Winemaker Dinner @ DeLille

We had a wonderful evening with friends at the Auction of Washington Wines Winemaker Dinner. Last year Chris and I attended and has such a wonderful time and talked about it with friends that they wanted to join us this year! Dear friends above, Sandi, Elissa, Melissa and Lisa.

Ignore the sunshine, so glad there was some though! Chris and I enjoying a lovely date night out.

The set up at DeLille Cellars was beautiful. It was one long table awaiting the 60 of us that had joined for dinner. And speaking of dinner, the menu was created by recent James Beard award winner Jason Wilson of Crush. Dinner included truffled chevre gougeres, lamb tartar, black garlic gnocchi and wagyu rib steak to name a few things. And of course the wine was spectacular, featuring DeLille Cellars wine and Quilceda Creek Wines. It was evident why so many of these wines had received such amazing scores!

A wonderful evening had by all L to R: Melissa LeClaire, Mike LeClaire, Elissa, Chris, Lisa Marik, Mark Marik, Sandi Marquis, John Marquis.

We can't wait to attend another special dinner next year with great friends and for a great cause, uncompensated care at Seattle Children's Hospital.

PEPSapalooza

We hit up the Redhook Bowl in Woodinville for the 2nd Annual PEPSaplooza.  It only happened to be the hottest day of the summer, so we didn't last as long as we would've liked, but had a fun time all the same!

The Mariks, LeClaires and Darrows joined us for the fun - I only have a couple pics of the Darrows.  If you don't know anything about PEPS  you can read about it here.  It is an organization that we strongly support and I can't imagine any new parents in the Seattle area not joining!

The kids dancing to The Not-Its, a super fun Kids band!  (Avery 3rd from left, Caelin second from right)

Miss Finley joined the dancing at her picnic spot with her mama.

Caelin taking this all in and doing some fancy dancing!

Caelin and Avery listening intently.

Avery was SO EXCITED for her face to be painted, she even waited silently and patiently for all three kids in front of her to go first.  Cutie face!

Avery and mama at the end of our time there.  We had to get into the car and turn the AC on!

Looking forward to the PEPSapalooza celebration in August of 2011!

Vote for Avery

Vote for Avery! I just posted her pic in the Pottery Barn Kids Facebook fan photo contest using the picture above. We think she is just the cutest and think you should share this info!

Click the title above to vote for her!

Sophia's Pool Party!

Sophia had the perfect summer party - a pool party! As much as Avery loves the pool, we thought she'd jump right in, but she decided she had to check out these new surroundings first!

Finally Avery got acclimated to her surrounds. She enjoyed the little slide for a while with daddy catching her. Then, she attemped climbing up the big slide a couple of times without going down. Finally, with about five minutes until the end of the party, she decided to venture down with daddy! The smile below says it all, pure joy! This girl really is a little fish!

Take a listen to the video below, she really does have a great time and proceeds to get about three more runs in!

Thank you Sophia for having a super fun party, exactly what summer should be all about!

Cousins Overnight

Avery adores her cousins, and we got to have them overnight last weekend to give the grandparents a break. Phil and Amy went on a mission trip to Guatemala, so all three kiddos were at the grandparents.

We picked up two of the three and traded cars - another need for a bigger car - and headed out. We had hot weather, came home and spent some time in the pool and then playing and visiting the big park in our neighborhood.

The next day we ventured out to the Bellevue Arts Fair and then to a pizza lunch. These pictures crack me up, I think playing with dough was more fascinating and interesting then eating any kind of lunch!

After lunch we took advantage of the wonderful summer weather and headed out to Grasslawn park, such a fun place! They actually have two play areas, one with this amazing rope structure that Corbin just immediately gravitated towards and scaled immediately!

Chef Avery

Avery came down from bath the other night and was insistent on helping mama cook. She really does love being involved with everything we are doing and this was the perfect task for her. I was toasting some Israeli couscous for a recipe that I've basically memorized and now just alter based on what we have in the house. Here is my favorite version by Giada, and this is my second favorite version. If you look at the recipes you'll see that the trick is in toasting the couscous before you start adding the chicken broth. It is a great recipe, makes a lot and the noodles are a super kid friendly shape. More cooking adventures with Chef Avery to come!

YaYa Playdate!

It is always such a great time to get together with good friends. One of the things we've realized with this group is that as much as we all love getting together just us girls, we do not get our kiddos together often enough.

We got a date on the calendar and thankfully there was no sickness and it was so great to see everyone! Photo courtesy of Inglin Photography, and I just adore it. The kids look like models - and we don't think we are biased. From L to R, Caelin, 2.5 years, Sophia 3 years, Sebi 20 months, Charlie 2.5 years, Avery 3 years. It has been over five years since we all met planning our weddings and it has been a joy to get to know these lovely ladies, as well as now see that we all have kiddos - with two more that didn't make it into this pic, Finley 8 months and Marlo 2 months.

Avery did some experimenting while we were there and climbed this huge rope structure, we are so glad that she is at an age where she is pretty fearless and for a girl so happy that she has the confidence to do all these great things!

Then she ended the day as one happy girl on a hammock swinging back and forth! We all look forward to continued adventures with this group of friends, between spouses and kiddos we are lucky to call you all friends!