A Park Finale

Friday Bryan came for a rare lunch at home, and said, "Tomorrow isn't supposed to be raining.  How about doing a park day altogether."  My response?  "If it's not raining shouldn't we be out in the yard working to get it cleaned out for winter?"  But as he knew it would, the idea grew on me.  A park day...a finale to all the park days we've had this summer...with Bryan...after an enormously stressful work week...time with the boys...weighed against yard work...  Well, by the end of the day it sounded like splendid idea and I'm so thankful we went.  The sun shown brilliantly and it was such fun to spend a day as a family just having fun.

We went to Washington Park in Anacortes.  It was a park we had never been to before, had a play ground and walking paths so it fit all our criteria. 

After lunch we played on the playground for a while. 

Micah seemed pretty overwhelmed at first.

Maybe just a little too tall...

Brandon wanted a drink before we went on our hike, so he tried to get one out of this fountain.
He tried getting the water to run and drinking it at the same time, but he wasn't quite tall enough
or coordinated enough to get both happening at the same time.  So he filled up the bowl
and lapped it out of there.  It was pretty funny to watch, but may be not so clean...

There was a loop that looked pretty simple to walk around, so we decided to go for it.  It ended up being about two and a half miles up and down hill.  Lots of people drove by us, but there were others walking as well.  Brandon's asthma kicked in pretty badly about half way there in the dense and moist forest so I ended up carrying him half the way.  I debated just turning around but Bryan insisted that we keep going cause we were probably over halfway already.  I'm glad he insisted because we broke out of the trees at the top and the view was tremendously spectacular with the sun shining so brightly.

Following the "rules" by touching the water.

Brandon insisted on pushing Micah for quite a while.  It was pretty steep but they had fun.

My favorite picture from the whole day...a boy and his dad simply watching life happen together.

The view from the top.

A fun Brandon sequence.

And of course I had to play a little bit with my camera. 

So poignant...A flower struggling to survive as the rest of the world around it turns brown in hibernation.

When we got back to the playground we did a little more climbing before heading home.  Brandon wasn't quite sure about being up so high.  I, on the other hand, was trying to figure out a way to get higher.  ;)  Unfortunately, I'm just not as dexterous as I used to be.

And that was our day of play and de-stressing.  I'm so thankful God gives us the ability to play and enjoy each other.  Once I got my mind wrapped around the idea that it was okay not to work on a Saturday, that's exactly what we did.

Blessings on the rest of your week. 

Children and the Goings-On

Well, I was informed by two men in my life that I was completely remiss in posting pictures of all my fun on Saturday (all those old, rusted chains) and not posting any pictures of the TRAIN SHOW, of all things, and the kids!  What's this blog for, anyway??  ;)

So, to remedy my grievous sin, here are all pictures of the kids, the TRAIN SHOW, and the goings-on around here...

These train show pictures were taken on Bryan's phone since I wasn't around.

Tuesday I made applesauce for 12 hours straight.  I've been trying to get Brandon more involved in helping around the house and he is soaking it all up, being my "BIG helper".  ("Micah, you can't help cause you're still too little.")  :)  Anyway, he was my big helper and strained the peelings and seeds out of the applesauce for THREE hours straight!!  It amazed me how long he stayed interested in it.  He did take a couple breaks in between to come wash the apples for me, but otherwise he was on the chair straining.

Of course, half the fun is watching it come out...

He strained all of this!

To give you a bit of perspective on how big the blue bowl really is--I strained the stainless steel ones.

We ended up with 19 quarts of applesauce all together.  We would have had more but I burned one batch.  Seems I burn one batch every year.

And look who decided one day this week that it was time to pull himself up.  One day he struggled to pull himself up by the couch and the next day he was pulling himself up on everything.  Today he tried walking along the couch by himself.  He astonishes me how he just decides he's ready and goes for it.

Watching his goofy brother.

In case you're wondering why my children are trapped in the living room, it's because I have this
thing with children sliding, jumping, walking and scooting through my dirt and/or while
I'm trying to wash the floor.  So instead of yelling at them to quit it, I trap them in the living room.  :)

Micah is also soaking up books right now.  Wants nothing to do with the cloth ones, but anything else
he is completely engrossed in.  This is one of my favorite times of development so far.

Micah is also trying to talk.  He is definitely communicating with "ahs" but is also trying to form words.

Well, there you have it.  Our week in pictures.
Blessings on your weekend.

World Wide Photo Walk

Well, I finally had a chance to sort/edit my pictures from our Saturday photo walk.  It was such a blast!  Alyssa and I laughed so much, enjoyed seeing new perspectives, playing around with photography, and not being called "MOMMY" for a whole afternoon.  It was delightful.

When we parted that evening I told her this week looked slower...ha ha.  All of a sudden it's Wednesday evening and I feel like we've been running solid.  Monday was busy grocery shopping, cleaning up from the weekend, generally organizing the week ahead and haircuts in the evening.  Tuesday I made apple sauce for 13 hours (another post, probably tomorrow) and Bryan went back to work for another three hours after supper, this morning was Bible study and this afternoon was pictures and running errands and Bryan went back to work and is still not home.  I wonder how our slow-laundry-day-Thursday will turn out...

Anyway, back to Saturday's photo walk.  Here are some of my favorites.  One thing I really discovered, as in I knew but it really sunk in, is that I love macro photography.  I love being able to capture details.  I did a lot of experimenting also with textures, shapes, sizes, contrasts, etc.

It's 9:45pm and Bryan just got home so it's time to be done.
Blessings