For All the Moms and Dads Out There

Hey all five of you who read our blog. My brother and his wife are launching a new website called shareyourbirth.com It is a website that's primary goal is to collect birth stories from all over the world. They have also created some forum discussion boards so people can discuss topics, find answers, or ask questions. Right now if you share a story you are entered into a drawing for a free Ultimate Swaddling Blanket from Swaddle Designs! So hop on over to shareyourbirth.com They also have an amazon store right on the website for all your baby accessory needs. Also, there is an adorable picture of my nephew on the homepage. Enjoy!

Abby Goes to the Zoo

The other day Nick and I got to take our niece, Abby, to the Woodland Park Zoo. It was a lot of fun. she did really well and only complained a little bit when we had to leave the carousel. Be prepared for lots of pictures.

We started off by seeing the gorillas. this picture was taken seconds after that big gorilla on the left came and punched the window right in front of Abby. She thought that was pretty cool, and a little scary. But she just laughed.




We even got to see the baby gorilla. I think it is about 8 months old now.









Abby's favorite thing right now and what she wanted to see most were the giraffes. you can kind of see them way in the background. All morning on the way there she was talking about seeing the giraffes.




We also saw hippopotamus'. She liked to sit on all the statues of the animals.



Then we took a break for lunch and she was demanding that we give her her sandwich. So we found a picnic table and sat down so she could eat.



All of a sudden, this little crazy thing jumped on our table and tried to get her sandwich. These squirrels here have no fear, seriously. So all the rest of the day she was loving the squirrels around the park and chasing them a little.




She also insisted on being the navigator for the day. She would open the map up, then make me fold it up nice, then she would open it up again. And repeat.




She was also very excited to see the elephants, which we did, although somehow we escaped the zoo without any pictures of them, other than the fake bronze one, which she so patiently waited through four kids to take her turn to sit on it.




I love the bird room they have. you can go and buy popsicle stick with seeds glued to it and the birds will fly down and stand on your hand or the stick to eat it. Unfortunately, the booth was closed so we couldn't buy any food. I was sad. But Abby didn't know the difference and we could still get really close to the birds.





Then we found that the carousel was open. So we definitely had to go on that...three times. Then there was a minor battle when we had to tell Abby that we had no more tokens to ride, and she tried to guilt trip us by saying in her cute little voice with her adorable eyes, " but I want to ride it one more time with Uncle Nick." But alas, we had no more tokens and had to leave. She was fine after about a minute though.









She was pretty tired by this point so we decided to leave, but had to stop by farmland on the way out. She got to pet a couple goats, and saw some cows.




She opened and closed these for about 10 minutes.



We had to buy her a little souvenir, so on the way out we got her a cute little stuffed giraffe. We found out later she decided to name it "Noodle". This is the only picture we got of Noodle.

From abbyzoo

It was a great day. It was the first time we had ever taken her by ourselves to go do something. I think it was a great success. Anybody have any ideas for us for what our next great adventure can be with her?

Our New Nephew

My brother Trevor and his wife Jessica just had their second child today. A little baby boy named Waldron Dain Peterson. Wally for short. He weighed in at 8lbs 8 oz and was 20.75 inches long. They did a home birth with a midwife so we got to go visit them at home very shortly after he was born. I had to take a long lunch break cause I was at work. Luckily it was slow today. These pics are from when he was about 3 hours old! You can also see a couple other better pics of him at their birth photographers site. So, here's some first shots of my new little nephew!



Aunt Lisa and Wally. Grandma French(Jessica's mom) in the background.



A little bit closer look at the little guy. I love this picture of him.


Uncle Nick and Wally.


A close up of Wally. For better close ups, follow that link I posted up above.

Just a side tidbit, Jessica is also a birth/baby photographer as well. Check out her site onetreephotography.com

You Asked For It...

Ok, so I have had requests for the recipe for the squash soup. I was going to put this in the original post but I kinda wanted to see how many people read our blog and would respond. Apparently there are at least 3 of you. So I am not much of a cook, so if I can do this so can you. Here it is:

Ingredients:
1 Large onion, chopped
4 medium carrots, chopped
5 Tbl. butter
3 lbs. butternut squash, peeled and cubed
6 cups chicken broth
3 medium zucchini, peeled and sliced
2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp dried thyme
1/4 tsp white pepper
1 cup half and half cream
1/2 cup milk
Grated Parmesan Cheese, optional

Directions: In a dutch oven or soup kettle(i used a stock pot - is that the same thing? oh well it worked.) over medium heat, saute onion and carrots in butter for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add squash, broth, zucchini, salt, thyme, and pepper; bring to a boil. reduce heat; cover and simmer until vegetables are tender, about 30 minutes. Cool until lukewarm. In a blender or food processor, puree soup in small batches until smooth; return to kettle.(this is where my awesome immersion blender came in handy. I didn't have to take it out of the pot, and it was pureed in about 30 seconds! amazing!) Add cream and milk; mix well and heat through(do not boil). Garnish with Parmesan cheese, if desired. 12-14 servings. (hence the reason I ate this for 3 days, lunch and dinner.)

This is seriously so good. And I guess good for you. Lots of veggies right? Enjoy!

Gasworks Park Fireworks

After our hike earlier in the day, Nick and I decided to brave gasworks park for the fireworks that night. Neither of us had been before. Lets just say we are glad we went once, but I don't think we'll try it again. There are sooo many people. We paid some guy $15 to park in his yard so we wouldn't have to deal with trying to park somewhere, so we actually got a pretty close parking spot. we walked down to the park and eventually claimed a spot for ourselves on the hill. Then we only had to wait 3 more hours till the show. We people, watched and read, and listened to really, really loud music blasting from the speakers. By the time the fireworks started there were so many people packed in there, there wasn't any room to move. I got stepped on quite a few times. We also almost had a fight break out next to us when a punk kid thought he was cool by smoking pot and then blowing it in people's faces when they asked him to stop. Then the guy next to us threw water at him. Many words were thrown about, that I won't type here. But, luckily it just stayed at words. Here are some pics of our day. The view of the Seattle skyline from Gasworks park is one of my favorites, other than coming in on the Bremerton ferry at night. All in all, probably one of the best fireworks shows I've seen, although I could do without all the people.

From 4th of july fireworks

Here you can see the stage and not too many people here yet. This is just a very small portion of grass that will be filled though.

From 4th of july fireworks

People were flying paper kites they had made. I think all those kites are actually only 2 or three people. They had them tied to each other and kept letting out more line.

From 4th of july fireworks

One of my favorite views of Seattle. mostly i think seeing it when I drive into the city over the I-5 bridge.

From 4th of july fireworks

More people packing onto "Kite Hill".

From 4th of july fireworks

A little bit later, just about dusk.

From 4th of july fireworks

There was also a great sunset going on.

From 4th of july fireworks

And a little bit later - the lights are coming on.

From 4th of july fireworks

Lots more people starting to pack in.

From 4th of july fireworks

cool pictures of whatever these things are that are all over Gasworks Park.

From 4th of july fireworks

From 4th of july fireworks

Night time shot.

From 4th of july fireworks

It's hard to see just how many people were packed in here. Right before the fireworks started people who came later just stopped and stood in front of all the people who had been waiting hours. I was kinda miffed. But, after starting with the Star Spangled Banner everyone stayed standing anyway and we had a great view. We had too many pics of the fireworks so I just put them in a slideshow. You can pretend you were there watching. Enjoy!

Squash Soup

Sorry there are no pictures on this story. I hate not posting a pic when I put a post up. That's one reason why I don't post very often. I hate going through all the trouble of getting the pics on the computer and up on the blog. Something always goes wrong and I get in a big fight with my computer. grrr. Anyway, so I got this recipe for butternut squash soup at church in relief society the other day. I thought I'd try it out. I made it and it was sooo good! Just wanted to toot my own horn that I made butternut squash soup from scratch. And I got to use my new hand held immersion blender which was awesome as well. Funny thing is the recipe makes 12-14 servings. so I've had it for several meals lately. Still good though!

Bridal Veil Falls Hike

For the 4th of July, Nick and I decided to go for a hike during the day. We had no clue where to go and randomly came upon a website that had different hikes to waterfalls, so we started driving and found one! It starts at the Lake Serene trail head but after about 1 3/4 miles you can branch off to go to the falls. It was a beautiful hike. We haven't gotten to do anything like this for a while and we really enjoyed it, although my calves were angry at me for the next couple days. Here are some pictures from our hike. The trail head starts just off of Hwy 2 near index road for those Washingtonians out there.
























There were lots of stairs along the way, hence the reason my calves were so sore the following days.



















I thought this was a fun sign.














Apparently it keeps going down but I didn't want to get to close to the edge to see where. See sign above.














Where did the middle of my bridge go?