Emily came to visit us this week. We had a great time. We ate tasty Japanese food in the International District, and of course cupcakes two times. The Top Pot 5k was super fun with 2,800 runners. Alicia and Emily also went maternity shopping and to the plant sale. We got a third blueberry bush. Last night we all went to Christian and Meghan's to pick lilacs flowers for lilac wine Christian is making. Our lilac bush contributed a lot. Today we learned Alicia has gained 12 lbs total so far and she is feeling great, though a bit tired sometimes. Later we ate cheeseburgers and were tired. Now Emily is carefully packing up her many items. Sorry for the blurry photos, it speaks to my spotty photo skills, hopefully I'm getting better. Til next week.

Here is Week 25, Alicia pic of the week. This week features a retro Save the Bay t-shirt. Alicia sorted her shirts to find her favorites that still fit and would be fun for this fall. I'll have to start thinking of creative photo settings and things for Alicia to be doing each week. I'm open to ideas. See you next week!

The SuperHenry blog has a new feature - Alicia picture of the week! So everyone can follow along at home as her belly grows more beautiful each day. Here are two photos. The hoodie shot is from week 23, April 3. Alicia cooking in the dress is from tonight.

In other fun news we went on an awesome trip to Leavenworth this weekend and stayed at a beautiful hotel and saw beautiful spring forest, with mildly annoying slushy mounds of receding snow.

Photos from our trip to Joshua Tree and Palm Springs!

I dropped our camera during the first hike. It's now officially a "point and shoot" camera. But we still have some decent photos.

Yucca Valley, CA -- We are having an amazing time relaxing on our first trip to Joshua Tree National Park. We're staying just a few miles away in a little cabin on the edge of wild desert country. Right now Alicia is making a fire as the sun is setting.

Our first day we hiked Ryan Mt. and saw a beautiful view of the park spreading out on the valley below. On one side is the higher Mojave Desert and the other the Calif. Sonora Desert with more open plains. After hiking the quick peak we visited the Hall of Horrors bouldering area where climbers use the big rock formations. They are very fun to explore with twists and turns. We found a little crack between two massive boulders that create a long hallway.

The next day, after cheese scrambled eggs and cinnamon buns we headed out to Boy Scout trail. It was an awesome 10 mile hike. It began on the plains with a forest of Joshua Trees with crazy jutting rock formations that look like stacked, rounded multi-shaped rectangles forming little mountains. Then we descended into more dense rocks, with more plants, cactus, and fewer Joshua Trees. Eventually the trail found a large dry river bed that constantly wound toward larger rocking hills in the distance. The river was fantastic with such a diversity of tiny plants among the rocks and boulders. Then we found the beautiful view of the plain desert below. Ate lunch and started back. Near the car we climbed up a fun hill of rocks and saw a large group of German tourists.

Now we are relaxing and will eat bbq chicken soon!

We went up to Vancouver and Whistler this weekend to see the biathlon. We had such a great time! Full story to come.

Until then, here are a few videos.

We had a fabulous Thanksgiving week. It was wonderful to have Alicia's family visit (sadly, minus Emmy). Agnes was a super star of handy house projects, vastly improving our little house. You name it: kitchen floor, kitchen sink facet, patching wall holes with putty and paint, fixing the drain in the bathroom sink, finding the water main and carport power. In addition Agnes, Charles and Alicia painted of the dining room in awesome yellow.

Cat came on Wed. and really raised the Thanksgiving bar with delicious onions, squash and brussels sprouts with pomegranate balsamic reduction, indian spices, and toasted pecans respectively. Alicia made a tasty blueberry pie while Agnes whipped up her amazing stuffing and turkey. Charles made sure we had plenty of tasty coffee and Top Pot donuts. A good time was had by all.

So much happened. Snoqualmie Falls, japanese gardens, oysters, pho, Loews, apple cup, and poker of course. A highlight was Alicia and Charles birthday dinner at Sitka and Spruce. Each bite was superb, unique, perfectly prepared - the lamb's tongue was the favorite.

This was a great welcome to the holidays, and a special warming of our house. Many photos were taken that I do not have, but I'll get them up when they're shared around. Until then, here's the perfect thing for leftover turkey, and Alicia and Cat at Kubota Gardens. Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas!

Last weekend Alicia's parents came to town for Thanksgiving. They planned a trip to Vancouver, B.C. that Alicia and I joined them on. It was great fun. We ate amazing sushi and NW seafood. We saw the Olympic First Nations statue and the Granville market. We visited Stanley Park and the totem poles there - along with a great view across the bay to downtown. We also drove up to Whistler to see the Olympic preparations. It was a beautiful drive, especially the way home when the rain cleared a bit. Here is a picture of Alicia with the Olympic mascots Sumi, Miga Quatchi, and their sidekick Mukmuk. We also stayed in a cool condo in Yaletown with awesome views of the nearby city. Great weekend. I took the Cascade train home Sun. night.

Last week Alicia and I were both feeling under the weather. And the weather has been dark, gray, rainy and cold. So to brighten the soggy early winter in Seattle we lit our fire for the first time. I was super fun and warm. There's nothing like hanging out by the fire and enjoying life. Although in our new house Alicia was not as brave about shoving huge amounts of wood into the fire to make it giant (like in Aspen and other fire locations). It was a great time and the first of many warm fires during the dark winter. ps - sorry my photos are blurry, but it is a great picture of Alicia.

Oct. 11, 2009 - We had an awesome time reclaiming our side yard tree. It is probably a giant bush actually, but once we were finished it looked very tree-like. At first I thought it would be a chore, but it turns out sawing huge branches off a giant tree is quite satisfying. After two weeks we've nearly gotten rid of all the "yard waste" in our weekly city pick up.

By the way, the lettuce garden that Alicia planted is still going strong, no frost in Seattle - just rain. Oh wait, its protected by our warm house Alicia says. But I'm still pretty sure it hasn't been in the 30s here.

In other news, we ran a fun 10k, the 24th annual Dawg Dash. Tons of fun on a beautiful fall day running through the UW campus, ending/beginning on the Husky stadium field.

We also had a fun house warming party this last weekend. All our friends came over and many delicious pizzas were made. We got lots of fun ideas on our brainstorming poster. Alicia put together a beautiful craft project to make a welcome sign for our house. It is a series of tiles and lots of people at the party painted one. Photos to come when it is finished.

The chimney people come on Fri. Then we can have fires!