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| Washington trip continued. . .After a day to recover from the effects of cross-country travel, we headed to Seattle with Tara and baby Anna. We drove to Bremerton, where road construction caused us to miss our ferry. So we walked around, saw the various fountains that dot that part of Bremerton, and "enjoyed" the cold, rainy weather!
Here's a picture of Peter walking around a fountain. The fountain entertained the kids enormously-it didn't just spew water as fountains usually do, it spewed water in rhythms and patterns.
And here's Katy walking around the same fountain.
The ferry did arrive, we got on and enjoyed our hour-long-cruise across Puget Sound to Seattle. Peter decided to do another lunge over a seat (like he did at the St. Louis airport) and hit his head on the floor of the ferry, but like before, he was fine, just scared himself and his parents.
When we got to Seattle, we first visited Pike Place Market and found a place to eat. After lunch, we went to the Seattle Aquarium. There the kids were absolutely captivated by the touch pool area. And I have to admit, it was the nicest touch pool area I've ever seen. Here's Paul and the kids looking in the pool:
Here's Peter, fascinated:
Here's Vivian and Katy, feeding the sea urchins:
We finally dragged the kids away from the touch pool to look at the octopus. Here Peter could not have cared less about the octopus-he was busy talking a fish in the same tank. Here's a video of him. You have to listen carefully to hear him talk, but he says "fishy, fishy" over and over again.
And that was the story of our visit to the aquarium. Every time we stopped at a tank, Peter had to talk to the fish.
We did get pictures of Katy and Vivian, who definitely enjoyed the fish as well. Here's Katy:
And here's Vivian standing on the ferry as we headed back, quite tired after our day in Seattle.
The other funny thing that happened was that while we were in Seattle, Anna made a liar of her parents. They had told us how Anna doesn't sleep at all in the "front pack". Then, while we were in Seattle, she did just that. I think being around her cousins really wore her out and besides, what baby doesn't relish the opportunity to make her parents look silly? What a cutie!
And here's a nice picture of our hosts, Keith and Tara, with Anna. We've enjoyed visiting them every time we've done it (this would be the third) and this visit was no different!
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| Visit to the West Coast, Part II originally intended to post pictures and stories of our trips while we were on vacation, but instead, ended up playing games with Tara and Keith or watching the Olympics or just relaxing. We had a great time, however, and I'm going to try and post as many pictures as I can.
First, when we took off from Logan on Saturday, we arrived with more than enough time to spare. Paul took the girls for an exploration trip while I stayed with Peter, who checked out the place. Here's a picture of him figuring out the trash can and another of him climbing on the seats.
When we got to St. Louis, we had a 5 hour layover. The St. Louis airport is nice and long and we walked the whole mile through terminals D and E before stopping for lunch and then walking back. There were some nice, open, uncrowded spaces for the kids to run around without running anyone down and we managed to pass the time away without too much trouble. All in all, the layover could have been much worse. Shortly before we boarded the plane to SeaTac (Seattle/Tacoma Airport), however, Peter decided to climb over one of the chairs and plunge headfirst off the back--hitting his head, causing him to cry and scream, and generally earning us looks of "why weren't you looking after your kid?" Peter was fine, however, once he got over the scare.
Our flight to SeaTac was uneventful but after we landed and headed to the baggage claim, we got on a moving sidewalk. Getting on was fine. . . As we were getting off, however, Vivian, who was in front, stopped right in front of Paul, who tried to get her to move. Peter tripped over Paul's foot, causing me to trip, causing Katy to trip. . . Yeah, domino effect. The people behind us tripped and there was a true pileup. Katy extricated herself, but left her bag behind, creating one more obstacle. I managed to rescue the bag-which enabled other people to extricate themselves. Nobody was hurt, though a lot of people were rather annoyed with us. The thing was, it really was just like something you'd see in a movie or cartoon; after the initial shock wore off, it was rather funny. But we stayed away from moving sidewalks the rest of the trip. . .
I'll save the story of getting to Tara and Keith's house for later and move on to Sunday, our recovery day. We decided to visit some nearby trails to let the kids stretch their legs after a day of being confined in airplanes. There we walked and enjoyed the view of the Hood Canal. Here's a few pictures:
Looking out over the Hood Canal at low tide:
View of Katy looking out at the Hood Canal:
And then there was the main attraction: our first niece and the kids' first (first) cousin, Anna. Vivian and Katy had been very excited to see Anna and were absolutely delighted with Aunty Tara and Uncle Keith let them hold her.
Anna even smiled for Vivian:
She looked a little more concerned when Katy held her!
So that's all for now. More later. . .
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| I'm a little teapot. . .I took on the job of directing skits for VBS at our church this summer. The skits were set in a theme park and the characters were representative of the themes in the park-a cowboy for "wild west world", a princess for "storybook kingdom", a pirate, a spaceman, you get the idea. At one point in the skits, the pirate suffers an identity crisis and becomes a teapot. Corny? Absolutely. . . and the VBS kids loved it. Since I was in charge of the skits, I was also responsible for some of the props and costumes and when it was over, I brought them home, including the "teapot". Our kids were thrilled and have had a blast running around singing, "I'm a little teapot"! So here are the little teapots:
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| Hawaiian DayWhen I was in high school, my mom co-oped with some other homeschoolers and did a unit study on Polynesia. As the culmination of that, we had a luau at our house. We dressed up, played games and ate Polynesian food. Oh, and my dad tried to cut his thumb off! (Long story) Now I have kids and this past week, we let Vivian go to a day camp at the YMCA. She loved it. The last day of camp, they do a theme day and that particular week was Hawaiian Day. I originally intended to pick up a lei made of silk flowers when I went shopping during the week, but I forgot. So instead I remembered what one of the moms from the Polynesian unit study had told us (having grown up in Hawaii herself) about how to make leis. She used azalea flowers because they were available and in season. I used day lilies and daisies for the same reason. I also whipped out a shirt for Vivian from the fabric I originally used for my Polynesian costume. So here's a picture of Vivian on her last day of camp, wearing her lei and shirt (recognize the fabric, Mom?!).
Vivian informed me at the end of the day that she was the only kid with a lei made out of real flowers and that everybody thought that was pretty cool. And this week she told me that everybody else managed to break their fake leis, while hers didn't break (it just died). | | |
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