Spring Greetings & Hoppy Easter!

This is what we look like.  I know it's been so long since I've updated the blog you've all probably forgotten. So here you go.  Hopefully the picture helps you remember who we are.  It's all my fault; winter is pretty bluesy out here in the Pacific NW.  It's like that most places though.  In Ohio, I would feel downright murderous if we got snow in March, and well, yeah.  The only snow I saw this year in Seattle was flurries on my way to work a few weeks ago.  In March.  Don't get technical on me with the Spring Equinox being March 20 or whatever.  You know it and I know it that snow in March is less pretty and fun and more a total pain in the ass.

Enough about that, though.  Spring has sprung in Seattle and the clouds are parting for longer and longer intervals!  That picture above was taken at the coffee shop down the street (where I'm pretty sure Mom met Eddie Vedder) a couple of Saturdays ago.  It was nice!  That was also the day that Lorelei discovered BASKETBALL.  Oh, how my Siefert blood sings when she talks about playing basketball!

I think she has the WNBA written all over her!

She's also doing really well in Tae Kwon Do.  I promised pictures of her belt test (moving from white to yellow), and here they are:

It's kind of grainy but that's Lorelei breaking a board that Shawn is holding.  Needless to say, she passed!  Her next belt test is in May.  Fingers crossed she can advance to orange belt.

We spent Easter weekend hanging around the house.  We did some yard work and some cleaning mostly.  But it was a gorgeous weekend and Lorelei and I walked down to the beach and had some play time.

Someone had built a fort out of driftwood, so Lorelei had some fun.  I just enjoyed the serenity of the water and the mountains.  Mornings like that remind me why I wanted to move here.

Those are the Olympics out there in the background.  Not too long from now Hurricane Ridge and most of Olympic National Park will be open.  I think it closes Oct-May in the mountains because the passes are snowed in.  I'm sure we will get out there again this summer!

It's also been birthday season here - Shawn's Birthday, our friend Vianney, mine, Ed's and of course, Maya turned 1!  Isn't she a gem?

The girls took me to a wine tasting shop for mine!  Lovely!

Otherwise, we've been busy with our day-to-day.  Shawn is wrapping up another semester, Lorelei is getting ready for the homestretch of the school year, and I'm ever-busy at work.  This weekend I signed up to do a 5-mile race in Skagit County, it's called the Tulip Run.  They have an annual tulip festival up there.



Hopefully the weather holds and we have a good run.  If it's nice, we may head over to Deception Pass.  If you map it, it's in kind of neat area on the north Sound.  We wanted to go to Whidbey Island, but they've had a lot of mudslides and parts of the island are in bad shape.

After that, I head to Dallas for a work thing April 15-17.  Once I get home from that it's going to be time to start thinking about how to celebrate Lorelei's 8th birthday!  Where does the time go?

I will try not to be so long between posts!  In the meantime, relax, have some coffee and remember to smell the tulips.

Take care,
Becky

Castle Panic, Pizza, and The Fog

Greetings!  The above pictures is Castle Panic.  It's a board game that Lorelei received for Christmas from Daddy.  We have been playing it like mad and I think Lorelei and I are fairly obsessed with it.  In an age where games are mostly digital and require gaming systems, it's wonderful to see a resurgence of board games.  I grew up on board games, after all.  Castle Panic is premised on the players working together to defeat monsters and protect the castle.  It's a cooperative game, meaning the players work together and not against each other.  It's hours of fun.

You may have heard that the weather in Seattle is less than ideal.  The fall and winter months are dark, cold and wet.  Usually by this time, the end of January, we are seeing the days get longer and the sun makes a few appearances here and there, but it's still pretty miserable.  One thing that is kind of strange is to see the trees still with leaves on them.  It's cold, but not cold enough, I guess.  Many trees still have green leaves.  Here is one tree downtown:

We have been coping by investigating many board games (Ticket to Ride is my personal favorite), and conducting cooking experiments.  If you know us, you know that pizza is its own food group with the Shraders.  Unfortunately, good pizza is hard to come by in Seattle.  I don't know why, but they cannot get a good New York style pizza right, and nothing even comes close to Rotolo's in Columbus.  It's tragic.  We have tried many different places and have found some pizza that's passable, but it ends up being overpriced for a mediocre pie.  We decided to take matters into our own hands.

The top picture is our pizza dough rising, and the bottom one is a little piece of heaven.  Thanks to the Cooks Illustrated cookbook, we've been able to make our own pizzas from scratch, which are a thousand times better than anything we've bought out here.  Problem solved!

Of course, one thing that Seattle manages to do pretty well is beer.  Another way we've been passing the time is to explore the city a bit.  A few weeks ago we stumbled on the Georgetown Brewery.  As it turns out, it's fairly close to our house.

That is a growler.  Growlers are bottles of beer that are refillable.  Once you finish the growler of beer, you can go into pretty much any bar or specialty store or brewery and have it refilled for a reduced price.  As we are fans of the Georgetown beers, this growler idea seems like a stroke of genius.

Same growler, two hours later.

Among other activities we have to pass the time are Lorelei's Tae Kwon Do, and I've been running, hoping to do another 10k in February.  Shawn has started a new semester of school also.  Sometimes we complain about being so busy, but it's good that there is a lot going on.  January is rather bleak in Seattle, as it is a lot of places, I think.  People out here try to go away this time of year, to Mexico or, in many cases, to Hawaii.  When Shawn is out of school and doesn't have to worry about studying, we'll probably try to arrange for such a getaway in January or February.

We had this week or 10 day period of fog.  It was foggy every single day.  Pea soup fog.  I didn't see the Puget Sound for days, and I drive right over it on my way to work every morning.  It was crazy.  It wasn't Carl Sandburg's Fog, coming in on little cat feet.  No, we could watch it roll in from the Sound and it was more like a wall being slammed down.  One minute I'm looking out the window at the church across the street, and the next, BAM.  We are in the middle of a Stephen King story.  It was beyond creepy.  The meteorologists out here are generally challenged in terms of forecasting, but during the fog they just sat around on TV saying, "Yeah, that's a lot of fog.  Huh."  I kept trying to take a picture of it but there was seriously nothing to see.  Like all things, though, it finally passed and we are back to a more normal climate.

We had a nice time during the holidays.  It was just a quiet Christmas, but I took a day off and we explored. Lorelei got an American Girl doll from Santa, and then received some of the accessories from her Grandma Shrader.  It was a wild success, along with Castle Panic:

As we get through January, we head into the Birthday Season, with all of us having spring birthdays and lots of loved ones as well.  Of course, I will be preparing for the most wonderful time of the year, March Madness.  Until next time, love to all!

December 14, 2012: One Week from the END

By now you have probably heard:  the world is supposed to END on December 21, 2012.  I don't think it's going to happen.  I mean, I would think Gretel would know.  Dogs can sense these things.  This is not a dog who senses the end is near:

That dog is getting ready for Christmas!  As are we all.  But before we get into all that, we have some catching up to do!  I promised in the last update some news of the Shraders.  First up was the Dawg Dash.  It was my first race in Seattle, a 10k through the University of Washington campus.  It was a gorgeous day and the campus is stunning.  It makes me want to go back to school (I know, I know).






It is really gorgeous.  I didn't even pull the really good pictures with Lake Washington and Mount Rainier.  These pictures above are more representative of what I remember running by during the race.  It was a really fun race.  I ran it with one of my coworkers, Devra.  She and her husband live pretty close to the University, but her parents are walking distance from it, so we parked there and walked over.  It was a great time.  Harry the Husky was out, high-fiving the runners, and the UW Alumni Band played at different spots during the run cheering people on.  I admit, I was pretty homesick for Brutus and TBDBITL by the end of it.

Just a few short days after the Dawg Dash, Halloween was upon us.  Lorelei dressed as Link from one of her favorite games, the Legend of Zelda.

She also had a Halloween Party with a few friends.  With the exception of one meltdown (Lorelei's), I think the girls had a good time:

You know who else had a good time?  Ivan.  He participated in the decorating:

There isn't much of an emphasis on trick or treating here in the city - most businesses have some sort of function for the kids.  Unless you are in a truly residential area, there really isn't much trick or treating.  So we took Lorelei to the All Recipes Halloween Party where Daddy and Uncle Eddie work.  It was a great time, and Lorelei got lots of treats.

One of my favorite Halloween kids was Maya.  Her hair has grown at an alarming rate!

No sooner had we recovered from Halloween and Thanksgiving was upon us.  But it was a lovely Thanksgiving.  This year we did something a bit different and went back to our favorite place, Pacific City, Oregon, and spent Thanksgiving at the brewery.  It was a lovely holiday.

It was a bit rainy on Thursday and Friday, but it was still amazing.  The surf was so wild and unruly.

The tide pools were very active with wildlife, too.  Below you'll see lots of anemones, starfish and a hermit crab or two.  We had a blast looking at them!

The truly amazing part of this trip to Pacific City was that we finally climbed to the top of the great dune that is off to the north of the beach.  What a beautiful view awaited us!

I cannot believe I took these pictures with my phone, of all things.  We decided to stay an extra day until Sunday, and we were so glad we did.  The sunset Saturday night was spectacular.

It was a great weekend.  The Castanedas joined us as well, and a lovely time was had by all.  So nice to get away.  While we have lots of other places to visit on our list, we seem to always be counting the days until we can go back to the Oregon coast.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, it's getting darker and the rain is ever-present.  Every once in awhile, though, we have a lovely day that reminds us just how gorgeous Seattle is.

I took those pictures on my commute to work.  When it's nice here, the city is transformed.

It is, however, getting on winter, and that means we are going to have a bit more rain before the sun and the light return.  Because of that, some of the living beings in this house have determined that they must put on the winter weight for their, uh, hibernation.

We have managed to keep ourselves busy to let the time pass until spring.  Lorelei is taking Tae Kwon Do (I promise to have pictures of that soon), and Shawn is pursuing new avenues at work.  Of course, my job is busy, but it looks like December and January will be unusually so.  These are all good things, though.  And before you know it, it will be time for visits and travel again!

In the meantime, happy holidays to all, and be sure and hug your children on this of all days.