Yesterday we had quite the birthday party for our little guy. Around 25 to 30 people were able to stop by and wish him a happy birthday. We had Hickory Park cater most of the food (Saucy Southerners, mashed potatoes and gravy, pasta salad, and cinnamon apple sauce. I also made a pot of BBQ baked beans, and Amy made cupcakes and a smash cake for Nolan. We also had a lot of soda and beer for refreshments. There were lawn games set up (bags, ladder golf, croquet) for entertainment along with the bubble fogger machine.
Let's see if I can remember who was at the party: all four cousins (Seth, Sullivan, Paige, Evan), aunt Rachael, aunt & uncle Amy & Brandon Shostak, grandma Becky, grandpa & grandma Eben & Lynn, my cousin David Langner, Erick Ude, Dan & Ann Becker along with their baby Sebastian, Patrick & Shantelle Owens and their kids Emmet and Peyton, Jamie & Mike O'Donnell and their daughter Maddie, Tara Fisher, Lydia Metzger & Tim Nevins, and Caleb & Kristina Carroll. If you count Elizabeth, myself, and Nolan that makes 30 people!
The party mainly lasted from 11:00 until 2:00 in the afternoon. Most of the people were leaving around then when it started to rain really hard. It was a good thing the rain didn't come down an hour earlier!
Amy & Brandon advertising his birthday with chalk in the driveway.
Nolan and daddy!
All of the food: bottom row pasta salad, pulled pork, mashed potatoes, gravy, and apple sauce. On the top of the table BBQ beans. Upper right you can see soda in the red wagon and coolers with beer.
Nolan with Elizabeth and Erick. He is trying to get Erick's beer!
Nolan looked like he was going to destroy the smash cake... but really he just poked at it a little and then tried to crawl away and get a balloon.
Nolan & aunt Rachael
All 5 cousins together and looking at the camera!
Nolan & Amy
Another thing that is too cute to leave out of his birthday blog... on Saturday Nolan spent a long time blowing raspberries on my stomach!
It's hard to believe that in just 3 days Nolan will be ONE YEAR OLD!!
Three days also happens to be how close to your birthday you need to be to have a free birthday ice cream at Hickory Park... and that is exactly what Nolan had today :) Check out this video to watch the crew at Hickory Park sing "Happy Birthday". For his birthday ice cream we ordered a brownie sundae which is a fudge brownie topped with two scoops of vanilla ice cream, whipped cream, hot fudge, nuts, and a cherry.
This coming Sunday we are planning to throw a big birthday party for Nolan. We actually will be having Hickory Park cater the food. Amy is making him a smash cake, and I am really looking forward to watching how big of a mess our little guy makes with that!
I might as well recap the baseball game we saw between the Seattle Mariners and the Minnesota Twins this past Monday. It was beautiful weather for a game, but unfortunately the Twins did not play well at all and lost by a score of 2-0. The Mariners pitcher Hisashi Iwakuma was excellent and struck out 10 batters. The Twins only managed 4 hits all day. Oh well. The Twins did manage to win the other three games of the four game series.
Elizabeth and I are enjoying ourselves quite a bit this weekend as we are visiting Christian and Emily out in Seattle! We flew in yesterday and enjoyed a fun 4th of July at Christian's place. He grilled some delicious cheeseburgers along with some really thick cut bacon... this seems like foreshadowing for a weekend that involves way too much good food! Then we were able to enjoy a few drinks at his place before walking down and watching the fireworks from a boat (we stayed in the dock because it would have been too hectic to take it out on the water).
This morning we met up with Christian and Emily for a Mexican-themed breakfast at Peso's. I had a chorizo and sweet potato hash with two poached eggs. It was very filling, and actually we were all so full from breakfast that we didn't feel like having lunch until around 2:00.
After breakfast, we made our way over to the Pike Place Market.
Of course we had to check out the gum wall as long as we were over by the market...
Elizabeth blowing a bubble at the gum wall
I know... I'm gross!
After the market, we swung by Kerry Park to enjoy a scenic overlook of the city. Here we have a good view of the Seattle skyline and the space needle, but it was too hazy in the distance to have a good view of Mount Rainier.
This is the viewing room of the fish ladder at the Hiram M. Chittenden Locks. You can see all of the salmon as they make their way up the ladder
After our time at the locks, we finally got hungry for lunch. We headed over to Paseo which is a delicious Caribbean sandwich restaurant. Here I am posing with their most popular sandwich, the Caribbean Roast. It is shredded pork shoulder in their special marinade on a homemade baguette with aioli, fresh cilantro, pickled jalapenos, romaine lettuce, and large slices of caramelized onions. We had to stand in line outside of Paseo for over a half hour during a light rain, but it was such a good sandwich that it was totally worth it!
