Radishes

This kid loves radishes, he always has. But these ones are extra special. Braedyn helped build the garden in our back yard, planted the radish seeds, anxiously watched them grow for weeks (pulling a lot of them out just to see if anything was down there yet), then picked these radishes, carried them inside, washed them and ate them! Now every day when we've been playing outside, the only way to coaxe him inside without a fit is to let him go pick some radishes and go inside to clean and eat them.

Blueberries

Making sure he doesn't miss a single drop of the remaining juice from the bowl of blueberries...

Back to Lincoln Park

We headed back to Lincoln park last weekend as the sun was poking its head out a little bit, although it was still pretty cold. This place is a rock throwing paradise for the little guy, but there's plenty other things to do including log hopping an picnicing at on of the nice playgrounds.

Bill Gates

Michael works on a project named Oslo at Microsoft. This project recently had a project review with Bill Gates and he was quite excited by it and even gave us some air time at his Keynote speech at a recent conference.

• Audio of Bill Gates Speech
• Video of the Speech
• EWeek Article
• Another Article
• Another Article

[Some links stolen from Ben's Blog]

Cleaning up

He already likes working in the garden, but Braedyn has been helping out around the yard a bit lately as well. Since our pine tree dropped all of its cones this week we put him to work collecting them. He started out getting them all into the container I put out for him, but then soon discovered that they were pretty fun to throw and so he proceeded to empty the container...

Bored Shopping

Braedyn is already starting to learn that when you go to the mall there are fun toys to play on, but when mommy goes into a store you need to find a nice, comfortable chair to sit on and wait.

Chism Park, Bellevue

Not quite as nice of a day, but in Seattle, if it's not raining, then it's a nice day! We took advantage and visited Chism Beach Park in Bellevue on the shore of Lake Washington. This was a nice little park that is much like many of the other small, neighborhood parks that line the lakes around here. There is a nice sandy area on the water with a small playground and some nice benches and grass for the parents to watch the boats pass by. Lots of rocks and sticks are around for throwing off of the dock and there are seats for lifeguards that I assume must be there in the summer time. Both sides of the park are flanked by multi million dollar homes with nice yachts sitting out back to drool over. We had a fun experience finding the parking lot as we came in the back way which takes you down near the beach where there are a couple handicap parking spots, but these are really on the walking trail. Of course they don't block off ther rest of the trail or put any signs up so we just kept driving down this small road which kept getting narrower and finally ended at some stairs leading up to the real parking lot.... If only the Pruis had a little more clearance...

Saturday Park Visit

Summer is slowly poking its head out of the clouds here in the Seattle area. We headed up to Snohomish this past weekend for a continuation of our local area parks exploration project. This time we headed to Bob Heirman Wildlife Park. It was a nice little park with some really pretty natural areas and lots of greenery. The trail crosses a marshy, open field on its way towards the Snohomish river and then wanders along the river for awhile before sort of dying out. Some information we had found talked about a nice rocky beach, but with the amazing amount of snow in the mountains and the unseasonably warm weather, the river is near flood stage so the beaches were not to be found on this day. It ended up being a nice, relaxing, little walk in the sun!

Tiny Treks Week 5

Dad was a little sick so MeMa and Mommy took Braedyn for Tiny Treks on this week. The trip was to Beaver Lake Park in Sammamish. There are a number of interesting totem poles around the park and other fun indian types of things to see. Unfortunately it was a typical, rainy day so it wasn't just perfect for Grandma, but everyone seemed to have fun none the less.

 
 
 
 

Bike Ride

Just a quick bike ride down to the river for some rock throwing.

 

More Grandma Time

A trip to the CHildren's museum with MeMa was a welcome excursion with some more typical Seattle weather gracing us in May. Braedyn really loves those drums.

Hanging out with MeMa

Braedyn has been going through MeMa withdrawls ever since grandma left. He keeps talking about her and always wants someone around to play with him, probably due to all the attention he got while MeMa was around. He had a lot of fun with her just playing around the house, in the yard, and going for walks to the river.

Vacation Videos

A few videos from our trip:

Playing on the beach...


Watching the train go by...


More beach play...

Grandma

"MeMa" came to town the day after we got back from our trip to see Braedyn. We've been spending lots of time enjoying the summer weather we've been having in Seattle.

Santa Monica

On our way to the LA airport we took the scenic route down the Pacific Coast highway through Malibu and then stopped for a break at the Santa Monica pier. There were lots of fun rides to blow some quarters on and plenty of other fun things to check out. It was a nice break from the car before heading to the airport.

One last beach walk

Our last evening in Carpinteria we went to the local farmers market to check it out. This is an agricultural part of California so there are lots of fresh produce around. After we got home and made a run to the grocery store I was surprised to notice that many of the vegetables and fruit we bought were from Carpinteria, Ventura or Oxnard. I just never noticed before... After that we headed to the beach for a final beach walk and then had a little picnic on the beach for dinner.

Santa Barbara

We spent our last full day in CA hanging out in Santa Barbara. We drove around a little, played at the hugest play structure I've ever seen called KidsZone at Alameda Park, then hung out on State Street for some shopping (long wished for by Mommy). It was a pretty warm day so we looked for all the shade and water we could and then ended up stopping for some ice cream.