Day 249 - September 6

I'm pretty sure one of Michaela's favorite things about preschool is the carpool line.

Instead of walking her into school, we line up with everyone else out front and wait our turn for a teacher to come get her from the car and bring her inside.

Why does she like it so much? Well, her carseat is on the driver's side of the car, but the curb is on the passenger side. So, in order to expedite things (and against every fiber of my being), she has to be unbuckled from her seat and ready to get out on the passenger side. She could duck under Cate's seat, but that's more hassle than it's worth, so, instead, she climbs into the front with me.

There are three funny things about this.
1) She faced backwards for so long (until just after her 4th birthday) that she calls the front seat the back. She's all confused.

2) She is fascinated by the sensor in the seat that makes the seatbelt light go on for the passenger seat. She is heavy enough to trigger it and just loves the little red light with the seat belt picture.

3) In order to make the sensor happy, she MUST put on the seatbelt in the front seat while we wait. To be honest, it makes me feel a little better about her being out of her seat should the people behind us not pay attention and gun it into us, but mostly, it just makes me laugh at how grown-up she thinks she is, not only to be in the front seat, but to use the seatbelt instead of the harness of her carseat.

And her cherry sunglasses are awesome.

Day 248 - September 5

You know you have a pacifier addict on your hands when she will suck on a doll pacifier. This thing doesn't even have anything that closely resembles a regular pacifier nipple on it. It's a tiny little hard plastic nub. But that didn't stop her.

Crazy Cate.

Day 247 - September 4

I made the mistake of asking Michaela the open-ended question of what she wanted for her snack. Usually I give her a few options. And usually she has one snack and then has something totally separate for a second snack (but both in the afternoon).

But, apparently, it was better to have three snacks, and all together.

Popcorn, veggie straws, and Annie's fruit snack bunnies.

Sure.

Day 246 - September 3

I'm not sure if I'm mentioned it here before, but one of Cate's new favorite past times is finding a book, getting you to sit down on the floor, and then backing into you to sit in your lap and have you read to her.

Or, if you're already dumb enough to be sitting on the floor, she'll bring the book and back in.

It's pretty hilarious.

And sweet when it's Daddy doing the reading.

Day 245 - September 2

Holidays are good for getting out of the house and doing fun things. I can't believe we let an entire summer go by before we made it over to the splash pad in Hurley. Insane!

This was Cate's first crack at a splash pad. She was not at all convinced it was a good idea at first, but she eventually got over it. Michaela just picked up where she left off last year - in the bubble.

Day 244 - September 1

It's September. That's crazy.

Ok, with that out of the way, onto the actual post.

Jason did plenty of fishing while he was in Kodiak, but didn't have the best luck with salmon. His halibut charter trip resulted in 20 pounds of halibut once it was processed (he did catch the two biggest fish of the charter, but the 5 of them split the fish evenly). But he was only able to catch one Coho salmon during his time in the river.

Thankfully, he maintains a friendship and reciprocal supply agreement with the head brewer at the Kodiak Island Brewery, so Mike generally hooks him up with fish, while Jason supplies him with beer he can't get up there.

This time around, the fish supplies included some stuff from Mike's freezer like usual, but it also included two sides of King salmon literally fresh off the boat. As Jason was packing up his fish box with his frozen stuff on Friday afternoon, Mike stopped by and gave him a freezer bag full of the freshest salmon you can get without catching it yourself.

And, tonight, it was dinner. And it was good. So very very very good. I've missed the real fresh stuff!

This is the before picture - when it's this fresh, all it needs is a little olive oil, salt, and pepper, and it gets broiled for about 10 minutes for that size piece. The only thing I did wrong was to not cook up more of it!

Day 243 - August 31

Daddy is home!!!

And neither Cate nor Michaela wanted him to get too far away. Cate took it the furthest, though.