the longest post . . . . ever

Better just get that out front- this may be long. I finally downloaded photos from our new camera and can get caught up on several weekends. The girls and I are home sick, just like half the families we know. I am surprised they didn't cancel church (lol). It was amusing (not really) to see the progression of the "plague" throughout the week. Facebook updates and blog posts about how sick everyone is escalated to emails asking for people to cover for them to phone calls this morning that ended with "oh, we are not going to church either . . . "
We've got the endless coughing at night for the previous few nights that turned into nasty fevers and malaise and coughing all day today. Despite this culminating in 2 toddlers putting themselves out of commission on the couch behind me, we had a banner weekend. The girls enjoyed their second birthday party in 2 weeks (yes, I know now they probably shouldn't have gone) while I helped run a bake sale in Magnolia to benefit the FFCIN. We threw it together in about 4 days and were hopeful we would make several hundred dollars. An elementary school in Queen Anne neighborhood had a very well advertised bake sale last weekend and raised $1,500 for their Haiti organization! We were amazed by people's generosity and could not believe when we counted the money that we made $1,320! One big and rough looking older man walking 2 little dogs came up to the table when I was alone. He choose 2 chocolate cupcakes and as I bagged them he told me they looked like they were worth $25 a piece and put a 50 dollar bill in our donation jars. I thanked him profusely and he told me he had met one of the other volunteers the night before handing out fliers. She has 4 kids, was carrying her 1 yr old and he was just amazed by her. Another customer who bought something as we closed also mentioned meeting her. She also came the day of the bake sale and helped, along with several other families with kids. The kids held posters on the corners and directed traffic to the table. It was such a great group effort, so many people came with baked goods, it was AMAZING!! Some emails circulated to Magnolia groups and we had people arrive with platters of items whom we had never met. It was so much fun, despite my cough and being drugged up, I haven't had that good of a day in a long, long time.

Since the 16th, our lives have been mostly engrossed in house hunting, mostly in West Seattle where we can actually afford a house. I have been over there almost daily with our agent looking and looking. She cracks me up, one house we drove up to and she said "you CANNOT move here, just keep on driving". I stopped waiting for everything in this house to be put away and took pictures for those who have been asking. I guess I don't have a picture of the outside of the house.

Stephen has built a couple of fires, it's nice.

the kitchen space where I let the girls knead bread or stir pancakes

the oven has a microwave "drawer" as the top half of it, and I love it! we got rid of our microwave, darn it all.

the other side of the kitchen

separate dining room! big bonus for us

looking at the living room from just inside front door

Stephen made a very clever computer corner with boxes under the printer

the hall as you come in the door, staircase leads to lower apt and houses our storage right now

girl's bedroom, Stephen loves the berber rug in there

Part of our room, yes- we kept the old lazy-boy (lol!)

After an inspiring Curious George episode, the girls insisted on making hats of their own. Odessa dug through the garbage for stuff to put on hers- thus the toilet paper and toothpaste tubes.

this tree outside our bedroom has had one lone pink blossom on it for over a week

Ava had an "Up" themed party, what a great cake, huh?

One game was stuffing each other with balloons, so funny

the girls have been playing together so well lately

they like to act out movies like Mulan or Aladdin

We were lucky one day was dry and "warm" enough to go to the park. We've had an unusually warm January

We have also had some fun meals with friends. Two weekends ago, my friend Hermes (from the flight home from the Philippines) invited us over for a Filipino lunch. The girls got to walk his roommate's dog and were in HEAVEN. It was hilarious.
Last Sunday Paul, Mark, Mike and Julia came over for dinner. Stephen works with Paul and Mike and they helped us move. Once everyone had accepted, I got an email from Stephen at work reminding me that they are all vegetarians and Julia is allergic to gluten and dairy and chocolate. "What have I gotten myself into?!" I thought. But thankfully Indian food came to the rescue and we enjoyed 3 different dishes with brown rice, a spinach salad by Paul and gluten free coconut macaroons with mango sorbet for dessert. Finishing the night with herbal tea made the dinner party seem really formal!
Hopefully we will all get better soon this week and maybe we'll even put an offer in on a house! we'll keep you posted . . . .