Around town

Now that Calvin is back to work, most days are just me and the kids, kickin’ around town.  Literally, sometimes:

Brian is doing great with his new scooter and we use it a lot to go on walks around the neighborhood.  This past week we also took advantage of the warm weather to go to the beach again:

We were there at extreme low tide, I guess.  Brian was so far away!  But I wasn’t too worried about drowning because that water is SO COLD the kids didn’t want to get in, after a trial toe dip.  They just like playing with the wet sand!  There is also a crazy cool playground here:

We (sort of) jokingly say these are sponsored by the orthopaedic surgeons of america…to drum up business. 

Friday we wanted to go to the library, for the joy of some air conditioning on a VERY hot day.  Well, guess what:

Fridays our local library doesn’t open.  So lame!  The hours here are the worst, and the libraries are so tiny.  Well, I decided we’d just go downtown to the central library.  So we rode the city bus, which never gets old for the kids, and beats the heck out of trying to drive downtown and find a parking spot!

My city boys!

When we got downtown I too them to see the hammering man at the art museum first, because they’ve seen it in a book we have, so I figured they would like to see it in real life. 

They did!

Then we climbed the steep hill to the library and rode the escalators up, and went running back down!

What a view at the 10th floor!

  We took the elevators back up, and then back down.  By that time we were pretty tired, so we read a few books and headed home.  They are already asking to go downtown again!

Twin Falls

Last weekend we headed out of town for a hike that was listed on a page of easy hikes with children.  Well.  I guess easy is relative.  We had to drive 3 miles on a one-lane, two-direction dirt road to get there, then we hiked a mile and change to a waterfall.  Here’s Calvin and Brian, who were always far ahead:

My littlest hiker looking at a waterfall:

Calvin and the boys where we stopped for a snack by the waterfall:

Me and the boys:

Two and a half miles sounds so easy, but let’s just say it was a long way back, especially for the one with the smallest legs!  (And the one who had to carry him!)

Sightseeing

I’m getting way behind!  It has already been two weeks since Kermit, Kelly, Ian and Emme headed back to Phoenix, but here are some pictures from their visit.  I didn’t get a lot most days; Thursday we went to the zoo, but I forgot my camera.  Friday we did a walk around greenlake that took all morning.  We found a cool flower design:

And as we walked around the north end of the lake, we saw they were filling the wading pool:

We also stopped at the playground, which is why it took 3 hours to cover 3 miles!

Sunday we hit lots of touristy highlights.  The pike place market:

Followed by a long hike down to the aquarium:

In the entryway they have a huge tank called “Windows on Washington” and Eli was fascinated by the scuba diver inside. 

The next exhibit was lots of big tidepools where you could touch the critters!

Cool!

Emme wanted to squat on the divider between inside and outside:

So of course Eli did too!

We had some fun with cutouts:

Saw the rest of the fish (and otters and seals), then went outside to the fountain…

..then on to the ferry.  What a beautiful day for a ferry ride!

Me and Emme:

Calvin and Ian:

The three boys having a snack on the ferry:

We explored Bainbridge island for a while, had some ice cream, then got on the next ferry back.  On the ride back we could even see some of the air show that was going on over Lake Washington!  We had a great time with everyone and were sorry to see them go!

Another day, another lake

One day in the evening we took the kids to the wading pool at Green Lake.  We packed a (somewhat meager) picnic dinner, and headed out for an afternoon of water fun. 

Unfortunately we were in the wading pool for all of 5 minutes when they told us to get out, they had to chlorinate it.  So we packed up and headed over to the interesting “beach” on the east side of green lake/  We had our picnic,

then went to play in the muddy sand. 

The view out on the lake was beautiful!

But the kids were very busy in the mud.  Someone before us made a “pool” that the boys took over as soon as it was abandoned. 

Mostly Eli.  He had this elaborate story going on about how this was his nest and he was hatching some eggs, etc.  Finally someone decided we should go in the lake.  It was just the right depth for swimming!

I supervised these aquatic adventures.  It was a beautiful day, but the water was chilly so we headed out after a while.  On the walk back to the car we saw the wading pool was open and we stopped for a while there since we had missed out earlier. 

I think Eli was telling me a story here.  He has a lot to say!

A day at the lake

One day last week we set out to explore Lake Washington a bit.  First we went on a trail that meandered through some wetlands.  It was kind of swampy (the trail, obviously wetlands are always swampy), but a nice walk. 

Then we went over to a cool playground in Madison park, right by the lake:

There was a swing on a zipline that Eli loved; we waited in line to do it over and over:

Then we got a snack and went across the street to the beach:

There was some serious construction work going on here,

some splashing around,

and even some swimming!

Zoo, take two

A little belated… we went to the zoo a second time and again the worms and tractor were the big hits:

Plus we saw a cool slug!

And we made bubbles!

I was pretty awesome at it if I do say so myself.  Believe it or not, it’s really a big zoo, nicely done, lots of animals…we just seem to care about the other stuff more!