Seattle

Scott and I went to Seattle the second week in October. I had a conference presentation and Scott joined me so we could have time together. Addison spent time in SC with all of the grandparents and Michelle. We are so grateful that family was able to watch her so we could make the trip.

My presentation went really well. In fact, it was awesome! It was a packed room and all of the questions and comments were both thoughtful and insightful, which is always great! I also attended some great presentations.

Other than that Scott and I just took in Seattle. It is a pretty amazing place. They have compost cans along side trash cans and recycle bins in most of the restaurants and coffee houses. I drank so much delicious coffee. The weather was cold but not bad. It really rained one day but the rest of the days weren't so bad. We also enjoyed all the local beer - they have a lot of microbreweries. We started our trip and ended our trip at Pike Place Brewery wishing we could bring home some of their beers.

We started out early and arrived in Seattle at 10:30am. All of our planes were on time and we never felt rushed along the way. We then hoped on the lightrail and headed downtown to our hotel. We had to trek it up a pretty steep hill to get there but it was only a few blocks from the station. Another great thing about Seattle was that it didn't feel like a big city and we were able to walk most everywhere. After checking in we headed to Pike's Place Market, where we saw the famous fish toss and walked around the large market, which is a large farmers market for locals to bring their goods. There are several fish markets, fresh flower stands, produce stands, a cheese making place (Beechers), the first Starbucks, among other restaurants and stands. We grabbed lunch at Pike's Place Brewery and enjoyed a beer sampler and the holiday ale. We headed to Rock Bottom Brewery before heading back to the hotel and crashing pretty early.

Our favorite beer!

Peppers hanging throughout the market. I wish I could have taken one home!

The next day we decided to do some of the touristy indoor stuff since the weather was nasty. So we headed to the Space Needle, The Entertainment Music Project museum (Nirvana and Jimmy Hendrix exhibits), and the Pacific Science Center. Then we headed to the shopping area and had dinner at Mexico, where I had the best enchiladas ever!

View from the Space Needle. So cloudy!

In front of EMP Museum

Sculpture in the museum - it spanned the two floors 

Inside the Pacific Science Center

Naked Mole Rats - I was obsessed with them - so cool!

Butterfly house

Scott at PSC

The next day was my presentation. After the presentation we visited the waterfront area, played arcade basketball at the Bay Pavilion, and went to the aquarium. That evening we went to Rview (top floor lounge) in our hotel for a beer and then headed out to Triple Door for dinner.

Waterfront

Outside the museum

Scott and the jellyfish

this octopus was captured under the pier that the aquarium was on - she will be released back soon

The one clown fish kept chasing off the other one

View from Rview

View from Rview

View from Rview and a rainbow :)

On Wednesday I went to some of the presentations that morning. I really enjoyed hearing about similar research and discussing it with others. After the presentations we headed to Pioneer Square where we had lunch at Collins Pub (best food we had in Seattle!). We were exhausted after walking around for a few hours so we had dinner at the hotel and called it a night.

On our last day we went to the Fremont District. This was the only place we visited where we had to get a taxi and couldn't walk. We did a self-guided walking tour and had pie at PIE. We were in awe of the beautiful art and the house boats in this neighborhood! We headed back to Pikes Place Market and had chowder for lunch and then played more basketball at the arcade while we waited on the harbor tour. That night we packed and had dinner in our room. We had a long day of travel the next day and had the wedding weekend ahead so we didn't want to be more tired than necessary.

House boat on Lake Washington

House boat on Lake Washington

House boat on Lake Washington

Making a wish for world peace

Making a wish for world peace

Dreamer of World Peace

Dinosaurs

Controversial Statue of Lenin

Yummy pie!

Very Berry Pie

View of the city skyline from under the bridge

Fremont bridge

Lake Washington

View from the cruise

View from the cruise

Mt. Rainier - only visible 90 days a year - we were out on a sunny day!

From the boat

Sea lions

Starbucks corporate office

Airplanes!

Last Saturday Scott took Addi to a BBQ and Airplanes event at the airport where they ate french fries and watched the airplanes. That kid LOVES french fries and of course anything with ketchup. Here are some pictures Scott took. He said they had a blast. I was at home working on class stuff so I wouldn't be behind when we are out of town. 

That morning Addi and I make chocolate chip pancakes (whole wheat with dark chocolate) and they were amazing! I am teaching her how to whisk and measure and cook  :) We drizzled them with  maple syrup that Vanessa and Sylvie brought us from Vermont. 

Whisking for bubbles :)

Saturday before the game. Scott and I had a birthday party so we were getting ready and waiting on Natalie. She wants to wear her Clemson shirt everyday so when Saturday comes, she gets really excited that she can :) We only have one and they are hard to come by down here. 

Addi's 2 year Photos

We had these pictures taken in late August. Dina did a great job, and Addi and I had so much fun! We had gotten a Groupon at Dina Ivory Photography and were very impressed with Dina and her work! The scanned pictures don't do justice compared to the prints we ordered.

Caught in the moment...she is even holding her little dog friend. The little dog is hiding behind the flowers in the rest of the pictures

Our sweet baby girl

The chair and this pose were Addi's idea :o)

She had just taken the pearls off when Dina snapped this picture.

Dylan turns 10!

Dylan turned 10 this past Sunday. We can't believe it has been 10 years since we got her. We picked her out from an animal shelter in Anderson, SC when she was only 6 weeks old. It was one of the best decisions we ever made. She is the best dog in the world and a valuable part of our family.

First trip to Mimi's house November 2001

Creekside, Clemson, SC: November 2001

Concord, NC May 2005

Concord, NC November 2005

Tallahassee, FL September 2011 (Today)

Boston Red Sox in St. Pete, FL

I got Scott tickets to see the Red Sox play down in the Tampa area for his 30th birthday. The series was this past weekend and we went to the Saturday and Sunday games. We had a blast although they didn't play well, especially Sunday. Thank you to Brandy and Natalie for watching Addi so we could have a night away. We haven't gone out overnight with just the two of us since we went to New Orleans over a year and a half ago so it was nice to have time to ourselves. Of course we talked about Addi half the time, but that is to be expected.

Outside the dome

Saturday seats - We had great seats and could see EVERYTHING!

At Ferg's after the game

Brunch at Fresco's on the Bay

Cool trees :)

The same trees up close - they are huge and really neat!

 Best gelato ever! Visited there a few years ago and twice while in town this past weekend - dark chocolate and salted caramel were my two favorite flavors. Yum!

Walked the Pier Sunday morning before the game.

Pelicans everywhere! Even posing by the sign. 

View from our Sunday seats - much closer to the field but couldn't see everything. 

Big Poppy and the weird Rays mascot giving each other a hard time and goofing off right in front of us before the game.

Addi Updates

Addi cut another molar recently and now has 19 teeth! We have full blown conversations with her pretty much all day. The other morning she looked at me and said, mommy, you stay right here, okay. I'm going to go tell Dylan morning in other room and will be right back. You stay right here. "Here" was her room, by the way. Each morning we wake up to her talking to her toys in her crib and then she calls us to come get her. We usually hang out in her room before getting ready. Then of course we feed Bubbles, turn off the humidifier if it is on, and sometimes read a few books.

One of her new favorite things to do it wait for us to count for her to finish something. We started telling her that once we got to 5, 10, 20, etc., we were all finished with whatever we were doing (e.g. when I get to 5, I am going to turn the water off). This is helping her to get a concept of time I think, and she doesn't get mad or frustrated as often when we stop doing something she likes. So now she asks us to count to X when she is doing things like putting her milk away (we count while she drinks, and then she places it in the fridge or on the counter depending on if it is morning or night).

Her nighttime routine is pretty much the same. We brush teeth, read books (sometimes she reads, sometimes we read, sometimes we both read or take turns reading the same book), say prayers, and rock and cuddle. She has started to pick up on how we read books and is mimicking the emotions that we use. So when we read a part and put excitement into it, she does the same when she reads it. Or when the sad chicken sadly says cluck, cluck...she says it in a sad voice. She still loves pointing out the shapes, colors, and objects in the books and is asking us what things are although she knows most of the time. She is doing what we do :)

We do all sorts of things throughout the day when she isn't in school. We just got a Groupon for another museum that has a fun kiddie area and are looking forward to spending time there. Once it cools off a bit we will start to go back to the outdoor museum so she can see the animals. Of course the park is still one of her favorite places to be.

Here are a few pictures from the other week.

The croup

By the time we got home Monday from SC, Addi was so hoarse we couldn't understand her and could barely hear her. That night we heard her wheezing and she had a fever of 102 so the next morning we headed to the doctor. Scott took off work since I was teaching and couldn't get off at the last minute. We weren't that concerned thinking she had a cough, and were surprised to find out that she has the croup (upper airway) and the start of a lower airway infection. They treated it pretty aggressively with two shots of steroids at the doctor's office, a nebulizer with albuteral (still on that 1-2 times a day), oral antibiotics (for lower airway bacterial infection since croup is usually viral), and oral steroids. Then our doctor called us that evening to check on Addi and let us know again that if she struggles to breath to get her to the E.R. At her check-up the next day she was already improving and the wheezing was done. She still hated the nebulizer (screamed bloody murder the day before) but with M&Ms and giving the medicine to her cow instead of her she slowly became okay with it. We would have her hold cow and breath it in without having to hold it to her face. Her cough took a few more days to subside but she was back in school on Friday and hanging out with Brandy and Natalie over Saturday and Sunday when we were out of town. Now she will hold the nebulizer to her face between giving it to cow (and now baby). She caught on pretty quickly that she was getting the medicine while Cow got it. Of course they all get an M&M for being so good :)

Here is a picture of Brandy took while keeping her this past weekend.  You can see Cow's head on her right. I am so proud of Addi for actually wearing the mask!