"Becky, Come Back"

Max wants Becky to come back. He kept saying that last night and this morning. Yesterday after I thought I would be getting sun burned during my morning run with the running group, the rain started to drizzle. However, our day plans were not to be disrupted. Becky joined us for a little adventure. We rode the ferry ("big boat") to Vashon Island and drove around to explore. We found a lighthouse at Point Robinson Park and slip-slided down a very muddy path to get to it. We then took the road back up to the car and explored some more. After that, Becky and I went to Steeped in Comfort a delightful tea room where we had delicious tea and scones. Even though it by fast, we had a great time. I'm glad things worked out so we could see Becky!
On the big boat and Ryan is trying to fall asleep.

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A view to the left of the boat, coming up on Vashon Island

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Finally a little break from the mud on the path

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At the lighthouse

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Max finally wanting his picture taken

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Why, let's go the less muddy way, shall we?

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In Case You Ever Go on Jeopardy

And they have a column about the Presidents of the United States of America (the music group), here is a bit of USEFUL information!
Chris Ballew the lead singer of The Presidents of the United States of America (a Seattle band popular in the 90's and most famous for songs, "Peaches", "Lump","Kitty" and "Some Postman"(see below) and who I saw live at Endfest in '03


is now Caspar Babypants and sings children songs. We went to see them play a free set at the library today!
Max and some little friends got their groove on! Thanks Crystal for the info!

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Afterward, we had to hike many blocks to get back to the car (so many people were so interested in getting books that day ;) HA)

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Here is a video of one of his songs with vocal help from his daughter:

Just a side note and not information that would help you on Jeopardy--I so respect him and his career move--much more than say, ummm, Bret Michaels of Poison who wears make up and still tries to look like he did 20+ years ago and had a reality show to find his "Rock of Love". I don't feel like taking the time to include a pic of him so you'll just have to believe me or believe google! ; )

When Nature Calls

Washington's fake spring has left the building. It's been very drizzly here, so when the sun popped out for a bit, I got the kids ready quickly to go to the zoo. We got there and saw the sign for the winter hours (Thurs. - Mon.) Doh! Too bad our membership wouldn't get us a private tour on Wednesday! So, since we couldn't see the big animals and Max was talking the most about frogs anyway, we went to the Tacoma Nature Center We got to see frogs, toads, turtles and read books, explore, play with puppets and Ryan even crawled over fake furry animals. The boys loved it!

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And just a couple more pics of cutie pie Ryan at home:

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Happy Birthday Dear Tony!

Most of his presents were camping supplies so there wasn't much for him to open but we sang to him and gave him this yummy raspberry cheesecake pie!

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What a fashion statement!

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Museums, movies, camping, flying...I think Tony's had a pretty good 32!

What Ryan is up to

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We think he's pretty cute. Look at his froggy feet!

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I Think We're Alone Now...

Can I say that I have the BEST mother-in-law in the world? She told Tony she was planning on coming to Tacoma so he asked if she'd be willing to baby-sit while we went camping for his birthday and she did! As much as I adore my children, there is nothing like a 22 hour period alone with the love of your life knowing that your kids are in great hands! We left Friday after Tony got off of work and drove about 2 1/2 hours away. It was dark by the time we saw the sign that said that Staircase (our campground was closed). We were still half an hour away at this point but Tony kept going thinking that we would find somewhere nearby to camp (we were just going to sleep in the car anyways). Here is the amazing thing: the campground was closed but there was a glorified port-o-potty outside of the gate where the road was closed. There was even a spot we could pull off and park/camp. So we had our cook stove and lantern as our only heat sources but we had layered up so we were fine. The sky was beautiful, we were right on Lake Cushman, Tony is a great camper and I only thought of bears maybe 15 times (thank you NW trek).
Not the best nights sleep but definitely not the worst. We'd do it again!

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Tony getting ready to cook breakfast (sausage and 1 egg instead of sausage and pancakes. Yep, Tony misheard me. The egg was to go in the pancake mix. We got a good laugh out of our 1/2 an egg each!)

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I guess we'll save that firewood for next time.

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Is that a raccoon with Tony? Yep, no bathrooms.

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Our beautiful view

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At the entrance to the closed off park.

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Now we see why the road to it was closed. And this wasn't all.

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A giant felled cedar

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Only Tony would point out a gnarly growth on a beautiful tree...

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The mountain was leaking everywhere. So many beautiful waterfalls.

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On our drive away from Staircase, we stopped to see the Lake Monster that Tony had spotted. Don't listen to anything he tells you. I saw the river otter, really, there was no monster!

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We went to follow the forestry roads to do some off roading and first came across this awesome (HIGH) steel bridge.

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It was very high.

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Ha Ha

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Even better

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Victor Falls

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One of our views after much 4x4ing

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You can't tell, but it was very muddy and Tony was very happy.

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Northwest Trek

Grandma came to visit so we had to have some fun adventures. Northwest Trek is a great place to take littles because they get to ride a "train" and see lots of animals native to the northwest(bears, eagles, elk, bison, etc., etc.) I didn't take lots of pictures of the animals (especially on the train because I had a very tired Ryan), but I did get several pictures of two very rare monkeys and their devoted grandma.

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Max running ahead ("My RUN"). He would also jump on our shadows!

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Ryan loving the stuffed frog

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I thought this was so cute--Max and Grandma eating lunch on a rock

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Apparently it's National Dental Health month and so they gave away giant plastic toothbrushes at NW Trek. Go figure!

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These Are a Few of My Favorite Things

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Notice that they all have a shadow? It's a beautiful sunny day! A sunny day needs to be spent outside so Max and I spent the morning outside. So I have a baby monitor to hear my sweet baby if he wakes up, sidewalk chalk to have some drawing adventures with Max, sunglasses (oh how I love it when I need these) and my gardening gloves. I was able to get some weeding done after chalk mayhem and we even jumped on each others shadows. Max loved my reactions when he would jump on my "head". What a funny boy.

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Our shadows also chased each other.

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