07 MAR 2009 : SATURDAY
Amanda was ill with another nasty GI bug. I entertained Lonan Kai outside of the house for most of the day so she could rest. I went down to the Goodwill in Tukwila to look for shoes for LK. It looks like he has very wide feet, so getting shoes for him will take more effort (or $$$ as the case may be). I struck out at the Goodwill though. None of the shoes at Target fit him either. Alas.
It snowed today (as it had been recently). Crazy.

08 MAR 2009 : SUNDAY
Amanda was feeling better. It snowed again in the morning. The weather cleared up for a bit in the afternoon so we went out to the Seattle Center to take advantage of our very inexpensive annual pass for the Space Needle. There were many people in line, but we got to use the special line for members and others just picking up their tickets. There were still a lot of people; we asked the ticket person about the discounted internet annual pass sales, and he said that over 3000 people bought them.

The views up top were nice, although it was too cloudy to see Rainier or the Cascades. We did see a bit of the Olympics on the other side of the bay.
Here is Lonan Kai and Amanda:

Lonan Kai looks longingly down at the Ivar’s on the waterfront, but Amanda does not feel his pain:

Here is our car parked right across the street from the Space Needle:

We walked to Mioposto for dinner tonight as Amanda’s mom is leaving tomorrow morning. We have been eating out a lot the past week with all the guests, or perhaps it just seems like it. Amanda noted that Mioposto raised the prices, perhaps significantly as we immediately noticed. Ah, well.
Amanda and Lonan Kai have passed out and it is early in the evening.
My mom apparently has pneumonia which is bad for someone her age, but I guess things are not so bad since she had not been admitted to a hospital. Although she did go to the ER. I am glad our neighbor is checking up on her and bringing her food since I am on the other side of the country and all.

21 FEB 2009 : SATURDAY
We had dinner at Eve and Karl’s. Jane and David where there also. Eve made a scrumptious mexican meal. I managed to see Mr. Satchel, but he was evasive and spent most of the evening hidden in the bedroom.
Amanda and Jane were talking about a knitting website (which Jane had already known about), but she did not really participate in the site because she could not think of a near username that had not already been taken. We spent some time brainstorming names.
Lonan Kai was a bit twitchy during the evening, but we managed to put him to sleep in his Pack n Play, so we were able to stay late into the evening. Relatively, anyway, for us.
22 FED 2009 : SUNDAY
We went to Moneta and Ethan’s for Adina’s birthday party. I met a lot more RPI architecture grads, which was funny because before I met Moneta and Ethan I had no idea RPI had an architecture school.
They had a cool gnome outside (something Amanda refuses to let anywhere near our house). I learned later that someone had stolen it during the party! They suspect someone else in the condo building (not a guest) as I guess the gnome is not popular.
26 FEB 2009 : THURSDAY
I picked my mom up from the airport. She was in town for Lonan Kai’s birthday.
27 FEB 2009 : FRIDAY
It was Lonan Kai’s last day in the infant room at school. Pilar and Aleyda were sad!
Amanda’s mom, sister, and Stacey arrived at various times.
My mom and I did a lot of cleaning in preparation for the party.
28 FEB 2009 : SATURDAY
Lonan Kai had his first birthday party. We spent a lot of time preparing for it in the morning. I later determined that his real birthday (defined by the Earth passing the same relative point around the sun) was really 02 MAR 2009 at 0122 hours.
29 FEB 2009 : SUNDAY
We went to El Sombrero for dinner. My mom (who had been feeling a bit ill before flying out to Seattle) started feeling worse, so I took her back to her hotel. Amanda had ordered my usual at the restaurant, so when I finally returned it was ready.
01 MAR 2009 : MONDAY
My mom was still ill, so I relaxed with her in her hotel room in between the usual life errands.
It was Lonan Kai’s first full day in the waddler room. I don’t think he liked it much, but he seemed alright. He apparently attached himself to Dao, one of the teachers who had spent some time in the infant room.
02 MAR 2009 : TUESDAY
I took my mom to the airport very early; she was feeling better, but still not all that great.
Lonan Kai stayed at home instead of going to school to spent time with the visitors.
I got a nasty migraine late in the morning… the first I have had in quite a while… so I tried to sleep it off. I got better later, but I still felt the effects until the next morning.
Amanda was on call from 1pm to the next morning. She did have a delivery in the afternoon, but was not otherwise called.
Stacey left on the red-eye in the evening.
03 MAR 2009 : WEDNESDAY
Susan left in the afternoon. We were going to get pictures of Lonan Kai (who again stayed at home from school), but after making an appointment, we realized the pictures would look funny since he had split his lip the previous day. Maybe some other time.
Amanda and I went to Dahlia Lounge for dinner. It was a gift from my mom (who financed it) and Amanda’s mom (who watched Lonan Kai). We had not been out to dinner alone since 03 JULY 2008 (our anniversary).
Amanda had a salad (not too remarkable), a pan fried bread-and-cheese thing (tasty), and a chocolate custard dessert thing (tasty). She also had a white wine that “taste[d] a lot better than our $3 pinot grigio”.
I had some vegetable samosas that were really quite good. They were shaped like drumsticks of all things and were intricately carved. I also had a black cod/soba noodle entree which was good. I did not get dessert and instead had a glass of cognac.
Amanda was pleased that they give you an entire pot of coffee if you order it (“just like at IHOP” as we say). The waitperson said that we should tell the management that we like it because they are probably going to stop doing it because, well, perhaps because it is just like IHOP.
The dinner was good, but it was not really the type of place we would return to, mainly because it is pricey and things were not azmatonishingly good to justify the priceyness. Although it is worth it for the $30 fixed price promotion that was going on and Amanda took advantage of; I did not because I wanted to try some other things (who knows when we will return?) so my meal was $10 or so more.
Anyways, regardless of the post dinner value per dollar analysis, dinner was good and fun. We were going to go up the Space Needle because we had bought a cheap annual membership… $30 for both of us or one guest to go up whenever we want… but we decided to go home in case Lonan Kai was blowing a gasket or something. Which he did not do thankfully.
04 MAR 2009 : THURSDAY
Lonan Kai went back to school. It was the usual for everyone else perhaps. Amanda’s mom spent the day working on school projects and stuff.
05 MAR 2009 : FRIDAY
Amanda and her mom are at a high risk pregnancy conference. I dunno what the evening holds. It is a nice day today.


I replaced our front door’s lock last week. The old one failed and started to have a disturbing tendency to jam the door… bad because we don’t have any other way into the house if the front door is inaccessible. I only replaced the door knob and not the deadbolt as the new deadbolt will require modifying the door and frame a bit. The new lock is much nicer the the cheaper mechanism that came with the house. I will eventually install the deadbolt. I also should install something that will let us open the garage door from the outside (something other than the door opener we have in the car) to give us another way inside.
I got our car back from the shop. The left side looks freakin brand new. Unfortunately, there is still a strong paint smell inside. It was pretty painless getting everything fixed thankfully.
We went to Geraldine’s Counter on Saturday for brunch. It was nice.
We had one of our typical small plate style dinner later… mushrooms, spicy green beans, almonds, olives, bread, cheese, roasted potatoes, and wine. I opened up one of our good wines that are currently stashed in a closet in the garage, and it was great. It has been a long time since I had something other than $3 wines, although I would not say the $3 wines are bad for their price normally. We had a bottle from Madonna Estate; it was one of the last bottles we had from a wine “subscription” Susan had given us a few years ago.
Monday morning Ann came over for a visit/playdate with Connor. Mike stayed home to catch up on sleep.
We took a walk in the Arboretum that afternoon since it was sunny although a bit cold. The walk was nice.
After a Lonan Kai nap, we took him out in the stroller and went to Mount Baker park to look at Lake Washington and do a bit of swinging. We have been going out on evening walks again as the days have been getting longer. We also use the stroller more because we gets twitchy in the carrier (and he’s a lot heavier now).
We might go down south to get some toys and/or books for LK at Goodwill later today.