrees F. Most of the brave souls stayed in the water for exactly 1 second. The entire event was over in 4 minutes.

Our weather has been frosty and very cold. We've had tracings of snow and lots of ice, but bright clear days with awesome sunsets.

Merry Christmas!!!

Merry Christmas to one and all! We began our with homemade pancakes, bacon and real maple syrup. Then, it was time to open gifts around the tree. Anni loved her talking globe. Alex is excited about his Lord of the Rings computer game. Ari is jazzed by her new collection of reading material. David like his new red sweater, and my fav is the psychedelic orange socks (thanks Lisa!). We had lots of cozy warm gifts this year. Perfect!

Our Christmas dinner was baked ham with herbal glaze, spuds with sour cream and chives, broccolini, and champagne or sparkling apple cider. Dessert was Dundee cake with custard. Delish. After dinner, we went for a ride around our town to see all the Christmas lights. Wow! Some folks had serious wattage!

Yesterday, we had a quiet Christmas Eve. We made red (tomato sauce ) and green (pesto) pizzas for dinner with German pepper cookies and mincemeat pies for dessert.

On Thursday, we celebrated Feliz Navidad by making lots and lots of tamales; spicy red pork, mild green chili chicken, and vegetarian with corn, black beans, and orange squash. We had lots of sauces to complement and served them all up with guac, chips, and a pan of oven chili rellenos. Yum!

What's this smiley girl been up to?

Art Attack! Here's Anni's bulletin board.

Bah Humcat! I think I'll sleep through all this fuss. Jingle away dog!

Happy Nana's Day

Anni proving that kids love the packaging the most! We all stayed up for the solstice lunar eclipse on Monday/Tuesday. It was cool to see a red moon!

Barkley all dressed up in his holiday bandanna.

We traveled to Northeastern Europe for our Yuletide dinner this year. We had parsnip and sweet potato pancakes with chive sour cream, cheese, potato, and onion peroshkis, ham roll-ups, lingonberry brown bread, and gingerbread cookies. Yum!

The CSA farm box arrived today. this one featured baby spinach, carrots, broccolini, avocados, apples, oranges, lettuce, tomatoes, mushrooms, parsnips, bokchoy, tangelos, potatoes, and a pomegranate.

Every December 22nd, we hold our annual Nana's Tea in honor of my British grandmother. This year we invited our friend Lisa over to share in the grand chaos of making lots of goodies. We made sausage rolls, curried egg sandwiches, watercress and tomato sandwiches, cucumber and cream cheese sandwiches, a vegetable herb cracker spread, a prawn green onion spread, a British cheese plate, jam tarts, current scones, butter biscuits dipped in bittersweet chocolate, and a Dundee cake, all served up with a big Brown Betty full of tea and a toast of champagne. It was fun. (Anni ate her weight in sausage rolls!)

Happy, Merry, Joyous Everything!

Our holiday celebrations are in full swing. Our friend Lisa came over on Friday for our annual making of the holiday cards. Glitter and glue ensued. We also had a lovely Northern Italian dinner of Eggplant Parmesan, salad, Alfredo noodles, and cranberry-lemon cake, all chased down with an excellent Merlot.

This weekend, Ari and I went to a fundraiser for Ghana school children that one of Lisa's coworker collect monies for. It was down in the Georgetown neighborhood, part of southern King County that we rarely get to. We found an excellent local bakery with the world's best chocolate croissants! Ari discovered a used bookstore, that gal could find a bookstore on the moon!

This morning, I went paint shopping with Lisa. I suggested color combinations. She bought the paint. It was fun. Later, we mixed up three batches of cookie doughs; sugar, gingerbread, and pfeffernusse (German white pepper) cookies. Tomorrow, we roll them out, bake, and decorate!

Just a reminder, tomorrow a total lunar eclipse, solstice, and yule all collide around the midnight hour, a magical time!

Darn good show!

This afternoon, the entire band of funny farmers went to see a play in Seattle called Red Rider Came Calling (based on the book by Berkeley Breathed) put on by the fine folks at Book-It Theatre, our favorite thespians. It was absolutely awesome! Hysterical!

We traveled to France for dinner tonight. No, not really, but dinner was on the French side. We had Chasseur chicken with oven roasted carrots while Edith Piaf sang on the music system.

Then we continued our holiday decorating. The theme of our tree (and most of our upstairs decorating) is Northern Forest, lots of pine cones, snowflakes, berries, birds, critters, mushrooms, bearded gnomes, and reindeer. We finished up the tree tonight!

Yule Tidings

Yesterday, we hung the garlands. Then I discovered I'm allergic to the cypress. My arms are covered in lovely red welts!

Today we lit the garlands. I wore gloves!

And we put lots and lots of lights on our tree. We got a big Wow! from Anni.

In other news, we waxed English today after visiting our local British Pantry. Dinner was prawn cocktails followed by sausage rolls with mustard, chips with curry catsup, and peas. Our sweet was apple blackberries mini pies with warm custard. Delish!

Birthday Celebrations and more!

Hmm, what's that sticking out of that paper?

Let me at it. I'll find out!

A Sock Monkey! I love monkeys! This is the best birthday ever. I also love my new cupcake oven (already baked up a batch of chocolate ones, complete with sprinkles) and my tabletop soccer set.

Did I mention that I really love my Sock Monkey? Here we are at Red Robin for my birthday lunch!

A bunch of folk sang Happy Birthday and then gave me balloons and an ice cream sundae. Okay, I love the monkey, but it's not getting any ice cream! Mom took me shopping to spend my birthday money. Thanks Nana and Auntie Doreen and Uncle Mel. I got a book, stickers, a new wallet, pajamas, a fuzzy hat, and more. Birthdays so ROCK!

Alexander also had a birthday over the past couple of weeks. Being a teenage boy, he declined to be interviewed about it, preferring to bury his nose in a) a book, b) a video game, c) the computer, or d) all of the preceding.

The farm box arriveth. This one had lettuce (salad for lunch tomorrow), eggplant (curried rounds on Saturday), spinach (used in the pesto tonight!),avocados, oranges, carrots, sunchokes, cucumber, mushrooms, tomatoes, tangelos, pomegranate, Meyer lemons, and apples.

And now that all the birthdays are done, we went out for our holiday tree, garlands, holly, and mistletoe today. Tomorrow, we start the decorating! (Hear David groan!)