I have a dream

Lately we've been talking about Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks and of course, Barack Obama! Elections, holidays, assemblies and inauguration... When I asked Mina what she knew about MLK Jr. she stated that "he knew that love could make us strong".

Last Friday was our very first Martin Luther King, Jr school assembly. Check out this video!

Family tries to live without plastic

Family tries to live without plastic

This article was part of our dinner conversation tonight...the environment, consumption, food processing... I think that our family might make a chart of our plastic consumption per week. Half because this would be a fun little project for little fans of charting.

One related website that i love is resusablebags.com This is the place that we got Mina's cloth lunch bag and a bunch of their organic cotton muslin produce snack bags. I LOVE LOVE LOVE these snack bags. We also have a collection of the mesh produce bags. Their only hazard is that they often get lost in the assortment of cloth shopping bags. I love them when i can find them!

My "purse essentials" also include two ultra-compactable Envirosaxs. These have really made a difference. Handy when you need just a bag or two, and especially helpful if the cloth bags are outside in the car. In the parking lot at PCC, they have a sign that reads "a bag in the hand is worth two in the car". I agree.

Snowshoeing at Hyak

Mina's new shoeshoes finally came! She was RATHER excited to get out on the trail in them. We went out to Hyak sno park for the first run. We were out for three hours. It was awesome.

Mina on the snowshoe path and Rich in the middle of the XC ski trail.

By the lake.

Potty break!

Forget the alarm clock!

Right before the winter break, we had five snow days. Five! During that time, the kids and i stayed at home and didn't leave the house in the car for a solid week. We left by foot, snowshoe, ski and sled. It was awesome. Rich put chains on the car and went out twice for gear and groceries. Once the snow had largely melted, and then into the official school break, we stocked up on fun family outings. One of our last activities on our family advent calendar was making the "what to do on the winter break" list. We went to the zoo, to BBG, the children's museum, the tea shop, winterfest, family swimming, and got out to the mountains. It was a very fun first real "winter break" and we savoured each of the extra five days. I didn't mind the respite from awful thing called the alarm clock as well.


Another highlight outing was going to PacSci to see Lucy, the oldest, most complete, and best preserved adult fossil of any erect-walking human ancestor. She is 3.18 myo (million years old). It was a great exhibit both in terms of content and wonder, and great for kids of the age of five and up. Mina loved the audio headset. At the exhibit, a PacSci employee came around with a measuring stick and told Mina that she was taller than Lucy. That really made an impression on Mina, as well as all the facial hair on this early human/ape gal. They have some cool displays showing how to measure the fluid capacity of the brain, walking abilities of apes/humans/Lucy, how fossils are made, and how paleontologists deal with a fossil puzzle. Not to mention little Lucy herself!


Biking around the zoo. New Year's Day. It was somewhat cold and quiet but we had great views of the animals.

And Rich really wanted to make fresh pasta over the holidays! Mina really got into this. She is a great bagel, tortilla and now pasta maker.

My New Recipe Box

I'm in love again. OneNote is his name. It is a digital file folder system of-sorts. I've always wanted something just like this. Right now i'm using it to organize my recipe collection - recipes that i have scattered across my machine in email, word files and scans. After this, i'll slowly spend the time adding in all the loose paper recipes that i have collected in old photobooks. The recipe collection is currently a little crazy, like something else in the house.

New Years Eve Owling

Inspired by a new family favourite, Owl Moon, we went out owling on New Year's Eve day. We found other beautiful things along the way.

We found some lingering snow hiding in the forest.

We had listened to some owl calls that morning. So we found our owl voices too.

To the delight of all of us, especially our owl-loving son, we did see an owl on our way home. This was by sheer luck, and the fact that a group of birds were harassing it. As Miles will tell you with hand gestures, it swooped "right" by his head. I think that we also found a fun new New Years Day tradition.

We've been saving the Halloween M&Ms for such an occcasion. We made Owl Hoot cookies to complete the adventure!

New Years Fondue! YUM!

Happy 2009!

Lights at BBG

BBG

Seattle Winterfest

Once the snow had cleared the area, we made a special trip to go drive the trains at Winterfest.

The boys driving the trains.

Christmas 2008

Rich gave Mina the third book in the Faraway Tree series. He read these stories as a boy in New Zealand and has enjoyed sharing the tales with Mina. This particular book, with the original illustrations, came from Australia.

Christmas morning! Check out the loaves of bread! On Christmas Eve, Rich and i enjoyed a fun night cooking and baking some treats for the holidays.

Here's an email that we sent to a local DJ when he asked everyone what we were cooking.

From: Annie RL [mailto:-----] Sent: Wednesday, December 24, 2008 9:37 PMTo: 'dj@kexp.org'Subject: Are we cooking?

Love the tunes. It is keeping us going, as we’re not quite done yet!

Here’s what we’ve been up to:

4 loaves of whole wheat “hearth bread” (2 loaves baked so far)
3 loaves of Stollen (waiting to be baked)
A dozen “ginger people”
2 dozen home-made flour tortillas
1 batch of home-made mole (a sauce filled with chocolate, nuts and chiles)
1 dozen cinnamon rolls
* Bruschetta romesco
* Shrimp corn cakes
* Sea-salted edamame beans

*eaten already

Tomorrow, we’ll be having an Ethiopian feast, with Injera bread and a bunch of sauces. Mmmm. That should make tomorrow afternoon pretty busy.

Annie and Rich – listeners (and members). Mina and Miles already tucked into bed, looking forward to tomorrow.

The DJ mentioned us on air, stating that we were cooking up a storm and that we must be big people based on all the baked goods! He told us not to be embarrassed, admitting that he was a big guy himself.

Checking out some new books. Mina is hooked on The Boxcar Children. Thanks Uncle Hot Dog and Auntie Becca!

We have finally entered into the land of (tiny pieces) lego. Mina played with this for about four hours! Thanks Phil and Leanne!

Miles and his digger shirt. This was what he really wanted from Santa. And Thomas underwear!

The Monday before Christmas, Miles, on his own, decided that he wanted to say goodbye to diapers/training pants. Miles basically made a night and day switch. I'm not sure if it could have been any easier. This was a nice little present for Mamma!

Our Christmas dinner -Ethiopian food! This was our third or fourth Christmas having homemade Ethiopian food on injera bought at a local Ethiopian market. You use the injera to scoop the sauces - the kids loved this part and the holiday crackers!

Mina, dressed in a new scarf, dipping into dinner. Thanks Grandma and Grandpa Lander!

Bedtime in the Xmas jammies.

Peace, joy, love and hope to you.