Independence Day

Let me just tell you...Max and I were ecstatic to finally celebrate the fourth in our own hometown for the first time in 8 years!! In the last 8 years we have spent summers in Utah, Idaho, California (3 different cities) Armenia and Chile. Last year we were getting tired of drilling the locals to find the best firework show in town, we were definitely looking forward to being home this year. So what if the Tigard High fireworks show isn't that great, we love this silly tradition and he love all the high school memories we get when we hit our home turf! 

Max started his day as we would a Saturday, with a whole bunch of yard work. Luckily his brother Justin had come over and they tackled an impressive amount of blackberry bushes that had taken over the back yard of the house next door. Those boys do good work. After lunch we loaded up and went to my Red Grandmas' house for a barbecue and parade. Every year, there is a little neighborhood parade that goes down my grandma's street. One year my brother participated in it with his bagpipes and kilt. We were excited to take Charlie to the parade and see all the floats, fire trucks, and police motorcycles. 

Waiting for the parade to start by throwing rocks into the street. Don't tell my grandma, she probably wouldn't have approved. Gotta keep a toddler busy somehow!

And it begins!

Lexi and Charlie going after the candy!

I think he was convinced of how great parades are when he tried his very first tootsie pop

He wasn't that happy with his sticky hands...he got mad that he couldn't get all the grass off. 

After eating a whole lot at my grandma's house, we met up with our good friends Kerri, Corbrett, and Madeleine and walked over to the high school for the FREE old fashioned fire works celebration. 

There were sack races! Madeleine is on the right and Lexi on the left!

                                                 

Charlie got to climb on some police vehicles and really enjoy himself!

Checking out the fire truck!

 As the sun was going down we also met up with our other great friends, Richard, Marissa, and Lacey! As well as Max's family.

While we were waiting for the fireworks to start, they played music over the loud speaker. Charlie had a hay-day showing off his moves to Lacey and Madeleine. He really is becoming quite the show-off and class clown...(Like Father like son???)

Charlie dancing with his cousin Shadow. 

 And here is my wonderful family! I love them so much, it was great having a good snuggle while watching the fireworks.

Charlie was getting pretty tired. 

still waiting for the show...

Once the fireworks started, Charlie was mesmerized. They didn't last that long it seemed but that was okay, I was excited to get Charlie into bed.

Father's Day pictures

A couple posts ago I said I would put some matching tie pictures up of my boys. True to my word, here are the fantastic cell phone pictures...

That's all, just the most handsome fellas around!

Toddler Tumbling

My son has limitless energy, with all the excitement of Summer activities we have been out of the house a lot which is great. Charlie has started to think that is becoming the new normal so he gets pretty grumpy if we don't leave the house. For this reason, Max and I started exploring some Toddler tumbling classes. We knew Charlie would love it and it would be a great way to get those wiggles out. We found out that a couple of gyms will do a free introductory class. We have already taken a free class at The Little Gym, and Gymboree. Next week we will have a free class at Westside Dance Academy

These are pictures from the Little Gym. It was so much fun and we were glad that we went on a Saturday so Max could join us. Charlie was one of the youngest in the class but he could do a lot more than the other kids (proud parent moment) his somersaults were exceptional and his strength while hanging on the bar was above average. 

After the free class we thought it would be a fun thing to continue with it but it would turn out to be nearly $22 per 45 minute class. Yikes. We may reconsider when the weather starts to get rainy again but in the meantime Charlie has just as much playing at a park for free. 

Note to self...

This is a to do list to remind me of want I should have already blogged about but haven't

• Father's day pictures
• Charlie's tumbling
• Living in a house for 8+ months (our family's record thus far)
• Charlies words and other cute developments
• Independence Day
• House projects (mailboxes and #3 yard work) 

In the meantime we are trying to make the most of our summer, We realized that in the past, our summer started in April when we went to California and this year it didn't really start until June. So we've felt a little jipped (gipped? jipt? spell check has no suggestions) but we try to make the most of what is left. We have some fun adventures planned in the future.   

A weekend in Seattle

We got to go up on another trip to Tacoma to spend time with my brother's family. This time, my cousin Stephanie was there with her family! At first it was going to be a girls and kids trip with Elizabeth, Stephanie, me and our little ones. We then found out that Seattle Fire Department was doing a practice employment test and Max thought that would be a great opportunity for a step up when they test in October. Since Max was coming and Stephanie was already up in Tacoma we drove up Thursday night and brought Todd (Steph's husband) along with us. We got there in the evening and all the kids were in bed so we put Charlie down and had a short visit with James and Elizabeth before we all went to bed. 

 In the morning everyone woke up, except for Charlie. Steph and Todd and Elizabeth made an amazing breakfast of pancakes, eggs, and sausage. Yum! Charlie slept through the morning commotion but woke up in time to get a cold plate of food. 

We cleaned up and played around the house and in the front yard until noon when we left for the zoo. No trip to Tacoma is complete without visiting the Point Defiance zoo. I think I've been there more than the Portland zoo. Max didn't come with us to the zoo because it was the same time as his practice test in Seattle. 

Cousins and Second Cousins!

We tried to get them to pose on the log, Charlie didn't understand why he had to sit still...so he didn't

Checking out the Sharks

we got to see a baby tiger and a baby leopard. 

My adorable nieces climbing on the snake!

Of course we had to stop off at the carousel. 

We came home and had a fun time playing in the front yard in the kiddie pool. Todd and Steph prepared an awesome meal of BBQed burgers. 

After dinner we put the kids in bed. Max and I did our Insanity workout in James and Elizabeth's newly cleaned out carport. It felt good to be outside! After our workout and showers we played cranium with all the adults. Loads of fun!

The next morning after breakfast, Steph, Todd, Max, me, and our kids all went to the Pike Street Market downtown Seattle. It's a great big farmer's market. We had fun looking at all the levels of shops. We ended up getting a large donut , that we all shared as a family, fudge, and a sea otter card, just the necessities right? 

I liked this umbrella art downtown Seattle. 

 After our parking meter expired, we drove a couple of blocks to meet James and Elizabeth at the Space Needle. Max had never been to the space needle, so we explored around it but when we found out that it was $22 per person to go to the top we decided to stay on the ground. Luckily there were plenty of fun things to do in the area. One of them was playing in this great fountain.  

My boys sure love being in the water.

I love these handsome boys!

Family photo op

Also, right next to the fountain was the Seattle Science Center and our OMSI pass got us in free there. We didn't think we would have time to go because we needed to get back to our car before our meter ran out and Charlie was exhausted. But Elizabeth told us about this awesome butterfly exhibit they had there, where butterflies fly all around. That sounded really exciting to us, we were right there and it was free so we decided to take 20 minutes and go see the butterflies.  We weren't disappointed.

The cocoons.  Some were breaking out as we watched.

We wished we could spend more time exploring the whole museum because it looked pretty amazing but Charlie was about to pass out so we decided to go back to the car and start the drive home. Charlie was more grumpy than usual so we had to make some extra stops to let him wiggle but we eventually made it home.

And yes, I do feel guilty that I have more pictures of butterflies than my adorable nieces.
Also, thanks to Elizabeth and Stephanie for making it such a great weekend.

Monkey Friend!

Random event worth documenting!

Let me preface this event by saying that our next door neighbor is a mechanic and he brings more business to his house than we'd like. (For this reason he is in the process of moving out and we are searching for new tenants.) Just over a week ago he was working on a big camper that was parked right in front of our house, we get a little irritated when this happens. Charlie and I were looking out our front window and we saw someone ( we weren't sure if it was a man or a woman at the time) come out of the camper with a diaper wearing monkey on his/her shoulder. We saw our other neighbors come out to see the monkey so Charlie and I decided it would be a great opportunity to get up close with a monkey. 

 He was eating a McDonalds french fry!

It turned out that the owner of the camper (a woman, it turns out) raises monkeys, (It was a certain species that I had never heard of) This particular monkey was named Sena and was 16 years old. She was soft and friendly. We were told that these monkeys and two year olds  were very similar and lo and behold Charlie and Sena had a lot in common besides being in diapers. 

 Charlie wasn't that interested in touching the monkey, he mostly wanted to play with whatever the monkey was playing with, it was pretty crazy, just like two little toddlers playing together.

Anyway, this is probably a once in a lifetime experience when you have a monkey come to visit you at your house, so that's document worthy right?