Ode to a Good Boy

As summer winds down, I thought it only appropriate to reminisce a bit about......my dog.  For those who know Winston, he is a sweet, velvet-fur yellow lab, that has a strong opinion about things he likes and things he does not like.

One thing that he loves and could do all day, is swim.  This past weekend, with the temps in the 80's, I finally braved the chilly waters of Lake Washington and went for a swim.....with Winston.  The only problem with swimming with Winston is he likes to be held in the water and if you are not standing in shallow water, it is slightly impossible to hold a 75 pound lab and stay above water.  Nonetheless, it is a blast to swim with him as I have done for the past 8 summers.

The past few months, Winston has also been the big dog on the block.....serving as the baseball retriever during baseball games, recipient of squirts from squirt guns, official watcher for cats, and a de facto garbage can as he is constantly on clean up duty of all unattended food.  He strikes me as having that perfect balance of needing some love, but not being overly needy.  He loves to lay down next to you as much as he loves to lay in cool, wet grass, surveying the entire scene.

Winston has been a constant companion for the entire family for the past 8.5 years.  He came to us a broken, emaciated dog, and has been nothing but a pile of love ever since.  He is getting older, but pull out a tennis ball or walk past some swimming spot and he turns into a puppy again, and that is the way it should be.

A gardener's summer

As my Seattle friends and family are well aware, this summer has been less than ideal for getting out and spending quality (read - sunny) time outside. While the rest of the country has been sweltering in the heat, it's been record cool temps and wet days here until the past few weeks. However, for a gardener, it has been pretty decent.

This past spring, I decided our backyard needed a makeover to go along with the new deck I installed last fall.  Because of some poorly manufactured Trex decking, I was forced to rip out the old decking and install new decking.  Thanks to myi father's guidance and tools, I was able to accomplish this task within about 4 weeks.

When we moved into our house 3 years ago, the spacing and look of the yard was perfect.  However, things grow and our backyard was being darkened and swallowed up by trees.  Wanting to provide a nice sunny space to grow fruits and vegetables on our new deck, I started a long process of removing every other evergreen which were each about 15-20 feet tall. Oh yeah, did I mention I did most of them with a handsaw until I managed to borrow a chainsaw?! 

The good news is all of the hard work and serious manual labor is finally paying off. With the opened up backyard, we have had a bumper crop of lettuce this spring, carrots, herbs, tomatoes (though they are still green, making their way to ripe) and some gorgeous flowers (nasturtiums, calla lilies, roses, sun flowers, and a mystery flower that I cannot seem to find the name for - see picture below).



I hope to see everyone tomorrow at the Taste of Main in Old Bellevue, a wonderful fundraiser for the Children's Response Center.  My wife is an honorary board member for this organization and would have been very upset if I had not mentioned it here!

Everyone is a blogger

I'm finally caving in. Everyone seems to have their own blog so I thought why not join in the fun?  I hope this blog provides humorous insight and interesting recommendations.

As a happily married father of two, keeper of the best dog in town, owner of a supervised visitation business (Children First Supervised Visitation Service), enthusiastic gardener, sports fan, traveller, and ocassional kitchen hack, I hope to make this blog an interesting place for all who stumble upon it... especially our wonderful family members and friends.

As most of you already know, I am a Minnesota native.  Our family moved to Bellevue in 1977, which had the sad side effect of crushing my enthusiasm for baseball. Who can deny that going from watching the Minnesota Twins in their glorious natural habitat, to watching the Mariners in the old Kingdome was anything but depressing?

After living in Seattle for 20 years, I find myself back in the burbs, living on the East Side.  This past spring, I did an extreme makeover of our backyard, removing trees, re-building our deck and adding some much needed color. A lot of hard work, but well worth it. It's now a favorite spot for the whole family, especially my wife and daughter who now get a vase or two of fresh flowers on an almost daily basis.

When I am not juggling food in the kitchen, our family enjoys going out for Asian food. Some of our favorite spots:

Seattle Deli:  Best Vietnamese sandwiches (Bahn Mi) and to go noodle salads (plus tons of other great items!) in Seattle
Pho Bac:  Anything but fancy, but it's all about the pho... supposedly one of Tom Douglas' favorites, too!
Peking Bellevue: Paul Allen eats here and I have a feeling he has tried a few places in his time
AA Sushi:  The $1.50 a plate lunch special is hard to beat, especially in Kirkland

In my next posting, I'm going to give a little tour of our garden, so stay tuned!