Sometime before 13 FEB Amanda had gone to Safeway to use their coin counting machine to count the stuff in our piggy bank. It became nonfunctional and the customer service person couldn’t get it working again. She asked us ifwe knew how much $$$ we had, and of course we said no because that was the whole reason we were using the coin machine. She took our names and numbers and said she would call us back when they figured out what was going on.
I was thinking that there was no way we would get any money back, Amanda and I would be really pissed off, and neither of us would step foot in Safeway again. However, they did call me back and I went over to collect $60+ dollars. I don’t think all of that was ours; they had just counted all the extra coins in the machine, but it is conceivable that we had most of the money. Sweet!

13 FEB 2010 : SATURDAY
The weather looked OK (as in not going to rain heavily), so we look LK to the zoo. Amanda finally got to see the northern branch of the park. During many previous visits, she never was able to get that far before LK needed lunch or otherwise had to leave. I had already seen it during a previous visit without her.

Amanda wanted to see the Arctic Foxes, but they were not in evidence. At least as of a week ago, there were two with one still completely white with the other already with its summer brown coat.

As usual there was lunch at the food pavilion and time at the Zoomazium (a building with activities and whatnot for kids).

We had arranged to swap babysitting dates with Ann and Mike over the weekend. We bundled up the Kai and dropped him off at their house. Actually we stayed for quite a while. Only Mike and Connor were there; Ann and Liam were at a birthday party or some other social event. Mike broke out the IKEA train set he acquired a long time ago (but had not shown Connor yet).

LK seemed oblivious to our leaving, which in some ways was good. The plan was to have him spent the night, and we would pick him up tomorrow morning.

Our Valentine’s Day dinner was at a place downtown. We originally thought to take the train in to avoid parking issues and let us get completely wasted, er, “enjoy” the evening. However, we decided to go ahead and drive to give us more options later.

Amanda decided to make dinner reservations for Ann and Mike while I drove downtown. Ah, the magic of smartphones. Apparently she thought that they would decide not to do anything, so she took matters into her own hands.

I was dubious about our parking prospects, but we scored free street parking by the Y downtown, which was only a couple of blocks away.

Our dinner was at Sip: a wine bar and restaurant. We were going to go to another wine bar downtown, Purple Cafe, as it had more selections for Amanda to eat, but we were unable to get reservations. I had called days before but they were already booked; most people celebrated their VDay dinners on Saturday apparently. The restaurant’s typical patron seemed to not be like us (um, either “urban hip” in the more fashonable and/or monied sense as opposed to grungy… or just simply monied). An older couple next certainly spent a lot of money on wine; I recognized the producer. Maybe I should have asked them for a taste.

We both got flights of wine. I chose a selection of Washington State wines. They were good, but not good enough for me to remember. I again was reminded on how good wine can taste when it is served at the correct temperature. Amanda got the wine flight that was created for their special Valentine’s Day prix fixe meal even though she did not get the actual meal. That seemed odd to me, but she was happy. I also got a pinot noir with my entree.

Actual food consisted of:

• ahi poke with fried plantains: this dish was awesome and deliciously salty. I appreciate liberal saltiness.
• cheese plate: yummy
• pear salad
• bread and crackers
• red pepper polenta and brussel spouts for Amanda: tasty
• black cod with wasabi potatoes, slaw, and some stuff: a little mediocre and disappointing really
• truffled parmesan jojos: basically deep fried potato wedges which were of course very good. I got them even though they didn’t really got with our main courses, but our waiter was all for it as “jojos go with everything!”
• chocolate moose thing with cookies: tasty

While it seems unlikely I will ever return, I can say that the service was excellent: a rarity in Seattle. Our main waiter Jason was awesome. The prices for their main entrees/mains seemed not really worth it. However, their small plates seemed reasonably priced, and their sides definitely are inexpensive. The polenta and brussel spouts that Amanda had were simply sides and it was a lot of food. So, it’s a good place to go for a drink and a bite at the bar.

The bathrooms were interesting, too, in the sense that both sexes shared the sinks which was a curved stone(?) though with spigots over it.

It was way dark, so we were did not document the dinner with pictures.

Afterwards, we decided to take advantage of our soon-to-be-expiring Space Needle membership. We got rock star parking in front of the Needle, when we walked up to the entrance we found out that it was closed for a private function. Who rents out the entire Space Needle?!?!? Clearly someone with more $$$ than we have.

It was early, but we decided to just go home. No painting the town red for us. It was odd not having the Kai at home. As most days, though, we watched streaming Netflix stuff until Amanda fell asleep.

14 FEB 2010 : SUNDAY
Amanda retrieved the Kai early in the morning. I am not sure what we did later, but I think I took the Kai to the zoo again. Amanda stayed home.

In the afternoon, Mike and Ann dropped off Connor and Liam before their date. The evening rather well, and we were able to get Connor and Lonan to sleep without much trouble (Amanda actually did the honors). Liam did not really sleep much as he still is quite young, but he was very agreeable.

Mike came by later to pick up Liam; he is too young to stay overnight really. They had a good time at dinner, and like us found it weird to come home with no kids. And like us I don’t think they did much really after dinner.

15 FEB 2010 : MONDAY
Connor woke up at 5am. We were warned, though, so I was mentally prepared at least. I found it curious that he wakes up at the same time everyday when there aren’t cues like the sun rising or whatever. Lonan Kai can be fooled with keeping his room artificially dark when the sun rises earlier.

Anyway, I managed to keep Connor amused and relatively quiet until Amanda and the Kai woke up around 7:30. I made bfast of pancakes and other goodies. Ann and Mike came over to pick up Connor and share bfast.

upgrading weblog(s) to the latest version of Movable Type (5.01). Things may be wonky for a while. Not that I have been writing a lot of entries anyway.

No recap of last weekend yet, but yesterday we got to see Eve and Karl and baby Henry (born last week). Everyone seemed to be doing well.

Today Amanda had a 2-10pm housecall shift, so we kept the Kai home and went to the zoo in the morning so that he could run off some steam. I saw a guy who works at Geraldine’s Counter there. We had hopes of seeing the northern part of the zoo that we never have gotten to, but the Kai was not cooperative. We did get to see the Jaguar that had been elusive during previous visits.

In the afternoon the Kai and I went to Mount Baker Park so that he could run around more. Although he did not really run around and instead played with the gravel digger thing.

Amanda only saw two patients, so she was home for much of her shift.

On MLK day I took the Kai to the aquarium again. It would have been better to go to the zoo so that the Kai could run around more, but when I left home it had started to rain so I chose a more indoor activity.

Amanda had an overnight housecall shift, so she stayed at home and slept.

The aquarium was fun as always. One of the ticket people up front said that there were less people than they thought, but by the time I left the place was packed. LK had specific ideas about what he wanted to see: “optopus!” “horsey!” (seahorses) “salmon!” “fuffin!” (puffin).

Most of the people with kids were women. Isn’t this supposed to be the new millennium?

We had lunch at the cafe. LK thought I bought all the food for him since there was only one tray; he got mad when I tried to eat anything.

This picture was taken outside the aquarium so it is sorta relevant. And this entry wanted a picture with it.

I realized that on our last grocery run Amanda stole a candy (“I didn’t mean it!”) for the Kai. She also realized later that she had stolen someone’s thermos from work. Oopsie.

We have been dosing piglet with antibiotics. She is definitely feeling better.

Thursday E and K had their baby (Henry Ray). Woot!
Also on Thursday I spent a lot of time with Qwest technical support to bitch about our slow/nonexistent internet speeds in the evenings. Since I am knowledgeable in such matters I avoided all the stuff their support makes you check (cause there is nothing wrong on our end) and relatively quickly got in touch with their back line support staff. It still took them 45 minutes to switch my line to a different port. But now all seems well, but I will verify that tonight.
I am about to pick up the Kai and go to the store for some cream. I think we will have creamy pesto pasta tonight with “garlik! bread!” as the Kai would say.

15 JAN 2010 : FRIDAY

I took Amanda in to Swedish as she had to round in the morning. I then took LK to school. He has been feeling better and did not appear to have a fever, although I did not check.

Piglet had been feeling out of sorts and peeing everywhere. I did a lot of cleaning up after her and tried to get her into the vet. She most likely had UTI. I ended up just dropping her off because they have never been able to get a urine sample from her immediately. She saw me bring the carrier upstairs and vanished underneath our bed. It took a while to pry her out. She then peed on me while I stuff her in the carrier.

I had a long interview for a possible contract in the afternoon.

I went to the grocery store afterwards to get stuff for dinner. The vet office called and they had gotten a sample. Nothing was obviously untoward, but it was too late to get lab results back. They would call probably the next day with the results. I left to get piglet piglet, dropped her off at home, did some prep work for dinner, picked up LK at school, and picked up Amanda from work.
LK has suddenly decided he does not like crackers anymore, so I packed little oranges for him instead.

We returned and I made dinner (a simple stir fry). LK eventually went to sleep. Amanda and I fell asleep on the couch watching a documentary (one of the Planet Earth BBC series). I woke up to piglet sleeping in my lap after having peed on me yet again. Such is life.

16 JAN 2010 : SATURDAY

We woke up and had some sort of bfast. We quickly packed up LK to meet Mike, Connor, Jackie, and Calvin at a playground near the dogpark at Genessee so Pana and Zoot could run around. It was a bit cold (below 40?) and there was not much playing on the equipment because it was wet. Pana had a bit of fun digging holes and “defending” them against people (and Zoot for that matter). Connor got upset for some reason, so everyone walked back to Mike’s house to hang out. Everyone except me as I had received a call from Dr. Kung at the vet’s office and headed out there to pick up medicinals for Piglet.

I did return and everyone spent the morning until naptime at Ann and Mike’s house. Zoot stayed outside for most of the time because he is a huge german shepard.

I had gotten a webcam earlier in the week so that my mom could see and talk to LK, but she won’t be able to do so until my brother visits her later to set it up for her. Amanda’s mom got a webcam today and LK did see and hear her and Bowie cat on the computer.
After naptime at home we headed out to a open house on Beacon Hill. The place did not speak to me. After the silence we headed out to the Seattle Center to check out out the Children’s Museum. We met up with Ann and Mike and Connor and Liam again. Amanda went ahead a bought a annual pass; we need to go three times to make it worth it.

The museum was nuts (as in full of people and kids). It was a rainy weekend after all. LK was so stimulated he was vibrating as he ran around. He had another nasty fall from a water fountain. He has certainly been falling a lot recently.

We got a quesadilla snack for LK afterwards at the food court above the museum as he was very hungry and could not wait until we got home. He also had some of Connor’s leftover Taco Bell burrito. He let Mike carry him back to the car instead of Papa because he wishes Mike was his papa.

LK went to sleep quickly back home. Mama had pancakes for dinner and Papa had two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

17 JAN 2010 : SUNDAY

We had a meeting in the morning with Jim to talk about real estate again, but we cancelled the meeting mainly because due to LK’s non-compliant behavior recently we would have to meet when he was not around.

We did end up going to IKEA to meet up with Ann and Mike and family again. We basically went to have cheap bfast and let LK burn off energy running around IKEA’s vastness. Mike and Ann need to get some replacement parts for a bed they had purchased recently; it was basically missing all the hardware. We got a toy train for LK even though he does not love us. Well, me anyway.

LK had problems sharing his cinnamon roll with Connor. Sharing is hard.

After nap back home we went to another open house nearby. It was a three bedroom newly constructed home between Rainier and MLK. It still had landscaping to do. The house itself seemed well constructed, but it had an odd layout and I was concerned about water drainage and the huge trees on other people’s property that loomed nearby.

Afterwards, we went on the usual grocery run to Trader Joe’s and Madison Market. I made chili for dinner.

LK really liked the train set. I realized that new stuff should not be introduced after dinner because LK would not want to stop playing and go to sleep.

Right now (11:18pm Sunday) Amanda is dozing on the couch. She has a 10pm-6am house call shift, but at the moment there is no one to see. I am upstairs on our bed. Piglet is curled up beside me. She is still not feeling well, but hopefully she has turned the corner.

Now it is 11:52pm. Amanda has two people in the queue, and she has just left.