Food Allergy Walk - Kyle Dine Event August, 22, 2009

The second annual Seattle area Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Walk was at Warren G. Magnuson Park August 22, 2009. It raised over $35,000 for FAAN - a non-profit based in Virginia that supports research and education for life-threatening food allergies and anaphylaxis.

Our Seattle area support group, WA-FEAST sponsored musician Kyle Dine to come in from Ontario for the day. I got to "chauffeur" him and this gave me even more time to spend with him and his delightful girlfriend. Immediately following the FAAN Walk, he gave a concert for the younger children. Then later in the afternoon he facilitated a team building event for Tweens and Teens about food allergy management and then early evening several of us kayaked at Lake Washington. It was a memorable day. Kyle Dine empowers children, teens and young adults through his music and his workshops. He is a LOT of fun and I realized during the day that I had really high expectations of what he would be like and he did not disappoint!

And even his last name is empowering to those with life-threatening food allergies!

He gave me permission to use one of his songs for a slideshow of the day:

Kristi's third birthday

I'm still scanning and collecting old photos for my parent's Golden Anniversary celebration in August. My mom sent me these and they make me smile so I wanted to share them.

From Kristi's third birthday

From Kristi's third birthday

From Kristi's third birthday

From Kristi's third birthday

AG Bell Celebrates 40+ years

Well, it seems my "thing" for old photos can't help but rear its head at my job, too.

Our school's former librarian was subbing a couple of months ago and rediscovered slides from the late 60's and early 70's. Before I could stop myself I heard myself saying, "Oh, I could probably get those scanned". (Thanks, Dad, for loaning me your film and slide scanner).

Then we decided since our school missed its 40th birthday, we should have a birthday celebration assembly for our students in conjunction with our end-of-year family barbecue. When I posted on Facebook that alumni were welcome to come to our lunch time barbecue, I heard from many, "I'd love to come to my old school but can't make it in the middle of the day" I heard myself say to the principal that I could host an open house in the late afternoon. Then when a former parent notified me that she had done a history timeline from 1967-1992 and that she would swing it by for me, it became quite obvious that I needed to recreate the school's history from then until now (I'm still working on it).

But, yeah, I still have students and the real part of my job which is culminating with the normal end-of-year craziness, too. Good times.

Here are some of our vintage slides



And a few "Then and Now" shots. I hope to add to this.

Old Photos of Montana

I get to be the keeper of old photographs for both Tom's side and my side of the family. I have two small neatly organized photo albums from Tom's side that have higher quality photos than most photos I have and it has me wondering if a professional photographer took them and sold these completed albums. There are no photographer markings anywhere on the albums and only a few on the photos. This is Tom's grandfather Charles A. Robertson working in the mercantile in Gold Butte, Montana

From Toole County, MT

Tom's Great Grandmother was a Fey. They hailed originally from Prussia/Bavaria/Germany (I'm still trying to nail down what it was called and when). They immigrated to New York. Then a few decided to move to Montana since there was so much land. They were pretty successful as ranchers and mercantile owners. These photos appear to be belong to the Fey side - a few are labeled Gold Butte which is in Toole County. Other known towns the Feys lived in are Conrad, Shelby, Sweetgrass Hills, Great Falls and Valier. Be sure to click on the slideshow for larger images - I think these photos are pretty awesome!



I haven't heard of any connection to Tina Fey of SNL to Tom's Feys. But I have heard that they are related to Charles August Fey who invented the slot machine. I still haven't found the connection, though.

Snowflake craft

I was looking for a simple winter craft for my lunch buddy mentors to do with their little buddies that didn't involve any paint/glue drying time and would end with a finished product that first through sixth graders would be proud of. I couldn't find exactly what I was looking for but "designed" a pipe cleaner and pony bead snowflake that seems to be a hit. Here are the directions:
Take three chenille “pipe cleaners”. Wrap each around each other in the center so you have spokes like a wheel.

Put three beads on each spoke. Work over a tray so the beads don’t roll on the floor.

Take a fourth pipe cleaner and wrap one end of it just above the beads on one of the spokes.

Put two beads on the new pipe cleaner and wrap it around the next pipe cleaner above that spokes’ three beads and repeat until you have made a circle around the spokes of your snowflake.

Put five more beads on each spoke and bend the top of the pipe cleaner into a circle and wrap the remaining end above the last bead to keep it in place. Be careful of the wire tip of the pipe cleaner as you are wrapping!

Seattle 1978 and 2008

I always looked forward to Paul Dorpat's column in the weekend Sunday newspaper magazine "Seattle Now and Then" when we subscribed to the Seattle Times. I have a "thing' for the nostalgic and love to visualize how things used to look. I recall being very pleased that Mr. Dorpat even e-mailed a reply to me once - about getting familiar with Adobe Photoshop to restore old photos.


For my birthday this year my mom gave me his book
Washington Then and Now I love to compare the differences.

I recently found this site Seattle Waterfront 1907-2002 "Handslider 3" is my favorite


My eleven year old had never been to the top of the Space Needle - we decided that we were slacking in our parental duties by never affording her this local treat. Since we took our twenty year old when he was about four he didn't recall it very well. All four of us ascended the icon in late July of this year on a bright and glorious day. Of course I took lots of photos.


Last week I started looking through old photos to scan in preparation for my parents Golden Wedding anniversary next year. I came across photos I took from the top of the Space Needle in 1978 when my cousins from the Midwest were here for our Grandparents Golden Anniversary. I've been trying to match up buildings in the south facing view. I numbered buildings I could match in both photos.

1-Fourth and Battery Building completed 1977
2-Grosvenor House now known as Archstone Belltown completed 1949
3-Smith Tower completed 1914
4-Seattle Westin
5-Security House
6-Castle Apartments completed 1918
7-Monorail Track built for the 1962 World’s Fair as was the Space Needle. Connects the Seattle Center to Westlake Mall.
8-SeaFirst Building
9-Union Bank of California Building completed 1973
10-Rainier Tower completed 1977
11-Times Square Building completed 1916
12- Henry M Jackson Federal Building completed 1974
13-Fourth and Blanchard Building completed 1979
14-Plaza 600 building completed 1969
15-Red Lion Fifth Avenue completed 1973
16-Securities Building completed 1918
*new 17-Seattle Tower/Northern Life Tower completed 1928 (Thank you Mundo!)

Kingdome (Top photo right – by the bend in the visible road) was built in 1976 – two years old in the top photo. It was imploded in 2000 to make way for Qwest Field

UPDATE! Thank you to my brother-in-law, Bryan and his colleagues at Clise Properties, the buildings have been identified! I've since added more numbers . . .
I found these links along the way:
Belltown neighborhood and Commercial Core historic buildings. Emporis building list for Seattle



******

Peanut-Controlled-Zone at Safeco Field

From Peanut Controlled Zone - 2008

The first ever peanut-free section at Safeco Field was August 5th. This has been something I would have loved even more a decade and a half ago starting at the Kingdome but I was thrilled the Mariner's became the fifth MLB team to offer this. We have been to games but it's very stressful wading ankle deep in something so prevalent at a ballpark that can cause a severe reaction to your loved one. And then there's the decontamination process before you get in the car so as not to bring it in to your home. At previous games, kind ushers moved us to remote sections of the Kingdome and Safeco so we weren't completely surrounded by flying peanut dust.
But this game we could relax and enjoy! I actually giggled several times after dropping my sweater on the ground and picking it up finding it not infested with peanut skins! (Yes, it was waaay too warm to wear it but the Girl Scout in me wanted to "be prepared" in case it cooled after sun down).

From Peanut Controlled Zone - 2008

The media was there which always makes me wary since they can (and have) turn allergy parents into a very nasty story. But the media and the Mariners all seemed very enthusiastic about this section! Our section ushers were awesome! They acted like bouncers - there had been many threats posted about intentionally bringing massive quantities of peanuts to cause harm to peanut allergic children since this was a ridiculous issue to them.

From Peanut Controlled Zone - 2008

It was also my Dad's birthday - we showed up at four (three hours before game time and an hour before the gates opened) to preview the section with the event organizer since the Mariners really wanted to know if they did everything right. Since we had loads of time before the game, we had a leisurely dinner at Hit It Here Cafe and watched batting practice . It was a BEAUTIFUL night for baseball and the Mariners even won their third straight beating the Twins 8-7!

From Peanut Controlled Zone - 2008