Category Archives: family

Que Bueno

Que Bueno

Happy 2010, friends!

My apologies for the furlough.  Its’ been a lot busy with little to write about.  Funny how that works.  Here’s the holiday re-cap:

For our two year anniversary, Kevin took me on a surprise overnight date! Poor Kevin, after last year (which was a super surprise – like I had no idea it was even happening surprise), I told him it’s expected now. He set the bar too high for himself. Lucky me, he loves surprising me even more than I love being surprised! This year, he arranged for us to soak in the pools and get a massage at Banya 5 and stay the night downtown. Yay!

In Spokane, were new traditions of horrible gingerbread house assembly – horrible because Auntie didn’t read the directions first…sneaking the candy was the best part anyway!  And old traditions at the Edburg’s Rockin’ Christmas Eve.  Christmas weekend flew by but I was lucky to get to visit with everyone I had hoped.

For New Years, the annual Brick House, Crock Pot Cookoff Party commenced in Lincoln City, Oregon.  Like walking off the plane in Honolulu, something about this crew gives me a perma-grin I can’t seem to shake.  I can’t imagine a better way to celebrate a great year, and ring in the new, than with these guys.  Well, except Kevin and I would have loved to surf! Stupid winter storm watch, flash flood, BS.  And, yup, my meatball subs with homemade marinara took first place in the crock pot cookoff.  Can I get a “Three-peat!”  Kevin tied with Ambrose for second with his mommy blog Orange Cranberry Bread Pudding!



Much love to you for the best 2010 has to offer. Already, it looks to be full of weddings and babies. I can’t wait!

3 weeks

3 weeks

Here’s Kevi Kev exactly three weeks in with the Palsy. If you didn’t know better, he looks totally normal. We know better though…just a little bit more to go! He said he doesn’t really notice it much now except when he laughs really hard. Muwhahahahaha!

Bell Boy

Bell Boy

There’s no easy way around it.  Kevin has Bell’s Palsy.  When the right side of his face didn’t work Saturday morning, we found ourselves at the ER.  The good news, it should go away.  The bad news, they don’t know how long he’ll look like Lyle Lovett (For the record, I did not come up with that!).  Could be a few weeks or a few months.  Most often it’s just a few weeks so we’re hopeful.

Don’t you worry though, he doesn’t hurt.  Except for when he eats – his mouth gets tired.  And his eye dries out because he can’t blink very well. Otherwise, he’s just fine.

This is how babe smiles now.  He’s still adorable to me :)

The Drive Home

The Drive Home

I drive to Spokane at least six times a year to see family, probably more. I often get asked, “How do you do that horrible drive all of the time?” My usual response is, “Oh, I guess I’m just used to it. It always goes by really fast.”

Today I realized why it always goes by really fast. Like wam, bam, Mooom, I’m hooome, fast. I usually spend most of the drive on the telephone (on the blue tooth, of course!) catching up with all my besties. Well, this trip, I forgot my phone charger in Seattle so by Sunday, my phone was d.e.a.d. dead.

There are only so many hours one can belt lyrics to Air Supply and Fergie Ferg without going mad. It’s about five.

Family Ties

Family Ties

My oldest and dearest family friend, JR, got married last weekend.  JR, his two brothers, my sister and I grew up together.  We spent countless summer days at the lake throwing squeeze-it bottles at each other (No, not squeezing the water out of them like squirt guns.  Throwing them.  Full of water.  At each other.), playing Dukes of Hazard in the basement and collecting ten plus pound bags of candy every Halloween until college (I’m almost serious – young face + free candy, hello?!).  We’re family.  Being the two oldest of the five, we kind of ruled.  Seeing him get married and re-connecting all of us (three in Spokane, one in LA and me in Seattle) was just like old times.

We had a blast.  Instead of throwing squeeze-it bottles, it was a bouquet – and yeah, I caught the sh$t out of it! (It actually got deflected, bounced off my face and I picked it up off the floor but who’s asking?)  Instead of Dukes of Hazard, we danced.  All night long.  Even my sister and parents were dancing – NEVER thought that would happen! And instead of pounds of candy, they get lots of presents and we were all dressed to the nines!

It’s crazy, getting older.  I love thinking back to all of the great times we had as kids and all the memories we shared with the Sugalski’s.  It makes me excited to have my own family and forcing our kids to be “instant” friends with our friends kids.  They’ll thank me later, I’m sure.  We’ll see if that whole bouquet catching tradition really works!  (Are you reading this Kevin?!)

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Happiness is…

Happiness is…

Dancing to Auntie’s and Uncle Kevin’s beats.

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Spinning in a giant strawberry with Gramma.

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A super size shave ice after a perfect day!

We miss you already Princess Allison!

We miss you already Princess Allison!

Allison turned three today.  I can’t believe baby is already three!  Mom, Kevin and I got to take her to Mobius (the Children’s Museum) and Riverfront Park on Saturday.  We all had such a fun day - although I’m positive we were all way more tired than she was.  Luckily, she had a Princess birthday party to dream about!

Blogging for the sake of blogging

Blogging for the sake of blogging

Most “good bloggers” are able to write about things that aren’t that exciting while still making the reader come back to their blog every day to see if they’ve wrote more.  I am one of those readers, not one of those bloggers. A good blogger could blog about anything, anytime, anywhere.  The last few weeks we’ve kept pretty busy but I really haven’t had much to write about.  Does my limited readership really care about our first surf trip of the season to Westport?  Do you really care about my new KitchenAid attachment I got through rebate?  And do you really care that baby Tyler had butt surgery?

What?! You do? Well, ok then!

I try to go home once every couple of months to visit.  This month, prime Spokompton time was while Kevi was on a baseball trip with his Dad.  Thanks Owen for coming early so Auntie Kelli could meet you AND go visit her other kiddos.  This trip home was extra important because Travel Granny recently fell and broke her hip.  She’s staying in a rehab/nursing home which was really hard to see.  Gramma seemed to be doing great and was in tip top spirits with lofty goals to get out of there as quick as possible.  I don’t blame her.  It smelled of chameleons and everyone was in a wheelchair, practically passed out.  Growing up with Ronnie, I’m used to group homes but this place grossed me out.  I’ve decided I don’t want to get old.  Someone needs to get rockin on that magic youth serum.

When I bought my KitchenAid it came with a free attachment via rebate.  My choices were a grinder or a slicer/shredder.  I opted for the slicer/shredder as I slice much more than I grind.  It is the coolest thing ever.  It kicks so much ass over my mandoline (which used to be the coolest thing ever).  We made a recipe that called for 2lbs of thinly sliced zucchini.  In like a minute, “voila,” the zucchini was sliced and ready to be cooked.  If you have a KitchenAid, you need this attachment.  It will change your life! 

Ahh, Westport.  Our favorite surf spot –  because it’s the only place we can go without having to make a weekend of it.  So cold, so rough and so fun.  Kevin’s Dad and Brother came with us this trip.  Westport is crazy because you can read the surf report and have a four star day (that’s good) and then get there and it’s crap.  But you went that far so you play in the water anyway and then like an hour later, the wind shifts and it’s the best surf conditions you’ve ever had.  We’ve never really had a bad day at Westport.  And to make things more perfect, tradition leaves us with ice creams every car ride home. *Thank goodness* Kevin has a sweet tooth too! 

Speaking of ice creams, I finally made it to Molly Moon’s.  That’s good stuff.  I wasn’t brave enough to try anything too crazy.  My raspberry mint sorbet tasted like a raspberry mojito. *yummy* The waffle cone was probably the best one I’ve ever had.  And I kind of get around.  I also recently made it to Peaks frozen custard.  I’m not sure I’m a custard fan. I think prefer one or the other, not the combination of ice creams and soft serve. Don’t get me wrong though, I would never turn it away. Ever.

Lately, Kevin and I have ate a pretty disgusting amount of cupcakes.  I’m not going to lie, it is mostly my fault.  The new cake at Cupcake Royale is quite tasty and we’ve been in the neighborhood often. (Ok, maybe we’ve gone out of our way, but only a couple of times!)  At work we had a nutritionist come in and talk to us about healthy eating. A lot of the stuff I knew, like organic foods are so much better for you, butter is better than margarine, the food pyramid is a big joke, etc.  The things I decided to implement in our diet isn’t much and it certainly isn’t giving up sweets.  I will start taking an Omega-3 supplement – it can’t hurt anything. And as much as I can, will stop eating things with partially hydrogenated oils in them (if I can’t read the labels then it doesn’t count!).  We can start shopping a little better for organic foods too. Organic is so expensive though!  I do see the value of hormone free milk and chemical-less fruits. But why do I have to pay more? You’re not using the chemicals, shouldn’t it be cheaper?! 

My four month old nephew had a Perianul Fistula.  Sounds fun, right?  Poor baby had butt surgery yesterday.  He was in and out and Mommy reports “Tyler’s already smiling again (that could be the morphine talkin).” The sad thing about baby having surgery is that we don’t know how much it hurt him, pre and post surgery because he can’t tell us (nevermind that piercing cry, he is four months old afterall). Poor little guy.

There you have it. My non-blog worthy blogging. Don’t mind me while I try to learn how to be good about talking about butts and slicers while being entertaining at the same time. Maybe I’ll just report on the cupcakes and ice creams we eat. At least then I’d have an excuse as to why I eat them so much! As it stands now, I just have a problem :)

The Sweetest Thing

The Sweetest Thing

Owen Raj Dhara was born, Thursday, June 11 at 7:06am.  He weighed so close to 8lbs the nurses were blowing on the scale to get that last tenth to click over to the 8.  I’m sure when she has time, D will share the whole story on her blog

Auntie Kel’s story is short and sweet.  Baby Owen is the sweetest little guy ever.  He has Mommy’s mouth but Daddy’s everything else.  His head is FULL of dark dark hair and he has great big, dramatic yawns that look just like Daddy’s.  It’s totally nuts to have another baby in the Brick House family -  D’s nutz!

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