Adventures in Glass, Houston, Chicago & Madison

Sean and I have created a bucket list for all of the things that we want to do before we leave the Seattle area. Sean had never been to the glass museum so we took a trek down to Tacoma on Memorial Day. The museum had a new fun exhibit about creating glass depictions of children's drawings. I was really fun to see the crazy stuff they came up with. We also took a stroll across the bridge that houses a bunch of Dale Chihuly's work. Here are a few of our favorite photos.





After the museum, we hit the Old Spaghetti Factory and headed back home to pick up my suitcase. Off to Houston for the week for me. My co-worker, Jake & I got to take an awesome red-eye that was an hour and a half late leaving. Then when we got to Houston, Jake managed to take a bag that looked like his, but was actually not his off of the luggage carousel. Off to a stellar start, but the week smoothed out from there and the people at the facility were very nice to us. Always a pleasant surprise given that some of them know they are being laid off. While I was bumming around Houston one evening near the Galleria mall I ran into this crazy big water feature. Doesn't seem too eco-friendly in the arid desert of Texas.


From Houston I flew direct to Chicago to meet up with Sean. To celebrate all that is Chicago, we had a delicious deep dish pizza on Friday night. We spent Saturday morning exploring the city. It was SO hot and humid. I've never been more thankful for a light weight cotton shirt. On a major plus side, I was able to sport flip flops all day. Whoo Hooo to that! We hit the Cloud Gate and had drinks at the Hancock building (which has the most amazing view from the women's restroom on the 92nd floor).




Then it was off to Amtrak where we took the train to Milwaukee. We took a quick drive through the city (beautiful park and downtown area) and then it was off to Madison. In Madison we had awesome Mexican food for dinner; no I'm not being sarcastic, it was seriously good. We drove around the UW campus and walked off a little of our dinner by going out on Picnic Point. The capital building looks pretty impressive on the lake at night. The next day we went to Church in the morning to meet the locals, and then spent the remainder of the day walking around the downtown area and the UW-Madison campus. The campus is right on a large lake, with their own walking/biking paths, docks, and terraced student union that abuts the water. It's a beautiful area, and the sunsets over the lake are really nice. I flew back to Seattle the next day, while Sean remained in the area until Tuesday night.

Adventures Return to Arizona

So the Friday after Sean & I get back from Easter, one of the techs that works in my area comes to my office. He wanted to confirm that I had his vacation scheduled on my calendar and that the time off was approved, etc. Anyway, in confirming that he was going to be out, I noticed that there was a meeting blocking out 3 days of the week after next. What, I don't remember accepting a 3 day meeting?!? Turns out I had accepted a meeting request on Monday because the meeting organizer had sent it right as he also sent a prework phone conference. So I thought one was just a room update or call in number update to the other. (Those of you who use Microsoft Outlook can understand what I'm saying.) Nope, turns out I had accepted a 3 day meeting in ARIZONA. Good to know a week in advance. :) So I clicked my heels and booked my tickets.

It was nice to go back to AZ so soon after our Easter visit. I flew down the weekend before my meeting to visit all of my Tucson family. Nicole was still there visiting from Kansas, and Afie's boys were still playing little league.

It was fun to watch the T-ball game and hang out in the bleachers at Udall Park. It reminded me of my childhood summers taking dance and pottery at the rec center there. I decided to be the "fun aunt" and buy a little love from my youngest niece and nephew. I took them to the snack bar to let them have what ever they wanted. I got licorice for Nicole's boy and Afie's princess announced that she wanted a "rainbow snowcone," only when she got her snow cone she broke down in tears, "I wanted ice cream." Ok fine, I'm fun aunt I don't care so I pull out more cash, "um yeah can we get an ice cream cone." The nice lady at the snack bar totally just switched us and handed us a drumstick. Being the thick headed childless lady that I am I hand the packaged drumstick to Princess S. Crying, " but I wanted ice cream." Me, "That is ice cream, let me open it for you." Crying still or again, I can't remember, "I don't want this kind" I know this is the kind she wants only she doesn't like the chocolate on the ice cream so she saunters back to the bleachers like I've totally neglected her with my willingness to purchase two snacks from the snack bar. Once seated I proceed to wipe all of the chocolate off of the drumstick ice cream producing a VANILLA ICE CREAM! and a grin from ear to ear on her face. Sweet, "Fun Aunt" title is still in check. :)



I love the picture of these two brothers walking off to the snack bar. How cute are they?


The tickets are redeemable for snacks after the game. Or as Afie's oldest says, "this is the reason I play T-ball!"


Anyway, I had a great visit and a productive trip for work.

Adventures in Skagit Valley

This weekend was beautiful. We had the car washed and went up to the Tulip Festival in Skagit Valley. We've gone every year for 4 years- pretty crazy how the years are stacking up on us. The drive in the convertible was fabulous. Sean was nice and drove so I could take a nap and sunbathe. We parked and walked to two main fields. It was nice to spend the afternoon in the sun wandering up and and down the paths just marveling at all the flowers. As is tradition, Sean took a bunch of pretty pictures. A few of our favorites are below.

Adventures in Arizona

We decided to go to Arizona for Easter. We were super excited to see our nieces and nephews & their folks. The kids were so cute and fun to play with.

We enjoyed all kinds of festivities including Easter egg dying. We had a great time. Sean created some pretty masterful eggs, including a Charlie Brown Shirt, a sunset over water and a organic egg with roots and trees.



As is tradition at the Smith household we had a color-coded Easter Egg Hunt. Each child is assigned a color and they are only allowed to collect their color. This means that each child gets the same number of eggs. Very democratic of grandma, don't you think? My color was always pink as a child. Always best to be the youngest. :) This year Sean and I helped with the hiding. The color coding is fun for that as well because you can hide the older kids' eggs in tougher spots. You can see that Grandma has expanded to color coordinated clothing as well; we felt very left out because we did not get the memo on wearing blue.





It was a beautiful weekend with highs in the upper 70's to low 80's, just right for us Seattle folks. Amy's parents had set up a course for bikes in the backyard complete with two tunnels made from the boxes that their new living room chairs came in. Consequently the kids were ecstatic about riding bikes/trikes and scooters all weekend. Amy was up early on Saturday with Denver (4). He informs her that he is Lighting McQueen and gets her to cheer him on as he debuts through the tunnel. A few rounds of the track he gets stuck in the gravel. He turns around and says, "Aunt Amy, you're Mater." In other words, come fish me out of the gravel. (I laughed so hard as I got him back on to the bricks.) Kids are hilarious.

We have started Geocaching in Seattle. It is a lot of fun and takes us on walks to areas that we might otherwise miss out on. We thought it would be fun to share our treasure hunting with Amberlyn (7) and Denver. They were so excited! We snagged 3 easy finds and dropped of 2 travel bugs. Amberlyn loved signing the logbook and picking the girliest treasure. Denver was content to be "Treasure Hunting" and settled on just a marble that he could add to his Mousetrap game at home.


Amberlyn hadn't packed tennis shoes so she was sporting flip flops. Of course 2 of the caches were in a wash, which had really loose dirt and cacti, so Amy carried her most of the way. After a good walk into the wash Amberlyn, who is on Amy's back says, my back hurts. Again, Amy had a great laugh. Here she is hefting around a 7 year old and the 7 year old says her back hurts. Priceless.

March Adventures

On March 17 we celebrated St. Patrick's Day and Sean's birthday! Sean was all decked out in his favorite color and so were his gifts. We kept the green theme going with green chili enchiladas for his birthday dinner and a green mint ice cream cake with a brownie crust. Yum!


Amy spent the month on quick trips for work. She went to Phoenix late February and stayed until early March. She was able to visit her friends Adrian and Melanie and family in Tucson the weekend before and enjoyed nice weather throughout the trip. She also spent a quick Friday and Saturday in Utah for work and was able to visit Sean's mom and Oma. It was fun to catch up with everyone on both sides of the family.

In early March Sean helped organize a large science outreach event for local kids. Called the Brain Awareness Week Open House, it was held at a local museum and included nearly 700 students. Sean's role was to organize UW undergrad and graduate student volunteers and to prepare all the materials needed for their booths teaching kids about the brain. You can see more info and photos here and here.

This past month Sean also has a meeting with his PhD committee who gave him their okay to graduate. We're still working on the final timeline, but soon-to-be Dr. Sean will be walking in the June commencement, and then probably defending and submitting his dissertation later that month.

Hawaiian Adventures

With all the photos and movies we took of our adventures in Hawaii, we thought we'd try posting them on another website. Check out these links. Be sure to scroll down the page to see our photos, videos, and descriptions.

Big Island Adventure

Kauai Adventure

• Warning, there's background music if you play the slideshow.

Adventures for the New Year

Sean has two labs that he works in. It just so happens that one of them has an awesome view of the Space Needle. For those of you who don't live in Seattle, the Space Needle does a good fireworks show every New Year that is timed to music. So in the interest of staying warm, we watched the show from Sean's downtown lab. We arrived down there around 10:30 and played a good game of Dominion (I think I won) and just before midnight we broke out the sparkling cider, crank radio (hooray for our 72 hour kit getting used), and crackers (mini little gifty things that make a popping noise when you break them open.) HAPPY NEW YEAR!

We even sported the crowns that came in our crackers for a New Year's photo.

Christmas

We had a great Christmas together! We woke up at a reasonable hour and enjoyed our pretty tree with pretty presents under it for the last time. We opened gifts and then spent most of the day video chatting with family. Our nieces and nephews are super cute! Sean made a yummy cheesecake that we took over to some friends in the late afternoon. They were nice enough to invite us over for delicious appetizers and a scrumptious dinner.

12 Dates 'til Christmas

So I thought I would be all crafty and make up 12 dates for Sean and I to enjoy between Thanksgiving and Christmas. We didn't end up making it to all of them but it was still fun.

12 Drummers Drumming- We watched the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade on TV and ate orange rolls.

11 Pipers Pipping- We went and watched the day after Thanksgiving Macy's Parade in Seattle.




10 Lords a Leaping- We were going to go downtown to Swing Dance with live Big Band Music, but we were too busy to make it.


9 Ladies Dancing- We watched ladies singing on the Christmas ships.



8 Maids a Milking- We went to the Holiday Pops Concert with the Seattle Symphony with the plan to get hot chocolate afterward (we didn't end up getting the milk after all)



7 Swans a Swimming- We went swimming at the Greenlake Community Center (no worries heated indoor pool)


6 Geese a Laying- We laid around and watched the classic Santa movie.


5 Golden Rings- We were going to go to the Seattle Center and skate on their ice rink, but again too busy.


4 Calling Birds (Did you know the real words are Colly Birds; Collys are like crows)- We were going to go to Point Defiance Zoo Lights in Tacoma, but it kept being too stinking cold. I don't make a habit of wandering around and looking at Christmas lights when it is in the 30's outside.

3 French Hens- We were going to go out for a nice French Dinner, but that's still in our future plans.


2 Turtle Doves- We went around and looked at Christmas lights in my 2 Seater Car with the top down. :) Until it started sprinkling :(


1 Partridge in a Pear Tree- We gathered as the Georgis around our Christmas Tree and read the Christmas Story.

We kind of made up for some of our missed dates...

We went downtown for the Figgy Pudding Caroling Contest. It was awesome, picture all different caroling groups along the street of downtown and the streets are closed off from traffic. It was fun to hear all of the different groups and all of the money donated goes to feeding the homeless downtown.



We met up with a large group from church and saw the Gingerbread houses at the Sheraton that are designed by local architecture firms and baked by local chefs. We also checked out the Christmas windows. Lots of fun with other peoples kiddos.



We also splurged and shelled out the cash to go to the Harry Potter Exhibit while it is here in town at the Pacific Science Center. Sean got to get sorted by the Sorting Hat on our way to Hogwarts. He is in the house of Ravenclaw, with his brains does this really surprise anyone? We also explored the rest of the Pacific Science Center, including the Tropical Butterfly Room.



Our friends Holly and Nathan invited us over to make gingerbread houses. We did a decent job of reconstructing the Bern Switzerland Temple.



It was a busy holiday season, but we enjoyed each and every adventure!