Some Like it Hot

But we don't.

Seattle reached it's all-time high temperature this week of 105 degrees with between 20-30% humidity. That might not seen like a whole lot of humidity, but trust me...it is felt.

Only about 5% of homes in the Seattle area are built with in-home air conditioning. There have been lines of people from about 5 a.m. outside Home Depot, Costco, and other stores who sell air conditioning units. Most have had to take a ticket and wait a few days for the next shipment to come in. We've also seen people selling fans out of the back of their pickup truck.

We are used to summertime temperatures of 70-80 degrees, rain, and partly cloudy. This week has been killin' us all!

Here is how we've been handling the past few days...

Let me give you a closeup of that sweaty face...

Given that the inside temperature of our house was 93 degrees (aside from the master bedroom where we had the A/C unit blowing cool air), Preston and I decided to venture out into bigger air-conditioned areas...like grocery stores.

While at said grocery store, Preston (being on the ball-kick that he's been on) pointed at balloons and called them balls. He pointed at signs and said "Ball", people's items in thier cart were "ball", and the cantelope that I was just about to purchase that he picked up and threw on the ground he declared that it was too, a "ball".

In Preston's short life, we have never actually purchased him any toys.

We've had kind friends who have given us toys that thier children no longer use, like little race cars, stuffed animals, fire trucks, and...yes balls. Because of this generosity, we have a huge green bin full of toys that Preston digs into every day and has fun with. He also has fun with boxes, tupperwares, water bottles, books, etc.

However, on our grocery store trip, I decided it was time I finally broke down and bought our son his first toy from Mommy and Daddy.

That ball that you see in the photos above and below, was from Albertsons. $1.50 worth of hours of joy and giggles.

This was us last evening, finally deciding to get out of the house and hit the beach. We went to Lake Sammamish State Park and enjoyed the breeze coming off of the water. The water temperature itself was like a swimming pool.

Like the little bum crack? I do.

Here is a cute video of Preston and his ball...and a few other clips from yesterday at the beach.

Hot Hot Hot!

The Many Adventures of Will

I know my Will is not the best at blogging. It's not that he doesn't want to, it's just that he takes so long to compose a blog post (because he does a little bit at a time), that by the time it gets around to being published...it's like a month or two after the fact.

So this is where I, his faithful wife, steps in and helps him out a bit. Plus I want to brag about him a little.

Will, stop blushing.

So, yesterday Will ran 50 miles. He competed in the White River 50 mile Endurance Run. He informed me of his entrance into the race about 2 days before the race. He hadn't run a race in over 2 months because of a foot injury, so I was a little concerned.

He turned out to be fine though. He forgot to mention to me that it was the USA Track/Field 50 Mile National Trail Running Championships. So there were a lot of big-named runners there.

He was really cute, almost star-struck. To him, these runners are celebrity-status. He would say to me "See that guy in the orange shirt? Do you remember the documentary we watched with the guy who ran the Pacific Crest Trail? Yep...that's him. And see the guy over there with the long hair? That's Scott Jurek. He won the Western States (a 100 mile race) 7 times in a row."

Here is a little video from his finish yesterday. It's just a short clip, and after it are 2 more clips from the adventure he had the weekend previous to this race. I'll tell you about that in a second.

So yeah, last weekend Will and about 7 other guys summitted Mt. Rainier, which is just right under 14,500 feet high. I'll let him (someday) fill you in on all of the details of that trip, but aside from his camera being too cold to work at the top, the entire experience was great.

I included those two video clips because they were my favorite :) With the flowers and waterfall and all.

And last but not least, here is Preston at Will's race yesterday. We made a special onesie to show our support for Dad. Everyone there kept commenting on how cute he was and how they loved his t-shirt.

At the end of August, Will might be acting as a "pacer" for a runner who is competing in the Cascade Crest Trail 100 mile race. Will is going to help him out towards the end of the race by helping him keep pace. This fellow is coming all the way across the country to compete in the race, and Will says that he has won several big races and even set course records. There is a good chance he could win the Cascade Crest race, so Will is pretty excited to get to be his pacer.

Anyway, this is why I love this man! We are both very ambitious about our hobbies and I love how we always support each other 100%. I go to all of Will's races, Will comes to my concerts. It's a nice life.

A First.

So I had a first today.

Someone, who I'd never seen before in my life, came up to me and asked me if I was "that fabulous pianist girl". I was completely confused, turning red...and not sure how to answer.

Was I to say, "Why YES that's me!!"

or

"No I have no clue what you are talking about, but I do play the piano."

The only thing I could think of was, "Maybe I'm her....to whom are you referring?" And the woman said "I have your cd! In my car! I totally recognized you." She then went on and said a lot of warm fuzzy things which totally made my day, and told me all about her 5 kids who are all in piano lessons.

So that's it. This was officially the first time someone ever recognized me in public from my cds. I can now go no where. LOL. *rolls over and snickers*

Preston is Walking!

Well, sort of. I can say that he can walk on his own, unassisted, for great lengths (from the living room to the kitchen) before tripping and fumbling to the floor. It's soooooo cute!! He gets so excited too. Everytime he walks, he giggles and screams and his little hands move around and he looks at us like "Look at me!! Woohoo!!"

We can credit his recent walking braveness to a prop, that came home by way of our favorite place - Costco. Check out the video below - which was taken yesterday. Since this video, he has upgraded to a large green bin which he loves to push around, and lets go and walks unassisted whenever possible.

Pretty soon...the crawling thing will be slower than walking.

Music News and Updates

I sent out a newsletter today via email announcing the release of The Lullaby Album this week, but for those who didn't get the email for whatever reason and you would like a copy of the juicy info, you can read the newsletter online from my website.

It looks like this:

And you can view it in a not-so-itty-bitty size by going here.

Thanks for your support this past year everyone. I hope you will take the time to check it out and spread the word - I appreciate it more than you know.

Did I mention you can order it now? :)

He's Back!

After a long 3 days as a single parent, I'm excited that Will is home from his adventure climbing Mt. Rainier. I'll let him blog about it later. I love this guy! I think this was the 2nd longest he'd been away since we've been married.

I'm a good driver. Really I am.

I hit someone with my car yesterday. Well, wait, I didn't him someone, but someone's car that is.

I just don't hit people with my cars. Or their cars for that matter!

Okay well there was the one time in high school where I didn't yield on a left turning light and hit someone. But that was 15 years ago, I was inexperienced, and I was skipping class! That was well deserved!

So yesterday, I was at a light waiting to turn right (my lane was a yielding lane). I could have sworn the car in front of me had already pulled out and so I was looking, waiting for the line of cars to pass by so I could pull out. As the last car passed by (I was still looking left), I slowly started to push on the gas and C~R~A~S~H!!

I hit the bumper of a Honda Accord.

I think he must have started to go, but then stopped. But I thought he had actually gone.

I felt really stupid. Fortunately the lady was nice and it was just a scratch. I kept apologizing profusely and then I said the words "I never do this!".

She look at my car, and then at me, and then I was even more embarrassed.

Our car, well, it's a long story, but our car has some dents in it. THAT WERE NOT DONE BY US. I subleased my car out for 2 years when we were first married to get rid of some debt, and during that time, the person leasing it (who was a stripper in Vegas by the way...I swear I had no idea because I went through a 3rd party company who took care of the leasing stuff. Again long story, if you want to hear it you can read this blog post from July 2007).

This is a picture of our car when we got it back from the Vegas stripper in 2007. This dent has since been popped out so you don't really notice it but you can still see all the scratches around the tire like in this photo.

So back to my story here, when I told the woman who's car I hit that "I never do this", she looked at me like I was the biggest liar on the face of the earth. Because obviously as you look at our car, you can see several dings and dents.

It's embarrassing and I'm tired of driving around and having people think I'm a horrible driver because our car has some dents (which the stripper didn't fix).

We're finally looking into selling our Jetta and replacing it with a newer used car with less miles. Because, really, I am a good driver. Really I am.

Fun with Preston

These are just a few videos of Preston from the last few weeks.

The Family that Kayaks Together...

Kayaking is a favorite past time in the Southworth family. Well, and now the Thomas family. Will had his first kayaking experience with me back in 2004 when we were dating.

Behold - the "kayaking date" from March of 2004.

No I will not show you the photos of us ram-rodding each other's kayaks.

I have so many fun memories of my family going kayaking on the ocean together. We have gone up to the San Juan Islands several times, and most often our hot spot was Bowman Bay.

Picnics were had, laughter was heard, and sore muscles ensued for days after.

So it was with special fondness, that we got together as a family to go kayaking while my brother Mike and his family were in town. With our two kayaks, my parents' canoe, and 2 borrowed kayaks, we scrounged up enough gear for 10 people.

There was:

The water color that day was incredible. I've always been jealous of the water in Hawaii, but check this out!

Not exactly Hawaiian water, but a close 2nd, eh?

So I don't know if you knew this or not, but I grew up living by the ocean. We lived either on the beach in a shacky beachhouse (thanks mom and dad for the memories!) or only a few miles from the beach where we would walk to it. My parents and grandparents both had boats and we spent a lot of time camping on them, playing, etc.

With that said, I LOVE THE SMELL OF THE OCEAN.

As soon as we got out into the kayaks I took one giant wiff and said, "Ahhhh that smells so good!". And of course I heard all of my family agree with me from the other kayaks.

Then I hear Will say, "Sure if you like the smell of dead rotting fish and seaweed."

See this is where we differ. We don't differ much in our marriage, but do have different appreciations for what smells good.

The ocean smell that I love so much reminds Will of cleaning his salt water fish tank.

But whenever we drive through Idaho and I get a wiff of a cow pasture, Will says, "I just love that smell! It reminds me of growing up on the farm."

I guess if I like the smell of fish poo and he likes the smell of cow poo, then we're even somehow, because I don't think either of us can understand how the other finds those smells remotely appealing.

Preston experienced his first chocolate chip cookie.

He...was...in...heaven.

Seriously...it's no wonder the little guy had a tummy ache later that night.

That sunset was really really for reals.