The Weatherman

Ok, I’m a dumb-ass. So I went grocery shopping tonight and as I was perusing the cold water drinks (think Vitamin Water), I came across Viso. It looked intriguing so I checked out some of the labels.

These drinks are loaded with vitamins and minerals. I mean absolutely loaded. Sounds good so far…ouch, but they have lots of sugar. But wait, there is Viso Will - the diet version. It is a cranberry - grapefruit flavor. OK, I can get into that.

So I throw it into the cart and finish up my shopping. After unpacking the groceries at home, I popped it open and had a taste. Not bad. A little overkill with the artificial sweetener but nothing horrible. I finish it up in about 30 minutes.

Here is where things go south. I picked up the bottle and decided to peruse the label. I see things like

12 Vitamins @ 100%RDA

2 Minerals @ 100% RDA

I like that. Then I see

VISO Will is a serious energy drink

Hmmm, I kind skipped over the energy part. What’s this red warning label at the bottom…

Caution! Viso Will contains the caffeine equivalent of three cups of coffee.

WHAT! Oh Crap! It’s 10pm at night and I normally only have 1 cup of coffee each morning. This thing has 300mg of caffeine. I’M NEVER GOING TO FALL ASLEEP! How do I know? It’s 11:40pm at night (I’m usually asleep before 11pm) and I’m WIRED out of my mind!

Even worse, I plan to get up at 5am in order to go to work early. I might as well just stay up all night. Or maybe I need to go by another one of these drinks for the morning. Anywho, I plan on hanging out for a while online, maybe watch a movie, wash the car, or bake cookies.

Imagine if Zach ever got a hold of this. I don’t even want to imagine the horror he would put us through…it would last for days and days. We’d have to give him an antidote. Ok, I’m just rambling now.

toodaloo!

Update: It’s 9:40am…so I finally went to bed at 1am but didn’t fall asleep until 2:30am to 3:00am.  I woke up every 15 to 30 minutes and finally got up at 5:30am.  I’m a bloody wreck.  And, yes, I had to have coffee.  Anyway, did you know that NoDoz only has 2oomg caffeine per pill…so I basically took 1.5 NoDoz tablets.  Next time I need to read the ingredients.

Summer is holding on for a few days up here in the Northwest.  What an amazing few days with today topping out at 86 at SeaTac (probably a little cooler here - I haven’t checked yet).  Right now it’s 73 and absolutely pleasant outside (where I am at now).

The sunset over the Sound tonight was beautiful since the air is very, very clear.  Which is unexpected considering there is no wind.

Tomorrow is supposed to be another nice day with a high around 80.  Then we’ll start to cool off with possible rain early next week.

Ok, it isn’t what you think.  Zach is in this phase with putting his hands down his pants.  Actually, I guess it’s common at this age since some of his buddies are doing the same thing.  Not a big deal…unless he’s pooped in his pants.  Yep, this happened yesterday.  Steph asked Zach if he had poops and he said “Yes.”  So, Steph said “Let’s go get fresh pants.”  As she began to walk away, Zach stuffed his hands down his pants and pulled out some poop. Lovely!  She was able to get him before he painted the walls, floors, and furniture with his poop.  So, disaster averted this time.

This morning we drove over to the Ballard Locks to check out the boats and the Salmon spawning.  The entrance to the fish ladder was loaded with Chinook salmon - we were able to get a close up view looking through the ladder windows.  What big fish they are!

Nate sleeping in Grandma’s arms.

Zach and mom looking at the boats.  Yes, I goofed around the brightness, saturation, and contrast.  I think it turned out pretty cool.

Zach watching the boats.

Nate not so much into the boats.

Looking down at the bottom of a drained lock.  The tide was very low and this was the lowest I’ve ever seen it at the locks.

Ok, these have no connection but just something I wanted to write about.  First about funny people.  check out this popular parenting Ebay listing.  This is one of the funniest things I have ever read.  This woman is an amazing writer and I guess the nation at large has recognized it.  She also writes for her blog at http://mom2my6pack.blogspot.com/.  Which is equally as funny.  I could only wish I could write/blog as well as her.  Anyway, kudos to a very busy mom who has a wonderful writing talent.

Just over a month ago I dropped off two 16×20 pictures at Artistic Framers here in West Seattle for framing.  I picked them up this morning and they look awesome.  Many thanks to Artistic Framers for a job well done.   She even through on the museum glass for good measure - very friendly thing to do.  I’m very excited to get these photo hung up before the dog eats them.

Now for poker.  The PEPS dads finally got their act together…barely…and held a Poker night as Sasha’s place.  We had gin, beer, poker chips, and cigars…no girls  :-(  Anyway, all of the dads showed up which was very cool.  Sasha, our host, was the big winner…I think he was sandbagging in the beginning waiting for everyone else to get too drunk to play well.  Tom was the biggest surprise - I still have no idea if he was acting or really had no clue what he was doing.  It didn’t matter since he stayed in the game longer than me.

Grandma is up this weekend so now we are going to take the boys to REI, so the Zach can play on the treehouse.  This trip has nothing to do with me 

Here is the map of the run I do most evenings.

Right from the source:

So today was the start of my exercise class with Nate. It is called Stroller Strides (I did Baby Boot Camp last time). It, of course, is raining today. I find out that the class meets inside the Green Lake Community Center when it is raining. So I go out there and meet the instructor. I find out that the Community Center is closed for renovations for the summer. At the moment, it is not raining, so she decides to hold the class outside. We get started. Including the instructor, there are 7 moms and their kids ranging from 2 1/2 to about 3 months old. Anyway, it starts POURING. We decide to cancel class after working out about 10-15 minutes and we go to Starbucks.
Anyway, got to meet everyone and chat over coffee. I joked that this is the easiest exercise class ever. We all got SOAKED. Nate stayed dry under some blankets I draped over his stroller. Those blankets
got soaked. I feel that even though I didn’t exercise much, I get
points for going out there in the storm.

Anyway, tomorrow we meet at the Zoo. It seems like a good group of women.

We had some rain today…finally. Everything was dying. Looks like we’ll get a bit of rain tomorrow then it will become nice for the remainder of the week.

Brian was in town and stayed with us on Friday night. We BBQ’d and hung out around the house. On Saturday morning he and I went for a run (about 4.0 miles according to MapMyRun) along Alki. It was a very pleasant morning for a run with some low clouds so we didn’t have direct sunlight on us, but there was no wind.

Today, Steph went for a massage with the spouses of some of my coworkers. So I got to watch the boys…we went to the brewpub and then hung out at home. They were very good for daddy - it makes it easy when one sleeps all afternoon.

Next weekend Lin will be in town and Marla, Simon, and Sophie will be visiting over Labor Day…so a little busy up here. We like it.

Here are some photos of the boys.

Napping together.

I’m awake!

Not real thrilled with the light.

Details of our run along Alki Beach…

Here is a picture of Zach playing at the park…we actually have some video of him on this beach (previous post has video).

A scenic photo at Lincoln Park

Not much else to report. Brian is coming up on Wednesday for work so we will see him later this week. Grandma is coming up the following weekend, and Marla, Simon, and Sohpie are coming up the weekend after that…so we have some busy-ness in our future.

Here is a new run I did last night:

Hmm…MapMyRun.com is all jacked up…it is saving the stats on the run but not the map…this is annoying…Anyway, it was a 4.42 mile run.

Today we went down to Eats Market in Westwood.  This is a relatively new place and this was our first visit.  It’s a small cafe-style restaurant with a basic, clean decor - I found it very comfortable.  Steph and I each had breakfast items for our meals.

Steph had french toast with cinnamon apples and I had biscuits and gravy with eggs and bacon.  The presentation was very plain and the portions were not very large.  However the food was good.  The gravy on the biscuits was flavorful but not too thick and not too salty.  The bacon is applewood smoked and I had ordered the eggs scrambled (yeah, I’m boring).

Zach had a grilled cheese…which was excellent.  I definitely give them an A+ plus for his plate.  Overall it was a decent place…although I’m not sure I like it more than Endolyne Joes for breakfast…we’ll have to give it another go.

No, I’m not rowing across the Pacific but Roz Savage is.  Check out her site/blog.  She is the first woman to attempt to row…yes, row, across the Pacific.  She’s providing internet updates on her blog but she is being tracked by satellite.  Her boat is supposed to provide real time weather but that is not showing up on her site yet.  Anyway, I find this kind of thing intriguing…I definitely plan to track her progress.

In other news, Dominic spent the night last night.  Zach and Dom played all afternoon and evening and crashed out by 9:30pm.  They both slept in at least until 6:30am…Not too shabby.  They were both very good which made watching them easy.

We held PEPS at our house on Wednesday night.  We hired Pat (chef for Zach’s daycare), an aspiring caterer, to cater the event.  Steph and I chose lasagna, fruit, and mud pie…and Pat did an excellent job.  The lasagna was very good and his setup was excellent.  The mud pie was very, very yummy also.  He even made popsicles for the kids - that was big hit.  In anycase you can contact him via email at llibolt @ msn . com (or ping me for other contact info like his phone number).

I made a single movie from the videos we shot in July…I just strung them all together in chronological order.  This movie is large as it is almost 12 minutes long.

Download the movie!

Nope, we are not on vacation…I’ve just been busy and haven’t had a chance to update our blog. We have some photos and videos to upload but I need to get them ready so it will be a a few days, but I will get them up onto the site.

Otherwise, life has been good.  Work has been busy for me so I haven’t had much time during the week to update my blog.  Nate is getting bigger and he’s been a very good infant so far.  Zach is back into his normal routine with daycare.

Tonight our block participated in ‘Night Out 2007′ so our block was closed.  This is an annual event sponsored by law enforcement to encourage neighbors to meet each other and discuss any upcoming issues.