Spiders

When Cooper and I left for school this morning we noticed that it was a bit of a foggy day. In Seattle that means a pretty heavy dew. Because of the beads of dew, you could see all the spider webs. There were probably 10 or more of them in the evergreen bushes in front of our house, which you can kind of see here. They were so cool I had to go back in the house and get the camera to take pictures. Now we are NOT ones to get scared of spiders so naturally we were quite fascinated with all the webs and their shapes and intricacies. I find it interesting to observe the interesting shapes and patterns. They are just amazing. The weather was perfect for viewing them. We walked a few blocks farther and saw tons of webs all over the bushes everywhere. Then we saw a great big one, with a huge spider on it that I just had to get a picture of him. He was HUGE! But he was also beautiful, just sitting there waiting for something edible to come along. SO I had to snap a picture of him too. (Click on both of them to enlarge them to really appreciate how many webs there were on the shrubs and how big the Big Daddy was!)
It was such a cool morning to be out and about and it really made me think about how beautiful the earth is that God made for us. I was thankful for Cooper's excitement, enthusiasm and exuberance about the whole thing. There are so many beautiful things that we pass by every day without even considering. It also reminded me what I love about living in Seattle. Yes, it rains a fair amount here, and when it is not raining it is often gray. But...it is vibrantly green much of the year, the climate is generally mild (not too hot, not too cold). Tall mountains to remind me of Idaho but lots of water everywhere. Yes, there are spiders but there aren't any snakes and flies are almost non-existent. So today I am grateful for spiders and all the amazing things that are on this beautiful earth!

Spencer is a Teenager!

Yes my tall, skinny redhead is now a teenager! Spencer turned 13 on September 11. We went out for pizza on his actual birthday but saved the majority of his party for Saturday when the Chandler clan could be there. He was very excited to get two things on his list (he always has one prepared for every gift-giving occasion). He got and i-Pod and a gift certificate for Hollister, which he is out spending with Tucker as I type.
I am always so amazed at how different all my boys are from the other, with their own unique personalities and likes and dislikes. Spencer is my little chef. He loves to make desserts. He is especially good at chocolate chip cookies. He is very good a reading and following recipes so he will always eat well. (Unlike Tucker who may be living off Top Ramen). He is very artistic and has a great eye for color, details, shapes, sizes, etc. He is funny, a good student and has a great ear for music. Lest he seems to be nearing perfection, he also has a temper which has a very short fuse. When he gets in a snit, he has been known to shut himself in his room for a couple hours. Moody doesn't do justice to his moods swings at times. He is now several inches taller than me and within an inch or so if being taller than Tucker. He is probably about 4-5 inches taller than Tucker was at age 13. Perhaps he got the tall Chandler gene. Time will tell. He is a super kid and we are blessed to have him in our family.

1st Day & Wedded Bliss

Today was the 1st day of school for Seattle Public Schools. That means even more now than it did before since they are my employer. The last two weeks I have been working a little extra time to get ready for the big day. Well truth be told, I have been working alot of extra time. Will be looking forward to things getting a little calmer. We did make it through the 1st day though--both me and the boys. I always take a picture of the boys on the 1st day of school and the last day. So here is the one for this year. (I also took one of each boy alone.) I always like to compare the growth from year to year. I guess this one won't be all that helpful since Spencer is crouching. He is actually taller than me and was laughing yesterday about how short I was.

Today was also a banner day for Dennis and I. It was our 20th Anniversary! Yup that's right. We have been married for 20 years!! Scary. Even more scary, that's what we looked like on the big day 20 years ago. The kids find it hilarous that Dennis had hair. They think their dad looks really funny. I guess that would seem weird since they have only known him sans most of his hair. It seems pretty weird to think about being married 20 years, but then I kind of seems like we have always been married.

I guess the fact that we have Junior in high school and have 20 years means that we are officially old. Well at least that's what our kids think. Funny, other than a few extra pounds and a little less flexibility, I don't feel that different than I did 20 years ago.

Last Gasp of Summer

Here's another picture from Hawaii. This is at the aquarium on Maui. Apparently Tucker posted one of the aquarium pictures of him and his brothers on his My Space and somebody wrote back wondering who the unhappy, round-headed kid was and what was up with the sandal on one foot and the shoe on the other. They must have thought he was some strange kid! This is how Cooper had to walk around for a day or two to keep his foot wound from getting infected and keep the bandaging on. As I mentioned, we had to make a trip to the emergency room because he cut his foot on some coral within hours of our arrival in Hawaii. Luckily it did not keep him from having fun!
This picture of Spencer and Cooper is from the last day at the beach. They spent a long time playing together in the ocean. We spent about 3 hours at the beach (hence the sunburns we all got the last day). They raced each other on their boogie boards, swam, floated and lastly had a contes to see whose tower of sand would disapper in the waves first. They would build a tower then race back to the water to watch the waves pound their creations. It was amazing how well and long they played together! Gotta love the beach for brotherly love. Tucker spent the day in the shade with a t-shirt on because he had burnt his torso to a crisp the day before. Tanning Lotion 4 just isn't the protection you would think?!

We got in late Friday night. Saturday we had an extended Chandler family get together in Port Townsend which lasted the whole day. It was great to see Dennis' cousins from California. They are a great group of people. We didn't get home until after midnight. That left Sunday for doing laundry and getting ready to head for Idaho on Monday. At least Spencer, Cooper and I. Dennis and Tucker stayed in Seattle because they had to work.

We had a great time visiting my mom and dad. Cooper spent alot of time out in dad's woodshop. The cut and sanded, painted and had a blast. I love this picture of dad in his apron. We also went on a four-wheeler trip with dad up into the hills. It was wonderful to enjoy fresh veggies out of the garden every day. Who doesn't like new red potatoes and peas straight from the garden in cream sauce! We had it twice. We spent alot of time in the back yard under the shade tree just visiting. It was a lovely, relaxing visit. It was nice to see Allison and girls and Roberta and Gordon.

Cerese and I took the boys out fishing one evening. Or should I say casting. That's all it was. It wasn't that there were no fish. They were jumping like crazy! They just weren't interested. Well not in the hook anyway. The took plenty of bait. The boys thought it was great though and were actually pretty good at casting. We got bit by lots of mosquitos though.

We left Mackay a little early so we could spend time with Randy and family at Redfish. We wanted to see the damage done by the big wind storm. It was amazing how many treess were taken out by the wind! (See Celiacs blog for pics). We were only staying Thursday night so the boys and I slept in the back of the van. Amazing how much room there is with all the seats down! Well not quite as much as I thought when the boys started to heat up. I made Cooper sleep at the other end after only about an hour. It was cozy but it worked. It was nice to be able to hang with Randy and family. His grandkids are lots of fun. The boys had a good time with them all. The weather was not so hot (thunderstorms Thursday and overcast again on Friday) on Friday so we left early for Riggins and the river rafting expedition.

I think this picture probably looks similar to the one from last year. Not much changes from year to year but that's great because it is always fun! Cooper came on the raft trip for his first time. He thought it was great. We had a great trip downriver this year. Tucker made his first venture at going through a set of rapids in just his life jacket! Ah youth. Or should I say youthful boys! That's not anything I would have ever wanted to do--even when I was young.

So back to Seattle on Sunday and back to work on Wednesday :-( I guess it has to come to an end sometime. These past two weeks were awesome though!

Maui Memories

This will be a quickie as it is already 9pm and we are leaving early tomorrow morning for Idaho. This is one of cool things we did while in Maui. It was a 5 hour snorkeling trip to Molokini which is just a very tiny, horseshoe-shaped, uninhabited island just off the south end of Maui. It's a popular snorkeling spot so we were in the water with a few hundred snorkeling "buddies". Crowds nevertheless it was still really cool. We were in about 30 feet of water and could see all the way to the bottom. Once I got over not wanting to put my face in the water (which really is an issue for me) it was major cool. It is kind of freaky at first realizing that you are breathing under water. There was a lot of different types of tropical fish visible. Not as many as we were expecting but cool enough. It took about an hour to motor out to the island and we snorkeled for an hour or two. Spencer and I work wetsuit tops to help with sunburning issues--the water wasn't that cold of course. Then we took another boat ride to an area called Turtle Town--for the apparent plethera of turtles to be seen. Unfortunately it seems that the turtles are smarter than the tours. As soon as all those bodies hit the waters the turtles head for deep water. We did see one way down at the bottom. As soon as everyone got back in the boat, up pops a turtle about four or five feet from the end of the boat! Smart turtle. It was still really cool. Nobody got sunburned on this outing despite all the fears of sun glinting off the water making it likely.

We rented an underwater camera so we could get some cool pictures. They gave us a CD at the end of the cruise with all the pictures we took (so these are the only pictures we have right now--I haven't had a chance to download our camera yet and won't until we get back from Idaho). These next two underwater ones I took are from Turtle Town. I had finally gotten over that whole stick your head in the water phobia by then so my big thing was to try and get a picture of everyone under water. The first one is of Spencer just floating along on the top. It took a few tries to get it since just when I would get a good one he'd be too close or move the other way. Tucker was the only one who went all the way under however. He was the only one to swim the whole time with out the aid of a flotation device! (I didn't even get in the water without the float belt they had available.) All and all it was a pretty cool experience.

We had a great time in Maui. A cool family vacation which included a trip to the emergency room, a crazy lady and Mentos, sunburns on the last day, boogie boarding, a luau, watching the sun set and lots of relaxation. A trip we will all remember for sure. It's good to be home, even for a day or two. Will document more next time, plus the trip to Idaho!

Garage Sales

I have been wanting to clean out the furnace room (our general storage room) for months. I knew I wouldn't get around to it until the summer. Last week I finally went on a cleaning jag. After two days of work I got it finished (I also cleaned out the refigerater and the stove including moving them away from the wall an cleaning the floor underneath--eeeeuuuwww). In the process I thought why are we keeping all this stuff? I decided we were going to have a garage sale to get rid of things like Dennis' old bowling ball, my skis & boots and lots of other silly stuff that was just taking up space. (There's still plenty of stuff left in the furnace room.) We also made chocolate chip cookies and lemonade to sell. I told the boys any profit we made they could keep for the trip to Hawaii coming up.
We put signs up around the neighborhood and even listed the garage sale on craigslist. We held it this past Friday and Saturday from 9am to 1pm each day hoping that our junk might just be other people's treasure. Turns out our junk is pretty much other people's junk too. We did sell a few things each day but I would have to say that about half our profits came from the cookies and lemonade ($40--but still better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick as my mom would always say)! Still it was a fun adventure and something I have always wanted to try (although it is NOT on my "list").
It was very interesting to watch the different people that showed up from the "professional" garage salers to the neighbors just stopping by. Some people didn't even get out of their cars they just drove by slowly. Both days the weather was very nice so we just sat in lawn chairs and enjoyed the sunshine. I actually finished reading two library books.
Saturday afternoon when we were done, we just chucked the whole caboodle in the back of the van and hauled it to DI. I'm not sure all the work setting it up was worth the $40 profit. I don't think it is anything I will be doing again anytime soon or if I clean up the furnace room again. It does however always feel good to purge! Until I need something I got rid of that is!

Mama Mia!

Okay, I freely admit that I am and have always been a huge ABBA fan. Not too surprising considering I came of age at the same time they were internationally big (mid 70s to early 80s). In fact the ABBA Gold CD is one of my favorites to listen to whenever I have a long drive (like to Idaho). It really chews up alot of miles and keeps me awake because I am signing along. We have even endoctrinated the boys to like them too. By we I mean Dennis & I of course--although he may not be quite as big a fan as I am. There's alot of teenage/early 20s memories tied up in that group! Which by the way did you know that the name ABBA came for the first letter of the names of all the members--Agnetha, Benny, Bjorn and Anni-Frid (although she generally went by Frida)? I didn't, I just read it on Wikipedia.
A few months ago Dennis & I went with our good friends the Radfords to the 5th Avenue Theater in downtown Seattle to see the musical, Mama Mia! (written by Benny), that is based on their hit songs. I have to admit that we were a bit skeptical going in but boy was it fun! I laughed so hard in some parts that tears were streaming down my face! Part of the fun was knowing they were about to break out into song and trying to guess which one. Sometimes you could totally tell which one was coming and it was so campy & corny that you wanted to groan but you laughed instead. It was such a fun production complete with these amazing, tight, florescent-colored, spandex costumes at the end. It included a sing-along.--and boy did Peg and I sing along! The performers were excellent and did a great job.
So now there is a movie based on the muscial starring Meryl Streep. I don't know whether it will be as good as the theater production or as fun. I have my doubts. If you love ABBA I would totally recommend the stage production for sure. Peg and I have already vowed to go see the movie. It remains to be seen if it will live up to the stage production.
Meanwhile if you haven't listened to them lately or if you never have--you should (and I mean the original group--not all the really bad pop remakes that have been done in recent years!). It will make you smile