Eli’s turn

After 2 Brian posts it seems fair to balance the coverage a bit.  While at the beach this weekend Eli decided the seaweed looked like a snake and decided to start reenacting the snake show we saw at the science museum, complete with me as an audience, and then he would switch, having me be the snake handler and he the audience. 

The snake’s name was something like Estella, and they had the audience shout and stomp their feet to “wake her up” before the show.  In reality, she was a boa constrictor, and NOT a cobra, as he calls it; obviously that would be a bad idea for a live snake show in front of children. 

He loves dinosaurs.  We had a book called Dinosaurs: A to Z and he knew them all.  When he learned about the letter Y at preschool he went around saying “Y is for Yingshanosaurus” but probably nobody understood what he was talking about.  He saw this dino with his daddy:

and asked, “Is that Parasaurolophus?”  Um, yep!  He is just a little parrot, repeating everything we say, and really picking up new stuff so fast!

He wants to do everything his big brother does, but struggles to keep up:

 

He finally decided he wants to try the strider. Right now he just walks with it between his legs, but we walked for a while and he sat down for a few strides. If he figures this out it will make it a lot easier to go for a walk around Greenlake all together!

And as always, he is smiley!

But don’t let it fool you, he is laughing because he is up to something, I assure you!

Life’s a beach

We finally made it to the beach the other day; yes, Seattle has some nice beaches!  Trouble is, most of the time it is too cold to go.  Saturday, though, it was warm(ish) and sunny, so we headed out there. 

We even got some new beach toys, in the hopes that this can be a regular thing!

Calvin with the boys in the water.  Way back on the right, you can see one of the cruise ships that went by.  We saw three of them, and we figured it must be the time that Alaskan cruises all set sail. 

Eli giving me…sand?  Seaweed? 

It’s a beached whale… no, it’s Brian “basking in the sun”, as he told me. 

Lots of sailboats were heading in to the marina while we were there. 

This picture shows a little better how crowded it was.  Somehow I got a lot of pictures that make it look like we were the only ones on the beach, but really it was PACKED.  There was a wedding going on behind us, along with several beach volleyball games, a dozen cookouts, and at least as many kite flyers.  Only the people with kids were near the water, I guess, everyone else was just enjoying the sun and sand farther back. 

Perhaps because the waterline looked like this:

And the water is f-f-f-reezing!

Brian turns 5!

I know, I know, we just had a birthday post, but here is the documentation of the big day itself.  Unfortunately, it was a cold and rainy day, so no trip to the zoo like we’d planned.  As a backup, you decided we should go check out the science museum.  It was raining so hard we even scrapped plans to ride the bus to downtown and decided to drive.  Of course, one of the perks of driving is that you can make whatever stops along the way you feel like making, and since it was your birthday, I decided we should get a snack of donuts!  And not just any donuts, but Mighty-O donuts, which are apparently famous. 

Faced with the case full of donuts, the first thing you did was decide on a sprinkles donut for Eli.  What a sweet big brother!  We finally made it to the Pacific Science Center, and managed to get the last spot in the garage.  It was so tight, we had to unload you guys before pulling the car in!  It was a taste of life in the city; I am wondering how much of this all you guys will understand, or remember.  It’s pretty different than Rochester!

Once we were in the museum, we spent a while in the science playground:

before heading over to the tot zone, where we found…

tidepools!

a cool water table!

a car!  And some other cool stuff we didn’t take pictures of!  Eli was NOT getting out of that car, so you and I wandered over to see the bug exhibit.  From there we met up with Dad and Eli over in the…

dinosaur room!  We were in the right place at the right time to see a live snake show, and then we headed over to the butterfly garden to cap off our visit. 

We made our way outside, where we found ourselves in the middle of the:

YUM!

First up: a giant corndog!

Eli and I had some rice, pad thai, and coconut shrimp, then on to the hit of the party:

A nutella crepe for dessert!  Mostly you guys were debating what color drink you were going to get and I had to break it to you that were were not buying a $6 cup o’ food coloring, but in fact buying the lovely dessert that was being made RIGHT OVER THERE. 

Now we get it!

It was devoured.  After this we headed home for nap time, and our only other outings for the day were an ill fated trip to Trader Joe’s that doesn’t bear remembering, and an ill fated bike ride with dad that is also best forgotten.  We got this yummy cake, though!

Happy birthday to our sweet boy!  I hope this year in Seattle will be the best year yet!

Happy Birthday Brian!

Grandma and Grandpa had to go back to Delaware before Brian's real birthday so we celebrated a few days early.  We got cupcakes from the fancy cupcake place.

Eli enjoyed the cupcakes too, with the usual smudgy face that results when he eats... :o)


And, Brian finally gets a bigger bike!

A day on the Olympic Peninsula (part 1)

Today started out pretty cold and cloudy but we decided to take our chances and head out for a big day trip to see the Olympic mountains.  The ferry crossing was so foggy I don’t think the kids even noticed we were moving. 

But then the fog started to lift, and the sun began to peek through!

We rented a minivan for the day and the kids looooovvved it. 

Can you see the goofballs?

There they are!

And by the time we got up to Hurricane Ridge…

…it was a spectacular day!

Here’s the whole crew, with some reluctant little boys. 

After lunch at the visitor center, we went for a hike on the meadow trails and found…

…SNOW!  They really did not believe it was real snow until they were up in it, in person. 

The trails up here are just beautiful; you feel like you are at the top of the world.  Grandma and Eli stayed on the meadow trails, playing with the snow, while Calvin, Brian, Grandpa and I went up…

…up…

..and down the other side…

…where Brian made friends with a deer!

This deer came really close to us; it was pretty amazing!

We saw lots of beautiful flowers too, avalanche lilies and lots of lupine:

In the late afternoon we visited another part of the park, but that will have to wait till tomorrow (or whenever I get around to it).  A very busy, very full, very fun day!