Leap!

I love the phrase on my Italian page-a-day calendar for this February 29.

L'anno bisestile mi confonde sempre.

Meaning: Leap year always confuses me.

More from the visit.

Just wanted to share a few more photos from our visit last weekend. We're relaxing this weekend, enjoying another couple of days of great weather, before heading back into chaos at work tomorrow.


We took my sister skiing for the first time. She spent the first half of the day on her rear, but caught on quick. I think she liked it!


Made another giant cupcake as a belated treat for Mom's bday (which was 10 days before they arrived).



The little chick with her Uncle Shawn. She loves hanging out with him--and seeing them interact is adorable!


The little chick "pets" Lucy on the nose.


One final photo from the beach. Love it!

A girl and her sheep.

When Aubree was visiting this weekend, she left a little stuffed sheep we have sitting right next to Lucy. Quite a resemblance, eh?

Her.

They are all back home now. It was exciting, exhausting, fun, and crazy having a baby in the house for 4 days. Now that she's gone, it's sad. =( I have more pics coming later, but here are some of the funny things that happened with the little chick in Seattle during a few days of sunny near 60-degree weather:

• She loved the beach and screamed "cheese" at me when I took her photo.
• She walked on sand for the first time, staring at her little feet as they wobbled through it.
• She wanted to run right into the cold Puget Sound waters lapping up to shore.
• She ate up the zoo, calling the animals dogs or ducks, meowing or baa-ing at them.
• She tried to leap out of her stroller every time we passed a dog while walking around Green Lake.
• She squealed on the swings at the park.
• She went bonkers every night after returning home, running around the house screaming a funny high pitched scream.
• She would talk to the cats, meowing at them each time they appeared. Lucy was a bit freaked out by that, but it was oh-so-cute.

Sigh.

Short and sweet.

My brain can only take so much. I'm on overdrive with work and freelance until mid-April. Thankfully, my three sweet gals (Mom, Sis, Aubree) roll in tomorrow afternoon. Since I haven't found myself with a lot of free time for emails or blogging, here's a quick post with lots of eye candy--my current loves, a few things I am well and truly obsessed with:


Orla Kiely's Stem bag for Spring
The colors, the mod design, the yummy lime green lining. And, it's waterproof!


Union Jack cushions on Etsy
Perfect decoration for a couple of Anglophiles.


The Besnard Lakes: For Agent 13 track
A haunting and ethereal song, accompanied by a really nice video.


Joe Cole & Peter Crouch
In the past two weeks, we've watched Joe Cole (above) and Peter Crouch play together for England, as well as against one another for their respective Premier League teams, Chelsea and Liverpool. They've both been mesmerizing to watch, full of energy and definitely carrying their weight on the pitch.


Italy
Just 90 days until we leave... I can't seem to absorb enough travel books, forum posts, or television shows on our destinations. Last night we watched Where Angels Fear to Tread, filmed in San Gimignano (above).


Rock Band
It arrived on Friday and we proceeded to play it over the weekend for an amount of time that would be too embarrassing to admit. Hoping to post more about this later as I am far too proud of some of the characters I've created...

The American dream.

Since Bluebee turns 10 this year, we decided it was finally time to let him spread his wings and fly.

So, on a tip from a friend, we visited Target to purchase this special cat-sized tie—just perfect for when he finally lands his first big interview.

Doesn't he look handsome? ;)

Off the grid.

It's my busy season at work (lasting through April!) so I'm off the grid a bit. I owe friends emails, am juggling freelance, and we have family visitors coming in next weekend. Bear with me... I will be in touch.

Skiing with celebrities.

We took an exhausting day long trip to Crystal Mountain today. As we were about to head back out after a cocoa break, Shawn spotted Dan Savage! It looked like he was there with his partner and son. Remember the article he wrote about snowboarding last year? Ever since then, we've been waiting to run into him. =)

Say cheese!

Today, I was an apprentice cheesemaker at Beecher's Handmade Cheese.

Back in November, I bid on the opportunity (along with a fun co-worker) during a silent auction at a fundraiser for work. We beat out the competition and won! As a reward, we got up pretty darn early this morning and worked our butts off to make a truly delicious cheese, Beecher's Flagship. I've been a fan of the cheese ever since moving here. And I especially like that they make their cheese from the milk of fat happy cows that roam freely (and hormone free) on a farm here in Washington.

Before our trip, we were given paperwork outlining how to prepare for a day of cheesemaking. It included bizarre, but logical tidbits like:

• Make sure your clothes are clean and free of hair (pet and human).
• No tank tops or tube tops (imagine that!).
• Wear water resistant shoes as visitors will need to walk through a sanitizing solution a few inches deep.
• Wair a hairnet. Men with beards will need to wear a beard guard (and we saw that in action!).

Having read and implemented these and other warnings, we began our day:


I stressed about my lack of waterproof shoes. Upon arrival, I was offered a big old pair of rubber boots to borrow. Heck yeah! I am a fisherman.


Stirring and stirring. This hurt like hell (even though it looked awfully easy). 9,000 pounds of milk is not easy to move around.


After we finished stirring, we moved the remaining curds over to another vat. It was worked and worked over the next two hours in an effort to remove all excess moisture.


We compacted the curds and the cheesemongers cut them into "loaves".


Our "loaves" of curds. We had to flip and rotate these repeatedly for 2 hours. They were heavy! It was, after all, essentially 1,000 pounds of cheese. 1,000 pounds of cheese!!!!!

My shoulders hurt, my forearms ache, but man... to be a cheesemaker. It was pretty cool.

And, strangely enough, the store and cheesemaking process was featured on Martha this past Tuesday. Visit Martha's website and click to the second page of videos to see the clip.