Port Townsend

Next stop was lunch in Port Townsend, my home away from home growing up. Our entire family used to get together here every Summer for 2 weeks of camping bliss. We got to stay up late, eat smores every night and play with our cousins for endless hours. My favorite memories usually can be tracked back to this little town. Luckily since it's one of those places that time stands still those memories are safe and I can't wait to share them with Nolan as he gets older. Of course this isn't Nolan's first trip over there. We stayed a few days here back when he was just 6 months old, he had such a great time playing with his cousin Clementine and exploring the town!

First stop was Waterfront Pizza for lunch. I have eaten way too much of this pizza in my lifetime so it was great to see Nolan enjoy it as much as I do.

This fickle eater ate an entire piece on his own, which is no small task.

Next stop was Elevated Ice Cream, another place we spent much of our time. He enjoyed his cookies and cream ice cream but preferred my swiss orange chocolate chip.

We weren't able to stay long as it was getting close to nap time but we did drive around town a bit before heading to the Lake. I told my stories for each landmark and was amazed how much came back to me. I really hope Nolan will be so lucky to have a memory time capsule like Port Townsend.

Vacation!

We took a quick family vacation to Lake Sutherland last week, before Summer came to a close. We thought Nolan would get a kick out of taking the ferry over so we made that part of our journey.

He was impressed with the boat for about 20 seconds, then he went into explorer mode. He checked out all the staircases

and left no bench untouched.

He had a good time though, and talked about that ferry all the way to Port Townsend, our next stop, more on that next!

Happy Birthday Yaya!

Today is my mom's Birthday, I won't say how old she is but it's one of those numbers that ends in a zero! :)

Happy Birthday Yaya, I hope you had a wonderful day!

Vroom

We got the opportunity to have the VIP experience for this year's Seafair Air Show. We've never been to Seafair but it's hard to miss when it's in town as the Blue Angels are hard to miss, especially when they practice right during Nolan's nap.

I figured Nolan would enjoy it since he loves all things transportation related right now. He needed a little bit of prep time since we would be so close to all the noise and action. I checked out all the plane books from our library. We recommend "I Love Planes," and "A is for Airplane" (shown below, a little advanced for him but had interesting plan history and facts with great illustrations that Nolan liked).

And ventured over to the Museum of Flight for a little noise desensitization.

He really enjoyed listening for the planes and watching them land and take off. Here he is pretending to be an airplane, he calls them vrooms.

We planned to go inside to see the helicopters and planes up close but Nolan we so happy out on the lawn by the airfield that we decided to save the museum for another day.

A few days later it was the big day. We joined our friends, Rachelle, Jodi and Dobry and Heather and GF Annabella. It was quite the Lady and Babies party!

Thank you Heather for thinking to grab the headphone/earmuff things, we definitely needed them! Dobry even fell asleep with his on, with all the excitement going on around him. Jodi is one lucky momma!

The planes flew right over the house, so close we joked that even we could throw a rock and hit them. My regular camera died but I did get a couple of shots with my iPhone.

Not a bad way to see the show!

A Sunny Saturday

We finally had an unplanned sunny Saturday in Seattle so we grabbed our Groupon for Remlinger Farms and jumped in the car. We figured it would be crazy busy and were prepared for the crowds but amazingly enough it was empty! We started with Nolan's favorite the choo choo train that went around the whole park.

We had the last seat on the caboose, Nolan loved watching the tracks.

Next we jumped in line for the boat ride. This was the only time that we had to wait in line all day (we were 3rd) and he wasn't too happy about that.

I think he would say that it was worth it.

To round out the transportation rides we did the electric cars next.

I kept trying to get Nolan to look at me for a picture. This is his "Mom, I'm driving here!" face.

We also made a quick stop on the school bus, he assigned Pat and I seats before taking his seat in the back.

Then it was onto the petting zoo. There were goats, chickens, pigs, donkeys, cows, emu, alpaca and bunnies (or as Nolan calls them hop hop hops). This place has everything!

I was so excited to see that Nolan could actually ride on some of the big kid rides as long as he had a parent with him. He tried the flying pumpkins with Papa.

Pat was feeling pretty dizzy right about now.

And Nolan was feeling dizzy here.

Then off to the roller coaster with mama.

What you don't see is my death grip on Nolan. He liked it but I was worried he would bump his head.

It was a pretty good day for all of us!

Mariners Take III

Nolan made his 3rd trip to Safeco Field to watch the Mariners play the Rangers. His first trip at 9 months old here and his 2nd trip here at 15 months old. This time we didn't need a stroller or a backpack he walked into the stadium all by himself. He was pretty excited to be there in person since he's seen many of the games on TV.

He did pretty good for a 2.5 year old. I didn't expect him to make it past the 6th inning but he made it to the 8th before wanting a change of scenery. I think having his own seat, some kettle corn and some free baseball cards helped with that.

After the game (which we lost) he got the chance to run around the bases. After waiting in a long line we finally made it out there.

He ran the bases with grandpa and did a great job hitting all three bases

before heading for home plate.

He talked about that moose the rest of the day.

Pat was so proud to see Nolan run those bases. I'm sure he's already counting down the days until Nolan is old enough for little league.

A/C

My mom brought us her old a/c unit just before the first heat wave of Summer hit. woo hoo! If you've been to our house on even a minimally sunny day you know why I am so excited. Our house gets HOT even if it's not hot outside. So when it is hot outside our house is unbearable. After 4 years of living here we still haven't figured out how to efficiently cool it down. Now that we have the a/c unit we don't have to worry about it. But we do have to worry about little hands playing with it.

He figured out how to remove the filter and turn it on and off pretty quickly. What we can't figure out is how he got graham cracker into the cooling unit?

4th of July

I almost forgot to post these!

We had a quiet 4th of July this year but still found time to enjoy the sunny day with friends.

It was actually warm enough to bring out the pool for the babies to splash around.

They cooled off with some patriotic Popsicles (lemonade with some red and blue berries)

We threw some hotdogs on the BBQ and ate a lot of red, white and blueberry shortcake before we did some child friendly fireworks.

Nolan was not a fan. He liked the pop its (the ones you throw and they crack) but didn't like the bigger ones. Pat was pretty disappointed, but I think next year will be another story. Here he is putting on a brave face.

And giving our decorative flag a bath a few days later.