The 4th

We spent the 4th of July and Matt and Darrah's house. The weather was disappointing, but we still had a good time. Cocktails:

Ice cream sundaes!

Kids, eating hot dogs and being cute in tiny chairs:

The men, grilling (in the alley, near the garbage cans - sexy):

Photo bomb by Henry:

Kristin refused to take off her summer outfit because she decided it would make the sunshine come back. It didn't work. Instead she had goosebumps all night in her tank top and shorts.

Heidi and Henry:

Sparklers! I asked Jeff if he was getting good pictures of Edie with the sparklers so that I didn't have to, and he assured me he was. Then I looked later and he took this one photo of her 20 feet away:

Not sure why I'm not in any of these photos…oh, except I do. It's because for some reason all the photos of me from this day feature me making my Crazy Eyes Face. Evidence:

Not sure why, in the future I'll try harder to look less manic.

In the wise, wise words of Paula Abdul: Opposites Attract

I was thinking today that it would be funny to list a bunch of scenarios and then describe how each Jeff and myself would react to those particular circumstances. Because, pretty much every time, we would have opposite solutions.  Take these two for example:

1. Out of the blue, it is 99 degrees outside:

Jill: Complains often and loudly about it being too hot. Wears the least amount of clothing as humanly possible without being indecent and then spends long periods of time hauling the box fan to every room she travels, eventually jerry-rigging multiple pieces of furniture to cram the fan in a window that is 12 inches from her side of the bed before going to sleep. Continues to whine about it being hot.

Jeff: Lives his life exactly like it’s 60 degrees.

2. Needs to buy a new couch:

Jeff: Over the course of several months, visits every store that sells couches, looks at every website that sells couches, and flips through many design magazines to do “research”. Decides to think about it for a little while.

Jill: Goes to a store where they sell couches and buys one.

If you like this post, feel free to leave a sample "scenario" in the comments section and I'll do my best to  detail what our different responses would be. OR - I just had a brilliant thought! I should get JEFF to guest post and write HIS best guess at our different responses. Except:

3. Asked to write a guest post on a super awesome blog:

Jill: "Wooohooo!"

Jeff: "That's private. and PS - I'm busy."

Moules year 2

Last month, we had dinner at our neighbor's house and recreated our mussel dinner from last Spring. One set of our neighbors/friends was moving and this was our send off. She literally makes the best mussels I've ever had. And don't get get me started on the fried bread. We brought a cheese plate and bacon wrapped dates, the hosts provided salad and amazing homemade chocolate ice cream from David Lebovitz's new cookbook.

The kids after their dinner, staying up late while the adults finished theirs:

Summer

First ride in the Whaler this summer:

Pie

Before going upstairs to tuck Edie in I made the comment: "I'm DEFINITELY having a slice of pie when I come back downstairs." The pie was only recently acquired and there was more than half a pie left last night when I had a (second) slice.

15 minutes later, I came downstairs and excitedly approached the pie. Only to find this:

Because we have been married for a long time, I immediately knew Jeff was fucking with me. I looked through the pass-thru in the kitchen to see Jeff snickering in the living room. After a good laugh I demanded to know where the pie really was. Super sincerely, he replied, "There's a slice in the microwave for you."

This is what I found in the microwave:

Which is actually, just about right.

Later, while eating my pie I pictured Jeff carefully extracting half a pie from the pan and hiding it just to mess with me and laughed. He saw me laughing to myself and apparently, knowing what I was laughing about, said, "It would have been better if I was quietly eating a slice of pie in the living room when you found the pie missing…. but I wasn't hungry." 

Anniversary Dinner

Jeff and I threw ourselves a little party with our nearest and dearest Seattle pals this weekend. This month is our 10 year wedding anniversary, which also marks 20 years of Jeff and Jill - it seemed worthy of a party. We rented a funky space a block from my office where Edie also took ballet last summer. It's usually a Masonic Lodge, but it had decent enough bones that I had hopes we could transform it.

In some ways I think I enjoyed the party more than our actual wedding - my dress was certainly more comfortable, as were my shoes. I also started drinking the sangria pretty early in the evening, so some of these photos definitely showcase my drunk face.

I made some simple decorations with ribbons:

One banner that you might not be able to read. It says "10 YEARS IS A LONG TIME" in hot pink glitter pen.

We rented some cheap chairs and table cloths for the tables at the venue. Then I used some cute paper placemats with gold polka dots, tied more ribbon around napkins/silverware and used assorted bottles and bud vases from Goodwill to fill the table with flowers from the market.

There's Jeff in the background at the bar, getting the sangria ready.

And Dave, who came early to help us set up a bit with the white wine sangria:

We hired the paella chef who cooked for our rehearsal dinner to come back and he made a giant pan of paella outside. Here are Adam and Linda watching:

Jeff, me, Amy and Dave do a selfie:

Everyone eating paella!

Drunk face with 2 of my girls:

Mags and Dan:

There may or may not have been an electric stair chair at this venue. And I might have rode it with Matt (he didn't invite me to join him, I just hopped on). And yes, this is most definitely my drunk face:

Jake (Jeff's best man!), me and Katherine do what Jake called an "us-sie":

Blurry Jiff shot:

Less blurry Jiff shot:

The paella chef:

Moody Instagram version of the group:

Less moody, iPhone photo of the group:

Me, drinking my water as the guests start to depart and I realize I've had too much sangria:

The party was awesome; our friends are truly the best. Watching them all hang out together and catch up, make new connections, and have weird and funny antics with people they barely know was my favorite. We got so many lovely cards and more than one gift certificate to Mama's Fish House in Maui for when we go (sans Edie) in September - so excited to splurge one night and do it up at this restaurant we've been hearing about for years!

I think others got more and possibly better photos, but until they forward them to me, this is the best of our shots.

Impromptu date night