Don't want to forget the sweetness!

It certainly has been awhile for me to pop on here and jot down a few random thoughts. But last night Caleb showed such empathy and sweetness that I just don't want to forget, it needs to be written down. It may never happen again. Caleb is a lot of lovely things- but sometimes I wonder if he thinks of others and their feelings. I'm not sure most 3 year old are considering how their actions may affect others, but I know Caleb only thinks of this if he is trying to 1. make you laugh 2. make his cousin/sister/auntie scream. He can be a bit of an antagonist- haven't the faintest idea where he might get this. Anyways....

Last night I had a teary moment while we were relaxing before bed. Felt a little drained and lonely and the tears just fell.

Caleb: Mommy! I see raindrops on you
Me: Oh love, those aren't raindrops- those are tears
Caleb: Its ok, mommy! Let me wipe those up for you.

Then he gently dabbed my face with his tiny thumbs and tried to make me laugh. With a big smile he said, "Mommy is sad. Caleb is happy! Those is opposites!" Yes they are sweet boy. And both are perfectly normal ways to feel. I love you so much and thank you for the empathy you shared last night.

Woman, unborn child, and adorable dog NEARLY perish in condo fire

First things first, we are all fine. But tonight has been very exciting!

At approximately 12:07 I was awoken by our high-pitched alarm. It took me what felt like a few minutes to realize the alarm I heard was not someone breaking in, we don't have a security alarm but for whatever reason that wasn't registering, but the fire alarm. (I have a very strange fear of someone breaking into my condo whenever Bryan is out of town. This fear is so real I feel it necessary to lock the doors from the garage to the office, the office to the stairs, double lock the front door and finally my bedroom door. Basically, if it has a lock it gets locked. Before we took to shacking up I lived alone for years. On an occasion or two in my downtown apartment I was so unconcerned, or lets face it tipsy, about a break in that I accidentally left the keys in my front door. One time a Good Samaritan neighbor felt inclined to help me by opening my front door and dropping my keys inside while I slept. I heard the door open and screamed. Terrifying. My nice neighbor is lucky of 2 things 1. this is WA and not a big time NRA state 2. I wouldn't be keeping a gun anyways. None the less, my concern of a real break has been strongest at 2 points in my life. 1. As a child, at which time I made my sister Kelly sleep by the window in the room we shared assuming that if a kidnapper came through the window he would snatch the more  child. Sorry Kelly! 2. Now as a married adult living in a townhouse in the burbs)

So I went ahead and called 911 while running around my room trying to find something to wear outside. Typically, I have an assortment of clothes on my floor to choose from. Unfortunately I was very productive today and my room is quite tidy. This, apparently, is very inconvenient should you need to escape your home, for any number of reasons, in the middle of the night. From here on I plan to have a set of "escape clothes" prepared on a shelf that are readily accessible in the middle of the night. 

Let me tell you about my experience with 911. First of all the nice lady on the phone is now more than likely deaf. Once I found my escape clothes, I ran downstairs with Sofie in my arms. I tried going out the front door and I swear I saw a person lurking about! I shrieked in the poor lady's ear in terror. They are probably going to use my recorded call as a training video as I am sure I made very little sense to my poor emergency dispatcher. I distinctly remember telling her repeatedly that the fire alarm was going off, I didn't know where the fire was coming from, and that I was positive someone was attempting to lure me out of my home. To a rational and now deaf emergency dispatcher, I am sure that train of logic makes very little sense and her expert coaching and coercion that I should get out of the house that may be on fire will probably need to be studied by other dispatchers. Now, that all being said, I know my heroine is now at least partially deaf. I know this because although she was helpfully in getting me out of the house, she struggled figuring out where I live....

"What city?"

"Bothell"

"I'm sorry?"

"Bothell"

"Are you sure you live in Bothell, that street address isn't coming up in Bothell"

"Yes, right on the line between Bothell and Millcreek, but sadly yes, I live in Bothell"

"Bothell in Snohomish County?"

"YES! That Bothell!"

"Hmmmm, are you sure?"

So finally she got the fire department dispatched me, my unborn child, and sweet little dog out of our house and out into the cold rainy night. Most of my neighbors were also outdoors at this point. In fact, it seems they had been outdoors for sometime. Apparently they weren't paralyzed by a fear of a killer outside their front doors. Good for them! Upon coming to the final realization that I was not going to be attacked, I noticed that 2 doors down my sweet neighbors looked especially frantic and that their fire sprinkler system was going off. Apparently they were having a poker holiday party in their garage and a space heater had caused this most unfortunate circumstance.

So at this point I try to phone my dear sweet husband. I called him 3 times. Does he answer? No. So I text him that the alarm to our building is going off, but we are all fine. His response, "At Bar". Uhhhhh, thanks for the concern. Your family was, mere moments ago, in grave danger and upon learning that we nearly died but are okay you have made it abundantly apparent that we may be requiring an intervention or at the least a discussion of priorities. Kidding, but honestly, next time I nearly die I hope Bryan asks firsts, "are you sure you are okay?" before announcing he is boozing with his friends.

So now, after an exciting hour, I am back in my bed. And yes, I relocked all of my doors! Night night all!

Criminal Mastermind

So as I was driving home yesterday all sorts of lights on my dash started going off and my car did this real strange lurching thing and made some noises. Well, I'm no auto repairman, but I know enough to know when things like this happen to one's auto, one needs to get their auto to a shop. Thankfully, I do not own this POS Ford. My company owns this ford and they allow me, foolishly perhaps, to drive it an extraordinary amount of miles every day. So to remedy the situation I just called up my company and they arranged an auto service and rental car.


So this morning I drove my feeble vehicle to the dealership and was met by a lovely person from enterprise. First statement from the enterprise driver, I'm just going to need to see your license.... oh right, that. Well, I lost my license a few weeks ago.... I know, I know Bryan already explained its illegal to drive without a license. But trust me, when you get pulled over, not having a license on you is really the least of your problems, I'm an expert when it comes to these types of driving without a license scenarios.


So back to the story. Since enterprise wouldn't just take my word that I am a legal driver the Ford dealership drove me home. Upon arriving at our home it hit me that I had forgotten my keys in the car and I was locked out of the house.


Thankfully, this is another area of expertise for me, breaking and entering my home. After a few minutes it hit me that I could pop off the screen to a window, open said window from the outside by applying just the right amount of upward pressure, reach in to my home and unlock the door from the inside! VOILA! I'm in!


It worked. Upon breaking and entering I was able to order a new license that is being shipped to an apartment I lived in over 2 years ago because you have to go into the DMV if you are changing an address, which you are supposed to do within a month of moving. Details. The point being, the temporary license will allow me to pick up a car from enterprise!


All in all, I broke quite a few laws today, shame on me... Hopefully tomorrow will go much more smoothly!

Our vacuum sucks

I am boycotting vacuuming. Ever since those Kirby men came over I just can't bring myself to use our dumb eureka. Our eureka doesn't suck stuff up or leave those gorgeous vacuum lines in the carpet. So I'm not even bothering.


Bryan finally noticed my lack of interest in my former activity. When I explained my dissatisfaction he suggested that perhaps the vacuum needed a new air filter. Apparently, the air filter has never been changed in 8 years. So off he went to Lowe's with the goal of purchasing a new air filter so we could clean the house. He returned with this:

Ummmm. What does he expect me to do with this? 

Apparently the filter was $20. This lil car cleaning beauty was $45.99. HILARIOUS! Boy logic is very strange. 

Sun Valley!

Alright, I told you, you were going to be jealous of my February! Here is our last trip for February....Sun Valley Idaho!

The last weekend of February we gathered up our ski clothes, put Sofie in a bag and snuck her on a plane (seriously, Alaska Airlines wants to charge us 100 bucks each way to fly our 4 lb puppy, yeah... no thanks), and flew to Idaho. We spent 3 days skiing, eating, and laughing! The trip was an ABSOLUTE success. 

On Friday night, after a very full day on the hill, we went to Pioneer Restaurant for dinner. This steakhouse is a tradition of my family, not sure why, it just is. Bryan was "challenged" by my uncles to go for the Pioneer Cut of meat. The pioneer cut is 32 oz, thats 2 lbs of cow flesh! And let me just say, Bryan is not in training for this sort of meat eating experience. I like my proteins, all sorts at most meals. Bryan is the one in our family who suggests that we don't need to eat meat at each meal, or even, gasp, each day. So I was highly amused when he agreed to take on the Pio Cut. Sick...

Somewhat surprisingly, Bryan managed to make it through the entire slab of flesh. He spent the next three days feeling a bit ill, but quite pleased with himself for rising to the challenge. I spent the next 3 days feeling guilty, typically I purchase .5 lbs of meat for the 2 of us, I guess I have been shorting my poor husband and his love of cow flesh! 

Saturday, following skiing and Bryan's partial recovery from his meat coma, we took Bryan, Daniel and Blair (Kourtney's sweet friend) over to the Sun Valley Lodge. 

Obviously, this excursion speaks for itself!

A major outcome of this vacation is my family's new swear word. It has occurred to us that swear words seem to be losing meaning and impact in todays society. So we have come up with a new word that is taboo, if you will. This word is so naughty, I feel bad just typing it out and I urge you to please use this word sparingly. This new swear word is, lolyloopin! An acceptable use of the word, for example, occurred when sweet Blair fell skiing, BADLY bruising her hip. My dear father was concerned, but assuaged all of concerns. He explained that he and Blair would spend Sunday cleaning the condo and keeping each other comfortable. Right. Good. Excellent. Poor Dad, 3 daughters and has never once caught a break!

So, that's February, told you it was a really fun and busy month! We had a fantastic time with Grammy and our Levy family in Sun valley! It was super special to be with everyone and a great way to wrap up our fun month of celebrations and travel! 

Olympics Round Two

Bryan and I had such an amazing time in Vancouver with everyone that we decided we should go back for Bryan's birthday! This time, just the two of us. 

Its such a small world, we ran into some familiar Seattle faces, completely unplanned!

We also made some new canadian friends and met up with my old friend Brett

Needless to say, we just couldn't get enough of the Olympics! 

Olympic Spirit!

Ok, I'm a bit behind. We went to Tahoe and went skiing for Valentines day. It was fantastic! The best part is that we got to fly there. I love our road trips, but sometimes 14 hours gets a bit long...
While watching the FABULOUS opening games on TV in Tahoe it occurred to me that we could NOT miss out on the fun. Vancouver is only 120 miles from our house and it just makes no sense to be so close and not drive up! So I popped onto criagslist and found a 2 bedroom ghetto-fab condo for rent for just 300 hundred smackeroos! Olympics, here we come!
We drove up with our dear friends Travis and Dan. LeighAnn, Lindsey and our friend Emma also came up for the day. We didn't see any events, but we had so much fun seeing the crowds of people, walking in the streets and watching events in bars with people from all over the world!

We walked into the Olympics from our condo

Look at all the people!!!

Finding these mittens was a MAJOR accomplishment! Aren't they so cute?

This lady spotted Sofie and I when we were packing up. She thought Sofie was so sweet and she asked to take Sof's picture and put her in a magazine. Sofie and I are both used to this sort of attention, so we naturally agreed. Although the editor thought Sof would make a lovely ice dancer, I personally think she would excel at ski-cross!

 (click here) for the piece on Midget.

The Rings!!!

The Flame!

Back in the USA!