This Joy’s Life

When I think of going to the beach, I think hot sun and sand. Not so with the beaches out here in B-town (greater Seattle), but any time I go to the beach it still feels like a getaway so I’m trying to go more often. Especially since we have 3 beaches within a 5 minute drive of the house and many, many more that are 20 mins or less. It’s a crime not to in the summer!

On our way, we stopped at the local consignment shop, Lollipops, to buy some boy swim trunks for the girls to get wet and dirty in.  Clara enjoyed finding neat rocks on the beach and collecting or tossing them in the water at her whim.  Sydney enjoyed putting neat rocks in her mouth.  She did not enjoy mom taking them out.

See it all for yourself:

One thing about Seattle, in about 20 minutes in any direction you can be on the some body of water.  And when the weather is on the warmer side, people flock to Alki Beach in West Seattle.  We are no exception and headed out there for fish & chips tonight.  A very relaxing and enjoyable Friday evening . . .

My parents really have an absolutely beautiful backyard after a couple years at their new place.  I love how woodsy it is, yet accessible.  The house I grew up in was truely woods, and that was fun, but this is like traditional backyard meets nature preserve.  It’s not overly landscaped which really works here.

Anyway, I’ve been really happy with my photo shoots in their backyard during all the seasons so far and this morning was no different.  All you need are two beautiful little girls, one quilt handmade by your grandmother, her sisters and mother, gorgeous morning light and a camera.  Viola!  I think I’ve definitely got some frame worthy stuff here.

Thank you Walmart for literally streeeeeeetching my five bucks. Couldn’t have been better spent and if you don’t believe me, well, a picture’s worth a thousand words . . .

And don’t worry, Sydney didn’t miss out on any of this fun.

Yeah, we know you wish it were you in these pictures

My little bro, about the same age as Clara, singin’ his little heart out only to be rudely interrupted by yours truely. Sadly, our mother makes Simon Cowell look kind in judging our abilities (and future in “the industry”.)

Patridge? In a pear tree? from Joy Fisher on Vimeo.

Admittedly, I have been remiss in posting pictures of our newest addition lately.  I’m going to attempt to rectify that a bit now by posting just a couple miscellaneous pictures from the past few weeks.  The big thing going on here, besides the lack of sleep, was that our friends Suzanne and Kevin with their two year old Sylvia came to visit us last weekend.  Those pictures will come soon.  In the meantime, here are a few pictures of Sydney looking and acting like her sister only three and a half years ago.

You’ve already seen our current thinker:

Thinker A

Compare that to the Clare-bear:

Thinker B

One thing our girls know how to do is pout and cry. Can you guess who this is?

Pout A

And this?

Pout B

By the time Clara was 3 months, you can really see that she is she in her pictures. I’m curious to see if by 3 months, it is as easy to see how Sydney has come into her own more. I’m afraid if these girls ask me years from now whose baby pictures are who, I may not be totally sure of the answer.

Finally, here is a picture of Sydney hamming it up for the cameras (she wears her sunglasses at night, y’all) as well as a picture of “our family” that Clara drew on her dry-erase board earlier tonight. Of course, I think her drawing abilities are amazing!

Cool dudette

Clara's Family by Clara Louise Fisher

We are home from the hospital with Sydney, though the house is unusually quiet because she has slept the day away and Clara, who has the croup (!), is currently staying with her grandparents.  Having the sisters meet has unfortunately been delayed, but we want both girls happy and healthy when they finally do. In the meantime, here are some pictures of us in the hospital enjoying some solo time with our new girl.

Happy birthday to you!

We’ve had a big time the past few days.  Chad’s mom Vonnie had a milestone birthday on Friday and we arranged for a very close friend of hers to fly into town from Toronto to visit with her this weekend. It meant getting together with friends for breakfast and hosting a birthday BBQ for her on Friday night. It was a gorgeous weekend, the kind that reminds you why in the world you ever moved to this grey, rainy corner of the country in the first place.

The birthday girl, Vonnie.

Cynthia

Cynthia's hubby, Rick - our resident electrician.

Dana, who surprised us with the news that she got engaged last weekend - Congrats, Dana and Ned!!!

Gwen, Jane and Sherry (our surprise guest) Jack and Clara.

Josh (Jane's hubby) and Ryan (Jack's daddy).

Susie, Jane's mommy, who became a grandmother for a second time on the 4th when Jane had her baby girl, Payton. Congrats Jane, Josh, Sawyer and Payton!!!

Clara in the pool doing her best impersonation of a duck, i guess.

Saturday, the 4th, was spend in our traditional manner at a friend’s parents’ property with a private beach right on the Puget Sound which allows for the viewing of three different firework shows in nearby cities and neighborhoods. This is not to mention the firework show that happens right in front of us on the beach thanks to our friend Dan who has mastermind a barge that held 22,000 (yes, thousand) bottle rockets this year. Its “meger” beginnings three years ago included only 10,000 bottle rockets. I’ve missed this show the last few years as I’ve always had to get home to put Clara down for bed. This year, I really wanted to see it, so we let her stay up WAY past her bedtime

I made a kick-a** pot of meatballs in a sweet sauce and two batches of hush puppies for the gathering. It was all gone in 15 minutes or less and people were raving. Always makes me proud to be Southerner when I get the opportunity to share our food that way. And, low and behold, Southerners began coming out of the woodwork. There was a woman from Alabama, a Texan, a couple who’d recently moved from Virginia and a woman whose brother currently lives in Marietta, GA (where I grew up)!  Hush puppies just have that effect on people, I guess.

I enjoyed myself so much, that I never even bothered to pull out my camera. Thankfully, a good friend Erik Seo - who is an AMAZING photographer - did that job for me. Please check out the link to his blog below to see how we spent our 4th celebrating the country’s birthday.

A couple friends also got video footage of the bottle rocket barge in action and I will try to put the video or a link to it up on my blog once they start publishing them. It was a really awesome sight (as you can see from Erik’s photos).

Click here to check out Erik’s blog!

Went sight seeing in a couple nearby beach towns south of us this morning and spent a little time exploring the Mission in the historic little town of San Juan Capistrano:

Mission gardens

Go with God

Original church bells

fragrant rose

church alter

church window bathed in sunlight

garden walk

hummingbird lunchtime

famous church bell tower of San Juan Capistrano

Went walking around the little neighborhood we are staying in yesterday afternoon. The “Somebody’s House” (as Clara calls it) that we are in backs up to a canyon and a park:

Laguna beach is SOOO vane

a kids-eye view

one of many palms

a great tree for climbing in

Later in the evening some friends drove in from the San Diego area for a casual dinner at Somebody’s House and good conversation:

Tim

Matt

Ryan

Chad