The Time of Extra

During the first two months of this year, there is a lot of extra happening in addition to our happy little routine we have settled in since September. 

In no particular order...
We buy a set of six or so season tickets to the Seattle Symphony, and this year most of the concerts we have picked happen to be mid-January through the first week of March.

I finally bit the bullet, so to speak, and am getting some dental things I'd put off taken care of.  This involves five trips to Kent.

I was behind on the cat's shots... so there are three more trips to Kent. 

And, speaking of putting off, now I've had three (and there is at least one more) trip to the chiropractor as well as additional exercises...

And a few other things, too...

Someone near and dear was in the hospital in downtown Seattle for 10 days, and we went to visit four times.

We finally had some friends over that we'd been trying to get together with for many months.

Anne has a bass recital next weekend.

I have a paid playing gig coming up.

We had to get new passports for the girls.

Jared's phone met its bitter end.  After being dropped, it fell in the toilet.  And then while drying out in a bowl of rice on top of the fridge, it fell to the floor again.  After Jared's first attempts to get a new phone we discovered that the  account is in my name and I have lost my password, so we had to plan a time to go to the store together, with kids in tow to take care of the problem.

The front screen door also met its bitter end, although the frame is still attached, and walking right through it is a fun magic trick.

There were a couple of snow days.

I have kept up with Anne's bass practice like the star Suzuki parent I aspire to be.  We have gotten behind on her other schoolwork, which I do not regret.  She's actually almost done with first grade math, and is quite good at it.  We are going to start phonics in earnest in a couple of weeks.

Last Tuesday, she called her grandmother in Oregon and said she was coming to visit for a week.  So... we drove her down Friday, spent the night, and drove back home Saturday in time to get a wee bit of exercise, eat dinner, and load the kids back off to drop them at Jeffrey and Linda's house while we went to a concert.  She seems to be having the time of her life, and despite her trepidation about sleeping alone, she is doing just fine.  And I hear she even did her bass practice and brushed her teeth yesterday.

6

During the April break we spent a week in Oregon.  Laurel reached six months, and the following day Anne reached six years.  Warning:  the rest of this post is pretty much baby spam.

We spent a nice afternoon at the Oregon Museum of Science and Technology.  I had most of the time in this spot...

It rained most of the week, so there was a lot of this:

The cake turned out well enough it was worth making another:

Anne and Grandma spent some time making slippers out of cardboard and an old towl...

Finally, the last day was nice out:

(Cello practice on the stairs:)