Fourth of July Cookies

Well, our cookies are dry, so I thought I'd post a few photos to show you how pretty they turned out!

The final product!

Close-up of Jill's favorite cookie.

Close-up of a fireworks design.

I loved how this one turned out that Luke made!

Edible Stars and Stripes forever!

Red, White & Blue Fun!

Anybody who knows me well, knows that I LOVE the Fourth of July holiday.  I think it's my favorite... I love all things red, white, and blue!  Last night Jill, Luke and I decided to make some treats to take to Montana where we're going to celebrate the fourth with my brother and his wife.  I knew the perfect treat would be my iced sugar cookies.  I love these cookies.  It's a recipe that I found in my Bon Appetit magazine years ago.  It's called Christmas Cutouts with Vanilla Icing.  Anyway, they are the perfect cookie because after they air dry for a day you can stack them which makes them perfect for the long road trip to Missoula!

Jill icing the red, white, and blue stars.

Luke making a fireworks display!

Luke getting creative with his designs.

This feathery look was Jill's favorite!

Now all we have to do is wait to let them dry...

Northwest Folklife Festival

We've had such a fun Memorial Day weekend!  Saturday was spent at the Olympic Sculpture Park, Sunday we had a backyard bbq with a couple of other families and Sunday I took BFF's, Hayley and Savannah, to the Folklife Festival at Seattle Center.  I hadn't been to this festival since well before Hayley was born!  It was so much fun (especially because it was forecasted to rain and it turned out blue sky beautiful!)... just wish we had a few hundred to spend on all of the amazing vendor booths!  Hayley wanted something from each crafter!  Ah well, there's always next year!

Hayley and Savannah posing with their new headbands.  They also bought sarongs and Hayley got a new
'hippie chick' handbag.

There were tons of amazing performers (mostly musical) literally every few hundred yards apart!

Concerts were going on all day at many, many different venues. 
I think we all agreed that the Indie Stage was our favorite.

I guess it's been awhile since I've been to the Seattle Center because there is now
an amazing new feature:  Chihuly Garden & Glass.  The girls and I didn't go in because
there was a fee that we weren't planning on spending.  Maybe next time because it looked amazing! 

We ended the day in Wallingford at Molly Moon's Handmade Ice Cream.  They were voted 'Best Ice Cream'
by Seattle Magazine last year, so of course, we had to try it!  Savannah had Salted Caramel (deeelish!), Hayley had Balsamic Strawberry (yumm-o!) and I had the Strawberry Lemonade Sorbet (so good!).  All the ingredients
are fresh, seasonal, and hormone free.  It's definitely a place to visit this summer! 

Olympic Sculpture Park

We generally don't leave town over short holiday weekends.  We don't like the crowds and we especially don't like the traffic that we encounter on the way home.  We're also watching our pocket book a little more carefully these days, so we I decided that rather than sitting around the house we're going to explore our own backyard this year.  There are so many amazing parks around the Seattle area, so we started off this Memorial Day weekend with a visit to the Olympic Sculpture Park and afterwards took a long walk through Myrtle Edwards Park. It was our first time at either place... how sad is that when we've lived in the Seattle area for 25 years! 

This was one of my favorite sculptures.  It's so whimsical!  It was kind of amusing because Wes and I had to explain to the kids what it actually was.

I was very impressed with the layout of this park.  The grounds were beautiful, spacious and very natural.

Something to keep in mind... the park offers walking tours.  Check out the website to find out more information!

The park was filled with beautiful wildflowers.

Hayley and Luke at Myrtle Edwards Park.  It's an awesome park for a long (flat!) bike ride.

I'm not sure what we found so funny, but I love this candid photo of Wes.

 After our park visits and walks we rewarded ourselves with some awesome food from Red Mill Burgers.  This is another thing that I'm going to try to do with the kids this summer... explore local eateries and some of the popular food trucks.  I've been getting great ideas about where to go and what to do from reading Seattle Magazine and Bon Appetit.

After a beautiful day at the park and a long walk we headed to Red Mill Burgers.

Just a few other people & organizations think these burgers are pretty good...

Hayley getting caught up on her social life while waiting for our burgers and shakes.

It's a fact:  the messier the burger is, the more delicious it is!

I think this photo sums up how good the burgers were!  Next burger joint to try:  Zippy's in White Center!

Skagit Valley Tulip Festival

After checking the weather forecast for the week of the kids' Spring Break we decided to head up to the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival on the Monday.  It was a beautiful day for the drive and to check out all of gorgeous scenery.  Unfortunately, I didn't check the website prior to driving up so I didn't realize that most of the tulips weren't in bloom yet (we were about a week and a half early), but all of the daffodil fields were in bloom.  We were told to head to a couple of local farms that are geared for tourists because they force some of their tulips earlier, so we still got to see plenty of beauties and we had a great day.  We hadn't been since Luke was one!

Luke wanted a photo in front of his favorite color.  These were 'Emporor' tulips.



I loved the way these guys were peeking through this fence.