Homemade Sushi!

After Kevin and I took our sushi making class last year, Adam and Erin got us all the gear we needed to make it at home for Christmas! Tonight, we finally took the dive and made some scrumptious rolls filled with carrot, cucumber, avocado, and egg. So good, so easy! We stuffed ourselves silly!

Kevin preps the rice

While I chopped the veggies

Kevin fans the rice

Our sushi station!

Spread that rice!

And now we roll!

Tada!

We love the beautiful dishes, perfect for sushi! Thanks Adam and Erin!

Dig in!

24 pieces each, we're full!

A little more from our babysitting adventure!

This was our first time getting to take care of one of the little guys on our own, and we were so excited to get Jackson all to ourselves! We headed over bright and early yesterday, said good luck to Nate, learned about Jackson's routine, and off they went! We immediately got down to the business of playing! He has this fun toy that he can send little animals down a slide, and he absolutely loves it! Kevin showed him some secret hiding places where the animals can go, and they had fun playing on the floor. Then we played pass with a ball. Jackson is great at throwing, and he also is so cute and shares with everyone. He would pass to me, I'd roll it back, then he'd pass to Kevin! Pretty great! We ate food, read books, played with a Mylar balloon from Terri's birthday last week, and got down to standing and walking!

At first, he was just standing for short periods of time. He'd pull himself up on the animal slide toy, and then stand until his legs gave out.


Then, we started pulling the toy away from him once he stood up, and he'd take a step, and then fall over. We didn't really get any good videos of that, but plenty of cute pictures!

Jackson loves to impersonate Sasha's panting, it's super cute!

He also likes to chase her around, but Sasha is pretty quick!

Gazing out at Sasha on the deck

Eating some grub!

Nate did awesome at his tournament! He placed 2nd in his division for form! What a great big trophy! He also had his first sparring match, which was tough, but he held his own. He was paired up with a much bigger guy, and was a little intimidated, but he never backed down and put up a good fight! Pretty soon we'll have a black belt on our hands! I'm so proud of you, Nate! Hopefully, the video of his sparring match will be up soon so I can link to it and show off his skills!

A great day! Can't wait to get another chance to babysit!

10 months and walking!

Kevin and I got to babysit Jackson today while Nate had his first Tai Kwan Do tournament. More photos and info later, but I had to share this immediately!

Seattle Sounders, I loved you before I met you...

And now that I have, I love you even more!!!! Tonight was the first match for the Seattle Sounders FC at Qwest Field. 30,000 fans, green and blue scarves waving proudly, marching from Pioneer Square to the stadium, chants, screaming, scoring goals - what could be better?! It was an awesome way to kick off the season, and I am officially a diehard fan!

We got tickets with Adam, Erin, Susan, and Neal, so Adam and Erin came down to our place this afternoon with Corbin, and Susan and Mark came over from the island. Grandpa Mark graciously offered to babysit the little monkey while we were at the game! We were all super pumped, and of course had our awesome scarves that Kevin had scored us, plus we each had something green or blue on to show our pride! I knitted Corbin a Sounders scarf this week so he could be decked out, too!

Checking out his soccer, he's ready to play!

Sounders fan from infancy!

We headed down to the match early to march with other fans, and hear some higher ups talk, and get pumped! Drew Carey (one of the owners of the team) and Tony Ventrella, plus some other folks got the crowd excited to start the march to the stadium!

Sounders take to the streets!

Think Adam is a little excited? Check out the sweet jersey Erin got him for Christmas!

Neal, Susan, and Kevin show off their scarves

I knitted my hat over the last couple of days out of the leftover yarn from Corb's scarf! Look ma, earflaps!

The man in black behind Adam is Adrian Hanauer, the Sounders General Manager! Pretty sweet photo, if I do say so myself!


The pitch!

There's Drew Carey


Look at all those fans! It looked so awesome when everyone raised their scarves and waved them around!

Beautiful view of the city from our seats!

And the players take the field!

The game could not have been more exciting! The Sounders scored their first goal in the first 12 minutes of the game, and went on to score two more. The New York Red Bull did not score any the entire game, and actually didn't even have that many shots on goal. Fredy Montero scored two of our goals, which was the first time since 2005 that a player making their major league debut has scored twice in the same game! How exciting! Kasey Keller made some stellar stops at the goal, and many of the other players (I will learn who you are soon!) did an awesome job. All in all, I had an amazing time, and I can't wait for next weekend's matchup against Salt Lake City Real!

Kevin and I have a long weekend together! He is done with finals for the quarter and on spring break, so I decided to take tomorrow and Monday off to spend some time with him. Tomorrow we are going out to breakfast with Adam and Erin and some friends, and then Saturday we are babysitting Jackson while Nate has his first Tai Kwon Do meet! Other than that, we aren't sure what we are going to do with ourselves, but it will be nice to have a little mini vacation! Hooray!

Scarves Galore!

This winter, it became clear to me that I have failed my husband. He did not own a single solitary scarf! How can the husband of a knitter not have a scarf? Well, it took me a couple months to complete it, but he is now the proud owner of a hand knit scarf.
I followed the This Way Up pattern found on Ravelry. It was a really nice pattern with the perfect amount of interesting changes. Scarves can get awfully boring after awhile! I also took this as my first opportunity to try out blocking. Blocking is basically getting a garment wet and then shaping and stretching it to your desired shape and size. It makes things look really pretty and finished, and can give length when you stop short on a scarf, which I am prone to do! This scarf was definitely not too short, but the edges were curling in on themselves, so I thought I'd give it a shot! I used my iron on steam setting, and I think next time I do it, I will use more pins and more steam, but it worked pretty well.

All laid out for drying after being steamed and set into place.

See the pretty chevron pattern?

Damn having such a tall husband!

In the middle of the scarf, it switches directions so that both sides point up. This was the hardest part of the pattern, but eventually I figured it out!

But the scarf excitement doesn't end there! Last week, the Seattle Sounders FC did a campaign around the city, putting up scarves in several neighborhoods for people to take and show their pride with! They canvassed Phinney Ridge, and Kevin went out to see if he could get any for us. Most of them were way out of reach, on the tops of light poles and such, that one would need a ladder to get down, but he did find on in the community center's garden. That one may have been dropped unintentionally, but he took it and was very excited to have his own. That afternoon, my friend Danielle and I were heading out for a walk around Green Lake, and tried to get the few left that we saw down, but they were too high up for a couple of shorties.

Then later this week, I came into work, and sitting on my desk was a present from Danielle! She had found one of the scarves outside of work the night before, and nabbed it for me! What an awesome friend!!! I was so thrilled (especially because I really didn't want to have to knit one for myself after spending so much time on Kevin's scarf!)

Well, the excitement continued yesterday. When Kevin was biking through Fremont to go to school, the Sounders had struck again! He said there was somewhere around 40 scarves hung up in various areas of Fremont, and he had come prepared with his pocketknife to cut some down! They were all ziptied to posts and whatnot. So he cut one down, and then waited a little while, then cut another down and waited awhile. He didn't want to look greedy, but he needed 4 more scarves to deck out the family for our first match next week! So all told, we now have 6 scarves: me, Kevin, Adam, Erin, Neal, and Susan! No mini ones for Corbchops, but maybe an auntie will have to remedy that! Are scarves safe for 9 month olds? Perhaps some wristbands or a hat? :)

Look ma, it's reversible!

Apparently, Kevin has a scarf pose!

So we are looking forward to the first match on Thursday, should be a very exciting event! Everyone root for the Sounders! WOOOOHOOOO! Oh, we also got our tix for opening day for the Mariners, so let baseball AND soccer season begin!

Happy Birthday Kevin!

On Saturday I headed over to Bainbridge to visit with the family. Matthew and Terri joined us with Jackson, which was great as I hadn't gotten a visit in awhile! Jackson is figuring out how to stand up really well, he can balance without holding onto anything for several seconds, and he is crawling everywhere, and fast! He talks like crazy! I got in another fabulous nap with my little guy, luxurious baby naps! Gotta love them!






Today we celebrated Kevin's 27th birthday! Kevin and I went for a glrious walk around Greenlake after I got off of work. It was freezing cold, but beautifully sunny. A lovely walk!. Then Kevin's folks and Neal came over to Seattle and we headed down to Volterra in Ballard for some super scrumptious Italian food, as it is Kevin's favorite! I think it is the best Italian food we've had in Seattle. I tried out the lamb ragu, which was delicious, and Kevin had pork jowl and mushroom linguine. Susan and Mark both had shrimp and lobster pasta, and Neal had crab ravioli. It was all great, and I highly recommend going there to anyone!

Then we headed back up to our house for dessert, carrot cake with cream cheese frosting made by me, b request of the birthday boy! Then Kevin opened his presents and we said goodnight to the family! Seems like Kev had a good birthday! He got panniers for his bike, and great fly fishing guide book, waders, boots, and a new digital trivial pursuit. Good loot! Happy birthday husband!



And a little Jackson video. Check out how well he moves around, and he is making the funniest Daffy Duck sounds!