Happy Halloween!!!

Felipe and Grace at work.

Grace arrived this afternoon!  Only a day late too!  We had originally planned a fun pumpkin carving party - unfortunately the hurricane got in the way of making that possible.  We ended up cancelling the party per se - but kept up the pumpkin carving anyway...just the three of us.  We ordered pizza and popped the original Vincent Price version of "The House on Haunted Hill" while we planned our pumpkin designs. 


I decided to go with a rat...inspired by our dear friend Mr. Ratolino.




Grace went with a Batman theme.


Felipe went with a crazy face pumpkin. 


The finished pumpkins! Really pleased how they turned out.  We've roasted the seeds, which are now cooling on the kitchen counter and then decided to watch another movie...

The Shining!




Overall a terrific Halloween, albeit a quieter one than we had planned.  I'm so happy to have Grace in town for a visit.  She was asking what to do tomorrow with her day, and to be honest...I can't think of too many things that will be open or available to do tomorrow in Manhattan.  Well, we have lunch together to look forward to!  More posts to come soon!

A Visit from Momma!

August came and we had our yearly mom visit!  These photos will be a bit out of order...and I am not sure why I'm telling you that, because there's no way you would ever know otherwise.  Well anyway, one of the things I wanted to do while mom was in town was go to MoMA to see the "Century of the Child: Growing by Design, 1900-2000" exhibit that they had going on.  I won't lie - the main reason I wanted to go is that I had seen that part of the exhibit would include pieces from Pee Wee's playhouse!  Unfortunately they didn't allow any photography in the exhibit, only at the "display" out front.  Don't we just look look like kids?



We also decided to go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art as well.  We had a nice walk though Central Park and then enjoyed a nice air conditioned visit in the museum.  Mom was excited to have an opportunity to see George...George Washington that is!  She'd always wanted to see the painting of George Washington crossing the Potomac, but for a long time it was not on display.


Here's mom and George.

While walking around we happened on a stairwell that had an Armenian Khatchar.  This particular one was carved between 1100-1200 AD.


We went up to the rooftop exhibit, Cloud City by Tomas Saraceno.







A walk through Central Park.





We had a really nice visit, to so many museums, dinners out and dinners in.  and of course we had our annual visit to Coney Island for a Brooklyn Cyclones game.  It was as always a good game, although there was a VERY rowdy group of kids behind us...I suppose par for the course at a minor league game.  We had a really great time, but ended up having to leave at the seventh inning, a crazy storm was approaching.





And then, as always the time came for mom to return home.  We're just looking forward to the next time we get to have her come visit.  Love that lady!!!

Vacation Catch Up - Fort Stevens Park, OR

A gray and driftwood scattered coastline.

Before heading back to Seattle, we made one more stop along the Oregon coast on Highway 101.  Fort Steven's Park, by the mouth of the Columbia River, is the home of not only a lot of beautiful forrest, but also of a terrific coastline and the Peter Iredale shipwreck.


Peter Iredale Shipwreck


There isn't much left of the shipwreck from 1906, but it was interesting to see.  Apparently they were going to pull the ship back out to the ocean, but before the weather could clear it got lodged in the sand and stayed put.







Before we left I asked for us to stop along one of the park roadside so I could snap a few photos of the woods.  It was so green and amazing looking!







That's when I got about 6 mosquito bites in about three seconds...so I hopped back in the car as fast as possible! maybe next time I will bring along some repellent and we may actually have time to take a hike through the woods!

Our last stop at Fort Stevens was to the South Jetty by the Columbia River.

Vacation Catch Up - Beautiful Cannon Beach Oregon

Let me just say that I am SO GLAD that we got to go to Cannon Beach.  While it had been cloudy and drizzling in Ocean Shores that morning, and cloudy in Astoria that afternoon...the 45 minute drive to Cannon Beach made all the difference!  We were just south of the line of clouds and the sun was shining on the water.  The beach was expansive, and so relaxing to walk along the water and listen to the waves roll in.  I couldn't think of a more beautiful place to celebrate my 30th birthday, than on the shores of the Pacific Ocean, in such a lovely spot.










Looking south down the beach toward Haystack Rock.






The water was chilly - but that didn't keep the kids from playing in the surf.




Mom and I walking in the distance.


Can you see the whale in the distance!?  (In the middle of the frame)

 I have more photos on my flickr to view.  I think this was by far my favorite part of our little road trip.  Such amazing views of the ocean.  And so clear and beautiful...unlike the coastline by New York, which is dirty and opaque.  I think that I badly needed some time with such pristine nature after being in the city for so long.  Really an amazing way to spend my birthday!

Vacation Catch Up - Astoria, Oregon and the Goonies!

A prop from the movie "The Goonies" first scene.

We drove from Ocean Shores, WA to Astoria, OR on my birthday, and stopped at a nice cafe for lunch, and walked a bit around the main streets - stopping in a few antique shops.  While lunch was great, and the city was interesting, there was one real draw for me...of course, being a child of the 80's in the United States, the Goonies is a movie that I think I may have seen about a hundred times.  That being said - a trip to Astoria, OR would not be complete without a little bit of Goonies tourism.  We stopped at the Oregon Film Museum, which is housed in the "County Jail" from the movie. 

It's a tiny museum, maybe five or six rooms, but has props, scenery and information about the films that have been made in Oregon - an impressive list by the way!  It did not take us long to go through the place, but it was fun to see some of the props from one of my favorite childhood movies.






Walls plastered with messages from fans.






The front exterior - as seen in the movie.


The museum that Mikey's dad works at.

While we were just about to leave, I saw some postcards in the tiny gift shop, and a few were for what I recognized as the beach from the movie.  I asked about the beach and the woman working at the museum told us that it was Cannon Beach, just about a 40 minute drive from Astoria.  We had the time in the afternoon, so we took a quick drive to Cannon Beach... see the next post for photos of that (it was maybe my favorite part of the Oregon Coast).