HaPpY HaLloWeEn!

Love, Curious George
Berkeley's 1st Halloween

Fall Festivities

New England Falls are always beautiful and my 2nd favorite time of year on the East coast. We've been enjoying our fall.
We got a special visit from Christian's cousin Paul and his wife. We had not seen them for 7 years so it was fun to reconnect. It is nice that Boston is a city where so many people come for work or pleasure so we get to see friends and family. We have another one of Christian's cousins coming to spend the weekend with us which should be fun.

I have always wanted to see a cranberry bog, so earlier this month we went to Edaville with some friends to check out the bogs.

The bogs were really pretty, and was interesting to see how things were done. However, I have to tell my fellow Bostonians this is probably an activity I would pass on (at this location anyhow.) It was advertised on the web as "The Annual Cranberry Festival" sponsored by Ocean Spray. We paid $12 a piece to this children's amusement park and saw this bog. There was nobody to explain about the bogging process; but luckily our friend Stuart had seen an episode on Dirty Jobs and was able to explain the process to us. We thought there would be cranberry products to purchase; nope there wasn't.The only thing Ocean Spray had to do with it was giving out free samples of cranberry juice. For me, it was a big of a let down. I do, however, know what a bog looks like before and after it is flooded. They really are a beautiful sight, just not worth the money or the drive.

Christian found a big ole caterpillar in the cranberries and Berkeley wanted to play with it.

We did take a train ride around the park. I thought they might explain the bogging process during the ride, but no, they just played children's songs instead.

Also this fall, we got our first snow storm. On October 16th to be exact. WHAT THE?????

In October we love all things pumpkin. Dressin' the kids up like one....

making my favorite cookies of all time; pumpkin chocolate chip....

and of coarse carving them.

Family Pictures

Our talented friend Terese took our pictures last week at hte Boston Public Garden. They turned out wonderful. Take a look!

Ellen or Bust

When I am with Julia, I seem to have the most fun. We can be spontaneous and crazy, and just let our hair down. We decided we would make a video during my trip out to Seattle; the purpose of the video is to get on the Ellen DeGeneres Show. We love Ellen and want to see her show LIVE more than anything, so we made her a little video letting her know this. We bought the Ellen eye masks (the ones she uses when her guest play games) and we wore them all over the city and even got natives to wear them doing special tricks. Check out the video and let me know what you think.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7phaf1AxdFU

Nine Months

It is hard for my mind to comprehend that this little man has been with us for nine months. The last few weeks he just seems to be learning so much so fast. I need a pause button so I can enjoy each knew thing he does.
His favorite activity right now is bath time. He is beside himself when he gets to be in the bathtub. He splashes and splashes and smiles. He will splash for 15 minutes straight before realizing there are toys floating around him.

He is laughing much more, especially at himself. He gets so proud of himself for everything he does.

Berke has given up the army crawl this week and is a straight crawler now. In the last two weeks he has learned how to sit from crawling, and pull himself up onto EVERYTHING. The last two days has been an exploration of the house to see what he can pull himself onto.
Little man still only has 1 tooth and is still eating stage 2 solids. He has no interest in peas, cheerios or chunks of anything!! He spits them right out.

Berke man continues to bring so much joy into our home and lives. He is so much fun and patient with us.
We love you so much Berkeley~

Bathroom Renovations

Our bathroom is OLD and has never been my favorite part of our house. The 60 year old claw foot tub that we have has been leaking water like crazy, so our land lady decided that while we were on vacation she would renovate the bathroom.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

It is so much nicer now and we LOVE it!

My least favorite part of the renovations:
The TP is way over my head, so there is a big reach up when one needs to wipe. Weird!!!

My favorite part of the bathroom:
After 2 years of not having an electrical outlet in the bathroom.....
we have one!!! I can finally do my hair in the bathroom instead of my room. Woot Woot!

We are very happy with the outcome. It is nice not to have 2 shower curtains and still have water leak all over the floor. Hooray for bathroom renovations!

Seattle

.day.one.day.two.

This year for our family vacation we decided to visit my BFF, Julia and fly out to Seattle. Christian and Berkeley had never been so we decided to go. As you can see Julia is so EXCITED to see us, but really who wouldn't be?
I was super nervous about the flight with a 9 month old (I want to be moving all the time) baby, but Berke came through like a champion, he was a very good boy. We received no dirty looks, at least none that I saw. It is pretty hard work to try to keep a little one busy, entertained, laughing, happy for that long.

When we arrived we did some eating, shopping, unloading and then headed to the beautiful
SNOQUALMIE FALLS. We didn't really have much energy after that and headed back to the house to get rest and to re-energize for the rest of our adventures throughout the week.

On Day Two, we headed to see the Troll under the bridge. What a perfect piece of art to go under a bridge right?

Our next stop: ARCHIE McPHEE "Seattle's Best Weird Tourist Attraction." It is a gift, costume, toy store. All I know, is we had a lot of fun there. We dressed up a bit. Whoa! Who is that hot She devil?

We even saw lil' baby Helga, isn't she darling? Why do I love this picture so much? As you can imagine, laughs were had, wigs were worn, and smiles were displayed.

Up next, some pipe park with a cool view of the city. They filmed a scene from "10 Things I Hate About You" there, the one were Heath and the blond chick were on their first date throwing paint ball balloons at each other. Remember?

Sexy ladies much?

Busy day, but just one more stop,
PIKE's PLACE MARKET
I love Pike's place, everyone sells their home-made crafts, and there are cheap flowers to buy, fresh produce and fish for purchase. We happened to purchase ourselves a salmon for our dinner that night and for real, I have never had such delicious tasting fish. It was so fresh and amazingly yummy.

Seattle

.day.three.
.christian's.b-day.

This happened to be the ONLY rainy day during our stay in Seattle, and it only rained 1/2 the day. Julia and I surprised Christian on his birthday by taking him on a private tour of his FAVORITE radio station that is based out of Seattle, KEXP. He loved it! We had planned it so it was during his fav DJ would be there, but she ended up being sick that day...BUMMER!

We then went for some delicious breakfast and on to the Seattle Aquarium. They had some really fun exhibits and we enjoyed it quite a bit. We got to see Sea Urchins eat their dinner, as well as the sea otters and sea lions. I heart sea creatures.

Once we finished at the Aquarium, the rain was done and the sunshine had arrived. So we headed to the Space Needle while the weather was cooperating.

Seattle is such a beautiful city!! We really love it.

Christian really wanted Indian food for his big 31st birthday bash, so we went. I am not a huge fan of Indian food, but it was actually tolerable. Dinner was quite a hodge-podge of people; I met up with my friend Jessica Jones and her hubby (I haven't seen them in like 12 years, but this is why Facebook is so awesome), Julia and her boy toy Jed, Julia's sister and niece, and Julia's sister's assistant. So pretty much all of Christian's closest friends. We had a wonderful time nonetheless. Christian could not have been more happy with his food and that is all that matters.

Of course, every birthday boy has to end his day with his favorite cake, carrot cake.

Happy 31st Birthday Babe!

Seattle

.day.four.

We happened to luck out while the Salmon Days Festival was going on. Hundreds of salmon head upstream to lay their eggs and then die. It is kinda sad that all these salmon are gonna die, but apparently they have lived a good 5-6 year life. It was neat to visit the fishery where they block the salmon from going all the way upstream, that way they can capture their eggs and make sure salmon don't die out. Apparently Salmon don't taste so good once they leave the ocean because they start surviving on their fat, so it is best to eat salmon caught in the ocean. Just an FYI.

Next stop Experience Music Project and Science Fiction Museum, this stop was more for Jed and Christian, but hey I can be a good sport. See? don't we look like we are having fun?

The best part of the SFM was seeing THE Donatello that was in the movie. I love Ninja Turtles!

That evening, Julia's sister, who is awesome, watched Berkeley while the four of us went out for dinner to celebrate C and I's 7th year anniversary. We went to the restaurant, Salty's which sits on the Puget Sound and across the sound is the entire city of Seattle. It is the most amazing view ever! We had such a wonderful double date with Julia and Jed.

Happy 7 years baby!

Julia and Jed, aren't they adorable. These two are a perfect match and are so hilarious together.