Ella’s Second Birthday

I can’t believe it, but Ella is already 2!  She seems to have gotten over her distaste for cake, but you’ll notice she’s still mastering the blowing out of the candles.  A little help from mom and she’s got it.

 

Lullaby Project Dinner Theater – Grapevine Fires by Death Cab for Cutie

The Lullaby Project is my attempt to introduce Ella to some of my favorite songs (limited of course by my meager talents).

Once again, the only way to get Ella to sit still for more than 14 seconds is to strap her into a chair and put food in front of her.  Occasionally she eats, most of the time she heaves cups and bowls around and gives her food to Lucy.  so it goes.

Today, it’s “Grapevine Fires” by your favorite Bellingham band, Death Cab for Cutie.  Something about the melody and melancholy of this song gets me every time.  Ella remained uninterested of course.

Uncle Mike!

hey, welcome Benjamin Henry Renes to the world!  My brother and his wife had a baby.

he’s a tiny little dude, but feisty.  And clearly he already wants to rock!  look at that onesy!  Hopefully  his American/German heritage will lead to some serious guitar shredding.  Switzerland may not be ready.  check out the little squidge.

and here

 

Curling Away the Day

I’ve always wanted to try curling, turns out Seattle has one of the best curling clubs in the country!  The granite curling club is really close to our place in North Seattle.  So my good friend August and I donned some sweatshirt, and hit the ice last Saturday for a little tutorial.  It mostly consisted of trying to not fall on your face while practicing pushing a granite rock down the ice.  That, or frantically sweeping.

they give you a little plastic support, to keep your face off the ice

that's my shirt, not my underwear I swear!

Victory!

Monday Adventure – Bike-a-Ride

Beautiful days in Seattle are few and far between, so you gotta strike when the iron is hot, even if that is in early February.  And even if your kid says they don’t wanna go for a “Bike-a-Ride…no Way!”  – you go anyway.  I’m sure she’ll thank me later.

Actually, once she gets into the trailer and I throw about sixteen books and toys and a bag of crackers in there, she’s usually pretty amenable to the idea.

I spotted a bizarre bike path on a map of Seattle that winds its way through and around Terminal 91 – which is the confluence of freight trains, cargo ships, a bus barn, and luxury cruise ships at the north end of Elliot bay.  It connects to Myrtle Edwards park – a long narrow path along the shore of Elliot bay, just north of downtown.  Ella marveled at the trains and could basically care less about the great view of Mt. Rainier and the Olympics.   so it goes.  Round about the time we got to the turnaround point, Ella announced that she was “All done!” and so we hastily made our way back to the Elliot Bay Marina – where she astutely pointed out the boats.  Maybe next time, she’ll be more eager.

Twinkle Twinkle

just Ella singing twinkle twinkle while coloring.  it’s what she does.

 

Snowpacalypse 2012!

While I’m inclined to agree that Seattlites do get a little panicky about the snow, the conditions around these parts do make it a bit more treacherous than other parts of the world.  It’s hilly and the temperature constantly shifts back and forth between freezing and not, making it slippery as heck.  The result of this of course, is that the city effectively shuts down when more than a few flakes drop.  I’m okay with that.

Kristi was out of town for a conference this week, leaving Ella and I to brave the snow for three straight days of sledding, wagoning to the store for supplies, snowman building with the neighbor kids and trying not to go stir crazy.  Ella spent most of her time indoors begging to go outside and shoveling apple sauce into her mouth.  good times.

Ella’s first ski trip

After my parents purchased Ella’s first set of skis, we decided to take our first ski trip with her!  This was not exactly a Warren Miller movie, we drove the 54 miles up to Snoqualmie Pass and carried Ella up the bunny hill a half a dozen times and skied down between Kristi’s legs, while she attempted to walk with skis strapped to her feet, but it was a grand time.  Ella continually looked up at the ski lift and begged to “swing!, swing?” She seemed to love the snow if not the skiing and a good time was had by all.  I have much Christmas footage to pour through, but this was too good to pass up.

A whirlwind of Europe part 2 – the great German wedding vacation

I finally managed to get the remaining video from our trip to Europe edited down.  whew!  Unfortunately there isn’t a lot of video of the actual wedding.  I was indisposed as the witness up at the front, so it’s mostly a slide show.

After getting settled in Mainz, we did get a chance to visit our friends Alex and Uta in the small village of Seitingen-Oberflacht near the schwarzwald.  Ella and their two daughters Karlina and Mathilda kept each other entertained while we drank large German beers.

We took the train back towards France to meet up with my folks.  Along the way, Ella fell asleep on an elderly German woman.  It happens.  We made our way to the sleepy Alsatian village of Wissembourg.  It was lovely, though I think we may have been the youngest tourists by about 50 years.  We had a delicious French meal among the medieval ramparts.

Who could help visiting the town of Bitche?  It was so close and seemed worth the story.  Turns out there is a rather imposing citadel above the town with a rousing history during the Napoleanic wars.  Ella was mostly interesting in playing in the dirt.

My parents also gave us a night off and we made our way to Heidelberg to meet up with an old friend from the Northwest.  Sage lives in the Deutsch land now and knows her way around a radler.

It was a relaxing way to spend the week before the wedding and a good time was had by all.  When the event actually came, Ella smeared pasta sauce all over her face, banged on the table during wedding speeches, fell asleep in the adjoining room to the dance party and then  her mom carried her all the way home to Joe’s apartment around 1:00 am.  sounds like a party!

Congratulations to Joe and Andrea.  Can’t wait to meet Wolfgang.

Foreign Language Theater with Ella

I haven’t had a big post devoted just to Ella in a while, so I thought I’d give you a glimpse into Ella’s mind.  It’s scary in there!

Today I’ll be translating for Ella as she discovers the wonderful world of language.  Ella spends a lot of time talking, but not a lot of words are intelligible, so I thought I’d step in and do some dad-translating! I’m not completely fluent here, so there are some gaps, but I think you’ll get the gist.