cascadian telegrams

kids holiday party with alan & elizabeth

Beth and Alan hosted a great, kid-friendly holiday party at their house on Saturday.  The kids ran wild (natch), lots of good food and conversation and a chance to catch up a bit with friends -- what could be better than that?

snaps are here.

Thanks A. & E.!

bon voyage Mike & Jackie

Our friends Mike and Jackie Gilbert are off to Boulder, Colorado to start a new adventure there.  Mike was one of my first-and-best friends here in Seattle, a coworker, footy teammate and I was best man at their wedding.

We'll miss them of course but hopefully we'll still see them occasionally as Mike still works for the Borg like we do ;).  We had a nice send-off breakfast at Maximilien in Pike Place Market this morning; that's Malcolm-the-Pirate with Anna, their daughter at the restaurant

Bon Voyage Gilberts!

friends and family

We've been back in Seattle for just over two months now, and I'm so happy to say I feel like we've made the right choice.  Being close to friends and family was our strong motivation for coming back, and it is... really nice.

We've had dinners, and coffee, and outings to places like the science center (above), soccer with friends' kids, and long afternoons with walks around Green Lake, enjoying the late summer and now autumn.   It just feels very nice, and normal.. or at least what should be normal if life were more balanced.

We still don't see everyone we want to see, nor often enough, but we just didn't have the same kind (or number) of relationships in Denmark.  Off to a good start, I'd say.

MS Dads Picnic

Sunday was a nice "Father-Kids Picnic" at Lake Sammamish State Park sponsored by 'MS Dads' (i.e. fathers with kids at MS).  It was good fun.  We had some nice barbeque and a chat with some of the other families and Malcolm and Zoe went swimming and played with sand toys on the beach.

malcolm duped me into buying some candies when I picked up my 'side dish' for the picnic, they were like "starbursts" 'cept hard as rock.  Here he is trying to get through a green one and Zoe is working on a red one

while Kai sensibly waits it out below the picnic table

happy birthday zoë'!

It was Malcolm's friend Zoë's 5th birthday on Sunday, at The Little Gym.  Great to see Zoë, Kai, Sarah and Steve again, they're friends from Copenhagen and Zoë is one of Malcolm's longtime friends ("do you remember me?" he asked her bashfully :)).

It was great fun with lots of running around, silliness and a few games, and of course a pink cake... always her favorite color.

 

 

and little Kai is getting big!

Tillykke Zoë!  Snaps can be found here.