One very happy patient eating Pizza Hut:

You may recall reading the story of Flat Stanley as a kid, the one about Stanley, flattened by a bulletin board, who is able to mail himself places and have adventures. I have received 2 Flat Stanlies in the mail in the past year as a part of school projects (living in Seattle when a lot of your friends and family live in the Midwest will cause this, as will being a Children’s Librarian!). I had a half day of work recently and spent the afternoon taking pictures of Stanley around Seattle landmarks before mailing him back to cousin Lauren in St. Louis. Here is what we did:

Came to work with me in Chinatown:

Saw the Space Needle:

Took a Monorail ride to downtown:

Visited Pike Place Market:

We stopped for a cup of coffee:

Bought some fish from the famous Fish Throwers at the Market:

And we ended our big day with a relaxing trip to the Pacific Ocean:

In case you haven’t heard yet, we are home safe and sound from the hospital, minus one thyroid! Andy is doing much better now that he is home and well on his way to recovery! Let the hovering and spoiling of the patient begin!!!!

Since we use wordpress as our blog host, I go through their homepage to login, and currently their homepage says “Freshly Pressed”, which makes me smile every single time. It reminds me of vacation mornings, with freshly pressed orange juice and french press coffee. I like thinking about vacations as everyone is frantic over back to school, sucky economy, and swine flu. Sigh. Vacation.

Here are our photos and videos from zip lining while in Whistler, B.C. We had a total blast!

Getting geared up.

Working it.

The 6 year old girl in our group who went upside down almost the entire time. She was very brave and made all of us adults feel a little ashamed for being so nervous! (they are doing a practice run)

Looking down over the zip line course.

We felt like we were in the Ewok Village up in the trees!

The glacial river we zipped over.

About to go for the first time. I love how gigantic my eyes are! It makes me crack up every time.

The surrounding scenery.

The professional shots that we paid too much for. But seriously, how often are you going to get pictures like this?

Years of ballet lessons for this moment.

I was so proud of Andy! He zipped upside down most of the way!

We also took some videos. Click here to see Treasure zip lining away from Andy (note my slightly terrified look at Andy right before I go). Click here to see Andy zip lining towards Treasure (I suck and videotaped the wrong direction, so you have to tilt your head. Sorry.). The videos make take awhile to load.

During The Seattle Public Library’s budget cutting furlough, I participated in the union rally at the Central Library (was briefly on the news and shook the mayor’s hand!). I also led a volunteer group to assist in sorting donated materials for the Friends of the Library book sale. If you are interested, here is a link to pictures of everyone working hard, including our City Librarian Susan Hildreth!

Volunteer Day Pictures

Our summer trip to Whistler, British Columbia, site of the 2010 Winter Olympics. This is where the “Celebration Center” will be. We also saw the sliding center, where the luge and bobsled competitions will take place. So don’t watch the Olympics with us, because we will constantly be yelling things like “Saw that!” “Been there!”

Gondola ride up to the top of Whistler mountain for an outdoor dinner.

Alas, there is no picture proof, but right around this area, we saw a black bear lumbering along.

At the top of the mountain.

 An inukshuk at the top of the mountain, which you should expect to see a lot during the Olympics. We plan on playing a game called “Spot the Inukshuk!”

Andy set the timer to try to get a shot with a glacier in the background. He didn’t make it, and the picture makes me laugh.

There we go!

Every Tuesday in the summer, I drive home from work with a lovely view of Lake Union and the colorful sail boats celebrating after another successful Duck Dodge Regatta. This summer I actually took the day off in order to watch the race and have a picnic with Andy at Gas Works Park.

Normal Andy in front of Lake Union.

Yacht-owning, collar-popped Andy.

Picnic time with The Colonel!

Toast!

The race is on.

The barge that totally interrupted the race.

The near-collision with a pirate ship!

End of the night.

An accumulation of summer events.

Homemade plum thyme iced tea:

Wrapping up the library’s summer reading program with staff favorite Masao:

Only in Seattle… half a house.

Dinner out in the Madrona neighborhood with 3 inspiring and lovely friends. They are a wonderfully bad influence on me, for which I am deeply grateful.

They wisely refused to be photographed once we had launched seriously into the wine and cocktails, so I opted for an appetizer photo.

Andy and I made our annual summer trek to the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle. I love how relaxed the gorillas look, especially the one with his tongue hanging out: