When the cat's away, the mice come out to play

Ben & I just got done with spending a weekend with James while Jessie and Mark went out of town to the Salish Lodge. After printing out several emails full of tips from my sister, and barely sleeping through the night in anticipation of James waking up, we survived. We couldn't believe how smoothly everything went!

Here are some of the places that we visited over the weekend.. we think it really expanded James' world view quite a bit:


ok ok.. Our adventure really began on Sat. morning. We went for a walk to Starbucks & to my work, met Jess & Mark downtown to drop off their gift certificate and went down to the zoo in the afternoon.


After the zoo, we put James to bed (after feeding him a nutritional meal of course) and he slept from 6:00 pm-8:00 am. Who knew he would be such an amazing sleeper after he started out being so difficult! After church, we put him down for a nap and were surprised when he didn't wake up until over 3 hours later. Jessie & Mark came home literally 10 min. after him waking up.

So needless to say, of the 30 hours that we watched him, he was asleep for 20 of them. 2 of the 10 hours he was awake, he was in the nursery at church. We did have lots of fun when he was awake playing with toys and running down the hallway.

weather worth blogging about

the snow has come and gone and needless to say, sunlight has been a little lacking lately. I checked the weather forecast yesterday because Ben & I were starting to seriously consider going out of town this weekend in order to search out the beautiful yellow light. I was happy to see this:

Tue
Jan 13

Partly Cloudy

50°

Wed
Jan 14

Partly Cloudy

50°

Thu
Jan 15

Cloudy

53°

Fri

Jan 16

Mostly Cloudy

53°

Sat
Jan 17

Partly Cloudy

54°

Sun
Jan 18

Mostly Sunny

52°

Mon
Jan 19

Partly Cloudy

50°

Needless to say, I think I will survive :)

AZ & So Cal visits WA

Well it has been quite busy over in the Crowl home the last couple of weeks! We had a ton of fun with visits from both Ben's parents and my mom. It is going to feel odd coming home without having lots of people around!

My mom flew in on New Years Eve. We had a tasty dinner together. I made this garlic bread from America's Test Kitchen. I have to say that the extra effort paid off- it was the best garlic bread I've ever had in my life! Wednesday night we rang in the New Year at Kerry Park. We went to a restaurant beforehand called the 5 spot and had some $5 appetizers (ok I had a baked cookie & ice cream). We met up with 2 couples from community group. It was quite rainy and pretty chilly, but the fireworks were still beautiful!


On Thursday, we spent the morning over at Jessie & Mark's because it was freezing outside! We finally braved the weather and went down to the Olympic Sculpture Park. Afterwards, we warmed up with an incredible cup of nutella hot chocolate from here. and then onto the EMP for free museum Thursday. The museum was incredibly packed, so we didn't get to do a ton, but we did manage to hang out in the drum/guitar room for a while and get in some practice!

On Friday, my mom & I went with Jessie & James to the Shoreline rec center to play with James at their baby gym. It was so much fun! Our nephew continues to be the cutest boy alive.


After the gym, my mom, Ben's parents & I met up with Ben & Mark for lunch. We went this incredible mexican restaurant that was well worth the wait. I had the halibut fish tacos and they were delish!

We spent Friday night over at Jessie & Mark's playing games and eating some fabulous pulled pork sandwiches.

We started our day on Saturday morning by going out to breakfast at a cafe in Edmonds recommended by Rick Steves. It was both cute & tasty!


we all went on this wonderful family friendly hike in Edmonds. It was only a little more than a mile one way and it was such beautiful scenery. Plus, it ended at this beautiful beach. We want to go back in the summer to have a bbq.


After our hike, we ate lunch at Ivar's in Edmonds. yum. Then we took Ben's parents to the airport. After our airport run, we met up with my mom, Mark, Jessie & James for a factory tour of Theo Chocolate. Ben & I were sick after trying so many different flavors of chocolate! My favorite was their vanilla bar, and Ben's was the bread & chocolate bar. The tour was interesting-especially tasting "nibs"- the part of the cocoa bean that is used to make chocolate. The tour guide said it tasted like green olives.. we decided it tasted like burnt green olives. blah.

No.. our adventures are not over yet! Sunday was an incredible day. We decided to venture to Snoqualmie Pass and take part of a guided snowshoe tour through the ranger's station. I would highly recommend this to anyone! It was a 90 min. walk and it was so incredibly beautiful. There was SO much snow.. it was just fantastic.