Lauren & Kai

We spent today at the Children's Museum in Everett with Lauren & her family. It really is a surprisingly good museum for a town as small as Everett.

Lauren serves up pizza...

Josh learns to milk a cow...


Then we took advantage of the great weather & checked out the rooftop playground. It's definitely my favorite part of the museum, but almost never open because of wind & rain.


Sam learns to play chess... (This totally reminded me of the giant Chutes & Ladders in Ireland!)

Sam & Kai checking out the slides...

Sam's just happy to have some space to roam...


Eventually it started raining & we had to head back inside.


Downstairs Josh & Lauren did a great job taking turns racing each other around.


While Sam & Kai bonded over tools...

It's great to see Lauren again!

Anniversary

For our anniversary, we spent the day on Whidbey Island, mostly at the county fair. (No, nobody got decapitated this time!) Josh was willing to go on ONE ride this time, but insisted I had to go on it with him... on the plus side, at least he was willing to ride it twice. He claimed that he wanted to go on the ferris wheel as well (I think only because of his current favorite Stuart Little episode...) but he abandoned that idea pretty quickly. Maybe next year...

He did have a pretty good time at some of the various fair games, and I'm embarrassed to admit that my 3 yr old is better at popping balloons with a dart than I am...

Sam spent his day trying to eat everything he could find on the ground, and trying to pet all the animals Josh was afraid to touch...


The restaurant we usually go to is still open, but the folks who worked there during our rehearsal dinner have opened a new place farther up the island. We had planned on going there instead, but couldn't find the number so we couldn't make reservations. It ended up being too crowded by the time we got there, which in the end was just as well - it looked great, but definitely a bit fancier than the old place so prob not a good choice for a post-hotter-than-hell fair day Josh & Sam. Instead, we drove all the way up to Coupeville, to their old town area that looks ridiculously similar to Langley's old town area. (Seriously; Carlos kept asking if we'd been there before... it looks almost identical.) We had a pretty good dinner at a crab restaurant - where coincidentally, 2 of the prosecutors I work with were having their wedding reception. Pretty crazy, since they are a bizarre pair in the first place, and because I had no idea they were getting married... Then we took a night walk and looked at the full moon, before taking the ferry home again. All in all, a really good day.

Auburn Car Show - August 10th

Josh's obsession with trains has been only slightly modified by a new obsession with Hot Wheels - preferable not only because of their cheapness, but also for the lack of corresponding obnoxiously cute names, TV shows and teeth-grinding theme songs. It does mean, however, that we find ourselves doing things like driving to Auburn on a Sunday afternoon...


(You know this guy was making some crack about Josh's shoes. Apparently in Auburn, boys don't wear pink. :) )


On the plus side, we managed to talk Cody into bringing the boys as well, so we got to see them & have a great dinner at Bill & Helen's. Aiden got a pony ride out of the bargain; Grady & Josh both got off after the first round....






Josh also got his first introduction to Camp Fire - although apparently now they don't call the youngest kids blue birds? He did get to make his own sparkly crown; I'm not sure the woman hosting the table knew what she was getting into when she asked him if he wanted to make one...

Mark Claire, Ph D

I'm still trying to catch up on some old entries, but in some more up-to-date news:

Mark finished his Ph D yesterday. Congrats! I can't even begin to explain his work, but I am (as always) incredibly proud of him. On a selfish note, he claims that he'll have more time for us now... (Sorry, no photos - but yes, he remains as cute as always!)

And in one of those weird, Seattle can be a small place moments, it turns out that his wife works with and is good friends with both our pediatrician and my midwife. A good endorsement on both sides.

Sam at Eight Months

Sam turned 8 months old while we were in Iowa. He celebrated by learning to crawl up stairs & by doing his part to slow the moving process... Of course, this capped off a week marked by a trip to the ER for an undetermined allergic reaction - and that whole "oh yeah, I swallowed a battery" incident...

Fourth of July

I realize this is ridiculously late for posting, but I really just wanted to add the photos. We spent the 4th with Cody, Jon, Aidan, Grady, and the baby - now officially known as Annaliese. We drove down to Tacoma in the afternoon to watch the air show from Helen's deck, and then we all came back up here for the fireworks. After a brief crisis (who knew you couldn't buy sparklers anymore?!), resolved by a quick drive up north, we celebrated with some over-sized explosives, and then headed downtown to watch the fireworks. This year we passed on Gasworks and ended up under the Aurora Bridge. It turned out to be a *great* spot - we could see everything really well, but it wasn't quite as loud, and nowhere near as crowded. Plus we were home in no time.

(When they were all sold out of sparklers, I asked the woman at the reservation stand for something "good for small kids" - umm, apparently we have a very different idea of what that means... The next shot is our reactions to that spinning disc shooting straight up in the air with a god awful screech... Needless to say, we did NOT use all four of them as planned...)

Since they were out of regular sparklers, the boys got to use crazy 3 foot ones instead... Next year we will stock up ahead of time. Or at least before we cross back into King County.

Everyone stayed overnight, and the next day we took them to the zoo. The boys had a great time, and it was really fun to watch Josh & Aidan. They really are so alike... At one point, they were both dancing down the sidewalk in front of us, holding hands, and looking like marionettes from the wizard of oz... I wish we'd been able to get a picture! At the end of the day, both boys were heartbroken to say goodbye. We really need to see them at least once a month...