Spring Break in Washington

Our niece, Lilinoe, was born at the end of 2019, so we booked a trip to see her in the spring of 2020. That trip got canceled + we’re finally using our credits to visit. Lilinoe is already 2 years old! Happy to meet her + see Liz, Jordan + Mahealani, who we haven’t seen for almost 3 years.

Leaving Chicago

Touchdown in Seattle

Breakfast our first morning at Jordan + Liz’s house.

Me + Lili

Mahea + Makai

Mahea + Lili

Makai and his cousins Mahealani + Lilinoe. And meeting their puppy, Betty!

And speaking of Betty…

Makai and I totally fell for this pup and wanted to take her home!

She is a Boston Terrier that Liz got for Jordan for his birthday, making her only a few months old!

We arrived in Seattle on a Thursday night, got our rental car and drove up to Everett, Washington, where we had a hotel room. Since it was late we went right to bed. The next morning we went to Jordan and LIz’s house for breakfast (see photos above) and then spontaneously decided to take a ferry somewhere.

Makai had never been on a ferry up here (he has been on an NYC ferry).

We drove to Edmonds and took the ferry across to Kingston where we had lunch at Westside Pizza + ice cream + played in the Port of Kingston Kiwanis Park before taking the ferry back across.

On the way home from the ferry, we stopped at the Funko Headquarters store in Everett. We’d told Makai about this before the trip and he was SOO excited.
Aside from all the figures for sale, they had a lot of fun displays of the characters they sell. Me with Batman and Robin.

Ironman!

Really cool Harry Potter display!

Disney princess castle.c

Captain America and Stan Lee.

Star Wars

Godzilla

I don’t know how each of these kids finally decided on one figure each! There were THOUSANDS to choose from! Mahea looked at every cat in the store: Mewtwo from Pokemon, Hello Kitty, Crookshanks from Harry Potter, the Cheshire Cat, etc.

Makai chose Captain America, Mahea got Chester Cheetah and Mahea got Hello Kitty.

This is Liz and Jordan’s second house in Lake Stevens. Dallas had visited them at their first place, but I never had been there. We were curious about the actual lake that Lake Stevens was named for, so Jordan took us to Lundeen Park and drove us around the whole lake.

Swimming at the Snohomish (neighboring town) aquatics center. It was SO nice for a public pool! Makai went down a big water slide about 10 times! Liz and Jordan took Mahea, Makai and Lili in. I stayed on the side.

After swimming the kids were soo hungry so we went to Blazing Onion. Liz and Lili went home and Dallas brought his parents to meet us.

Jordan and Liz had a barbecue and some of their friends and Liz’s family came over. I don’t know why I don’t have any photos except this one of Makai picking up McFurry. He was squirming around and Makai yelled “OW, MY NUTS!!!” in front of the whole BBQ. Luckily no one seemed to hear!

Liz and Jordan also have 3 goats that they rescued: Marley, Fig and Peso! Makai LOVED them. Every day he visited them in the barn and fed them different plants to see what they would eat.


Makai liked to ride around on this motorized tractor. He called it his “Joe Deer” and because he can never be wrong, referred to it as that for the whole trip.

Liz took us for a walk by their house.

That same day there was a random freak hail storm that was super localized today! Liz and Kathy were at a store not far away and there was no hail at all! Kind of fun since it wasn’t big enough to do damage.

WHO COULD IT BE??

Jordan and Dallas went to the casino for a while at night. Since Easter was around the corner, the rest of us decided to dye some eggs. Liz and Kathy dumped the leftover dye in the yard and the next day we found an egg out there too!

Dallas and I took Makai in to Seattle to show Makai some of the common tourist sites. It was fun to explore. I hadn’t been to Seattle for a very long time.

The first thing we did was get lunch at The Athenian. Chowder! Oysters! Fish + Chips! (Makai loves fish + chips now. We just had to tell him it was “fish sticks” like he has at school!) We ate very light because we knew there would be a lot of good things to eat at the market!

We walked through Pike Place Market where the vendors were selling all their wares. We saw the flying fishes being thrown and then we walked out through the gum alley and the gum wall! Dallas was SO grossed out!

We next visited the Seattle Aquarium where Makai’s favorite exhibits were the ones with the otters (both river and sea otters). He also told a volunteer “Me and my dad are from Hawaii” and talked about the tropical exhibit and the Hawaiian species there.

Dallas REFUSED to go on The Seattle Great Wheel and instead opted to sit at a bar in the market and drink a beer! Makai was scared, but in a fun way, he said.

Before we left, we stopped at Beecher’s and split a grilled cheese and some mac n cheese, which were both amazing. Jordan and Liz highly recommended Beecher’s and it did not disappoint. They also recommended Piroshky Piroshky, a Russian bakery. We got two pastries to bring to dinner.

For dinner we visited Tandy and Chris on Mercer Island. They were moving literally in a couple days (just down the street), but were still nice enough to have us over and order pizza. Makai and Dallas met up with Tandy recently in Chicago when she was visiting for work, but the last time any of us had seen Chris or the kids was when I was pregnant and we visited them in Japan! Makai instantly made two new friends! Kanoa and Makai are close in age and have the same silly, punny sense of humor!

Jordan took us to Katsu Burger in Lake Stevens. We all really liked it. I had the Fried Chicken Katsu Curry which had curry powder, American cheese, tonkatsu sauce and curry.

After lunch, Jordan took Makai, Dallas and I to BobaKhan Toys. The store is packed with comics, toys and collectibles! They were all loving it! Makai was so overwhelmed when we asked him to pick something. He ended up getting an Avengers graphic novel, a Captain America pin and a magnet by ClockworkArt (Captain America reimagined as a cat).

Makai spent most nights sleeping in Grandma + Grandpa C’s room at Jordan and Liz’s house, while Dallas and I slept in a hotel room in Everett Hampton Inn, which was about a 10 minute drive away. Only on the first and last night did Makai stay with us. ^ Dallas’s parents went to Florida with Caroline’s family and got makai the NASA Cat in the Hat stuffie. The otter is from the Seattle Aquarium and the teddy bear from home.

It was nice in the morning to walk around Everett and do some exploring and to have some time to ourselves. We visited Narrative Coffee, but our favorite quickly became Choux Choux Bakery. It was very close to our hotel, had a daily rotating selection of bread and pastries, the coffee was good and the staff was really friendly.

This mural was near our hotel in Everett. It’s Breonna Taylor and Jatarius Tolbert, a local teen who was murdered.

On our last day of vacation, we decided to go into Seattle and hang out for a few hours, since it’s closer to the airport. Mark the Space Needle off the bucket list.

The Space Needle was fun, especially since there was no line! No photos of Makai because he was too afraid to go by the glass wall or in the rotating glass floor.

We ventured over to Belltown for lunch at Karaage Setsuna, a Japanese/Hawaiian restaurant. Makai asked to try the egg and spam maki then pounded the entire roll plus some fries and karaage chicken! Loved the restaurant and the neighborhood!

Our last activity in Seattle before heading to the airport was the Chihuly Garden and Glass exhibit. Dale Chihuly is from Tacoma and famous for his glass sculptures. I was so excited that we could now see his work while visiting Seattle – last time it was only in Tacoma. Everything was so gorgeous, I took sooo many photos!

Christmas Eve

This year we went to my brother’s house for Christmas Eve. Originally Amanda was supposed to work until 4 p.m., so we were going to go early to help get dinner ready for when she got home. Unfortunately/fortunately, she hurt her knee and had to take a few days off of work.

I randomly found this blog post about some simple ornaments and thought they would be fun to make. My mom had all of the supplies so she brought them over. Steph wasn’t really into it, but we had fun making ornaments with Jess. Oh, but Steph did like to wear them as earrings.

My brother made homemade eggnog for the first time. I’m not a huge eggnog fan, but I really liked the eggnog he made. It was much lighter than the stuff you buy in the store. We also had some spiced cider and many different kinds of beer. There was one that was spruce flavored and it was not good. Even so, Milo wanted a taste of it!

Even though Amanda was going to be home because of her injury, we still got dinner ready. Dallas and I slow cooked some pork and brought that down. My mom made coleslaw and beans. And we had a ton of sweets that everyone made as well as cheese and crackers that we snacked on all day.

This year my parents gave us each a set of china. They each had one set so my brother and I each took one. My set is smaller with a black and white pattern. My brother’s set had many more pieces, which was good because they also had inherited a china cabinet to display a larger set in, where our storage space is much more limited. Also, when I looked online, it looked like you could get replacement pieces for the set my brother has, so that is good if they plan to use it more. Anyway, the china came out for Christmas dinner and this is the first time it was ever used in 40 years! I was so nervous that I was going to drop a plate or something, but everything went fine.

After dinner we opened gifts. Stephanie and Jessica opened gifts from me and Dallas and my parents first. We got Steph a few small things and a couple gift certificates to shop for clothes at H&M and Forever 21. Stephanie’s big gift was an iPod Touch. She was so shocked!

Jessica got lots of clothes and a games that she dug into right away. Jessica got a lot of Hello Kitty things. She told us that she loved Hello Kitty, so I hope she really loves it, because she’s all decked out now!

There were three gifts that were from Jessica to me, my parents and Amanda. These were all handmade things that Jessica did. Jess made a ton of Christmas snowflakes and drawings for my parents. For me, she made this long wooden stick that was painted like a snowman and wearing a fabric scarf. For Amanda she made a reindeer out of a hanger and pantyhose. So cute! I have a lot of things that Stephanie made when she was younger, but not a lot of things that Jessica has made, so it was fun to get a keepsake.

We each also had a gift from Amanda. Inside were spcial-edition Sports Illustrated Packers books. Dallas didn’t like this gift, but everyone else did!

Next we did our adult gift exchange. We draw names and have a $40 limit, so it doesn’t get too crazy. This year I had Amanda’s name. She has started getting into drinking tea, so I got her a tea infuser mug, some Argo tea and Tazo tea, biscuits and a book. Amanda got Dallas some Christmas Story pint glasses and a bunch of microbrews and a subscription to Wired Magazine. Dallas got my dad two Packers shirts. My dad gave me several books, an oven thermometer, and some Hawaiian treats. Richard gave my mom a Christmas tree made of Lindor Truffles and a gift card. Finally, my mom gave my brother a Packers t-shirt, a video game and a gift card.

Finally, this year was Richard and Amanda’s 10th wedding anniversary. My mom gave them a personalized Christmas tree ornament to remember the year. And she gave Dallas and I an ornament for our first Christmas after getting married. Here’s what it looks like:

I like how the guy is doing a shaka and the girl has a camera! Also, here’s a photo of the snowman ornament Jessica made: