Grandma comes to visit...

...which means we take her to see Discovery Park, our favorite weekend beach.

 Brian and grandma built a cool log cabin castle...

 ...by the time it was done, it was pretty elaborate, having a garage, a tree, some grass, and benches (? I think).

 Every time we go, the boys spend mostly the whole time playing on this log.  It's a pirate ship, and so much more.  Ah, imagination!

And since grandma was here, Calvin and I got out sans children a couple of times.  Here, we are sporting our super cool hairnets so we can tour Theo chocolate factory.  That's right, I didn't mention it last post, but we are also walking distance from a CHOCOLATE FACTORY.  How will we ever leave?

 The best kind of chemical engineering: chocolate production.  Not as fun as Chocolate World, but the samples are way better.

 Sunday we went to the aquarium!

 Lunch out on the deck as we watched the ferries go back and forth.  The coast guard seemed to be out training that day too.

Fun times!

Eli's first day of school (plus)

I've been accused of slacking off on the blog since school started.  What's up with that?  I have all this free time now, right?  Well, the reality is more like I spend all day running around like a headless chicken taking this one here and the other one there...at least I get a lot of exercise!  Anyway, Eli's first day of preschool was the day after Brian's first day of kindergarten.  Brian wanted to get in the pictures too and really this one turned out the best; how cute are they?

 Here's Eli by himself, wearing the same too-big backpack that Brian took to 3-year old preschool, haha!

 We walked Brian over to B.F. Day, then ran back across the bridge, grabbed a stroller from the car that was parked conveniently on the way, then jogged the 3 blocks to Cometa playschool.

That's right!  Just 3 blocks away is an adorable little Spanish immersion preschool!  How lucky is that?!?  If anything could sell me on staying in Seattle and dealing with the traffic issues, parking issues, high rent, and 6 months of rain, it's being able to walk a few blocks to BOTH kids' schools, a martial arts center where we just started classes, awesome restaurants, playgrounds... it's pretty cool.  So back to Eli... here he is, not looking at the camera in front of his school.

 "Cheese!"

 Inside he was playing with a little setup of foods and a checkout register.  He seems to like it pretty well, although he clings to my leg a little every day when I drop him off.

And I doubted whether he was learning much there, but today I was doing a math lesson with Brian and he came over and joined us, counting in Spanish!  So maybe he will pick up some Spanish this year!

As a bonus, here is a video of Eli riding his Strider.  He has gotten so good at it in the last 2 months, it's amazing.  He rides it everywhere we go now!  (The video starts out right side up, then flips, I don't know why, if you know how to fix it, please let me know.)

Brian's first day of Kindergarten!

Wednesday was the first day of school here in Seattle, and Brian was so excited!  He let me take lots of pictures!

At home, ready to go!

Crossing the pedestrian bridge...it's only 3 blocks but we get a lot of exercise going to and from school.  

Nice view of downtown Seattle as we walk to school

Looking cute!

Happy boy, ready for school!

Playing together on the playground before school

Finding his teacher... it was a little crazy with all the families out on the blacktop looking for their teachers!

Brian with his teacher... getting a little nervous, I think.  

To infinity... and beyond!  Ms. Simmons leads the kids in to school.  

I didn't go in with him but he found his seat right away and was one of the first kids ready to go.  

I think we were both barely holding it together.  He's smiling but was nonverbal at this point.  

But we made a new friend after school and walked home together!

I think so far he is doing OK.  The first day was a bit crazy but he tells me that today (day 2) they went to the art room and had art class.  He did a drawing of a machine that made silver and gold.  He was not so nervous at lunch in the cafeteria, he said, and he got the note I put in his lunch.  He was sad yesterday because my note got thrown away, but I told him that was OK.  Today he says he took it back to class and kept it on his desk.  They had recess twice today and colored the letter A.  That's all I can get out of him!
Eli has been sad about Brian being gone all day.  Yesterday he was playing quietly and all of a sudden he came over just sobbing.  It's an adjustment for all of us, that's for sure. We miss him during the day, but hopefully he is having fun and will make some new friends, and learn a lot!

Labor Day, part 2

On our last day, we went clam digging again in the morning, but it was much cooler and the kids (especially Eli) were not so into it. We gathered up enough for dinner and called it a day. We packed up, checked out, and headed back to the coast. The kids had a good nap as we drove all the way to Leadbetter State Park, the end of a peninsula that separates Willapa Bay from the ocean. Unfortunately, there was no beach access except by a 1.5 mile trail, so we didn’t get to the beach. We did a short walk to an overlook of the bay and headed back to Long Beach for some fish and chips. Finally, after that, we drove over to the beach. Brian had been asking and asking to go to the Pacific Ocean and he was excited about it!

Calvin and Eli were a little bit behind…

 It was insanely windy, but the kids had a great time exploring the turbulent Pacific shore. (Irony there, how not peaceful the Pacific is.)

 I tried to get a nice picture of the two of them, but they are so goofy.

 That’s the money shot! Great weekend to send off the summer!

Labor day at Willapa Bay

Saturday morning we loaded up and rolled out for a weekend of camping. 

This picture sums it up; Brian loved having the dog there, Eli not so much.  We dropped her off at a kennel about halfway to the campground for her own “vacation”.  (That’s what we tell the kids.)

It was our first time camping at a KOA (it was the only place in the state where I could find an available campsite) and I wasn’t sure what to expect.  We were in an RV site, which wasn’t the greatest, but it was right by the playground, so it worked out perfectly. 

The playground was nothing fancy, but it had a play boat, hanging tires to crawl though, swings, and best of all, rocks (which is what the boys are playing with in this picture).  It was nice to say, “OK, you can go play at the playground while we put up the tent/make dinner/wash up/etc.”

After setting up and riding the bikes around a bit, we went down to see the beach.  It was a short hike from the campground, and we caught it at high tide.  The boys played in the water, which was not that cold, and then “basked in the sun” to warm up. 

Yes, it was pretty seaweedy at the high tide line, but the beach above was nice and sandy with little bits of shells in it.  When the tide started going out, a whole new expanse of beach opened up. 

We spent a long time down at the beach, just exploring and playing in the increasingly shallow water.  When we came back we started a campfire, and prepared hot dogs and corn on the cob for dinner.  Yum!  The kids were delighted.  Brian ate 3 hot dogs and even Eli ate one, which is pretty good for him.   

And if you ever wondered why it’s so hard to get a picture of the kids smiling and looking at the camera, maybe it’s genetic. 

Then it was time for smores!  And bed!

The next morning we rented rakes to go clam digging.  We had never tried this before, but the guy explained that you just pick a spot at random and drag the rake till it feels like you hit a rock.  That’s where a clam is, and you just reach down and dig it up. 

Eli wanted to do the raking, which was pretty easy, but not quite easy enough for a 2-year-old to manage successfully.  He looked cute trying, though!

Here Calvin and Brian are digging up a clam. 

We went out pretty far looking for clams.  It was a beautiful day!  Out farther there were larger clams called cockles, and we found a few of those, but mostly we got Manila littleneck clams.  They are an invasive species in the bay, but apparently they don’t cause any problems.  Here’s the haul!

In the afternoon we went out to Cape Disappointment State Park, which is where Lewis and Clark ended their historic journey.  It was beautiful!

I forgot the camera though, so all I have is an iPod picture.  This was a little inlet from the Pacific.  The kids really wanted to go down there, but it was a pretty steep path down so we didn’t try it.  The view up by the lighthouse was beautiful; you could see across the Columbia River to Oregon, and out over the ocean. 

We went back to the site for dinner and had the clams.  I was a little skeptical but in the end I thought they were great!  Brian did too, and Eli ate one.  I thought they might not be so well-received, so I didn’t cook them all, which was a mistake.  We didn’t have enough to eat, and the ones we kept in water overnight died.  Oops. 

We had smores again, because that is really the reason we go camping. 

To be continued…