MarshallAndFamily.com

 Saturday morning Ora and I took Marshall to Karkeek Park beach.  It’s a short stretch of beach that is reached by ascending and descending a metal staircase that crosses over the Burlington Northern railroad tracks.  As we were on the top of the staircase I saw a double engine train approaching.   We got a good aerial view of the train from being on top of the staircase at the right time.

 Once we were down on the beach I started looking for shells.  Here’s a photo of me sharing a sea shell with Marshall.  He wasn’t very interested in it as he wanted to walk in the water.

  Stopping to pause for a photo during our walk.

Alas, Ora revved up the party by showing Marshall how to throw stones in to the water.   He quickly caught on and was very focused on picking up huge stones. 

  Time to head home for lunch.  Another train had come by since the first one. 

A close-up of Marshall and his Yi-Yi:

He was not in a photogenic mood, hence the pout.   We all have those moments!

Hi, it’s guest blogger Yi Yi (aka Ora) here. I had the opportunity to take Marshall on an outing to the Seattle Aquarium today as Olga and Marc went back to work.  For the Canadians out there, there is no Boxing Day holiday in the US.  I think I was a little too anxious about having enough time to see all the exhibits and we arrived too early.  I had Marshall strapped into the stroller and tried to keep him amused by walking along the pier and looking at the freighters but as you can see here, he looks anything but amused.   

His spirits lifted when we entered the Aquarium’s grand entrance hall where there was a very big fish tank the size of a wall.  Marshall ran towards it and stood mesmerized by the grandiosity of it all.  We then moved onto the 360 degree fish tank where divers were cleaning up salmon spawning debris.  Marshall had a great time pointing and waving at the divers (Man! Man!) and looking at the wide variety of fish that swam by.  Near the end of our visit, Marshall got both of us wet as he splashed around the touch and play pool, touching star fish and sea jelly.  After seeing the fish, sea lions, sea otters and sea horses, it was time for lunch and off to Ivar’s on the Pier we went.

Here’s the hungry little guy munching on his oyster crackers and sour dough bread.  After a busy day, my well behaved and very cute date could not stop himself from enjoying his clam chowder long enough to take a picture. 

We spent our holiday relaxing and hanging out at home.  Among many great meals we cooked we had:

1.  Cajun squid salad on rocket, by Marc.  Inspired by a dish he had in Cape Town, he re-created it for us.  I made sauteed prawns and rib eye steak on the side.  Here is Marshall digging in using his knife and fork – both hands!  He wanted to eat with both utensils so we thought that it would be a great time to introduce him to continental style eating.  Also practiced a few times: toasting (with juice and fizzy water while we had the good stuff).

2.  Omelette with black summer truffle.  Mmmm!

3.  Cioppino.  Yum!

4.  Prime roast of beef with fresh horseradish from the garden.  With two kinds of mash:  white truffle and horseradish. 

 Marshall enjoyed trying all the new foods and most of all enjoyed sampling all of the cookies that we were baking.

Here he is getting the video camera ready to capture us opening presents.

Action shot before the stockings and gifts are pillaged from the fireplace and tree.

Here we are helping Marshall unhook his really heavy and full stocking.

Marshall with his stocking goodies: A red model dump truck, Slinky, lots of “cocat”, some fun toys, and a few trains.

And here he is with the rest of his gifts. 

A cool City pop-up book from Grandma (plus another gift to get more books).

  A red envelope and stuffed animal from Great-Grandma Winnie in Edmonton.

    Two red envelopes and a moose backpack from Grandpa Lawrence and Baity.  Also a German block construction set from Great-Grandma Menninger.

Marshall also received a train set from Karla, an Olivia book and red envelope from Auntie Ora, and a gift of books from his Grandpa Mike. 

I hauled out the Christmas decorations when Marc was on his Amsterdam/Cape Town trip.  Marshall helped me decorate the tree and discovered candy canes for the first time.  He instantly recognized them as candy and asked, “OPEN, OPEN, OPEN…” repeatedly until I unwrapped one for him. 

Marc returned from his marathon trip from halfway around the world and Marshall really got into turning the “Didas lights” on every night.   A few days after his return Mason told us that he would be in town for work and we invited him over for dinner.  Here is Marshall and his favorite (and only) uncle:

It would only be a few days later that Auntie Ora would be in town.  Here we are baking some gingerbread people so that Auntie can satisfy her sweet tooth.

Here are some photos of me and my man before we hit the town Saturday night. 

Actually the three of us were on our way to Dave, Amina and Maria’s Christmas get together.   We were about to don coats and shoes and make the long trek to Ballard.  We had a fun time and Marshall had a great time socializing with everyone, playing with Maria’s toys, and eating lots of cookies (5!), juice, and punch.  We relaxed his bedtime by an hour (and he did not nap today :() but he did remarkably well for being at a 3 hour sleep deficit.  

Last week we got word from the weather people that we should expect snow by the weekend followed by heavy rain.  Little did I think that the meteorologists would be correct this time.  I flaunted my lack of confidence by gardening for about 30 minutes on Saturday morning.  By 2PM white flakes were falling sporadically from the sky.  About a half hour later it really started snowing.  So much that Marc went outside to knock some of it off one of the large branches of the cedar tree. 

  Here he is trying to lighten the load so that our power service line from the street isn’t drooped on from the tree.

  Le bonhomme de neige/L’homme Michelin.  Love that chubby face and red cheeks!

  Ripping through the snow.  I may have to take him up to a ski area and start him on the bunny hill :).

  Goofing around with Daddy.

  The makings of a snowman.  It didn’t happen BTW.  The lawn was too littered with debris (ahem) which contaminated the pure whiteness of the snow.

It stopped snowing by 8PM that night.  And then the rain came.  It rained non-stop and very heavy at times causing parts of this area to have major flooding.  Fortunately we were okay.