No time no weblog, in spite of my intent to write more this year.
LK turned three last weekend.
2011 FEB 25 : FRIDAY
Amanda and I had an appointment in the morning. Afterwards I dropped her off at UW. After a brief stop back at home for some quick cleaning and mopping the floors, I picked up my mom at the airport. We stopped at southcenter for lunch at Ivar’s and then went to Home Depot for a closet auger. I have been trying to fix our easily clogged downstairs toilet for a while and decided to just get an auger to clear it out. $40 is cheap compared to what a plumber charges, and I had just been reading how fixing toilets is a plumber’s cash cow.
Back at home, two uses of the auger fixed the toilet. Magical!
I eventually retrieved the Kai and Amanda, and we had a quiet dinner (as quiet as a dinner with the Kai can be).
2011 FEB 26 : SATURDAY
Amanda and her mom went grocery shopping at Trader Joe’s for us, for some FMIG function the following week, and for the Kai and Connor’s birthday party on Sunday. They also bought party accouterments like a stegosaurus piñata and an inflatable T. Rex. The inflatable object is traditional now, as we get one every year. They then spent a lot of time baking and decorating cupcakes for the kiddie’s birthday. The cupcakes were arranged in the shapes of various dinosaurs.
My mom and I took the Kai to the science center. He ran around and presumably had fun. We saw one of his schoolmates August there.
On the way back home I saw a lot of people “saving” parking spaces by standing in them. Curious… I had never seen that here in Seattle before.
That evening, we went all the way to Federal Way for dinner. Due to the influence of television, he wanted to go to Red Lobster; I believe they show their commercials during one of Rachel Ray’s shows (apparently LK’s favorite). I had never been to Federal Way before, but the Red Lobster was smack in the middle of commerical-land.
We had a long wait at the restaurant even though we were there early. The wait made Amanda into a grumposaurus. Once seated, though, the dinner was fine, even though I have no desire to return again. They did have these tasty cheese biscuit things though, that were really bad for you. I got some parmesan fish thing which was actually pretty tasty. I also thought it was horrendously bad for you, but the nutritional information revealed that the dish, while not precisely good for you, wasn’t all that bad… I had thought it would be like 2000 calories, but it was “only” 800.
The place was lacking in explicit vegetarian options, so Amanda had a baked potato, mozzarella sticks, and asparagus.
The Kai had a sundae with a candle, and the waitstaff sang “Happy Birthday” to him. He was pleased.
All in all, I did not see the allure of the place, but it was packed and very busy. I did note that the average BMI of the patrons in the place was definitely way above 30. Maybe that is more representative of the area, though, and not the restaurant.
2011 FEB 27 : SUNDAY
We went to Geraldine’s Counter for bfast. It was good. Amanda is making a knit hat for one of the waiter’s there and had to find him to measure his head.
That afternoon was Connor and LK’s combined birthday party. We had it at the Seattle Gymnastic’s Academy in Columbia City. It was a perfect place for a three-year old party; all the kids ran around and jumped all over the equipment and had a grand time. They also lead some group activities with the kids. Most of the kiddies were Connor’s friends; we only invited a couple of people from LK’s school and a few others. CY and EY came with little AY, but they unfortunately missed the running about the gym part due to her nap, but made it in time for some cake and snacks. None of our former PEPS group could made it.
We went over to AC-MC’s place for dinner. Amanda and I stopped at the PCC for dinner supplies for kale and field roast pasta. Apparently, Netflix put up Season 2 of the Wonderpets, another Kai favorite, so we watched a couple of episodes.
2011 FEB 28 : MONDAY
Amanda went off to work, but I kept the Kai home from school to have some time with his Lola. I thought about going somewhere with him, but I thought it would be better to stay at home if the point was for him to spend time with my Mom. I had schoolwork to do, but then I don’t see my mom every day either.
Theoretically, we were going to have another party for the Kai in the evening for adults (i.e. adults with no kids), but it was unclear if anyone was going to come (Amanda only invited a few people and it was a weekday and many people had already said they could not make it). She had ordered a guava cake, but it was unclear if we could actually pick it up from the bakery in time, and, as it turned out, the place was closed when I dropped by.
On the way to REI I got trapped on I5 due to a big truck fire that closed down all the lanes, but I eventually made it. I had lunch at the World Wrap place in the store before picking up ski poles for the Kai and a new set of bicycle fenders for me.
I went out again for party supplies in the afternoon and made preparations to made pizza for dinner. As it turned out, only JH came, but it was good to see her. She had brought a concentration-type game for the Kai and said that kids are far better than adults at it (even adults who are trying), and the Kai proved crazy good at it although he got distracted by various things (like anything) during the game.
I later took my mom back to the airport for her red-eye flight back to the east coast.