Deception Pass

On Sunday we drove to Deception Pass for a long afternoon of frolicking, picnicking, climbing and exploring. We brought our tent to give us a sand-free home base (and just in case we had a napping baby). Great fun and a beautiful day to enjoy the beach!
Andy's response to being over-exposed...

Andy went immediately for the rocks to try some climbing. Unfortunately...

...he slipped and got a tummy scrape. As soon as I took this picture though, he ran back to the rocks to try again.

Shawn and Andy to the left:

I had to share this photo - Andy made a tail out of a piece of seaweed. He cried and cried when we got to the car and I insisted we leave his new tail in the bushes. We made a little ceremony out of him tossing it into the woods to live...

George Carlin quotes

Here's some I'm fond of:

Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.

I don’t have a fear of heights. I do, however, have a fear of falling from heights.

Honesty may be the best policy, but it’s important to remember that apparently, by elimination, dishonesty is the second-best policy.

Here’s a bumper sticker I’d like to see: “We are the proud parents of a child who’s self-esteem is sufficient that he doesn’t need us promoting his minor scholastic achievements on the back of our car.”

I love and treasure individuals as I meet them, I loathe and despise the groups they identify with and belong to.

Have you ever wondered why Republicans are so interested in encouraging people to volunteer in their communities? It’s because volunteers work for no pay. Republicans have been trying to get people to work for no pay for a long time.

The reason they call it the American Dream is because you have to be asleep to believe it.

Religion has convinced people that there’s an invisible man…living in the sky. Who watches everything you do every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a list of ten specific things he doesn’t want you to do. And if you do any of these things, he will send you to a special place, of burning and fire and smoke and torture and anguish for you to live forever, and suffer, and burn, and scream, until the end of time. But he loves you. He loves you. He loves you and he needs money.


(I'm in a hotel in Galveston, Texas. What else am I to do but surf the internet and re-post things on MY blog???).

Dancing Matt

I found this video on MetroDad.

I remember seeing an earlier version a while back, and this one is just as good and, somehow, uplifting! Check it out:



Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.

Circus Mimes

After a couple of months of practice, Andy's school put on their end-of-year plays. There were three plays, all circus themed and geared for each of the three age groups.

[It's pretty incredible to watch the difference between the 3 and 5 year olds and what they're able to do. Andy's group, the 3-year-olds, know the songs they're singing and all the hand movements by heart (hell, I know them by heart just from hearing Andy sing them so often). But in the videos below, you pretty much just hear the teacher, Eric, and the kids look a bit stunned. The 4 and especially the 5-year-olds were capable of sentences, monologues even!]

Andy's group put on a short play called "Cicus Mimes." Check out a couple of the songs in the videos below. Andy is second from the left...

I got very emotional during the whole event. My son finishing his first year of school maybe? And thinking about how Sylvia would one day be in these same plays with the same teachers, both of them growing up so fast. Plus it was all benefiting a charity for children in cycles of abuse and neglect, such a contrast with the well-loved children in the room. Or whatever, maybe I'm just hormonal!

Sylvia and Shawn watching the show.

A couple of clowns!

Ladies' Tea

On Saturday, Sylvia and I met my cousin Michelle, her daughter Katie, and her cousin Sophie for tea at the Queen Mary, the perfect place for a ladies' brunch!

With no high chairs and lots of fine china and hot tea pots, it might not have been the ideal place to take a 9-month-old. But Sylvia was an absolute angel. She shared my breakfast and sat quietly on my lap the whole time. No fussing, not even any fidgeting. This is a whole new world for me!

P.S. If you go to the Queen Mary, I highly recommend the Orange Creamsicle tea, with lots of sugar and cream!

Breakdancing

Shawn's been teaching Andy some breakdancing moves!

Waving!

Monday with Dad

Andy and Sylvia had a great day outside with Shawn on our first warm Monday in a long while. Cheers!

I am SO HAPPY

Obama 15 points ahead
A new Newsweek poll shows Obama with a 51 to 36 percent lead over McCain among registered voters nationwide.

Catching up

I'm just catching up here on the photos from the past couple of weeks - here are a few random ones....

Looking for a good book.

=

I found this interesting - he's got a snake and an apple. Now, I'm not much of a biblical scholar, but isn't that a symbol for mischief? How fitting...

Deep in thought, wearing the leftover material lion tail.

Here's a heady combo - lion + bear + wild dog tail!

Father's Day

What a fantastic day for the weather to FINALLY brighten up! Father's everywhere rejoiced.

Me and the kids made a special trip to the coffee shop to get assorted goodies and coffee. Shawn woke up to us all piling on top of him, anxious for him to come open presents. Andy in particular put a lot of effort into Father's day this year. He made Shawn a present at preschool (an apron) and also painted a picture frame for him (which cracked the next day - those painted pottery things often crack around our house - we need all our stuff to be durable plastic). Shawn also got a digital photo frame that is great for showing all the bazillions of photos we take.

[hey, wait a second, I just got a call from Allstate asking if they could give me a quote to see if they can save us money on our auto insurance. The guy seemed surprised to hear that Allstate IS our auto insurer. I took the opportunity to laugh at him, which is not very charitable I realize. But anyway, back to blogging....]

We had a great day - starting with the presents and breakfast:

Then we headed to Golden Gardens for a picnic.

Someone wants a watermelon pop!

Later, we went to mom and Tom's house for dinner. Pete (the other Pete!) lives in NY and arranged with mom to surprise Tom -- you should have seen Tom's face when Pete walked through the door!

Now here's a photogenic crew! Fathers and sons.

No, she's not content to ride in the saddle - she loves a thrill!

Happy Father's Day!