Happy Easter!

Happy Easter! Hope everyone had a lovely weekend. Chels and I had a pretty good Sunday--we started off the morning making pancakes with Chelsea's new favorite gadget, her Darth Vader spatula! I found it last week while comparison shopping some of C&B's competition and it was hysterical, I could not resist :)





May the force be with our pancakes! Ha ha

Chels and Aunt Cathy dyed some Easter eggs a few weeks ago so we could have this pretty centerpiece. The sock monkey/bunny is a funny little thing I found for Chelsea that seemed perfect next to the eggs, how festive!

We spent the evening at Steph & Dan's and had a nice dinner. We all get a Bon Appetit magazine subscription from Grandpa Jack (thanks Grandpa!) and this month's feature is "The Italy Issue" on pasta. Dan learned some tips and made us a delicious meal.

Here's Chelsea the charmer--this is the face I typically get any time I try to take her picture. I had quite a time trying to find 3 decent pictures of us for our last holiday card!

We did some more planning for our trip and guess what I found at the grocery store? This awesome packable visor! Chels is mortified and says I look like an old lady, but the girl at PCC told me I can pull it off and I think I believe her...

We were also "that couple" who wore matching clothing as we were wearing our sandals and trying to break them in before the trip--it was freezing and rainy in Seattle so we did the dorky thing and wore socks with our sandals :) We're so cool!

We've got some fun things planned this week, including a Wii game & dinner date night with our friends Karen & PJ, yay! Bye!

Sun Sun Sunny!

We had a beautiful sunny day in Seattle today, 66, woo-hoo! This typically doesn't happen until after the 4th of July so we are very lucky today :) Started off the morning with my water aerobics class with my old lady friends which was great as always. Actually, there were some other younger women in the class today, so maybe water aerobics is becoming trendy... I'll keep you posted! Being in the water made me excited for our upcoming Costa Rica trip, YAY! We leave in less than 3 weeks :) Chels and I went to Target this afternoon to get some things for the trip and everything was so summery and bright, I can't wait! The only thing left to find is an embarrassingly large visor to shield my porcelain skin (or to embarrass my wife with, ha ha)...

We've had a pretty busy week. On Thursday night we went to a fundraiser trivia night for Steph to support Street Yoga. It was great! The event was held at a pub in the cute Seattle neighborhood Belltown--good drinks and food and fun people. Our team did an awesome job (even though we lost) and it was fun to meet some of the people that help make Street Yoga possible. Steph is the director of the Seattle branch of Street Yoga, find out more here: www.streetyoga.org . Great job, Boo!

Chelsea has been working on another present for our new little niece Delilah. She made her a bib that she cross-stitched, so cute! It had 3 smiling peas in a pod on the front, kind of reminds me of me and my sisters :) Chelsea is no longer working, just focusing on healing her back and getting stronger. We are definitely looking forward to some R&R on our trip!

Here are some cute pics of the nieces:


Ash, Claire, & Delilah, the Sjodin girls!


New sisters, so cute!


Ha ha, that smile looks familiar ;p Mom says Claire gets my devilish grin sometimes, usually when she's doing something she's not supposed to be doing... :)

Kisses for the new baby

Big sister loves new little sister!

Here's a closer-up picture of baby Delilah, can't wait to meet her!

We were supposed to have brunch this morning with our friends Steve & Caralee from out of town and our friends Nick & AnnMarie, but with Easter weekend being so busy, Steve & Caralee had lots of family to see so we'll have to catch up next time. Miss you guys! We're spending time with Steph & Dan tomorrow for Easter so we'll get some family time in which will be nice. And Dan is a great cook so whatever we make for dinner will be delicious I'm sure. Yay! :) Happy Easter!

Yesterday we got to spend time with our friends Kelly & Carl and their 7 month old daughter Siena Rose. She's so cute! She has the chubbiest little cheeks and a sweet little laugh :) We had a blast! Chelsea has gotten to play with Siena before, lucky girl, but this is the first time I got a chance to hang out with her. Kelly and Chelsea worked together, and Kelly was the photographer for our wedding. It was fun to get a chance to hang out!



Siena wasn't sure about us at first...


...but she warmed up! Look at that cute smile!


Here's Siena's kitty

Siena loves Chelsea, as all babies do.

Chelsea reading a book to Siena, or maybe Siena is reading to Chelsea?

Yay! We had a ton of fun and hope we get a chance to babysit her soon.

Yum Yum YUM!!!

Todd came over for dinner tonight and we had chips & guacamole, margaritas, and fish tacos, yum! He's been in culinary school since last fall so every time we make dinner together it's fun to put him to work and see his new skills. Very impressive! He made a mean guacamole, using fancy knife skills to boot :) We also watched a few episodes of Modern Family, hilarious and highly recommended if you haven't seen it.

Today was a sort of lazy Saturday--it started off productive though... I went to my water aerobics class, love it! The class is held Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays and I try to go at least twice a week. It's pretty fun and today one of my classmates said "it's not your grandma's water aerobics class". True! The Saturday morning instructor especially kicks your butt but it's a great workout and worth dragging yourself out of bed for. Chels has been steadily getting better and has been able to go to the gym and walk on the treadmill a few times each week, woo hoo! We'll be in Costa Rica in less than a month with her parents, Steph & Dan, and Andrew & Rachel. A much needed vaca and some R&R for both of us, can't wait! I "discovered" the library book sale today and it was AWESOME! I say discovered because I've known about it (Sean & Claire are big supporters) but have never gone before. I got as many books as I could carry for $1 each, which is awesome in itself, not to mention that the proceeds support the public library, again awesome! Okay, that word will be retired for the rest of this post, but seriously ******* :)

We have a new little addition to Candace's side of the family, our sweet new niece Delilah Mae! She was born on Monday morning and is super cute--the Sjodin family is doing well. Here's a picture of our two cute nieces, Clarabelle and her new little sister Delilah.

Can't wait to go to Minnesota in June to visit, yay!!!

Super Cute!!!

Look at this super cute picture of Sissy and Clarabelle that Mom just sent us! So cute! Can't wait to go home and see the fam in MN in June, YAY! And Clarabelle will have a new little sister in just a few weeks, so we'll get to meet her, too :) Claire looks so much like Ashley did as a toddler, but she also looks a lot like Blake, which is kind of funny that she can look so much like both of them at the same time--she gets her cuteness from her favorite Auntie though, he he (here is where Ashley would say "oh, you must mean Auntie Chelsea" :P ). Love those pigtails and pearls!!!

Chels and I had a pretty good weekend. On Saturday morning, I helped cousins Claire & Sean move. The family was there, and Chels was there in spirit (you know, not being able to lift anything isn't conducive to moving...). Chels got to see their cute new house today, love it! They moved out of an apartment into a cute little house that's closer to us, too :)

Then on Saturday night we went out for drinks with some friends we haven't seen in quite awhile. We had a fun time! It was nice for us to spend some time with our friends and get out of the house and get Chelsea's mind off her pain for a while. We met with our friends Danny & Alex, Erin, and Karen, here are some fun pics of us:

Here we are at Danny & Alex's wedding a few years ago, they are so cute! Danny, Erin, Karen, and I all worked at Crate together back in the day and went to school together at UW.

This is a hilarious picture of Erin, Karen, and me, from sometime after college? Ha ha, look at those poses. Good times!

Sunday was a pretty lazy day, especially for Kitten! Look at that little lazy-bones:

"Helping" with the laundry

Stretching on my lap after her hard day of napping

Keeping her mom cozy on the sofa

Look at that arm hanging over the side, so funny!

We had a pretty good weekend :) Chelsea is getting another spinal injection this week, so we're hoping that will help even more and get her closer to being pain-free. We'll keep you posted!

It's a Beautiful, Sunny Day in Seattle!

Spring is here! We had a beautiful, sunny day today in Seattle, a great summer preview, woo-hoo! Had lunch outside today, walked home in my t-shirt, ahhhh today was a good day :) The only thing I regret is not wearing contacts today so I could wear some sunglasses... And even more that my darling wife was at home sick today and not able to enjoy the nice weather, boo! Chels kept busy though. She's making something precious for our new little niece Delilah (I can't tell what it is or it would ruin the surprise!) who is due on April 11th. We get to meet her in June when we go home to visit my side of the family, YAY! I talked to Mama on the phone yesterday and Clarabelle was singing me a little song--it's so cute to hear her say her new little sister's name. Her new thing is to say "no way!" and it's so cute in her tiny little voice! :) Love it!

We had fun last weekend with the family. Aunt Cathy & Uncle Sandy's 30th wedding anniversary is this week and they had a party last Sunday afternoon to celebrate. We got to see a bunch of family friends and catch up which was nice. We also got to look at their wedding album and see all the fun pictures, everyone was so young! Cute baby Steph was there with her precious chubby cheeks, ha ha :) Couldn't believe how much cousin Joe looks like Uncle John, it looked like Joe in the album! Claire said she is excited to look back at our wedding album in 30 years...that will be interesting and funny, I'm sure.

We've got a pretty busy week this week, lots of fun things scheduled with friends which will be nice, and Chels is hanging in there so we're doing alright :) Bye!

Spring is Almost Here!

I am always happy when daylight savings comes around in the spring--losing an hour of sleep isn't that big of deal anymore now that I have weekends off, and I love when the daylight hours are longer. In Seattle during the winter months, you wake up and it's dark, and when you leave work at 5, it's already dark. Talk about living in a cave! So when it finally starts to stay light out for a few hours after you get home, you feel like you actually have half the day off and some time for yourself to do whatever you want to do. YAY!

It's been a few weeks since the last post. Here's what we've been up to: Chels' brother Andrew came for a visit the weekend after my birthday. He's interviewing at grad schools and had an interview up here at UW. It was fun to see him and it would be super fun if he & his girlfriend Rachel moved up to Seattle! :) But we'll see, I think he has other favorite schools in mind... Chelsea's parents were visiting last weekend and they got a chance to see some of the Seattle neighborhoods Chels and I like and are looking at homes in. We even went to a few open houses on Sunday. It was nice to be able to walk through the houses with them, instead of Barry & Cindy having to rely on our photography skills to get a good sense of the places we've seen. Aunt Cathy & Uncle Sandy had us all over for family dinner on Saturday night--we had a lot of fun and a nice visit with her parents.

As far as Chelsea's back issues, she's still having back pain as well as sciatic nerve pain in her legs. She had a spinal injection last Monday that has helped relieve her back pain temporarily, but she is still having leg pain and corresponding difficulty getting around. Chelsea was brave and tried acupuncture a few weeks ago and has had a few appointments a week since then, but so far hasn't noticed a huge positive impact from that treatment. We'll see... She hasn't had to use the walker over the past week, so that's good! Thanks for everyone's support, we appreciate it!

Last night we made a delicious dinner: mahi-mahi fish tacos! The recipe is from "Cooking Light" and you can find it here: http://bit.ly/g9Lnq8. Delicious! We substituted tilapia for mahi-mahi because the grocery store we were at didn't have tilapia, but I'm sure either would be great! Today we are going to play with two sweet cats Chelsea is sitting for, Jake & Zane, and then go to an open house. And make Cindy's tortilla soup for dinner tonight, yum!

Goodbye to my sweet Uncle Rodney, who passed this week after a courageous battle with Lou Gehrig's disease. We love you and you will be missed!