Alton Brown Encounters

Amanda recently won a radio competition (surprise, surprise) to have the Alton Brown of Good Eats and Iron Chef come to her house for a cooking lesson. Alton and Amanda cooked some extra tasty asparagus al dente and hammed it up for the amazed onlookers. Look how excited she is to be in the same kitchen as Alton.

The Snake Charmer

We are still battling rainy weather here in Spokane, but we're working in as much outdoor time as we can. The other exciting event of the week is that we've joined the YMCA (I love that place, especially the Zumba class and the babysitting), and the kids started swimming lessons. I think they inherited their love of water from their Dad.

Porter and Maya each have an interesting assortment of teeth and spaces in their mouths.




Daddy caught a snake for Missy Moo, and she was so so so so happy! She kept him in a jar for a while.

Mister Miles monkeyed around in the tree and around the pond. He's one curious walking baby. I'll have to post a video of him walking soon.


Not to be outdone by his baby brother, Porter monkeyed around in the tree too.

Maya eventually decided her snake MUST be harmless and began carrying him around in her BARE HANDS! Porter was a little nervous (to say the least).


Everyone was pretty interested in the little guy, and even Porter ended up holding him (although hesitantly).

I don't think of myself as someone who is squeamish around animals, but for some reason this little guy really freaked me out! Look at my face. The snake started opening his mouth really wide as I was giving him back to Maya, then suddenly the question of "What do snakes eat" was answered when he vomited up an entire earth worm. Gross!

Porter likes being Dad's little helper (maybe because there was money involved). They sure are cute working together.

A working man's day isn't complete until he's done his fair share of spitting.

For Sarah, Hannah, and Amanda

This is for Sarah, who used to secretly love me in college, (and who is probably gagging right now at the thought of it), Hannah, who thinks moustaches are as gross as Doc Martens, for Amanda, who loves my facial hair, but not this particular style, and for Porter, Maya, Bennett and Miles who will one day say, "Gross, dad had a moustache!"

Happy Farter's day!

Swimming

We went to Chuck E Cheese. Always a favorite! The kids loved it, but secretly I think the adults like it just as much. Casey LOVED the jump rope game, and Brice and Mal were hooked on Deal or No Deal, and the Sport games. I think we won over 750 tickets! Casey let Miles have some of his Soda Pop, and he LOVED that.

Casey's Grandpa Art lives in an apartment complex down the hill from us, and he has a swimming pool, so we've taken advantage of that when we could. The kids really like swimming. The only thing that would make it better would be if it were a little warmer. We've also gone swimming at the YMCA, and that was pretty fun because we swam in the "warm water therapy pool" and Miles had a great time. Pool temperature makes a big difference for Miles, but Porter and Maya are numb to the cold.

Yard Games

We scraped together enough people to play a little backyard baseball. Porter had a blast!





Grammy and Maya got a few pictures too

Miles and Casey enjoyed the entertainment

Porter and Maya enjoyed the treats

After a little baseball Poppy decided to break out the golf clubs. They guys would hit golf balls and see who could get closest to a predetermined object. Then to add an extra element of difficulty Malerie stood near the object with a bat and tried to hit the golf balls out of the air.



I'm pretty anti-golf, but Casey makes one sexy golfer!


Story time with Bryce. Bryce is Malerie's fiance, and we all love him. Especially the kids. He babysat for us the other night and when we got home Maya showed us that Bryce had pulled her tooth (yes ANOTHER one, that makes 4 in two weeks). She had been wiggling it and tasted the blood, then she started saying "Ooh, it's bleeding, get it out!". So Bryce got it out of there. I think the tooth fairy is going broke due to this girl.

Casey taught the kids a little Four Square (here he is drawing the squares). They thought it was pretty fun, but it was a little difficult for them.




Benny is looking so big. I sure love that kid.