Washington Wondering

DH finished up his second year of teaching. It was another challenging year, but better than the first. I imagine each year will get a little easier as he continues to settle in.

We welcomed the beginning of summer break by taking off to explore the great Northwest. We headed for a week up to Manson, WA, which is located on the shore of a beautiful lake called Lake Chellan. We had beautiful weather and a nice relaxing time. DS particularly enjoyed the pool. Everyday, he would ask, "Simming?? Simming??"

Here is a video of our fun pool time. If you are recieving this as an email, you will need to go to the actual blog post at http://notesfromthenorthwest.blogspot.com/ to play the video.

We also took a short hike. DS enjoyed seeing the birds and the snake and the flowers and the rocks. He even brought back a few rocks for souvenirs.

At the end of the week, we traveled to Port Townsend, north of Seattle, to visit DH's Aunt Jane. We spent a few days visiting and exploring the town. We even went out to run in a 5 3/4 mile race on a beautiful nearby island. This was the first time I ran in an official race. I came in 27th overall, which was pretty good

considering I was pushing DS in a little bumpy umbrella stroller for half the run...the half that happened to bemostly uphill. I am still quite sore, to say the least, but it was a great workout!

And they had food and visiting time after the race is over. I will have to check out races around the Portland area.

I'm sure they have them periodically and it would be added incentive for my training. DS enjoyed sitting in the fire truck and hummer and playing with the officials who were there accompanying the race. And the horses were quite a hit.

Sunday morning, we went for a walk on the beach during low tide. What a great time it was to see all of the beautiful sea creatures that God has made. Most of the stuff we saw were things I had never seen before. If they taught biology class out in the ocean in that particular setting,

I think maybe I would have done better in that class in school. Who wants to learn about these things by reading boring text books,anyway?!?

This is the bald eagle we saw on our walk. The picture is compliments of DH. Talk about a graceful bird...especially compared to the annoying whiny sea gulls that kept trying to chase him away for fear he would take all of their food.



Family photo of feet in the Pacific Ocean. In a few days, we will get one of all of our feet in the Atlantic Ocean. The traveling in between will not be quite as much fun.

We were reluctant to realize that our vacation was coming to a close yesterday morning as we packed up and headed home. All good things must come to an end. Besides, we have another trip to look forward to. We will be traveling again soon. More details to follow... :)

PS. These are only a few of the pictures from our trip. If you would like to see the rest of them, we have posted them on a web album. Click here to see the album.

A little bit bored.

Here's a post I wrote but never got around to adding pictures to post.  We just got home from vacation, so you will soon get another post with pics from that...enjoy!! :)

I took a graduate class this semester.  It was a Statistics class, and surprisingly, it was really fun.  I started the class in January thinking that the material wouldn't be all that exciting, but the class is in preperation to later read and understand research articles and write my own dissertation.  As the term was ending last week, I found myself wishing it wasn't over yet.  I had really enjoyed it.  Five years from now, I will probably laugh at that as I finish my doctorate and will most likely be ready to be finished with school again.  One day at a time...one chapter at a time...carpe diem...seize the day...

In the meantime, DS keeps me entertained.  He repeats most of what I say and I have to watch what I say.  He follows directions pretty well and loves to help out whenever possible.  I find that if I let him help me, I often finish my task much quicker than if I try to distract him and do the task myself.  And, he's so proud of himself when he can help.  I'm looking forward to the day I can give him chores that I don't need to supervise.  Perhaps he will continue to help with the same excitement...but I won't keep my hopes up.

On a more serious note, DS has no fear.  While visiting a friend of ours who lives in a second floor appartment, I turned around just as DS was beginning to tumble down the steps...the whole flight of steps.  "Oww, oww, oww..." he said every time he bounced before hitting his head on the door at the bottom.  He cried for a couple minutes, but then was ready to go play again.  That was several weeks ago.  Now he is displaying a healthy fear of steps.  So, I suppose I should be thankful it wasn't worse and he has learned from the experience; although, I still cringe at the thought of him bouncing down the steps and I can still hear his painful cry as I was running down the steps after him, but he was just out of reach..."oww, oww, oww..."

He has started climbing up on his changing table.  I've walked in his room a couple times and found him sitting on top playing with whatever is sitting on the top of the dressor next to him.  For fear that the whole table will topple over, it has been moved out of his room.  I've not yet seen any signs of him trying to climb out of his crib...I imagine that won't be too far off yet.  He has, however, started climbing onto the couch and taking a flying leap off unto the floor.  He thinks its hysterical.  When I tell him to stop, he laughs even harder and climbs back up as though it's a game with mommy now.  Is there any such thing as a toddler strait jacket?

Yup, he's an active, healthy, normal toddler that you can't leave out of your sight for more than a couple seconds.  He's exploring and learning as he should.  What more could I ask for?  It's a beautiful thing.