This week

My grandpa, 89, got his back surgery yesterday and is doing remarkably well. He was walking today apparently. Sheesh! Why was anyone worried? K...knock on wood...let's hope he continues to do well!

Kurt and I made an impromptu meal that turned out to be delicious! Red and green peppers, onions, corn, and chicken cooked in a pan with some olive oil and taco seasoning. Put over rice (and I topped mine off with some cheese). It was better than I expected. And so colorful! Like Kurt said- it's the Mexican flag...plus yellow.

I've seen lots of family which has been fabulous!

I was in charge of my first check run at work- go me!

And here's a random video of "my grandparents dancing" (quotation marks intentional).

Grandparents

Kurt and I ran into his grandma (Gram) at the grocery store. And quite literally. We were standing in line when all of a sudden a shopping cart pushes past me and straight into Kurt. I turn me head to see it's Gram. The best part? After running into him she said "I thought that was you". She wasn't sure...

My grandpa went to the doctor and told the breathing specialist he had pneumonia when he was young, but it was before penicillin so he had a mustard plaster (I had never heard of such a thing: here's what wikipedia says). The doctor had a shocked look on his/her face- mustard plasters haven't been used in a while. penicillin was discovered in 1928.

I was talking to my sister Megan on the phone a couple days ago. She went out to run some errands and left her sleeping daughter with Grandma. I was still talking to Megan when she got back to my grandparents- Charlotte had woken up and needed a diaper change. My grandma couldn't figure out the diaper tabs so Charlotte's diaper was taped on with blue painter's tape.

I have one question- did you get a picture Megan?

Grandparents are the best! I love them mucho!

Oh the things we do!

Happy Bastille Day!!!

Ok it was on the 14th, but Kurt and I celebrated (on the 15th)!

We ate crepes. Kurt is quite the crepe master.
I went for the burrito style while Kurt chose a more traditional French technique.

We drank Orangina! I didn't know it existed until I went to Paris. It's now popping up everywhere here in Washington.

And then we watched Les Miserables while eating and drinking our French delicacies.

Who knew that Claire Danes was Uma Thurman's daughter?

Reminds me of when Sarah, Jeanette, and I had "A Night in Italy"- Olive Garden and Under the Tuscan Sun. Good times :)

3rd of July

We had a combination birthday celebration for Lucas, Sophia, and William (niece and nephews) whose birthdays are all within 1 month of each other.

I love it when 3 year olds dress themselves:

Swing and a miss!

The birthday boys and girl blowing out their candles...well 2 out of 3 are.

Really excited for cake:

Just chillin' with Uncle Kurt (she tried to eat his hair).

It was a great day!

It's official

As of this week I am a certified-honest-to-goodness employee of Northwest Hospital and Medical Center (affiliated with UW Medicine). It only took me 2 years to get off temp status. And now I get health insurance! And a bus pass! Which are both excellent news especially since our office is moving locations...and we only get 9 parking spaces for the 17 people in our office. I'm thinking it will be easier for me to ride the bus than to fight it out for a place to park.

And since I'm updating you on my work situation- I also go up to Anacortes once a week and make meals for Ani and Lili. I make them every meal for the entire week- breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I've never cooked so much in my life. It's great to see my sisters so often. They seem to like me well enough, actually they've seemed to like me a lot lately. I better keep making them food they like! I'm acquiring more Ani and Lilisms with every week. For example: I was making a salad which I placed in a plastic bag. I then took a knife and poked some holes in the bag. Lili asked "what are you doing that for?" "well, I think the lettuce needs to breath". She rolled her eyes a bit and laughingly said "lettuce doesn't have lungs" and walked away like I was crazy. I love it. They're great!

Gasworks

Sarah and I went out to Gasworks Park yesterday and it was absolutely beautiful! We walked to the top of the hill, sat down, and were chatting away. When all of a sudden- I inhaled sharply and said "oh my gosh Sarah". This middle-old aged man who had been laying down halfway down the hill stood up...he was only wearing his tighty-whities! He stood up, looked around, picked up his jeans, slowly put them on, looked around a bit more, then put his shirt on. We were a little bit shocked. 

Eclipse

Here's the truth: I strongly dislike the Twilight series. The books got progressively worse with each installment (hence this post) and the first two movies were downright painful to sit through. My biggest beef with this darn series is that people have dared to compare Twilight to Harry Potter. Seriously? HP leaves Twilight in the dust in any competition. Unless that competition is 'which one has more vampires and werewolves' (but there are vampires and werewolves in Harry Potter)?

Sorry for the rant, but with that said. I was pleasantly surprised by the third Twilight movie Eclipse. It wasn't extremely boring, painfully awkward, or outright ridiculous (mostly). Why? Well, there was an actual plot line and the entire movie was not focused solely on the Edward-Bella-Jacob love triangle. Of course it's a big part of the film, but more time is spent on other characters than in the first two films.

Whew! I promise not to write about Twilight or Harry Potter for a while. I'm sure some of you find this topic horribly uninteresting, so thanks for sticking with me!

But if you are interested- I vote for Edward.