June '09 & Father's Day

Ok... I know it's been two weeks since I last posted, but things have been busy. I've had to switch from cooking for two adults, a teenage girl and a toddler to cooking for two adults, a toddler, and two ravenous blurs of hormones with bottomless stomachs. (Jessica is off with her Mom in Utah and the boys are visiting again this summer). Admittedly, maybe it's only 1.5 ravenous blurs, since Jonah is just starting to ramp up his food intake. Most days, he'll eat as much as I do, but every two or three days, he'll eat almost as much as his brother or Dad.

In the month that the boys have been here so far, we've been to the Seattle Waterfront and Pike Place Market, visited my sister in the newest expansion of the Microsoft campus, went on a short hike out by Mount Baker, explored some local parks and for Father's Day we went to see the Muppet exhibit at the Experience Music Project.

Whew... that was exhausting. Okay! See you next time!

Alright, alright. I'll include some photos for you, but only because I don't want to wake up with a guilt complex in the middle of the night.

Straight away on arriving here, Jonah and Juliana swap hats:


Here, at the park, Mitch tries to get Jonah by jumping on the walkway, but manages to trip up Juliana instead. This all happened between the time it took for me to press the shutter button on the camera and for the actual picture to register.

Mitch has been severely reprimanded and forced to clean up after the cats for a week. (ok, not really, but he was really sorry and Juliana didn't sustain any injuries from what will forever be known as the Playground Incident)

Here, the boys each take Juliana down the slide:

Can you tell? Jonah had an easier time at this. Stop growing, Mitch! He's currently 6 feet tall (so he's been telling me), but we finally measured him yesterday and apparently, he's shrunk half an inch. His appetite isn't waning, so we're pretty sure he has at least one more growth spurt in him. He really wants to be taller than his Dad (at 6'-3").

Oh... and pay no attention to Mitch's pants. He brought them up from Utah in that condition. And he likes wearing them that way.

This park has a new splash pad (opened last year), but it was a little too cold to be playing in the water, and we didn't pack proper attire for playing in the water.

On another day, we made the trek down to Redmond and met up with my sister for lunch. She showed us around the new Microsoft buildings. These buildings have full retail restaurants and some stores, too --- all for employee use only (and their guests).

This was taken in the end zone of the soccer field during the lunch hour. That's not real grass, but Astro-turf with rubber pellets from shredded tires sprinkled in. It gives it quite the springy bounce. There was a group of people playing rugby on it that afternoon.

Then we went inside and sat down at this table with its touch-screen interface. The boys were so enthralled with some of the games you could play on it. They were so focused on it, that they didn't notice Juliana wandering off. Do you see her?

Here's a clue:

Here's a different angle:

She's probably wondering how to get Blue's Clues to play on the TV. And please ignore the person in the background. I don't know if my photo timing is just so or if they had been standing there a while, but, either way, it's kind of creepy the longer I look at it.

"Hi, Mom! Nothing to see here! No, that's not a remote in my hand."

The week before Father's Day, our friends Mark and Teresa were up from Portland with their family and we went out to the Mount Baker National Park area. Mark's parents have some property out there that they go camping on and it was a reconnaissance mission to see if the site was still accessible and if anything was still standing. The lock on the gate (private road) must have been recently changed, since their key didn't work, so it was a couple of miles of walking to get to the site from there.


For Father's Day, we made a trip down to Seattle to check out the Muppet Exhibit at the EMP. Mitch and Jonah got to participate in a rock band experience with some muppets. Jonah was Janis Joplin and Mitch was Kurt Cobain. There was also a Jimi Hendrix muppet and I don't remember who the other muppet was modeled after.

And since the EMP is on the edge of the Seattle Center, we popped outside and took a stroll around Fun Forest. The boys wanted to go on some rides, and Derek had to prove he wasn't too old for that sort of fun. Who he was proving it to, whether it be the boys or to himself... I'm not sure.

This is the Windstorm:
That little loop you see under the words was Mitch's favorite part of the ride.

Sorry about that pole. You try taking a picture of a speeding roller coaster and keeping the riders in focus. I didn't have enough time to set up that feature where the camera takes multiple shots in quick succession. Actually, I forgot that the camera had that feature until just now. Anyhow, this picture is mostly to show Derek's facial expression. See? He's having fun! You wouldn't guess he's 40, would you?

And I leave you with this picture of the boys. At this angle, Mitch looks taller than his Dad... just the way he likes it.