Happy Birthday Ellen!

My favorite picture of Ellen from our rehearsal dinner.

Dessert smelled really good!

Pepper's interested in what Penguin's interested in.

Penguin!

It's Ellen's birthday today and we wanted to wish her a very happy day!  Last night, we went over to Ellen and Michael's for dinner.  Nathan was home!  He leaves again this week for China and probably won't be home again until sometime next summer.  It was great to see him.  He's doing so well and really excited about studying in China.

From the pictures, you can tell that Pepper came with us.  Pepper and Penguin spent about 20 minutes together.  They did well.  Penguin was very excited to have a canine visitor.  He ran so many circles around the kitchen!  

Dinner was so good and it was great to visit with Ellen, Michael and Nathan!  Happy Birthday!!

Another pretty red head

We went hiking last weekend with our friends Jane and Jason and their baby Lucy.  While it was a beautiful day and it was so nice to be outside, the hike was way too crowded.  There was a dense stream of people on the trail.  It was hard to stop, and when you did, you had to merge to start up again.  Crazy!

Lucy came along in her cute little hiking backpack.  She is such a pretty little girl.  And, she's another red head!  I'm surrounded by such cute babies!!  :)

Bread

Last weekend, I tried making bread.  Steve's been baking so many different kinds and I wanted to try the traditional white sandwich bread.  I think it came out great!  I used our new mixer which made it super easy and quick to make.  What was interesting is that I used two different bread pans.  One was a metal pan and the other was a porcelain pan.  The bigger pan yielded a bigger loaf.  I think the bigger pan allowed for it to rise more.

Note the Poilane knife in the photo.  This was purchased in Paris at Poilane Bakery.  

The Little Red Head

Last weekend, Steve was in Norway and my friend Anita came to visit. She brought her five month old daughter, Andrea with her. She is so adorably cute! She smiles all of the time. I don't think I've seen a baby who smiles that much and that big! And, she has red hair and blue eyes. Too cute!

It was great to see Anita. She moved to Boise with her husband 4 or so years ago. She has another daughter, Shannon, who is three. I miss all of them and wish they still lived in Seattle. They weren't able to make it to the wedding so Anita promised to visit me for a weekend and she followed through. Now, it's our turn to go to Boise to visit them!

Salt in Pepper

This past weekend, Steve, Pepper and I went to Cannon Beach. We met Michelle, John and Elizabeth there. We had a great time! The weather was quite nice - very sunny. Of course, the beach was still pretty cold and windy. We really enjoyed taking long walks on the beach.

Unfortunately, Pepper got very sick. We figured that he must have ingested some salt water. He was playing fetch with a tennis ball and ended up carrying and chewing the ball drenched in salt water for a long time while on the beach. He lost his breakfast and then some. He couldn't keep anything down yesterday. He continued to drink water and we watched him very carefully. He made it through the night without getting sick and seems to be fine today. We waited to feed him until we returned to Seattle. Steve made him a nice meal of rice and chicken, which Pepper devoured quite happily.

It's been a while since we've posted to this blog. I hope to post more regularly now, so check back again!