Cup Time

Ern has been busy exploring the new toys that came in his subscription box. It's kind of nice because now buying him toys is off of our to-do list, and they are also all age appropriate so I don't have to worry that I'm spending a bunch of money on something that he isn't going to think is interesting.

Toy Boy

Today was Ernie's second full day of school.

Ernesto coming home from school is a big daily event for me now.

I thought this was weird and sad. We'd just visited 67-year Woodinville institution Molbak's for the first time a little over a week ago and now it was getting killed by some developers. Sad.

Ern has a subscription to Lovevery which is an age appropriate toy box that come every couple months. Unboxing them is quite the hullabaloo.

Feelin' Cute

Nothing that interesting happened today. Ernie was just being cute.

Now that he's having fun at daycare and meeting new kids and teachers I wonder how he distinguishes his relationships with his parents and with others. Is he relieved to be home after school or is it just another place?

Ernie Meets Santy

Today was a big day: Ernesto had an appointment to meet Santa Claus (also known as Saint Nicholas, Saint Nick, Father Christmas, Kris Kringle, Santa, or Santy).

We learned from a photo shoot that Ernie (also known as Ern Dawg) will get slobber all over his nice clothes, so we came prepared with a bib.

He looks a little bit like a Klondike prospector.

The Snowflake Lane Factory set up at Bellevue Square was pretty quality.

They did a good job of having interesting things to look at while waiting in line. They also had the different Santas photos up so you could book a session with a particular one rather than just showing up and chancing it.

They had a nice little conversation before doing the photos which was nice. Santa said that Ernie would be walking up to see him next year which I was not ready to hear.

I was proud of him for being chill.

Columbia City's Off Alley was definitely a fine dining experience that was out of the ordinary. 

The space is legit in a converted alleyway, so the 14 seats are scrunched in along a brick wall. I bumped into the guy sitting next to me on more than one occasion.

Holy Mountain's White Lodge has some fun Twin Peaks references on the label.

I will give them one thing, the portions were generous which is not usually the case for fancy pants places. I was not able to finish all of what was served. When you don't exactly know how many courses are remaining or what they will be it's hard to pace yourself.

Ern was busy doing good boy stuff to stay in Santa's good graces.

Goodbye Sweet Bartell Prince

We were excited when a brand new Bartell Drugs opened within walking distance from our apartment about two years ago. We were sad to hear that they were closing despite the fact that we rarely ventured inside. I think their parent company is having issues so I'm not sure whether I should be taking their rejection personally. Oh well.

Seeing empty shelves in a store makes me uncomfortable. It's probably my inner capitalist dying a little bit, and also reminds me natural disasters or zombie movies. I am probably scarred for life by how hard it was to find certain products during covid.

Ernie has started daycare in flu season which means he has immediately started getting sick. It's very cool to pay a ton of money for this disease delivery service. He wasn't sleeping so his hero Dada stayed up with him all night.

We watched some National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation.

I didn't want to disturb my sleeping boo so I made him into my desk.