baby faces

I found the baby pictures of Andrew to compare with Kaili's picture! Does anyone see a similarity?
Sorry I don't know how to manipulate the pictures better-Jenni: help!!--- Mom- you've got it... we'll chat about aligning the pictures (I'm still working on getting that figured out as well).

(Andrew- above)

(Kaili-above)

March

Long time no blog! Jenni has encouraged me to post but I always get frustrated and give up. So, here I am trying again! We went to Utah for Kaili's blessing March 1st and Kevin, Kristen and Madi came too. It was a lot of fun to see my grandbabies - just always too short on time!

Swimmin' Skeens

We figured we better start the girls swimming early! They loved it!

Valentines in the HEART of NYC

Haha... Jenni, me, somehow earned the title as the official "tour guide" for our trip to Manhattan. Valentines day, we spent the morning with the Skeens in NJ and then all rode together with Rich, Mirit and Asher into the city. There we found a great place to enjoy some famous NY pizza... it was one of Rich's fav. places near 12th street (they use to live there). The fresh basil leaves atop the thin-crust and fresh mozzerella pizza was fantastic (even for one who is selective about her pizza- hmhm).
Rich sent us in the right direction to catch subway and we made our way toward the Staten Island Ferry. Along the way saw...

• Ground Zero
• Wall Street and the NY Stock Exchange
• Statue of GW where he was sworn is a Pres. of the United States

Then made our way to...

• the Statue of Liberty from the Staten Is. Ferry
  

Then uptown to...

• Central Park (southwest and east end) with the ice rink--- it was dark
• 5th Avenue- windows and St. Patricks
• Rockafeller Center
• Maxi's for dinner on 42nd (?)... great Valentines Dinner to end the day!
  
• Revisited part of Time Square
• Port Authority to catch the bus to NJ

**Sorry No Pictures... Maea was all over it on Saturday***

A True Presidents Day

We spent Pres. Day at George Washington's Estate, Mount Vernon, in Virginia overlooking the Potomac River!!! Washington's Bday lands on the 22, so we were a few days off being there on his official birthday, but it was a very appropriate location to celebrate the holiday!
One of Mom's highlights was the marching band. A short video clip shows part of the parade that took place in front of Washington's home. Mom will share more about it... In short, it was a very nice afternoon...

After Mount Vernon, we ran into heavy traffic going through Old Town Alexandria. Recognizing that the reason was the local parade, we stopped to find Mom another marching band... We did not see the line early enough to catch the real band, but we did get to see come colonial era costumes worn by men who apparently reenact various parts of the revolutionary war period. The video below is take just after they broke out into a mini dramatic play... didn't catch it, but you can see their costumes, which fit really well into the town with its restored homes.

Snowed In

Happy to be home in a warm home with most the kids home, minus Andrew and Rachel (in Hawaii with her family this year). We're snowed in... and yes, we are still in Bellevue... this is very unusual for the Seattle area, but we'll enjoy the white Christmas! It keeps coming down.

Remodel Update!

With the tenuous economy and our thrifty roots, we've decided to take on a huge remodeling project on ourselves!
I know it is daring...we swore we wouldn't leave it unfinished, we set a goal, a reasonable deadline, used a carefully thought out budget and we went to work!



I don't have a picture ready so I'll have to keep you all in suspense until your next visit!
Oh, I guess I forgot to say what the huge undertaking was...




our bedroom in no longer the Family Room, we moved the computer out!

some things are more difficult for us.... baby steps!