Happy Birthday Richele

2 Weeks ago, my sweet friend Richele had a birthday and I managed to remember it. Last year I totally missed it and I spent the whole year stressing out over it! So this year I was determined to get my act together. We met the Schoenings in downtown Olympia at the Spar restaurant for breakfast to celebrate. The Spar is an Olympia icon, it's been there for like 100 years or something. It's a cool little restaurant and the food was delicious. It was so relaxing to sit and have breakfast with Jeff and Richele and to get caught up on life. We've all been so busy that it's difficult to get together on a regular basis. Happy Birthday Richele!! We miss you guys already.

Beths Cafe- Yum!

So Beth's cafe is another spot I can cross off my "man vs food" list. Last weekend before the Kiss concert we stopped at Beth's to have some good grub before commencing to rock out. Beth's is definitely a quirky Seattle food icon. When we walked in, we were greeted by a server who sent us "to the game room to wait for 30 mins or so". My kids were so confused!! We headed in there and proceeded to check out all of the cool drawings posted all over the walls- way cool. Fortunately , our server was only joking and someone came to get us about 5 mins later. After much discussion regarding the 12 egg omelet , we placed our orders which included a 6 egg omelet for Mike and a loaded chili dog for Jim. I had the ham and egg scramble. Beware people, even the 6 egg omelet is huge! I can not even imagine someone being able to force down a 12 egger.

A short wait later, our food arrived and it was awesome. Hot, fresh, delicious and served by a funny waitress that happily brought us whatever we asked for. (including 3 extra orders of toast so we could have more of the fresh strawberry jam on the table!)I highly recommend a stop at Beth's if you are hungry for a delicious breakfast while in Seattle. Now for lunch, I still recommend the Red Mill for the best burger in town.

The hottest band in the world- KISS!!!

Okay, if you know anything about our family, you know that Jim and I are huge Kiss fans. So last night we took all of the kids and my nephew Cody to see Kiss on their Alive 35 tour. This concert is the culmination of a plan to take all of the skids to see Kiss that started a few years ago. The last time we got tickets Gene Simmons got sick and they cancelled the show on the day of the concert. We were all so disappointed, especially since that tour was billed as a "farewell" tour. But, like most bands, farewell doesn't ever really meet farewell so they came back last night. As always, Kiss put on an amazing show, lots of fireworks and Paul's signature accent when he talks (it cracks me up). It was a great concert and we all had a great time, I'm glad we got the chance to experience it as a family. All the kids got shirts so they have a memento from the show, because , you never know , this might be another "farewell" tour! Rock on!!

Otto's Sausage Kitchen- Portland

On Saturday Jim and I headed down to Portland to spend the day together just hanging out. I searched the Internet and found another Diners Drive Inns and Dives restaurant to check out. This one was a meat market called Ottos Sausage Kitchen and it was listed to have one of the best hot dogs in the US. The funny thing is, neither of us had a hot dog. Jim had the Reuben sandwich and sauerkraut soup and I had a really yummy sandwich. ( I can't remember what it was called!) The atmosphere was typical Portland eclectic, casual and kind of funky, and the food was good too. We tried the pepperoni and bought a few pieces to bring home with us. It poured down rain the entire day, the free way was a mess and one of the side streets we were on was so flooded we couldn't even drive down it. It was a wet crazy day but it was nice to spend some time together without the distraction of the kids.

Sunday scrapbooking

I spent part of the day today over at Tiffany's studio doing a few pages. I waited until the last minute to get my stuff together and I felt rushed to pick pictures and paper to go with. Surprisingly I managed to get 4 good pages done, including one for this weeks challenge at scraptiffany.com. Hop on over to Tiffany's blog to take a look, they should be up tomorrow morning. The "girlfriends" page was the most difficult for me to complete. I brought several "busy " pieces of basic grey Romani papers and told myself I would make them work together on a page, I didn't really think I'd be able to do it but it all came together pretty well. I'm glad we got together, I needed the kick in the butt to get some pages done, I probably would have just taken naps all day long if I had stayed home, of course I DID take one when I got home. That's what Sundays are for, right?

Lattins Cider Mill 2009

On Halloween we didn't have any plans for trick or treating or parties this year. The kids are all too old and "cool" for any of that stuff anymore, so sad. We did go to Lattins Cider Mill on Saturday and wandered around looking at the animals and doing the apple slingshot. One of these days we'll hit the sign out in the field and win the prize money. The girls loved petting the cows and cracked up when they felt how rough their tongues were. I tried to get e decent picture of them as we were leaving, let me tell you, that was rough. It's almost harder now than when they were little, one of them is always goofing or picking at the other ones. That's okay though, it's just who they are.

Photo Shoot Sneak Peek!!

Here are a few shots from a photo shoot I did for the Schoening and Creekpaum families. The little boys were so stinking cute and their momma dressed them in the cutest little vests. They cooperated beautifully, especially the baby who fell asleep for a while! Lisa and Josh are a wonderful couple and I'm glad I got a chance to take their family's pictures. The Schoening kids were great, as always. Ashley is always up for a pose and Cody plays along with her, most of the time. The last time I took their family picture was a few shots this summer while we were on vacation. I know Richele will check the blog so that's why I'm posting a few tonight. Let me know what you think!!

Love Shack Saturday

After working for a few hours this morning I came home and spent a little time in the Love Shack. I completed the Halloween album Tiffany designed and scrapped a page about Morgans new car. Thanks for the title idea Tiffany. I also got to play a little bit with my yummy new pink Slice. I really have no idea how to use it yet but I plan on giving it another shot tomorrow. It seems pretty easy but I think I need to figure out the best adhesive to use, I hear that's key to making it work well. We shall see.