Seattle Brain Cancer Walk 2009!

Me and John's Memorial Car

For friends who may not know, John was a detective in Anchorage. They honored him with a memorial car. Karen gave me one to walk with.

This weekend was the 2nd Annual "Cranium Crusade". It's a fundraiser for the Center for Advanced Brain Tumor Treatment. All the proceeds go directly to patient care. They are focusing in on innovative and cutting edge treatments.

This year's highlights were the fact that the number of participants tripled from last year; so many so that they ran out of bib numbers! We raised over $200,000. THANK YOU to everyone who contributed! According to the doctor who heads CABTT $5,000 can get a patient a clinical trial....so that's a lot of hope for a lot of people right there!!. Far and away the biggest highlight were the number of survivors out on the track.

He summed it up in his remarks. As the survivors stood on the field he stated the obvious -- they are all somebody's loved-one and they all deserve hope and help. He was pretty amazing. He devotes his Fridays to "advocacy" -- meaning he's doing everything he can to educate people. He said he'll meet with anyone who wants to know more should just make a Friday appointment. That's pretty impressive in my book. It's enough to commit me to do it another year. So if you want to join me in 2010 just say the word.

It was a lot of fun and very festive. Here are some photos:

John's Memorial Car

Me and my homemade t-shirt --

it has John's name and badge number on it

The CABTT tent

Wall of Honor --

if I would have known ahead of time I would have brought a picture of John. Instead I filled out a sticker that was meant to be stuck on our shirts or bibs. I put it on the wall and later I noticed others had done the same thing.

Starting Line

This is the start of the walk as the walkers poured on to the track

I'm guessing there were 1,500+ there. By the time the front of the line made it around the track folks were still coming out of the gate!!

Gathering for Closing Ceremonies

Doc honoring his patients

The Busy Month of May

We've been busy here in Seattle.

It was Mother's Day two weeks ago and Aaron's mom visited us from Atlanta. We always look forward to her visit. We went to the Bellevue Botanical garden, which was mostly really good except there were a lot of kids there. Maybe mother's day wasn't the best day to go. We also went the the art museum and on a local art walk. We also ate. Every chance we got!! What's not to love about that?

I've also been trying to master the art of grilling pizza. I purchased a special pizza pan meant for the grill and so far no luck. Here was my attempt last weekend. Dad always said, "When it's brown it's cooking and when it's black it's done". Well -- by that definition we were very successful. Sadly, it wasn't edible.

I plan to try again next week. This could take all summer to master. Stay tuned...

Gay Bingo Rides Again!!

Feeling Flamboyant?

Feeling Pink all Over?


Feeling like Supporting the Lifelong AIDS Alliance....



Well then you must feel like:
GAY BINGO!!

Aaron and I checked out Gay Bing0 for a Mystery Date in January. We had a good time but walked away saying, "That would be a LOT of fun with a table full of friends." Not to do anything halfway ....we managed to talked TWO tables of friends into joining us. We were right: Gay Bingo with a bunch of friends is what it is all about!

Martin and Cynthia

Jack and Anastasia

Anner and Rabbit-Ears-Aaron

Gay Bingo is in it's 16th year here in Seattle. They support care, prevention, and education efforts. Besides doing a whole lot of good stuff for Seattle they know how to throw a damned fine party! Last night's theme was: Gay Paris.

Our pal Big Hannah (aka -- Big Hannah the Wedding Planner) used her connections in the burlesque community to get glamour makeovers for the girls right before the event. Us girls headed to Capital Hill to meet with "The Shanghai Pearl" for a complete lesson before meeting up wiht our fellas at the party.

Shanghai giving a glamour lesson to Anastatia

Everyone was tarted up in their best gayness and we know we did a good job because more than one stranger stopped by to take our picture.

At the beginning of the night all guests have to take a pledge. With our dopper raised in our right hands we pledged, "...I promise to have fun and remember bingo is just a stupid game..." (this really sets the tone and damppend the people who can get totally competitive and ruin the fun for everyone else)

Chris and Paula taking the pledge

Several of us came within one square of having bingo but by halftime a few folks were a little frustrated by juuust falling short and not winning. We reminded ourselves of the Gay Bingo Pledge "...I promise to have fun..." and got another bag of popcorn.

Ahh! The Frustration!!! Ed and Brigit looking for a win.

By game 16 it looked like we would have to go home empty handed but you wouldn't believe it but Big Hannah won the final round of bingo. BINGO!!!! WE HAVE A BINGO!!!!!

One of the Sisters confirming Hannah has bingo.

WE'RE BIG WINNERS AFTER ALL!!!

...well us and, of course, The Lifelong AIDS Alliance.

PLAY BALL!

Tuesday was it.... the home opener. As tradition dictates, Aaron and I took the day off of work and ate pancakes for breakfast. Then we headed to Safeco to meet our friends. It was one of the nicest openers ever. It wasn't raining and wasn't totally freezing out. We'll take it!!! The M's won in extra innings and they took the series. So far it's a great start to the season!!!

The roof opening:

Start of the game..in the sun.

Anner & Aaron:

Our homeplate:

Spring Flower And Table Update

Hello Spring time!!!

When we looked out our windows at least we don't see big fat flakes of snow like last Sunday. Still, from the window it looks pretty plain...UNTIL you go outside take a closer look. Then you can see little leaves starting to grow on the hydrangeas, lilys are poking out, at least one of the wedding fuchsias shows signs of life, tulips are up and just waiting to blossom, raspberries have little shoots coming up, and the crocuses are in full bloom!! On this second day of spring here are some photos of what's growing in the back yard.

Our Table Continues to Grow

St. Patty's Day marked the end of winter quarter. So far we have all the pieces cut, all the veneering is done, the moldings have been made, cut, glued (see pictures below...I'm good with glue), and we've started sanding. If we're not careful we might beat our 2012 scheduled finish date.

Alaska 2009

BRRRRRRRRRRRR

We had another successful weekend trip. Aaron and I are hope and have finally warmed up from our trip to Anchorage. It was a perfect weekend.

We got to spend time with our good friend Karen. She never got a chance to properly "check out" Aaron before we got married. Rest assured he got the official "nod" by the end of the weekend!

Highlights were ---

• Anner nearly froze. Okay, it wasn't cold for Anchorage, but cold for Seattle. We've been home for a week and I'm thawed out now.


• Aaron saw his first ever moose! Two of them, in fact. Mama and her yearling, munching on trees in some foothills in Anchorage.


• We saw the start of the Iditarod for many places. We walked around and wished mushers good luck. We watched the start on the street. We watched from inside some offices. We watched from a few blocks up the road to see the dogs in full stride. The dogs are SO excited to run. Most mushers hold them back with a fleet of handlers, multiple sleds, a lot of dead weight and a heavy foot on the break. The dogs still seemed thrilled to get to run. There's nothing like it. This includes a picture of us and Martin Buser, currently in 22nd place.

• We took dog sled rides and decided we'd like to come back for a real dog-sled tour someday. I can't wait for that! Anyone want to join us?

We had Jane's birthday party at an Anchorage institution: The Moose's Tooth, a wildly popular pizzeria. Happy 29th Jane! (not actually her birthday picture)

• We went to the mushers banquet and bid on Iditarod wine, and more importantly - we we're big winners.

• Aaron got his first pair of Carharts -- ooo la la!

All in all, we had a great time!!! I just love going up there. It was fabulous to see Jane and Karen. I'll visit good friends no matter how cold it is.

A parting shot, "a good day for a bike ride":

A Man and His Safety Glasses: Woodshop Revealed

It took 3 1/2 quarters but we finally remembered to bring a camera to Woodshop class. We should have been taking pictures all along but better later than never, I guess. Here's a picutre of Aaron in action.
This week we realized we've, eh hem..."misplaced", one of our pieces of wood. We're not sure where it was "misplaced" to. We're checking all over: Garage, woodshop storage area, areas in the house like 'behind the washer' in hopes it'll suddenly just pop up! Like, "TADA!!! Here I am!" as if the missing piece is just playing a funny little joke on us. Ha Ha. When really, we either never made it, we lost it, we threw it out, it fell out of the car...who knows but I'm pretty sure it's gone. That is, if it ever existed. I'm sure we can spend at least a few weeks looking for it and a few more weeks remaking the 48" x 2 1/2" nicely planed piece of lyptus wood.

No matter what: this is going to be the best table EVER!

You can never have too many clamps!

Today Aaron and I veneered the top of our table (still on track to be completed in 2012). I got Aaron some clamps for Valentine's Day (nothing says, "I love you " like a set of bar clamps). That whetted his appetite and he found a clamp sale. One thing led to another and now you know what we need.... a clamp holder. Anyway... here's what veneering looks like.

We also planted our new finds from the flower and garden show. That just made us want to have even more so we went to the nursery and got even more flowers. Like clamps, you never can have too many flowers. Our bulbs are busting out of the soil AND we even have our first bloom. Thaaank goodness. Between the one crocus and Griffy signing, we know spring is nearly here.

Flower Show / Lion King Whirl Wind Tour

Holy Cows whatta day. In short:

I left work early and Aaron met me downtown. We sprinted to the convention center for the 21st annual Northwest Flower and Garden Show. It was stunning as always. We were guest bloggers for the 2nd time. It should end up on: http://www.mygardenblogs.com/NWblog/ sometime tomorrow.

After about 3 1/2 hours of buying exotic tubers and bulbs and saying "hello" to our favorite dahlia dealers (The Dahlia Barn) we grabbed a little dinner on the go, wrote the blog from my office, and then headed to the Broadway Tour of Lion King. Let me just say ALL the hype is true. Mark it on the calendar, I was misty before the end of the first number. It was AWESOME!!!

Here are some photos from garden day.

Stunning Orchids

Sadly, we'd kill them waay too fast to warrent buying any.

Anner's first dahlia purchase of the day.

Aaron & Anner at the Dahlia Barn (3rd dahlia purchase of the day)

We want one of these!!! What mystery and suspense....

I need this too! A giant wood carved eagle surrounded

by circles of heaths and heathers. It'll go great in the

the front yard.... a nice compliment to the flag.