Between work and social commitments life has stayed busy for Jackie and me, but there has been plenty of wonderful experiences to keep life interesting. For instance, for Christmas we received theater tickets from my aunt Jean and last week Jackie and I went to the 5th Avenue theater to see the new play, Memphis, which is a story about the beginning of Rock 'n Roll in the South back in the 50s. We laughed, we cried, we laughed some more and then at intermission we shared a cookie bar; all-in-all it was a wonderful evening! With all of the oppurtunities for theater, symphony, opera, etc. we will hopefully be attending more of these events in the near future.
Jackie's step-brother, Chris, his wife Tina and their children (Jackie's niece and nephew) Noelle and Landon were up visiting from California a couple of weekends back. Although Jackie is probably slightly biased I have to agree that her niece and nephew are absolutely adorable. We spent most of Sunday afternoon at Redmond Town Center and then Jackie went back to Bremerton where she spent Monday searching for rocks and shells on the beach with Noelle and building a small snowman. The snowman wasn't so much a snowman as a small mound of snow with a pair of stick arms and a little nose, but it was enough to make the kids happy and was a great introduction to snow.
Although Seattle has been getting more snow than usual, the Cascade mountains have been getting slightly less than usual. This however has not stopped Jackie and me from trekking up to the mountains to brave the icy slopes and man-made snow in the name of adventure and a small hope on my part that conditions will turn out to be better than expected. Conditions haven't been horrible, but I am still holding out for more snow as we move into the Spring skiing season. In fact I was so confident about the Spring season that I recently bought a new ski rack for my car so we can place our skis on top of the car instead of taking up the entire back of the car. The best part is that we can now bring additional people with us and still have room for everyone's gear. An added bonus is that we will be able to use the same rack to mount a bike rack on top of my car so our bikes don't have to be shoehorned in the back seat anymore.
Speaking of biking and skiing, this last weekend I had the immense pleasure of doing both in the same weekend. Where else but the Pacific Northwest can a person go biking on a beautiful sunny Saturday afternoon and then turnaround and go skiing in the mountains less than an hour away on Sunday, in February no less? The bike ride was fairly short, but in that time I realized that I am not quite in "biking shape" anymore. However, the purpose of the bike ride was, while a great excuse to get some exercise and some wonderful fresh air, primarily a means of getting myself to the grocery store. My shopping list consisted of a long list of ingredients which I eventually used to make (excuse me while I brag a little) some of the best vegetarian chili around! Originally I had even planned on using all fresh, dried beans and rehydrating them, but decided to go with canned beans for the sake of time. What I had not fully considered was the fact that 12 cans of various varieties of beans and tomatoes weighs quite a lot which all needed to fit in my backpack...yeah I am glad it was a short bike ride. Did I mention that the chili was amazing?!
So, as some people may have heard, our little fuzzy friend Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow yesterday which calls for another 6 weeks of winter. I don't know about other people, but when it is consistently getting to be in the upper 40s to low 50s and it hasn't rained in Seattle for 2 weeks I start to think about Spring, not winter. But who am I to second guess a 123 year tradition? After 123 years that little groundhog probably has a pretty good handle on the meterological patterns of the lower 48 states so if he says we will see another 6 weeks of winter then I will be waxing my skis and loading up on handwarmers and long underwear!
That about does it for this post, I plan on posting again soon.
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