Suburban Weekends

I live in a suburb north of Seattle. Today was typical weekend-in-summer example, so I thought I'd share a slice of life...

Abby, Fiona, and Malia

Abby passing out programs

Hubby was at work, so I was more-or-less on my own with the girls. Thank God one of our Friday Night Gamers (Hi, Tonja!) offered to babysit the Lizster for the morning. Abby and I headed to Kenmore for the Grand Opening of their new and improved branch of the King County Library. Her Brownie Troop was invited - along with another Girl Scout Troop and a local Cub Scout Pack - to assist in the opening. They presented the flags (the boys for the U.S.flag and the girls for the City of Kenmore flag), and at the end all couple dozen of them had at least a finger on the giant scissors used to cut the ribbon.  This was exceedingly cool.

Lizzy on the Gwocewy Stoah Hohsie

Then Abby and Leanna had been invited to Kiki's birthday party at the Mountlake Terrace Recreation Pavilion, where they have a pool with all the perks - a cannonball-depth section, a run-and-jump-in area, an area for floating along a stream, all that. So they were deposited there, and Lizzy and I needed something to do, so we went out to eat (and practice our rudimentary Spanish on the waiter) at a Mexican restaurant, did some minimal grocery shopping at a local chain store (and got to ride the horsie!) and went to pick up the big girls from the pool. Took Leanna home to her mom and stopped by our favorite latte stand ever.

I haven't mentioned Java Junkie (the latte stand in question) on my blog before, because they don't have their own web page to link to (the above link is to their Yelp review page). They are our favorites though, and Lizzy (three and a half) actually made up a song for them (and then Abby refined it). Eventually I'll get around to recording their little song and posting it, but in the meantime, here are the simple lyrics. There's not much of a tune - it's more in the nature of a cheer - and it goes like this:

Java Junkie, Java Junkie,
Everybody go to Java Junkie,
Hooray! Java Junkie!

The owner says that a few customers objected to the name, because they didn't want to have to explain the term "Junkie" to their kids and grandkids. For me this is a non-issue; my girls' dad/stepdad Laston is a Diet Coke Junkie, so it was easy to extrapolate to Java ("that means coffee, Abby") Junkie. They have two and usually three of the Attributes of Good Coffee Stands. 1) Good coffee, 2) Good customer service, 3) Fast service, and 4) Scantily-clad baristas (please note: #4 is not my choice, but there are many many stands with this er... attribute, so it's included in the list). Java Junkie always has numbers 1 and 2, and usually 3, so it's top of our list.