December 2009

Oh my gosh December was hectic (at least for me, not so much for Bruce). I had lots of parties to go to for Christmas and birthdays and I did a lot of shopping trying to find perfect gifts but I was usually unsuccessful because I was getting more things for myself than others :)

I have some pictures here from Desiree and Mike's annual Christmas party, from Christmas Eve with Bruce's parents and Ryan, and Christmas day with my family. We had our first Cookie Contest and I tried a lot of new recipes. I wasn't thrilled with any of them and apparently the judges weren't either because Desiree came in the winner of the Cookie Trophy. I have to say, I really liked some of Des's cookies a lot. Britt's were good for gingerbread cookies, but I'm not really a fan of gingerbread (even though I made some myself) and mama's almond cookies were eaten really quickly because I loved them too. Erin's cookies were cute and one was used in the trophy. She could not sway the judges either. Apparently biscotti is not a favorite of the boys.

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November 2009

This November has been mostly Bruce and I trying to avoid getting sick at all, but especially trying to avoid the spooky H1N1 flu. So far, so good (knock on wood).

I have been out with friends a lot this month ~ reconnecting with friends from my childhood (thanks to Facebook). It's been a lot of fun.

Bruce had a lot of time off for his sanity and because work has slowed. He stayed home with Ryan for 3 days because it was suspected that Ryan may have had the swine flu (although he didn't have the symptoms who am I to argue about what a doctor said).

We hosted Thanksgiving at our house this year. It was a lot of fun to have so many people over and everyone brought 1 or 2 dishes. I made a turkey and a ham, we had 2 types of stuffing, home-made bread, green bean casserole, sparkling cider and, of course, 5 different pies. YUH-MMY!! Did I also mention that we had our first Thanksgiving Day FIRE! Des was broiling some suffing so it would have a crispy top. She made it crispy alright. What fun! Lucky I was prepared with the camera while Bruce and Des figured out how to put out the fire! I love this kind of stuff!

Here are the photos of Thanksgiving and from one night out with my friends and co-workers (Rachel, Lindsay and Kristin). I only photographed our dessert ~ it was enormous and delicious.

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Fall 2009

It's kind of sad but we haven't really done anything exciting so far this Fall.
* Bruce took Ryan and me to our first Seahawks games, unfortunately they lost both games we went to.
* We've had a pretty dry Fall so far so we got some yard work done, I made my first Autumn planters ever, and Bruce and Ryan cleaned out the yucky gutters (Ryan for the price of a GI Joe).
* I forgot to get into the Halloween spirit so we didn't even do pumpkins this year; however, I had pumpkin pieces so Ryan had fun making different types of creatures so I guess that counts.
* Bruce had the whole last week of October off so he got to work checking items off his "Honey-Do" list (painting the kitchen, finishing Ryan's room, making room for me to park in the garage, organizing the garage- he was a maniac!)
* Ryan discovered he likes Pokemon tournaments - unfortunately, they are on the Sacred Football Sunday so Bruce isn't exactly ecstatic.
* Of course, we went Trick or Treating as well. We met Ryan's cousins in Lacey and went to his Aunt's kid-friendly neighborhood (like last year) for extra fun with a bunch of kids.

Other than that, we've been pretty laid back and hanging out at home. Maybe we'll be more adventurous in November. Here are a couple of pictures:

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Zing Zang Zoom

We went to the circus for the first time ever! It was interesting, to say the least. We had a lot of fun. Here are some pictures:

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A Very Merry Unbirthday

Yeah! Aunt Della made it to Washington. Boo, Aunt Marcia (the birthday girl) did not make it. What were we to do when we were ready to party? Have a Very Merry UN-birthday party, of course!! Here are some pictures from the party:

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The Last Days

The last days of our trip were comprised of low-key activities.

On Tuesday, Aug 5th, Grandma Pauline, Grandpa Harold, Brooke and the kids came down to our hotel. We went to Olde Town San Diego and had lunch at a Mexican restaurant that I can't remember and we walked around a little bit before heading back to the hotel so the boys could swim in the pool. Later that evening, Bruce, Ryan and I went to the Atlanta Braves vs. San Diego Padres game with Bruce's friend, Brian. The Braves won:)

On Wednesday we took a quick trip to the Marine Military Museum for Brian, who is an ex-marine. It was really interesting to hear stories from a person who was actually in Vietnam. It was also really sad what people had to go through ~ I hate war. Afterwards, the boys went to the Braves game while I got to go shopping in downtown San Diego.

On Thursday we planned on leaving (so sad about it)so we played at one of the parks in San Diego (there were so many). We were trying to keep clean and dry before our flight ~ that didn't work out for Ryan. He loved playing in the sand and water and wanted to live there. (We want to live there too. Maybe, someday....). So sad to leave, but we were already making plans on going back to Cali next year and hanging out with Brooke and her boys a little more.

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SeaWorld

Day 5. We got up early to get to Sea World before the crowds. We had a lot of fun in the morning feeding seals, dolphins, and bat rays. The seals were definately the noisiest hungry critters. Of course, I would be noisy too if seagulls were constantly stealing the food people were trying to give me. I had 2 fish taken by seagulls! The dolphins were pretty cool, of course, so it was really crowded there. Luckily we did this early or we probably would have never done it later. I love, love, love feeding the bat rays even though it freaks me out. They are so soft and smooth feeling. I was wondering why they continued to hover over your hands after they had gotten the fish.

We went on the Ship Wreck Rapids ride and got SOAKED! This little girl across from me was crying because she got a few drops of water on her back, meanwhile I'm getting buckets of water dropped on me, but whatever. We have a picture of Ryan and me after the ride under the sign becuase we were the wettest.

We saw the Shamu Believe show, the Dolphin show, the Sea Lion and Seal show was really funny (but we didn't have a camera at that time). We saw every animal in SeaWorld except for the sharks. The line was horrendous and there was no way we were standing in it. I guess we should have done that the night before.

Here are some of our photos:

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La Jolla and Sea World after dark

Day 4 of our trip we originally planned on driving to Huntington Beach and hanging out with my family at the beach. We needed a light day from all the parks and that way Evan and Ryan could play together and I could visit with the family and meet Brooke's other little boy, Adam. Unfortunately, Evan got sick - probably from having too much fun 2 days in a row (he went to a few play dates the day after Legoland). We were heading north anyway so we stopped in La Jolla to visit the Birch Aquarium and check out the beach.

The Aquarium was tiny, as we expected, and the beaches were packed, as we didn't expect since it was overcast. Here are some photos of us at the Aquarium and a few on the beach. We looked for crabs, shells, hermit crabs and seals (on Seal Rock). We had some gelato and sorbetto ~ yes, that's right, Ryan tried something new. He said, "It wasn't too bad" as he was practically licking the bowl.

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We headed to Sea World after for the night show. Sea World at night was pretty awesome. We went there with the intentions of giving Ryan a teaser (we had unlimited entry for 5 days) but we had a ton of fun with not a lot of people around. We went to some of the attractions that we thought would be busy the next day and visited some shows you could only see at night. We did the aerial tram and the sky tower to look above the park. Ryan loved the Arctic simulator ride where we 'flew' on a helicopter in the Artic during a storm, then we saw the Arctic animals in the dark. The beluga whales looked like ghosts so that was cool. I finally got to see the Cirque de La Mer show which was a lot cooler than I thought it would be. There was acrobatics and comedy. The highlight of the night, though, was Shamu Rocks in which they did a show with the trainers and the whales set to rock music and lights. It was really entertaining, but late. We were pooped after that. Sorry the photos for Shamu Rocks kind of stink, we couldn't see the whales coming so we did the best we could.

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Wild Animal Park

Day 3 of our trip we went to the Wild Animal Park. At first I was scared that it was going to be a dud compared to the other things we had done, but that was not the case. The Park is beautiful and spectacular. Unfortunately it was a lot hotter because we were further from the beach, but we could rationalize it as an authentic trip into an African safari or an Asian exploration. We saw a lot of animals that were similar to the zoo, since it is a breeding facility for the zoo, but we also got to see Dino Mountain where they had moving dinosaurs in the forest. It was cool to see even though we had to walk up a mountain in the heat. The view over the free range exhibits was amazing. We could have taken balloon rides there and viewed the park from overhead. There were spritzing stations to walk through beacause of the heat. The pond areas were amazing looking as well. It wasn't your ordinary animal park.

We went on a 3.5 hour photo caravan tour, which was definately the highlight of the day. We were able to get up close and personal with the free roaming animals. We fed giraffe's twice and we got to feed rhinos and pet them! We were surrounded by rhinos at one point and they were snorting for more food but they were so friendly - we LOVED it!!! We have a ton of photos of animals but I'm just posting the ones of us in them:

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Legoland

Day 2 of the trip we met up with my cousin Brooke, her son Evan and her cousin Bryce. It was so much fun going to Legoland with another kid because Ryan and Evan didn't seem to notice that they had been standing in lines. We were there from 11am to 8pm and we didn't get to try every ride. We spent too long in some lines that ended up being dud rides but the fun roller coaster rides were fairly quick lines - we will definately remember that for next time. We got a lot of pictures of us from the roller coaster rides but I'd have to scan those in to post:( Instead, I'm posting pictures of us around the park. There were lots of Lego creatures to be on the lookout for and tons of little rides to go on - boat tours, helicopter rides, horse rides, boat rides, the list goes on. We competed in a firetruck race where we had to pump the fire truck from one end to the other, put out a fire, then pump the truck back. We were in second place (but I think we could have done better if we had coordinated better). So much fun ~ here are the photos:

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San Diego Zoo

This is the first part of our San Diego 2009 Vacation.

We left Washington with barely any sleep in the few days before the trip due to record breaking temperatures of over 100 degrees!!! When will we ever get to say we flew from Washington to San Diego to get a break from the heat?

Our first stop from the rental car place was the San Diego Zoo. We walked around for 6 or 7 hours and had a ton of fun looking at the animals, riding the arial tram and zoo tram. Here are some pictures of us at the zoo.

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One of my favorite moments is finding out that it is mating season for the Galapagos turtles. They crack me up! Where was the video camera when we needed it? We got to see the rare panda sisters but missed the mom because she was about to give birth. The elephants have a new area and they looked like they were really enjoying it - they get there food up high in buckets with a hole that they put there trunk through. Of course we visited the reptile house and rode the tram twice because Ryan liked it so much. Although it was fun, we were all ready for a good nights sleep with air conditioning:)

Summer is Here!

We have had some crazy great weather in May and June so we bought a slip'n'slide so we could enjoy the coolness of the water in our own backyard.


Too bad it hurt for a couple of days after.

I wish we had our camera for the day before. We went to Long Lake and Ryan went tubing with Stefany. He was dying to get flipped off and when he finally did it was hilarious. He was in the middle of a conversation with Stefany when Erin took off suddenly and whipped them around so fast over a wave that mid-conversation Ryan got flipped up and over Stefany over the back of the tube with flailing arms and legs. He loved it and didn't want to go home.

Baseball Season

We've been really busy with baseball every weekend so I thought I'd post some pictures of Ryan playing with his team. He's #09 and playing for the Cardinals this season. It's the first year of the pitching machine.

We took some time out to play put put also. I'm taking the pictures because the boys were too busy loosing to me :)

Port Townsend

Here are some pictures of our visit to Port Townsend. We went on the hottest day in April so we didn't get sunburned like all the people who stayed in town. It was a beautiful day and we had a ton of fun.

We were at Fort Worden playing around the Kinzie fortress. It was built between 1908 and 1910 on that spot because it was in the perfect position to see and protect the Sound.

There are all kinds of ladders to climb, dark halls to explore, and abandoned rooms to roam around in. It could get a little scary because it would go from full light to pitch black. Bruce got me and Ryan really good a few times.




We also spent some time on the beach where there were little teepees and huts and abandoned boats to play around in. We climbed rocks around the light house and walked along the water.





Bruce and I saw a migrating whale - well, we heard it first. I thought it was a sea lion moaning but it was the whale. He spit a few times before he went out of sight and he was followed by 3 sea otters. They are so cute. We also saw a bunny rabbit, just so you know. So much fun before they close the Hood Canal Bridge for awhile:)

The State Capital

While we were in Olympia we had some time to kill. It was a beautiful afternoon so we decided to walk around the capital grounds. It was chilly so we went inside and poked around. Here's some pictures:


~Running up the front steps Rocky style~


~Ryan picking George Washington's nose~


~Family photo~

Ryan's 7th Birthday

I can't believe Ryan is 7, but as of March 20th it was official. Ryan is a lucky kid. He had a family party with his mom, a family party with his dad, and a kid-centric party, too! Here are some pictures of a family party at our house and some at Hands On Children's Museum in Olympia.

Ryan posing with his dino birthday cake~


Blowing out the candles took awhile because his wish appeared to be really long ~


Ryan playing with his GI Joe jet. Did I mention how many GI Joes has has? He got some bakugon (sp?) and "Bolt" the movie (which was hilarious - I love Rhino). He made out.


Ryan's party at the Hands On Children's Museum in Olympia. Quite the turn out.


I had to throw in a picture of Ryan sitting next to his first girlfriend, Allison. Too cute! She got preferential seating even though she came in later than the other kids. She's the one on the right. The other cutie is his cousin, Sophia.

Winter 2009

We haven't been doing a whole lot of activities this Winter, at least not exciting enough to post pictures. When we did fun stuff, we generally forgot our camera. This winter we became members of the Pacific Science Center. We saw some 3D Imax movies - dinosaurs and underwater documentaries. My favorite was the underwater show. Ryan and I went to our first laser show with Bruce on Valentine's evening. It was Laser Tool. We had a lot of fun and it was nice having a different kind of Saturday Night Party Night.

This March I was working at CTU's Sibshop and invited Ryan to join. The theme was MOVIES and the kids got to do a lot of fun activities, such as be an 'action hero' and save a dog or doll while running an obstacle course; play a guessing game in which a movie character was on your back and you had to ask yes/no questions in order to guess who you were; and then some older girls read quotes from movies and the kids had to guess which movie it came from (Ryan was really good at this). The kids also got free time in the sensory motor room, which I don't have pictures of, but it was really fun.

The pictures are of the Action Hero sequence. They had to go through "Rolling Boulders", use a "vine" to get through the "Wild Jungle", use a trapeze swing to cross over the "snake pit", army crawl past the "villians", and crawl under the boat and through the "Tunnel of Fear" to safety.

I also added a picture of the snow we got on March 7th/8th. Incredible. Record cold temperatures. Crazy weather.

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