Time flies

I can't believe it's been a whole week since I posted. This week (and weekend) went by really fast.

Craft stuff:
I have been spinning on my Turkish some more and last I posted I had 2 completed hanks. As of this morning I have 3 complete hanks and another cop of singles almost done. Before I go to bed tonight I hope to have finished plying and setting this yarn (hopefully it will be the last hank - I am enjoying the spinning but I am really ready to start knitting with it).
I also finished the body of one of my teddy bears and now I have to stuff it and call my friend to come and pick it up.

Food stuff: We tried a new recipe this week (on Wednesday) - Brian made butter chicken wich is an indian dish made with onions, tomato sauce, diced tomato, a bit of cream, roast chicken and some spices (those are just the basics) all together in a sauce and served over basmati rice.
On Thurday Andrew and Eldon came over and Andrew cooked - he had some left over smoked Turkey and made us enchilada's it was quite good.
On Friday Brian made hollandaise sauce and we had eggs benedict with crab instead of ham - it was fabulous. Totally worth the time to make the sauce from scratch and shell the crab. The kids did not have any crab (shellfish, young kids, yada yada) but they seemed to enjoy it also.

Family stuff:
On Friday Jacob went with Julie and Ron for his weekly Grandpa Day. Normally it's on Thursdays but Julie had Friday off and wanted to spend some time with him too. They also had Eve (Jake's cousin) so the kids got to play together. Fridays are the start of Brian's weekend as well (damn economy...4 day weeks for quite a while, but he still has a job thank god and he gets to spend more time with the kids). So we puttered around the house until after Abby woke up from her nap and headed to Red Robin for lunch (gift certificate from Christmas - it only cost us like 10 bucks out of pocket). Then we thought it would be fun to take Abby to the 'baby animal playground' at the mall. So we wandered in there and let her run around. This place is really great for the smaller toddlers out there. All soft and cushy but still firm enough to climb on. Then we wandered into Victoria Secret and I ended up buying a new bra. I am so happy I did - I forgot how comfortable VS bras are (they damn well better be for 40+ bucks a pop). Then Brian went and picked up the tabs for his truck and we met at the grocery store to pick up stuff for dinner.
On Saturday we woke up and were hanging around the bedroom with the kids and Brian asked what I wanted to do for the day. I said, "I don't know, it looks like a really nice day, let's do something with the kids, like NW Trek or something." After a few minutes in his office (at the computer I assume) he came in and said "ok, let's go. They open at 9:30, lets try to leave the house by 9" I am thinking 'awesome!!!' So I got the kids ready to go and then I made a quick breakfast of scrambled eggs and cheese with some english muffins. 20 minutes later we were there. Now I had never been to NW Trek so I didn't really know what it was going to be like and I had a ton of fun. First we saw a golden eagle, and through the trees we saw the bald eagle on our way to the tram station. While waiting for the tram Jake kinda freaked out and decided he didn't want to go because "the moose has big eyes" (which I thought was weird because he has never seen a moose before). We told him that he would get to see a squirrel if he went on the 'bus-train' After we started seeing animals he started to get less afraid and more excited when he realized they couldn't hurt him. Let's see we saw: Moose, Bison, Elk, Mountain Goats, Big Horned Sheep, Deer, Swans, Geese and Duck. I may be missing some but I think that is most of it. We got really lucky - because these animals are basically free-roaming in a natural habitat they are not always close enough to the road to see...Brian said he has been on the tram and only seen 1 or 2 things. The tour lasts a full hour and by the time we were done Abby was asleep and Jake was starting to get a little cranky. We plopped them in the stroller and went to see the animals in 'exibits.' The first one we saw was the black bear - at wich point I dropped the camera, breaking it - so that is why no pics (the brand new one we got for Christmas).*
I was surprised that the animals were not behind glass, or even a fence. You stood in the covered viewing area and looked into the fenced habitats. I have only been that close to a bear once in my life, and last time it was NOT FUN - we were just getting out of the car at my Grandpa's house in Glacier National Park. Needless to stay we all got back in the car and waited until Grandpa fired the gun a few times (not at the bear - we were in a park) and it went away. Also a black bear now that I think about it. Anyway the ony thing between you and the bears is a ditch and a single line of electric fence on their side of the ditch. After the black bear was the grizzly bears. Large and impressive - reminds me of an old joke: "how do you know if you are being chased by a black bear or a grizzly bear? - The black bear will climb the tree - the grizzly bear will knock it over" (ba-dum-cha!)
After the bears we say gray wolf, red fox, and coyotes - they were RIGHT there only yards away. it was really neat. Then there were the bobcat, cougar and lynx. Holy crap those cougar were HUGE! there were two of them and for obvious reasons the viewing area was elevated much higher and the 'ditch' was actually a rather wide, deep moat (cougars can jumb 20 feet vertical). I am fairly certain there was no way they could jump that high from floating in the water.
From there we saw the smaller wetland animals - raccoon, rover otter, beaver, wolverine, porcupine, skunk, badger, and fisher (I had never heard of nor seen a fisher before - really cute little things). Then we saw the barn owls, horned owls and snowy owl and headed to lunch. The cafe had a lodge type setting - the booths were wood and it had high open rafters and a nice large fire place with a fire blazing. It was great - we picked the booth closest to the fire and had a darned good lunch before heading back to the van. Jake fell asleep before we were out of the park driveway. We got home and put the kids down for naps (I had one too - all that walkng made me tired).
So that was our weekend so far. It was a ton of fun...now I have to go do laundry and pack some bags because the kids and I are headed up to Orcas for the week tomorrow.

*camera fixed now...no worries