the painting went down!!!

the sun is out, the temperature is around 50 degrees - what a perfect day to paint!! yes, God answered my prayers, grady got to paint his duck and nest outside. now i won't have to explain to the landlord why my son's artistic touches of blue, orange and yellow paint are inside the house! when we picked out the paint yesterday, grady chose yellow (which i assumed was for the duck), orange (which i assumed was for the beak), and blue (which i assumed must be for the nest & it is grady's favorite color). well we all know what assuming does for a person! the duck got a nice coloring of blue and the nest was of course yellow and orange. wow, what was i thinking - of course ducks are blue!! grady continues to amaze me with his artistic flair! all of you grady art buffs will be happy to know that he will be continuing his art classes into a 2nd session. next week is the last class and then they will be taking a couple of weeks off (i don't know why an instructor would need a break?!) and they will then pick up with the next 6 week session!!

little picasso adventures to sculpting

grady made it to art class this week! today they scultped ducks and nests from clay! we are to let them dry for 2 days and then we can paint them so they will last forever!! how convenient miss christine sent them home to be painted!! so for now, the duck is a gray donut (using master grady's art term) and the nest is a gray snake (again straight from sir grady!). the painting will more than likely go down on friday, hopefully the weather will clear up and we can do it outside! yep, it started raining again early this morning, but we had a wonderful week and half of sunshine!! the boys and i even planted some flowers yesterday, the flowering cabbage i planted in november wasn't even dead yet, we just transplanted it into the back flower bed!! wow, it's amazing how early spring is starting!

Guten Tag Leavenworth, Washington!

well, i will get to the title in a minute, but first i am sad to report the yuck bug claimed 2 more victims before his wrath was over. on friday evening, grady was the first to fall. but not far behind was good ole mom. daddy had to be the nurse maid for the 2 sickies. by saturday morning we were on the mend but decided to forego the trip to canada. instead we opted to stay home and relax and recoup. after some much needed rest and easy eating on saturday, we were feeling like we had a bad case of cabin fever. sunday afternoon we decided to head east. we visited the bavarian village of leavenworth. it was a beautiful 2 hour drive through the cascades. we walked around some of the little shops and stopped off for lunch at cafe christa. shawn was the only one feeling adventurous, he had jager schnitzel. basically it was breaded pork cutlets with gravy. we checked out a cheese factory and candy factory; some savory with our sweet!! we decided we would have to come back in the spring or summer. it definitely looked like it would be a hotspot then! the town was pretty cool. all of the buildings and signs had a german/euro feel to them. even the mcdonald's! the snow through the cascades was still pretty amazing, although nothing like when we went skiing a few weeks ago! for those of you who are wondering guten tag is german for hello!!

Auf Wiedersehen (good bye) aren't we feeling german today?!

still soakin' up the sun!!

well can you believe it, we are officially on our 6th straight day of beautiful and sunshiney (official word from amanda's dictionary) weather! gabe is feeling wonderful today and the rest of us are still going strong! gabe's own words for how he felt this morning were "i haven't felt this good in ages"! what a hoot! with the great weather, we spent the afternoon at the park working on our tans! we are planning a trip to canada this weekend. we'll keep ya posted!

no art class today! - we're feeling icky!!

well i said we're feelin icky, but so far the yuck bug has only claimed one victim - poor gabe!! he woke up twice in the night sick, so we are opting to keep the sickness contained to one family. i'm sure the innocent, unknowing others are happy. hopefully it will be rainy and yucky today, so i won't have to fight gabe to rest! it's still really early here, but i wanted to let all of you grady art buffs know that there would not be a new piece of art until next wednesday!!(assuming, of course, the yuck bug doesn't strike again!) we'll keep you posted!(i'm sure you're all excited!)

is this florida or washington ?!!

okay so it's not florida, but we are officially on our 4th straight day of dry and sunny weather!! watch out, we may just be able to trade our pasty white skin for something a shade darker!! well the boys and i took in the sunshine again today. we artfully decorated our sidewalk with all kinds of chalkwork!! won't the homeowner's association just love this!! gabe was sportin' his shorts and winter coat! hey whatever works!! grady was busy practicing for art class tomorrow. his teacher said he likes to practice his short strokes, well he definitely got in lots of practice today! i have the proof all over the driveway!!

beautiful day = day at the beach

this past weekend was absolutely wonderful !! we have had 3 beautiful days. since we have been home from christmas, i would bet we haven't had more than 3 or 4 dry days! (no i am not kidding!) it doesn't rain all day long, it just rains enough to be sloppy all day! but with the wonderful weather we got out and enjoyed it. we had planned for a lazy day on saturday, so we went down to the beach and just relaxed. we fed the birds, looked for shells, and just enjoyed the nice day! feeding the birds at the beach is always kind of cool! one minute there will not be a single bird in sight and then the minute you throw out some food, whoa watch out because it is dive bomb time!! don't dare stop the food or you will be their next target!! on saturday evening we had a seafood night!! shawn made his famous new orleans shrimp (according to grady, they are called delicious!) and some clams. now when we started cooking, i had no plans of eating those slimy little shell creatures, oh excuse me, clams, but as dinner progressed i became either brave or so tired of shelling shrimp for the kids, that the clams actually started looking interesting, but any way, i tried them !!!! they were actually really good!! i don't think i will ever be brave enough to try oysters, but hey baby steps are great!! on sunday we woke up to sunshine again!! when you are used to the cloudy mornings to wake up to, you kind of feel like a vampire waking up in the middle of the day. it takes a while for your eyes to get used to it! but we went to church and then for a sunday drive along the sound. we stopped off at the edmonds marina for a beautiful view of the olympic mountains and mt. baker. wow everything is so gorgeous up here when you can see past the clouds! gabe's basketball team also had their last game on sunday afternoon!! it was a rematch with the first team they played, the kids looked great and they had a fun time!! right when we got home from the game, gabe was ready to start practicing for baseball!! we went up to the school and practiced for about an hour. gabe didn't even look rusty, just picked right up where we left off last year!! so no one can say we didn't soak up a great weekend !!!

Most Improved Player !!!

Gabe's basketball team had their end of the season party and trophy presentation on Wednesday evening. We went to Spiro's Pizza and Pasta, it is so yummy. They have a pizza with shrimp on it, I know it sounds a little strange, but it is sooo good!! Anyhoo, the coach was handing out the trophy's and told Gabe that he was the most improved player of the season. We took that as a compliment, considering we went in knowing nada about basketball. I think I can even say we would be able to win the award for "Most Improved Family" of the season!! Having 11 little boys and all their families in one restaurant was quite a wild time. You could see relief on the workers faces when we were all leaving!! Gabe's team has one more game this Sunday. It is a rematch of the first game of the season!! After this game we have a month break before baseball starts!! We'll keep you posted!!

Pablo Picasso In The Making

Grady's art project this week was a fruit bowl. His fruit looks a little aged! I guess brown was the artistic flair he was feeling!! After the kids finished their project, Miss Christine, had them practicing shapes on the chalk and marker boards. Miss Christine and the kids were wearing more chalk and marker than the boards.

Wow What A Weekend!!!

The Fox Family has been busy, busy, busy. We were lucky to have some company the last few days. Shawn's parents came up on Thursday afternoon and left bright and early on Tuesday. We love showing people around and want to make sure they get the most bang for their buck, so we kept on the run most of their visit! They arrived at our house, traversing through the Seattle traffic all by themselves, at about 3:30 on Thursday. Pretty much the minute they walked in the door the tour began. We headed down to the beach since it wasn't raining for about 10 minutes. I am not kidding it has been raining (drizzling) pretty much everyday for the last who knows how long!! So when I say it wasn't raining for 10 min. and we headed outside, I am not exaggerating!!! We started out Friday morning with a healthy jaunt up 88 steps to take Gabe to school, then headed off to Snohomish, antique capital of Washington. We had a great time. I think Papa and Grady read almost every book in one of the shops we were in!!
Judy hit the jackpot as far as Raggedy Ann collectables go at one of the shops, so the day was written off as a success! We headed back in time to pick up Gabe and then headed down to Arnie's for dinner. The next morning we went for a ferry ride over to Whidbey Island. We traversed the whole island and stopped off at Deception Pass park and bridge, where the boys, yes Shawn included, tried to give Grandma Judy a heart attack!! There are some pretty scary looking edges and they were dangling dangerously close! We also had the rare opportunity to see and photograph a bald eagle. After a full day on Whidbey, you would of thought we would have called it a day, but no, that would be for a bunch of whimps!! We got freshened up and headed to Alderwood Mall for some shopping and dinner. We found some bargains and headed to McGrath's for dinner. The food was good, but sometimes our waiter went MIA, so the dinner took a little longer than usual! You know you've been waiting a while when you look over to your six-year old and he is fast asleep, sitting up. I guess we had a full day! Sunday was no day of rest. We went to church and then headed to Pikes Place Market in Seattle. No first-timers trip to Seattle is complete without this stop, so we had to get this squeezed in!! After buying lots of fresh, yummy fruits, veggies, and other goodies, we headed home for a short and much needed nap. After one hour of rest, time to head off to watch the Purple Dragons play basketball. Gabe really strutted his stuff for his Papa and Grandma. Gabe scored his first basket of the season!!! I'm not sure who was more excited, us or him!! After the game, we went and rented our skis and headed home for dinner. Monday morning started out bright and early. Shawn said the Armada was pulling out at 6:00 a.m., so you better be in and ready!! We were heading for the slopes and that is serious business!! Let me give you a little information that will be helpful later, the Cascades (mountain range where all of the ski resorts are) have gotten a ton of snow the last few weeks. They had around 90" of snow the last 7 days, and close to 400" so far this season. Okay with that information you know that the snow runs out of places to be put, so up here they just keep piling it up. I am not kidding when I say some of the roads up there feel like you are driving through a tunnel because the snow is so piled up on the side of the road. So this amount of snow is just avalanches waiting to happen, which is exactly what has been happening. Most of the resorts have been closed not only because of avalances on the slopes, but the slides of snow that go across the roadways. What a MESS!! Well we found out that Snoqualmie Pass was open on Monday for skiing, so off we went. We arrived about an hour and a half before the slopes opened, so we searched for a place to eat some breakfast!! The only place around was the Family Pancake House, which was very good, if you could get passed the idea that you were sitting under a roof that had about 8 feet of snow on it. Not exactly Susie Safety!! After snapping some crazy snow pics, we spent the rest of the day skiing. Grady and Grandma watched from the lodge. They had a great view to see us all tumbling, whizzing, and hot doggin' down the slopes!! We had a great time! Dad and Shawn even tempted some of the black slopes - what go-getters. Gabe and I just skiied our greens, we were happy as larks there!! We headed back toward home around 3:30. On the way home, we spotted some flashing lights and started noticing in the eastbound lanes of I-90 (we were in the westbound lanes) a bunch of cars and semis parked on the sides of the road. We tuned in to the traffic radio and found out there had been a natural slide (avalanche) at mile marker 51. We had been skiing at mile marker 53 all day! God blessed us with a safe day and kept us from harm. We were very lucky. Well we made it back to Edmonds and decided to meet up with a friend from back home. We had dinner at Buca Di Beppo's with Nate Lambert. We had a nice visit and dinner. After dinner we headed for home and thankfully our beds!!! I doubt any of us had a hard time sleeping last night or will for the next few!! We were very busy, but enjoyed having Charles and Judy. Any and all are welcome to come visit at anytime, just let us know so we can start planning a whirlwind tour!!