Birthday Gifts

Commuting

It's been a couple months now since Michael has been full time bicycle commuting to work. The weather is getting a little nicer so it's a little easier to get motivated to get on the bike than when it is dark and raining. The decision to not replace the Subaru immediately (since it's most recent breakdown) was pretty easy, and makes the motivation not be a factor as much and should get me in better shape. The trek into work is 5.5 miles each way with about 2 blocks of it being on roads, the rest is on the Sammamish River trail and an offshoot trail going right to my building at Microsoft main campus. When the sky is clear you get these awesome views of Mt Rainier the whole way in.

On the way home Braedyn and Talisha usually walk down to the trail to meet daddy and walk back with him. Braedyn usually likes to ride on the back of "Dado's bike" sitting on the panniers. At least until he spots a nice rock that needs to be picked up.

 
 
 

Birthday play

Playing with friends was the hit of the party.

 
 

Birthday Cake

Braedyn made a great attempt at blowing out the candles on his cake, but had a lot more fun eating it.

 
 

Birthday Party

We celebrated Braedyn's big number two this past weekend! Lots of friends made it over for the excitement, and Braedyn found himself mostly surrounded with little girls.

 
 
 

Playing in the yard

with the increas in the number of nice days and the number of hours of sunlight around here we've found ourselves out in the yard a lot more lately. Toys have been making their way outside too and seem to become permanent fixtures in the yard.

 
 
 
 

fair weather riders

You'd think that people in the Seattle area wouldn't care if it were raining, otherwise they'd stay inside all the time. Well that's apparently true. It's simply amazing how the trail that we go to every day can have almost no one on it all winter long and then a nice, sunny day comes along and you can barely move on the trail from all the people. People here are a bunch of fair weather outdoor visitors! Braedyn was even amazed by all the new people around so he just stood there waving as the cyclists went by.

 

MeMa & Papa

Grandma and Grandpa were in town for Braedyn's birthday weekend. We had some amazing weather to greet them and so spent a lot of time outside at parks and walking to the river to throw ricks in.

 
 

Spelling at the Park

More Science Center

 
 
 

Science Center

MeMa and PaPa were in town this weekend for the big birthday party so we spent the morning at the Pacific Science Center again on Friday. As usual it was a big hit.

 
 
 
 

Running

Braedyn seems to have two modes: full speed and sleeping. His full speed mode has begun to kick into high gear lately as he has discovered how to run and jump. He especially loves it when there is a nice downhill ramp that puts gravity on his side in the quest for speed.

Another beautiful weekend day found us off to another nearby parks, this time in Kirkland on the East side of Lake Washington. We took quite a few pictures so here is a short slideshow. Click here to see the large format slideshow. Click here to browse the pictures on your own.

Park Videos

A couple of videos from our weekend park visit.

Chocolate

Hanging out at Theo chocolate in Seattle. Braedyn really loved all the free samples they had even though 10 minutes earlier he was too full to eat lunch....

More Weekend hanging out

The weather was really nice this weekend in Seattle. After some time at the park we headed over to check out Seattle's surf shop, Urban Surf, and then we had lunch at another park then headed for some samples at Theo Chocolate.

More Gasworks

Some more pictures from Gas Works Park
 
 
 
 

At Gas works park there was lots of fun stuff for a two year old to do: Rock throwing in Lake Union; Float planes taking off nearby; all sorts of boats; and tons of space to run!