We drove down to Tacoma today and walked around the town for a little while, checking out the amazing architecture they have there. Lots of old brick buildings jutting out into wedge-shaped alleys and over railroad tracks and waterways.

After we walked around we stopped in at the Glass Museum. When you first go in to the lobby they have a group of flags from around the world like you see in a lot of galleries, but in this case they are all full-sized frosted glass. Beyond that is the "Hot Works", where they have several furnaces for molding and blowing glass. All around the museum are amazing glass art pieces. We saw one exhibit with full-size glass dresses. They looked so lifelike!

After the museum we stopped by an Italian restaurant. Christina had a baked lasagna, which she said "had an olive essense that was reminiscent of a tapanade we had in Tampa." Whatever. I really pity the guy she dates later. He better know his bernaise from his beurre-blanc.

It's a rainy weekend. We drove over to a town near here called Renton, and visited their public library. It's a really neat building that is placed right over the Cedar river, and with all the rain lately the water was moving very fast underneath. The library has huge windows on either side of the river, and it's a great place to sit and read.

But books aren't the only reason we were there.

Each January 1st our family sits down and makes goals for the year. These aren't resolutions, but actual goals that we plan to accomplish by the next year, complete with the steps we need to do to get there. We each make our own goals, and then we make some for our family. We record these goals in a little leather book, and then we pull that book out each month or so and check each other to see how we are doing. One of our goals this year is to get more involved with giving back. We have so many wonderful times together, and I think it is important when God has blessed you for you to bless others. I can remember as I was growing up after my father passed away that many people stepped in and hlped my mother and I. I had good role models, and families that included us in their lives. I want to do the same.

So one of the things I would like to do is teach children and young adults to write - creative writing, expository writing, and technical writing. There is a great need for children to have after-school help, and I'd like to do that. It's a similar idea to the http://www.826national.org/ foundation, and it also focuses on English as a Second Language for at-risk children. So I've visited the first library in my search to do this. I'll keep you posted on how this works out.  

Winter is trying to sustain its grip on the Pacific Northwest, but Spring is peeping through here and there. Christina and I headed in to Seattle this weekend, and found a few brave trees and shrubs flowering, but for the more timid ground plants it will be a month or so before they risk a surprise freeze.

We stopped off at the Public Market on Pike street and got some fresh cinnamon doghnuts, and then of course over to Post Alley for Some Seattl's Best Coffee. Christina got a Raspberry Mocha Kiss, a true work of art. We sat and had a great chat with a guy named Bob who was doing some photography, even though today was a little damp.

From there we went to the Odyssey Martime Discovery Center. Seattle is a port town, after all, and over a million containers pass through the port each year. The center has four primary areas. The first has exhibits and lots of hands-on experiences about the shipping part of Seattle. You get to pedal a giant propeller, try your hand at loading a container, and watch materials travel around the world.

The second area explained the Northwest's fishing industry. We were able to drop a crab-pot, guide a fishing vessel, and test our recognition skills on various types of sea life. They had some films on how the fishing is done, and how some areas were overfished.

The third area showed how ships were put together, and how every skill from infrastructure, plumbing, electronics and more are needed for these larger vessels to be built. It's amazing to see what goes into these amazing vehicles. There were several large-scale models, many made entirely out of lego blocks! The man that put them together used regular blocks, took 18 months to do it, and had to use a computer for the design work. Truly awesome.

The fourth area had a set of "rescue suits" that the kids could put on. These are water-tight suits that the sailors can don to keep themselves alive in th freezing water for more than a few minutes. Christina put one on and I told her she looked like Gumby. "Who's Gumby?" she says. Youch, I am getting old. Another fun thing to do in this area are a couple of kayaks that are hooked up in a magnetic field. You pick up the paddles, move them around and a TV display looks like the view from the water. Neat!

Finally, we tried our hand at a Lego table putting together a boat. That didn't turn out so well. Mine looked like something between a box and a deformed camel. I think I'll keep my day job.