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I’m finding it hard to believe that the year is half gone already, but my allergies assure me that it is the end of June. The Fourth of July is next week! I think I’ve lost all sense of time since having kids and quitting my job…

CareBear started her swimming classes this week, which she loves. They’re learning how to kick and float and how to do a few swimming strokes. She’s in a class with a few older boys and they all have a great time splashing each other while waiting their turn to work with the teacher. CareBear tells me every day that she wants to go to swim class.

We spent Saturday out at the Tacoma Highland Games. It was interesting to see how it’s different from the big Highland Games that will be out in Enumclaw in a few weeks. CareBear was fascinated by the hammer throwing and the dancing girls. LiliBee loved the puppet show and the dogs. Chris and I liked the pipers and shared an ice cream bar. So, something for everyone!

This coming week should be fun. We’ll have more swimming classes (and Chris might even be able to come watch, too!) and toddler gym. We’ll be spending the Fourth of July in both Olympia and Puyallup and CareBear can’t wait for the fireworks. Chris will have a long weekend and I might get to visit with some people that I haven’t seen in ages.

LiliBee is 19 months old… and she likes to tell knock-knock jokes. They go something like this:

Her: ‘Na ‘Na! (knock knock)

Me: Who’s there?

Her: Na Ba! (Nobody)

Me: Nobody who?

Her: Bah! Dah!

I have no idea what that last part is, but she’s very proud of it. We go through this several times a day. She gets her love of knock-knock jokes from her big sister, whose jokes make only slightly more sense.

Happy Father’s Day to all the dads out there. And Happy Summer to everyone!

The beginning of summer hasn’t been nearly as “summery” as the last couple of weeks, but my allergies are really appreciating the slightly damp weather right now.

We had a pretty mellow week. We got back into our routine after the vacation weeks and just enjoyed not having much to do. That will all change this week when we start our next session of classes at the Y! We’ll have our usual Toddler Gym class and CareBear is starting swimming classes. She’s really looking forward to it, especially since she gets to go by herself while I watch through the window (she’s so independent).

Adding those to our week means that there aren’t any days where we just stay home all day! I’m not sure how that happened… for all my planning, I never see these things coming.

Chris had his follow-up appointment with the neurologist last week. We found out the results of his testing (mostly normal) and his sleep study (really abnormal). He was being worked up for sleep apnea vs narcolepsy… apparently, they sometimes have the same symptoms and can only be differentiated by the sleep study. As it turns out, he as severe obstructive sleep apnea (he stopped breathing more than 40 times an hour and woke up more than 50 times an hour) and what they call “pathological sleepiness”, plus his blood oxygen saturation goes down to 85% during the apnea.

So he went back to the sleep lab to be fitted for what’s called a CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure) machine that he will wear when he sleeps. Considering that he’s apparently been severely sleep and oxygen deprived, that should make him feel much better.

We spent Saturday down at Meeker Days and it didn’t even rain on us. The festival was lots of fun, though we didn’t get to browse as many of the booths as I would have liked.

Once CareBear spotted the bouncy rides, it was all over! She spent a lot of time bouncing, going on everything they had there. We convinced her to walk around with us after a while and managed to check out all of the things that we really wanted to see.

We even got to watch the belly dancers, which was something that I wanted to do. The girls both enjoyed that, too, which was nice since it meant that they sat there and watched instead of running around… for awhile, anyway. LiliBee was most impressed by all of the dogs walking around, though. She loves pointing out dogs to us.

Father’s Day was very, very mellow around here. Since Chris already had his unofficial Father’s Day a couple of weeks ago (can’t beat the radio convention for Father’s Day gifts around here), our “present” to him was a relaxing bath and a few hours off. The girls and I went shopping so that he could have peace and quiet to play with his new radio gear. We all spent the rest of the day lazing about, reading and playing.

It was nice to be slackers for awhile.

We have returned from vacation… Chris is even back to work today, so it really is all over for another year.

We had a great time, though. We did the carousel, window shopping, beach going, the aquarium and hit some of our favorite eateries. Chris’ folks, his sister and cousin H joined us for much of our week.

The girls had a great time together and the weather was nice enough for lots of beach and ocean playing. It was fun for us to show off one of our favorite vacation spots.

LiliBee loved the water and CareBear loved the beach.

We did manage to get CareBear to play in the water a few times, though.

I wrote a few updates on our blog while we were gone (see below), if you want more details on our vacation. I’m also working on getting more pictures up here… but that might take me a couple of days.

The only bad part of our vacation was LiliBee’s trip to the local ER. The house we were in had a flight of stairs to get up to the bedrooms and we kind of pulled in opposite directions when I was helping her one evening. She ended up with nursemaid’s elbow (a common dislocation, it’s more common in girls than in boys for some reason), which the doctor popped back in quickly and LiliBee acted like nothing had ever happened. I was more traumatized than her.

In other news, the critters here at home had a great time with our best house sitter. It gives us great peace of mind to have someone that we can count on to take care of them while we’re away.

On our way home, we stopped in Olympia and visited the new goats at Grandma’s house, which was great fun. Grandma got three baby goats just after she got back from vacation. They’re really cute and sweet.

We’ve spent the last few days trying to recover from all of the excitement of vacation. We’re slowly getting back to our regular routine, but it’s tough. We had our last tumbling class of the session and our first trip to the farm for produce. Lots of different things going on these days… we’re looking forward to Meeker Days this weekend and maybe some visiting. And Chris has an appointment to find out the results of his sleep study!

Greetings from Seaside!

It’s our last night of vacation…we’re driving back to reality tomorrow.

Chris and I had our date night out, though it got a little delayed by a trip to the ER. LiliBee pulled away dislocated her elbow (nursemaid’s elbow) while the two of us were walking up the stairs. It was very traumatic for me. She was totally fine after they popped it back in, like nothing ever happened! The dr tried to tell us how to re-seat it ourselves since it tends to happen more than just once, but I think I may leave that to the professionals for awhile longer. Anyway, date night was lovely. Chris bought me a crab dinner and then took me for a sunset walk on the beach. It was very nice and soothing after the trauma of earlier.

We had fabulous weather yesterday for our big beach outing. CareBear and Cousin H ran around in and out of the water for over 4 hours, I think! Chris made them an island with a moat and they chased seagulls around. LiliBee decided that she wanted a nap first, so the two of us were a little late to the party. We did get in on the swinging, snacking and running around in the water, though. LiliBee loves the water.

We made an early night of it last night after the family left. The girls were exhausted from all of the fun! We also had a pretty mellow day today. We bought Carys her first kite and Chris taught her how to fly it. She was very impressed that she could do it all by herself. LiliBee and I made one final trip down to the water and then we all had a picnic on the beach. We’ll miss our little vacation spot!

Our return home tomorrow will be broken up by a trip to Grandma’s to see her new goats and our first trip to the farm for our produce share. Not exactly a relaxing first day back, but it should be fun!

The internet connection that we’re “borrowing” doesn’t make for fast upload of pictures, so I’ll have to wait until we get home to post them. I did update my “Project 365” page with a few beach pictures, though!

Greetings from Seaside!

Our weather has taken a turn toward overcast and slightly drizzly, but we continue to have great fun!

We managed to finally get the BBQ going Friday evening and enjoyed some tasty burgers and hot dogs. The effort of cleaning up the BBQ and getting it going  may or may not have been worth it, you’d have to ask Chris.

Yesterday was more convention time for Chris so the girls and I joined Grandma, Grandpa, Auntie and Cousin H for some outlet shopping. I got the girls some new jammies and Grandma bought everyone pretty dresses. After some browsing and being very good, the kids were rewarded with a trip to the chocolate shop. CareBear chose a crazy s’mores on a stick type treat that was dipped in white chocolate and mini-M&Ms. It took her 3 sittings to eat the whole thing!

Saturday afternoon, Uncle drove down for a brief visit so Cousin H and Auntie took him out to see the sights of Seaside. Meanwhile, CareBear tagged along with Grandma and Grandpa for some antiquing so LiliBee and I were on our own. We went window shopping along the main street (Chris even joined us inbetween seminars). I put her in the backpack and she napped while I checked out the cute shops. According to the pedometer on my cell phone, we put in almost 6 miles!

After regrouping, we all went out for pizza at a local and very noisy arcade. The pizza was ok, but the kids are too young to fully take advantage of the arcade games.

This morning, CareBear and Cousin H made blueberry muffins for breakfast and then we all headed out to get our Old Fashioned pictures taken. Once I get home and can scan them in (along with the info for the shop, so that everything’s all legal). It was a struggle to keep the three girls happy and focused during what turned out to be an almost 3 hour event, but I think we ended up with some good shots. The photographer was very patient with us.

We were able to spend some more quality time at the beach this afternoon, and Chris even joined us! His convention is offically over for another year, (insert big sigh from him here). The water was colder than it was the other day, but we managed to talk CareBear into running around in the waves anyway. LiliBee loves playing in the ocean and we can hardly get Cousin H to come back out. Everyone had a great time and we even got some ocean video!

There is baking going on right now as CareBear and Cousin H make cupcakes with Auntie. That will be a nice treat! And Chris and I get to go out to a fancy dinner alone tonight (ok, not fancy so much as yummy and not-fast-food). We’re going to Norma’s, which is one of our favorites down here. They have fabulous clam chowder.

I think we’ll have one more big family trip to the beach tomorrow (and I think the weather will even clear up a bit!) before they all head back north. Chris and I and the girls will be here until Wednesday… I wonder what we’ll do once we’re on our own…

Greetings from Seaside!

Our vacation continues. Grandma, Grandpa, Auntie and Cousin H arrived yesterday. The girls have been having a great time playing around the vacation house and on the beach. They all headed out to the ocean yesterday while Chris and I made a supply run. I hear, though, that everyone played in the water. CareBear has been reluctant to go wading in the past, so I’m sorry that I missed that.

Chris and I were able to sneak away to a movie in the evening. We saw the new Star Trek, which  we enjoyed quite a bit.

Today, we hit one of our favorite breakfast spots and then went to the aquarium. It’s a tiny, litte place but feeding the seals is a blast. After that, we headed out for more beach fun. LiliBee and I played in the water with Grandma, Auntie and Cousin H while CareBear hid in the beach blanket near Grandpa. She wasn’t interested in the beach today.

Chris is off at his convention today… and through the weekend. He looks forward to this geeky heaven all year. I’m glad that he gets to have so much fun (and that it takes place in such a good vacation spot!).

Looks like we’re in for a more quiet afternoon today, which will be a nice change from yesterday’s crazy wind storm! Hopefully, we’ll finally get to have our BBQ dinner.

Now if only I knew how to do pictures on this computer…

Greetings from Seaside!

We’ve discovered a wireless internet signal that we can “borrow” from our home away from home, so I’ll be able to update a few times! No pictures yet, though, since I’m on Chris’ laptop and I don’t know how to upload them. I’m sure I can talk him into showing me sometime soon.

We made it safe and sound after an uneventful drive down. The rental house is quite nice, with lots of bedrooms and a big living room. The kitchen is in the process of being remodeled, but it has lovely new appliances and a fabulous sink. I love interesting kitchen and bathroom fixtures.

After the long trip (they did sleep through parts of it) and the walk around town and on the beach last night, everyone actually slept well! Until I was awakened around 4am by a hungry baby. And then I was kept awake by the invasion of Mothra. Moths can make a lot of noise when they’re banging around walls and ceilings! Especially when they’re the size of a Japanese monster.

CareBear has declared that this place is “super awesome” compared to our “boring” house. She can’t wait for her grandparents (Chris’ folks) and cousin H to get here so she can show them the carousel and the beach. LiliBee loved playing in the sand yesterday afternoon. I’m hoping to get them down to the water this afternoon to see what LiliBee thinks of that. She was too little last year to really get the wading thing.

This week’s update got a little delayed… Chris being on vacation is messing up my sense of time and I totally forgot that it was Monday until late yesterday afternoon.

On the plus side, he’s on vacation for the next couple of weeks! And we’ll be heading for Seaside and the Ham Radio convention tomorrow! I have a lot to do today.

This week was good. Chris had an overnight trip to Fort Worden and worked too much to get ready for being on vacation, but we managed to have some fun.

We finally got to have that play date with Auntie T and Z-bear! The kids had a great time running around, playing, making “cereal” in the dogs’ water dish, having tea parties and such. It was so nice to finally all be healthy and get to visit.

Unfortunately, our other planned play date fell through due to illness… aren’t we supposed to be out of “cold and flu season” by now?

The girls and I visited the farm where we’ll be getting our produce this summer. CareBear loved the herb field with butterflies flittering about and LiliBee thought that the ducks and baby chickens were fascinating.

I hear that they also have goats and bee hives so we’ll have to check those out later.

We made a couple of trips to the park in honor of the nice weather. LiliBee is a sliding fool and CareBear has become obsessed with the monkey bars (that she can’t actually reach yet, but don’t tell her that!). We even saw baby geese and a couple of hawks around the lake.

We visited the newest farmer’s market in our area (it was the first weekend)… it’s small but there’s potential there. It’s not as fun to visit a hot parking lot, though, so I hope they move to a nicer location at some point. Still, I love getting to browse around those kinds of things.

There may or may not be an update next week… we’ll be in a vacation rental with no internet connection (shocking, I know), so emails and pictures will depend whether or not we can find a convenient connection. I hope to be able to do at least a few quick updates on the website, if nothing else.

Otherwise, see you after vacation!