Hittin' the Road

...er, plane. We're heading to Michigan to see family and go to our friends' wedding. I'll have plenty of photos on my return next week! In the mean time, I leave you with this photo, of our future president, catching some Zs on the road. That'll be his pose for the next 7 days. Ouch!

Me, the Supermodel

I had the newspaper on the table, and Andy saw a sunglasses ad with Christy Turlington (not the one below, but like it) and asked if it was me. "It looks like Mommy!" he kept saying. That's right, me and Christy Turlington. Twins. I knew one of these days the whole kid thing would mean a big payoff for my ego.

Zillah

We spent the weekend in Zillah at Sue's house playing in the pool, picking apricots, meeting goats and lambs, and spending quality time with Sue. Oh, and let's not forget, eating the yummy food that Sue graciously prepared for our chaotic family! Together, Andy and Sylvia must have eaten 15 apricots on Saturday alone. Andy took the picking process very seriously.

Sue has a bonfire pit with big stones arranged around it, perfect for roasting marshmellows and, once Andy was in bed, wine and conversation.

We realized this was Andy's first ever marshmellow roast! He picked out his own roasting stick, and hilariously picked a two prong stick (reminiscent of Shawn's three-pronger on our camping trip). Like father, like son! Below, Andy shows Shawn his marshmellow-covered hands.

Andy and Sue, telling stories...

Sunday morning, we played in the pool, took naps (well, Sly did) and then visited the organic farm that Sue used to work at, where Andy got to pet (chase) the goats, sheep, and chickens.

Sleeping soundly.

Loving her daddy.

The farm!

Thank you Sue for a wonderful weekend!

It's a "Rake Stroller"

Camping

Mom and Tom did us a HUGE favor by offering to spend the night with the kids on Friday so we could go camping for the night! It was so much fun to act like our pre-kid selves, stocking up on beer and s'mores gear and heading out without reservations to find a spot to camp. We drove to Chinook Pass near Mt. Ranier where we camped 10 years ago a few months after we started dating. The first campsite we found was perfect, it was the same one from 10 years ago, with barely anyone around! As soon as I looked down, I figured out why: ANTS. They were everywhere - not just a few around my feet, but thousands. Shawn was nonplussed. Then some other campers were walking through and asked us if we had seen any of the "hills"... turns out we missed the sign telling us the campground was infested with red ants!!! EEEwwww. Obviously we moved on, worried that all the other campgrounds would be full, but found a perfect spot outside of the official campgrounds, right on the American River.
Shawn fashioned a self-balancing, three-pronged marshmellow roaster...

Our campsite in the morning sun.

Ah, young again.

Puppet Show

Andy decided the other day to put on a puppet show at the patio window. To do so, he insisted he needed whiskers like a squirrel. He ran upstairs saying he knew just how to do it. I know I should have seen this coming, but I was beyond words when he came running down the stairs like THIS. And so proud of himself too. I had to quickly recover and assure him that although he is not allowed to draw on his face, he certainly did look just like a squirrel.
Here's the show. In case it's difficult to understand, he's introducing a dragonfly with wings and legs, who is the most beautiful dragonfly, and then it dies like a "birdie that died." Creative stuff!

Pictures of Us

Andy made these drawings of each of us recently: The floating circles/heads are the other sibling, abandoned because Andy didn't like the way the head turned out (so the circle next to Sylvia was meant to be Andy's head; the little face below is Sylvia, but Andy thought it was too small so he now says it's a dog).

I think he captured us pretty accurately!

Opening Presents

This is a very small thing in the scheme of things, but I liked this article and it changed my mind about something small: whether kids should open presents at their parties. I too have considered letting go of the present opening at Andy's parties, but inertia kept us doing it. Now I'm convinced it's the right thing to do anyway, despite the craziness of it all.

http://www.parentmap.com/content/view/1019/333/

I really like ParentMap. I'm adding a link!

A Very Orcas Weekend

For July 4th weekend, we headed up to Orcas Island's Doe Bay Resort on Thursday along with Melissa, Bryn and Macy, with Tod planning to follow us up. Unfortunately the Ws had to call the weekend short, but we got to spend a little quality time with them, and then spent the rest of the weekend fishing, hiking and exploring Orcas!


The loft ladder in our cabin was a particular attraction. Bryn was up and down without problems. Andy not so much! Apparently there's a little fear of heights going on in our family...
Shawn doing double (or quadruple?) kid duty! (That's a mural on the kitchen wall of our cabin).

Andy got a new fishing pole and reeled in his very first rainbow trout! He caught another one later in the trip, but an otter took it off the line!

We had a blast spying deer all over the island every time we went on a drive. They're everywhere!

On July 4th, the resort had live music on the lawn overlooking the bay. What a beautiful setting! We brought a blanket and some drinks and enjoyed the music right up until our little crew started making more noise than the music and we quickly left the area.

Here comes a big hug...

... and a throwdown!

Bubbles!

Dinner on our last night on Orcas.

Sly loves her some pizza!

Time to head home!On the way home, we stopped (for the third weekend running!) at Deception Pass to get some of the kids' energy out.

Finally home! I love this expression on Andy's face - it's his super excited face!

Nothing like watermelon after a long, fun weekend.

Working on Words

Sylvia is starting to work on words -- at a recent 4 a.m. mommy-daughter moment, prompted heavily by me I grant you, she pointed at me and said "mama, mama." One of the sweetest moments of my life. She's also working on "dada" and "Andy," but you'll notice in the video below that the word she really has down is "no." That's says something -- not sure what, but something.