Houghton Beach Park

Mark drives by this little park every morning on his way to work. He has wanted to take Lon for a long time. Lon had a grand time! We stopped on the way home from the Greek Fest.



We are having some fun now!!
We are off to look at the raft of ducks. Ducks are good. We like ducks, even if these are not yellow!

Looking at the ducks, from a little pier.

Okay, done with ducks.

I think I'll drive home. I got the keys.

The seagulls want the keys too! We tossed the keys out into the grass, and Lon would run after them. He thought that was fun! The red keys are the BEST! When the seagulls started swooping in to see what was being tossed, we stopped that game. I could not think how to explain that to the insurance company, or how I would get home!

Time to go home. Lon still has the keys, he really wants to try this driving thing. It looks like fun.

It's Greek To Lon!

Today we went to the Greek Festival! Festing in Seattle since 1960!! It was great! The food was phenomenal. I do not think I should eat again for a week! Lon loves the pita bread, he is not so sure about Gyro meat, or roasted lamb. We skipped the Spanikopita, as I am not taking any chances with spinach. Usually we love that! They had Dolmas, Kalamaria, and lots of other yummy things. They had three kinds of baklava, and cookies and other pastries. It was all festival food and all super yummy! I have got to get the recipe for the baklava with a layer of custard!

Looking around the food tent, they also had dancing in there and Imported Greek gifts. (t-shirts, etc) Inside they had a Greek deli, with olive oils, dried fruits, more pastries, and other yummy foodstuffs to take home!

FINALLY! Lon got to eat!

The church has a couple fig trees and grapes that they are growing behind the church. How cool is that?



The church. It is a great building. The church is gorgeous, they have a school, and the best auditorium/banquet hall I have seen in a long time! We got to talk to a very nice lady who works as an Iconographer. That is someone who makes Icons. Icons are not to have any personal creativity in the pictures. They are to be true. I have always liked Icons. She was surprised I knew a little about Icons. I said I knew more about Russian Icons, and she told me about a Russian Orthodox Festival next weekend at St. Spiridon's! I know where we are going to be! She said it was smaller than this one, but that is okay. She said they had more food, Russian food! YUMMY. I think by then I won't be full anymore!

Various Uses for a Bowl

You can wear a bowl as a hat, or use it as a partial back pack! Even try to eat the edge.... All sorts of fun things to do with a bowl. It was filled with food, but that went away, all over the high chair tray.

Miss Ing

The charming Miss Ing. Turning One is so much fun. I think the dress fit her very nicely. She looks so much like her mother, beautiful!

More Baby!

This is Sean's Grandfather. I do not know how to say or spell Grandfather in Nepali. (Grandmother sounds like Abzurma). Grandfather seems to like Lon very much. He does not speak much English. Sean's Grandmother speaks no english. And I have not learned Nepali. Not yet, it is on my to-do list.
Lon played out in the front yard for awhile, in his tunnel and with his duplos. Duplos are so much fun. We play with them outside since when we play with them inside we leave them all over the floor. It HURTS to step on a duplo! So they are a super fun outside toy!

Baby Baby Baby!

These are pictures of the baby doing things he loves! Like climbing on the table! Lon pulls the chair out from the table, climbs the chair, then climbs onto the table. He KNOWS that this is not something he should be doing. Yet, he persists. I take him off the table, each and every time and put him back amongst his toys. The table holds a special allure though. SO back to it he goes. Wow, that was some serious english, huh?

Tonight Lon wanted to play outside before he went to bed. We are having Indian Summer here, it was almost 80 today! (can you still call it Indian Summer?) It was a very nice evening. Before Lon went to bed, he got to play with his parents out on the newly re-stained porch!
I tried to clean up the red eye, but it did not seem to work! Hmmmm.
Mommy LOVES Lon!

Italian Festival

This is the 19th year for the Italian Festival in Seattle! It was so much fun! Lon and I had just arrived, and were going down to see the fountain, when we saw Nonna, Brooks and Nonna's cousins!
This is Nonna and Brooks.




Me, Lon and Nonna. Unfortunately, I did not get pictures of the cousins. They were very nice.

The food court. They had coffee, you could get espresso shots, or a frozen mocha. Yummy. There were two restaurants -- one had lasagne, and brownies and the other had numerous pasta dishes. The Sons of Italy were selling meatballs, either on a stick or in a bun. The next booth had sausage, peppers and onions, mushrooms, marinara sauce on a fresh bun. This is what we all had for lunch! ohmy! It was wonderful! Lon had some of the bread with some onion and peppers and sauce. There was also a pizza booth, and the people selling chocolate dipped fruit on a stick. I think those look really yummy but 6 dollars for three chocolate dipped strawberries on stick seems very steep to me. I did not get one of those. The crowd got bigger later on in the day. We were there about 11.


We all had a great time watching the Grape Stomp. The emcee was funny. Lon liked his hat.

Three teams compete for a prize. A bottle of Bolla Wine!

The Winners! The older ladies won!

In the Center House they were holding a Bocce Tournament. Bocce takes about 3 minutes to learn and a life time to master. It looked like it would be really fun to play. To be in the tournament you had to sign up by the 18th of September. I am thinking we might get a bocce set for Christmas.

On our way back around to the Fisher pavilion they had a display of automobiles. These are not mere cars. A couple of vintage Fiats, which were nice. However the Ferraris were spectacular. Lon told me he would be happy to get one for Mommy when he gets big enough. 6 red and one black. Later on, they added another red Ferrari. Amazing cars. When I was younger I thought I really wanted a fast car, but I realized as I got older that a fast car would only be taken away from me as I would drive it very very fast. Good thing I never got a super fast car. ( you don't believe that I really think that do you?) Lon liked the red Ferraris. They also had a vintage Vespa and a couple of newer scooter models. Later we found out those scooters were being raffled off. Lon bought three tickets. He got some tickets at the Japanese Festival and won a $20 dollar gift cert to I Love Sushi! He is a lucky kid!

The beer and wine garden. If you look closely you can see the small band, an accordion player and two guitar players. Very fun.

Inside the Fisher pavilion they had booths with information, Boracchini's bakery, a gelato booth, some jewelry, some other knick knack, and sulimi meats selling salamis. One of the information booths was for the Dante Alighieri Society. They sounded like fun. They have a Festa di Natale per i Bambini. Lon wants to go to that. He gets to meet La Befana for the first time. He is looking forward to that. At least he chewed on the brochure. I took that to mean he wants to go. Lon got a chocolate hazelnut biscotti at Boracchini's and I got a canoli. We got some Limone Gelato, but it was really more like a sorbetto. Lon liked it. I did too. We got an Italian soda. I had grapefruit. Yummy. Lon liked that too.

Our favorite bakery. We love Boracchinis. We have never had anything bad there. Ever.

A parting shot of the fountain. Next time we go to the Seattle Center we have to bring a change of clothes! That way we can play in the fountain ! Well, I am not sure the weather will be nice enough next weekend to do that. Next weekend is the Croatian Festival at Seattle Center and the St. Demitrios Greek Festival (started in 1960!). The Greek Festival is in Seattle, near capital hill. I have been to the Greek Festival once before, I am looking forward to it.

We had a great time today. It was so nice to meet up with the Cofflands. Lon really enjoyed it and he was so well behaved today! He was, as always, a joy to be with.