Preschool

We signed Nolan up for our neighborhood Co-op and it started last week. I mom-ed out on this one and treated it like his first day of school. Of course I know preschool is just practice for Kindergarten and beyond but I couldn't help myself, I had to take first day of school pictures.

I guess Nolan knew this was just a practice day as he wasn't taking it very seriously.

We started off promising...

But I realized I forgot his backpack so I grabbed it and our photo session went downhill from here.

This is what I got when I asked him to sit next to his backpack.

Not quite the effect I was trying to achieve. So I asked him to put on his backpack.

This will have to do for now. I'm glad we have 2 more years of practice before Kindergarten.

Once we got to school he had a great time, it took him about 10 seconds to find the car table.

He also like the ball maze thing.

Circle time was by far his favorite. He loved having his very own dot to sit on.

This week he starts going by himself 1 day a week and with me the other day, I'll keep you posted on our progress.

This is why I wanted a good picture.

I guess it worked out afterall!

Tacoma Adventures

This month was Yaya's _0th Birthday and to celebrate we took a day trip down to Tacoma for some adventures.

We started off with a morning trip to the Annual "Touch a Truck" event with Yaya and Gigi.

There was plenty of truck touching, but of course Nolan liked the 1 thing that wasn't an actual truck. He preferred the trailer that hauled the trucks and equipment. He ran back and forth on this thing at least 100 times.

He got to climb into vintage police cars, school buses and semi trucks. He was a little overwhelmed with all the options but he talked about those trucks all week.

At the next stop we met up with The Revards at Point Defiance Park for a picnic. Nolan preferred to chase the squirrels over eating.

Finally we tried to document this day with a Yaya and babies picture. Here's a good one of Yaya and Clementine.

and a good one of Yaya and Nolan

but this one has to be my favorite.

I don't remember telling them to make funny faces!

The Revards kept the fun going with a trip to the zoo. It was nap time for us so we loaded up the car and headed back North. I'm sure there are tons of zoo pictures to report on so take it Emmie!

Game Reserve

We left our lovely lake for a day trip over to the Sequim Game reserve. It's a park where you stay in the car and drive around very slowly amongst the animals. I guess this place is where Disney used to film their animal movies or something as many of the animals were trained to do "tricks"

This bear would wave hi, another one would stand up on it's back paws, another would growl and look all tough. This guy was my favorite, he was also the biggest.

We also got to see zebras VERY close up. No zoom lens needed here, it was right outside our window.

There was also a petting zoo with a llama and goats and such. Nolan just wanted to play in their little house.

They also had an aquarium with salmon and trout swimming around. When Nolan says Fishy it sounds like Vicky, we saw lots of Vickies that day.

In the end I think Nolan's favorite part was riding up front and holding the map, but he looked up a few times to enjoy the scenery.

Lake Sutherland

We had a great time. The lake was warm and quiet, Nolan napped (although somewhat reluctantly), we read, napped by the lake and relaxed for 4 glorious days.

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!