Sights and Sounds of the Season

Happy Holidays Everyone! We're in the holiday spirit around here. Enjoy some of our latest adventures. :)




Clare as a mouse in her ballet studio's production of the Nutcracker




Mice and Soldiers







Owen and his buddy Harrison at the downtown carousel

Happy Halloween!

I hope you had a great Halloween. Here is a sampling of our day's activities. Enjoy!



This is the rock star that morphed into a cat.




Spiderman doesn't like to wear his mask.




Walking to the West Seattle Junction to trick-or-treat.

Sights of Summer

Although there are a good two weeks left of summer, it feels like fall is here already. With the return of the rain and school starting next week, Halloween seems just around the corner. We've had many visitors this summer, and we've spent much time in and around the water. Please enjoy some photos, and we hope you've had a great summer, too.

An ordinary mosquito bite?

How can an ordinary mosquito bite lead to a trip to the ER? Let me tell you...

On Saturday night we were enjoying our nephew's graduation party in Edmonds, and Clare and Owen were jumping on the trampoline. I walked over and noticed that Owen had gotten a mosquito bite on his forehead. No big deal.

Fast forward to 10am Sunday morning... the area around Owen's mosquito bite started to swell. I was concerned about it but decided to just watch it. Around 6pm, the swelling had migrated to his eyelid, so I called the triage nurse at his pediatrician's office. She was fairly concerned about cellulitis (a bacterial infection that can get into open wounds or bites) because of the area of swelling (2+ inches), so she recommended that we take Owen to the ER.

Long story short, I took him to Children's Hospital ER last night, and he was diagnosed with delayed hypersensitivy to mosquito bites. They gave him a dose of an oral anti-inflammatory steroid to reduce the swelling because the peak is usually at 48-72 hours post-bite, and it had only been 24 hours at that point.

This is not the type of allergy which leads to wheezing, shortness-of-breath, etc., but he will likely have this reaction each time he is bitten by a mosquito, at least for the foreseeable future. The doctor said that he may outgrow it eventually (fingers crossed!). For those of you who saw Owen after our trip to Finland two summers ago, you probably remember that he looked like he had chicken pox from all of the mosquito bites. At the time, he did have swelling also but not to this extent.

Anyway, Owen was very happy at the ER and charmed all of the staff. He's doing well today. Below is a picture of his face from this morning (and of Clare imitating him). Enjoy! :)

Fabulous Seattle weather

We've had fabulous weather over the last few days, and here are a few photos of how we've spent our time. Clare is at the Family Fun Fair at her school today (thanks Alison for the face paint!). Owen is at Alki beach yesterday.

Happy Earth Day!

I hope you had a fabulous and productive Earth Day. Here are a few pics from our day and a few from our rainy Easter as well.

It's been awhile...

Well, it's been 5 months since my last post. Where has the time gone? I'm sure a lot has happened in that time, but I don't think of anything that I need to mention right away. Right now we are being teased by lovely spring weather one day and then the doldrums of winter the next. It will be nice when the fabulous weather is here to stay.

Yesterday while waiting for Clare to finish up with her after school science club, Owen was amusing himself with a lollipop and Bandaid in the car. Here are some photos. Enjoy, and in the meantime I will try to become a more regular blogger and figure out how to add pictures that blend into the text better. :)