Forgive me, its been a forever since my last post...

Wow this past weekend was a doozy. We started off on Thursday night celebrating Jeremy's 33rd birthday at Tokyo Japanese restaurant in Factoria. Awesome food, awesome service AND you get a free entree on your birthday! Being the thrifty man he is, that was music to Jeremy's ears. He got the Deluxe Bento box and it's amazing we made it out of there alive. I felt like Audrey in the beginning of "European Vacation"- the food kept coming out and I kept stuffing my face. And to top things off, they brought out TEMPURA ICECREAM with a candle on top. HURG.

Friday was another day of overeating. We gathered the family at Lana Thai Restaurant in Everett for another birthday dinner. I even made the kids (and Jeremy) birthday hats with their names on them. I think the funniest part of the whole evening was when they brought out another deep fried ice cream dish for Jeremy. Emily, the little cake diva that she is, was PISSED that there was NO BIRTHDAY CAKE. My sister valiantly tried to convince Emily that mango ice cream or sticky rice pudding was just as good- but my niece replied "I want cake" and stuck out her lip. Poor child, she was brought to a birthday party for two things: birthday hats and cake. She only got one them.

Saturday we got up early, packed the car and headed out to Hood Canal to stay at Andy's property. I love going out there, it's just so nice to hang out, enjoy the water and eat s'mores. Unfortunately, my s'more experience was cut short when I WAS ROBBED of my graham crackers by some theiving little raccoons. Sadly, it was indeed my fault for leaving them out. I came down in the morning on Sunday to discover that my graham cracker box was shredded, every single cracker GONE. I spent most of Sunday eating "low carb" s'mores- just the marshmallow and chocolate. It was pretty pitiful. We also went crabbing, however I couldn't bring myself to eat the little sea spiders-it was just too horrifying to kill them.

Out at Dabob I rediscovered my love of the water, just being ON the water on a calm morning, brought back countless memories of crew practice and how much I loved that sport. I took out the little plastic kayak that Andy had and cruised around the bay, counting seals as I went. I counted ten in all. They were so curious, poking their heads up every now and then to see where I was, then diving back down to go a little further away. I loved the solitude and peacefulness of the kayak. Even though it was a bit different that being in an eight- in many ways it was still the same. In an eight, the only voice was mine, the commands that I gave were followed without question (most of the time) and the best part was being out on the water when it was like glass. I think I might have to get a kayak some day- even if it's a crappy little plastic one. It's still a lot of fun.

Blogger is being a pain about uploading pics, so I have to go through Shutterfly. Click here for pics...