Making Cookies

Making some cookies with daddo.

little sayings

One of the funny sayings that Braedyn has that makes us laugh lately occurs when he's getting ready to eat something that he really likes. He tells us, "Braedyn eat some of that...", and then proceeds to add on, "and then it goes in Braedyn's tummy and then Braedyn poops it out,(then very seriously adds) after I digest it." The book, Everybody Poops is obviously sinking in. Braedyn is easily carrying on conversations these days with mommy and daddy and anyone who will listen really. It is very entertaining hearing what rattles around in that little two year old mind of his. Sometimes he still mixes up his words but usually manages to get the point across none the less. One example of this being, the other day we were at the zoo and it was really sunny out so Braedyn announced, " I don't want to get my sunburn on". We got the point, but after 30 minutes or so he got lathered up anyway.

Art

Braedyn got a bathtub finger paint kit at some point and has been having a lot of fun painting each evening during bathtime. Here is a peek at some of the art coming out of our house!

Reading helps me sleep

We always read quite a few books before bedtime, and lately Braedyn has been staying up after we put him to bed looking at a few more books. Tonight when we went in to check on him before we went to bed we discovered that he had cleared off one of his bookshelves and took them all to bed with him. It didn't look too comfortable, but they must keep him company. Reading before bed always made me sleepy too.

Yummm, Tomato

I sat Braedyn up on the counter to give him his vitamin, he was playing around with a bag of tomatoes as I turned to get the vitamins and when I came back to him he had just started into chowing down on one of them. He had another one in his other hand that he wanted to bite into as well, but we told him to eat the one he had first. This is not the first time that we've had to limit him from vegetables... I thought toddlers were supposed to throw fits when they were given vegetables?!?!?

Fun in the yard

We were just hanging out in the back yard tonight as it was pretty nice out. We were having fun spinning Braedyn around. He just loves doing this now and keeps wanting to do it again and again even though he can barely stand up from the last time we did it....

Our View

Just having a little bit of fun with the panorama featureof Windows Live Gallery. This is taken from the top of our roof at our house.

 

Climbing

Another thing that Braedyn has discovered of late is climbing. He climbs on chairs, rocks, daddo, and is just now learning to climb up fences. Soon it will be off to Yosemite...

Father's Day

What better way to celebrate Father's day than a day hanging out with your wife and son, or maybe it's a day hanging out and watching a major league baseball game live, or maybe it's just a sunny day in Seattle. Well, this dad got to do all three! After church on Sunday we headed to downtown Seattle to catch the Mariners vs. Nationals game, along with free kids Ichiro hats. You couldn't ask for a better day for a trip to the ballpark, 70 degrees and sunny. This was Braedyn's first ever baseball game, he's been talking about this for days and was really excited to go. We got to watch a little of the game, eat some hot dogs (my stomach still hurts), and walk around checking the place out. After a few innings the lack of a nap started catching up to the little guy and so we headed home.






One of our ticket stubs from the day.


I used Microsoft's Live Picture Gallery on some of our photos, it has this nice feature that will automatically create panorama pictures from multiple pictures. Very nice, and here is the result from our nose bleed seats at the stadium.


Someone from the ballpark saw us coming in with Braedyn and made up this nice little certificate for him for his first baseball game!

Powerline Trail

Just a mile down the Sammamish river trail from our house is a little off shoot trail called the Powerline trail. Kind of a boring name, it just followus the general direction of a big powerline, but they made it into a protected, natural area that is really pretty neat. On Saturday, Braedyn and daddo went for a bike ride, got some coffee, visited the farmers market in Redmond, threw some rocks in the river and then went for a short walk up the powerline trail.

 
 
 
 

June

Hanging out at June's house. It's always fune to have new toys to check out.

 
 

A Friday trip to a neighborhood park with some friends.

 
 
 

Iowa Floods

Talisha is from Cedar Rapids where they have been having devastating flooding this week. It seems that our friends and family have been spared from the worst of it there, but it can't be an easy thing to deal with with something this large. Our thoughts and prayers go out to everyone there.




Railroad tracks near Mema & Papa's house.

Tiny Treks Last Week

Well it was the final week of Tiny Treks for the Spring semester. Unfortunately Tine Treks decided to go to a park that was pretty far away this week, so Braedyn and Daddy went off on their own to stay closer to Daddy's work (which he had to get to for an important meeting later....). We went to Ferrel McWhiter park in Redmond which is a favorite of ours. There is a great little forest there out behind the animal pens, and there is a neat little stream that runs through with a faint path following it. We hiked back along the stream throwing rocks and sticks in and getting quite wet ourselves and ended up having a grand old time without the rest of the Tiny Treks fols anyhow. Braedyn never really got into the crafts and singing we did in Tiny Treks anyhow, and always just wanted to get out and find the dirt and water and rocks! The class took us to a lot of fun new parks that we hadn't explored yet, so it was worth it in that respect, and it gave daddy a good reason to cancel Thursday morning meetings for a few weeks at work.

Summer in Washington State

Michael and a friend from work, Ben Martens, headed down to do a little backcountry skiing this past weekend at Mt. Rainier. The plan was to head up to Camp Muir and ski down. This is about 5000 vertical feet up from Paradise visitors center. We expected to be able to walk in hiking boots for a mile or so before strapping on the skis. To our amazement there was about 4-5 inches of fresh snow in the parking lot when we arrived in the morning and it snowed pretty hard all day long. We talked to a guide and a lot of the summit expiditions were turning back because the conditions were so bad up at Camp Muir. So we decided to just go as far as we safely could and then head back. We spent some time on the way up digging a snow pit so Ben could learn a little about avalanche assesment. We passed and were passed by a few groups that were heading up for summit attempts and others that were just out snowshoeing. After awhile we stopped for some lunch about 1200 vertical feet above the parking lot, the wind was blowing pretty hard so we dug a little shelter to sit and enjoy our food. While we were sitting there one of the big summit teams passed us on their way back down, this was the same group that we had started with earlier that morning. They had made it up about a half mile further and then turned back because the wind was so bad and there were whiteout conditions. We took that as a clue that we should head back as well and so headed down. There was some really nice snow for skiing and so we got a few nice turns in. A news team was at the parking lot filming when we got back and we found the spot on the news website, click here to see it.

Tiny Treks Week 6

We're getting near the end of Tiny Treks for the spring session. It's been a lot of fun and has let us explore a lot of new parks that we hadn't been to yet. This week was at Juel Park in Redmond which was donated to the city by a local farmer. Up until a few years ago it was a working farm surrounded by dense forest with streams and ponds. It was a really pretty park and had the requisite rock throwing that Braedyn looks for in parks. It was pretty much pouring rain the entire time we were out, but the thick canopy of trees kept us relatively dry.