Bay View Camping

Hi everyone,

It's been how many years that we have lived in our little town and we have never camped at the state park that's really close to us? There is a rationale, I'm sure. Mom and Dad said that it's because we live so close that we never think to go camping there. Well, no more. We had so much fun that we are ready to reserve our spot there for the next Memorial Day weekend, and maybe even Labor Day.

It was nice to be close to home since Mom is close to the end of the school year and didn't want to be stressed out by going too far away. The camping spot we stayed in was right on the paved loop so that was great because I could go ride my bike around the loop with the new friends I made and Mom and Dad could watch me from a distance. I think we might pick a different spot on the loop next time though just because we were in front of the extra vehicle parking.

I probably should explain these next two pictures to you so you know what is going on. You see, I have this little engineering mind and I am ALWAYS coming up with plans for how to do things. At this particular time I got it stuck in my head that I should make a way to entice dogs that walked by our site so I could catch them. Mind you, they are walking by with their owners and under pretty good command, but when I get it stuck in my head it's hard to change my mind. So anyway, I rigged up Najia's bone at the end of a leash and tied the leash to the cooler so I would have something weighted down. Then I set up my chair next to it to watch and wait. I had a couple of dogs who looked interested but their owners wouldn't let them check it out.

I'm sure you can see that I have an interested dog back behind me, but I'm not paying any attention to her. I'm trying to catch dogs! I sat out there for a while and no dogs went by. A bit later I came up with a grander plan to entice them. I borrowed one of Dad's shoes and leaned a seat pad up against it so the dogs could see the picture on the seat pad because I thought they would be intrigued by the purple husky.

Unfortunately no dogs were interested. I was pretty bummed. Instead we rode our bikes down to the interpretive center and the beach. You can see the tide was out. There were two boys down there having a mud fight. Yuck!

Until next time . . .

Modeling Haute Couture

Hi everyone,

In the mail a few weeks ago I received some pants that Mom ordered for me from REI. While she was at work, I did a fashion show for Dad and he snapped some photos of me. The following poses are completely unprompted by Dad, just me doing my "thang".

I think I may have a future modeling clothing!

Until next time . . .

Still Up, Up, and Away

Hi everyone,

I promised more pictures, so here you go!

I know I don't look enthused, but I really am. It just happens to be 6:00am and I woke up at 4:45am which is approximately 2 hours and 15 minutes before my usual wake up time. Approximately, though, because who is counting.

 

Look at that flame!!!!

 

Hey, there's a chipper face for so early in the morning!

First balloons up and in the air . . .

Awesome to be able to see the flame, especially while in the air!

 

Grandma's favorite - and do you see the moon to the lower left of the balloon?

 

Mom's favorite - of course she had to pick green!

Started with Ronald, ended with McGruff!

We ended up driving out to the airport to see them all land. It was amazing!

Until next time . . .

Up, Up and Away

Hi everyone,

We headed over to Walla Walla for the Hot Air Balloon Stampede. It was awesome! I'm just going to post a bunch of pictures over these next few posts because there are so many balloons to share. The weather was beautiful and the balloons were magnificent!

Mom took off work on Friday so we headed down to pick up Grandma and hit the road to drive across the state. It was a long ride but it went by pretty fast. Mom read a book, we stopped for treats, things went pretty smooth. We actually stayed about an hour south of the stampede in a state park in Northern Oregon. It was a beautiful area up in the blue mountains. After a campfire dinner and a good night sleep we woke up and headed out for Walla Walla. Too bad we were too late! No, really. We pulled into the fairgrounds at about 11:00am which was just in time for the end of the fun run but way past time for the balloon take off. I guess we didn't really know what it meant when it said take off was at 6:30am.

 

The festival was fun. I got to see Ronald McDonald and eat a foot long corndog! While I was partaking of my fair food goodness we heard what sounded like a balloon being aired up. Lo and behold, across the field there was a balloon being inflated. I made a bee line straight for it. While watching we realized there was a line forming. Mom asked what the line was for and we found out that they were taking kids up in the balloon. Not too far off the ground, but still up in the air. I hopped right into line!

After that we headed back to the campsite where we roasted some brats and marshmallows and tooled around. I put some more miles on my bike and we were able to see all of the campground. I went to bed fairly early since we had to get up at 4:40am so we could leave at 5:00am so we could be there by 6:00am in time for the balloon take off at 6:30am. Whew!

Until next time . . . (and get ready for an onslaught of balloon pictures)

Over Achiever

Hi everyone,

I am such an over achiever! For our last preschool show and tell they call it a VIP share time and we can bring in anything that we want to share. We can show a collection, teach our class how to make something, bring in a pet or a sibling, really just about anything.

I decided that I wanted to bring in Najia. But I didn't want to just bring in Najia, I also wanted to bring in a poster to show kids the type of bones that are in a dog. Bones were a main topic for me but I also wanted to print out a picture of a boxer and then color it to match Najia. Then I decided that I wanted to show some pictures of the dogs that Mom and Dad have had over the years. Mom whipped up some dog bone sugar cookies and stuck them on top of cupcakes and we were good to go.

Yes, we feel casual enough around here to do our school work in our underwear. Okay, maybe it's just me that does, but that's how I roll. Here I am getting glue on the back of my colored picture. Mom showed me how to make a box around the edges and then an X in the middle and I followed her directions to a T.

 

Mom thought it was hilarious because I was so exacting about where I wanted the pictures to be. I made sure that my papers were an equal distance from the edge of the posterboard, the dog pictures had to be in chronological order, and they had to overlap as little as possible. I was super proud of my work and excited to share it at school.

Mom and Dad decided to have me go out with a bang for snack because at the beginning of the year my teacher said they would really not like us to bring in red or purple juices or chocolate frosting because of the carpet. Well, Mom used chocolate frosting on my cupcakes and Dad bought red colored grape juice for my drink. Oops! I guess they really wanted to try their hand at being preschool rebels.

Until next time . . .

Happy Half Birthday to Me!

Hi everyone,

It seems that Mom and Dad started something last year with making a big deal out of my half birthday. Of course I can't be expected to not have a good half birthday this year, right, especially when they hold over my head that now I am 5 1/2 so I should start doing this and stop doing that. For instance, I have been put on notice that when I turn 6 years old I will begin eating salad, therefore I have half of a year to get myself ready for it. You know how it is.

 

To mark this half birthday I was able to pick out a cupcake at the local bakery and we put my bunk beds back together! Yes, super exciting! Not only do I have my bunk beds back but I get to sleep on the top bunk and use the bottom bunk for my play area. Woot woot!

Until next time . . .

Vancouver Here We Run

Hi everyone,

We always love heading up north across the border! What a fun weekend we had up in Vancouver that first weekend in May. Beautiful weather, a great hotel, fun to be had, and a good run for Mom in her half marathon. This was definitely the better part of the weekend than the fishing derby that I told you about earlier.

The morning of our trip we happened to remember that we had a dog and had not figured out what to do with her. Yes, I know what you are thinking. Your dog is with you all the time, how do you forget you have a dog that you need to make arrangements for. I don't know how it happens, it just does. So anyway, Mom called the Four Seasons where we were staying just on a whim to see if they allowed dogs. Jackpot! Not only do they allow dogs but this is what greeted us as we walked in the room. A dog bed, water dish with bottled water, food dish with three gigantic dog bones, and a little mat to set it all on. How cool! Our dog certainly was impressed. The only issue was that we were on the 17th floor so we always had to take her down the elevator and then over two blocks to go to the bathroom. No grass anywhere around.

Oh, did I say there was no grass anywhere around. Well that wasn't quite true, now was it. In fact, while Dad was out walking the dog to find the grass patch we were told about Mom looked out our window and saw grass on the roof of the building across the street. Yes, that's a building across the street with grass growing out of its roof! I thought it was pretty amazing!

After walking about a half mile to a little hole in the wall pasta place (that served great pasta for cheap prices I must say) we stopped into Tim's to get some doughnut holes. Who can't stop by Tim's when they are visiting our northern neighbors?

The next morning Mom got up at 5:15am. Can you believe it? 5:15am! Thank goodness she didn't wake me up because I probably would have been very out of it. She headed out on her own, rode the little subway system and followed the crowd to the start line. She made it right at 6:30am when she wanted to. It was a beautiful morning but a bit cold. In fact, a few miles into the run her feet still felt a bit numb like they had fallen asleep but really they were just cold.

We went to the 5 mile spot to cheer Mom on but somehow she got by us without us seeing her. No idea how we missed her and she missed us. Our puppy dog was freezing so we took her back to the hotel and then headed to the finish line to catch Mom at the end. Here she is (right in the middle there, just in case you can't see her for some reason) about a mile from the end. She had pretty much run out of gas by this time. She tried and tried and tried to make it under 2 hours. That is always her secret goal, but she knew it wasn't really attainable because she hadn't been able to train using timed runs. With her sprained shoulder and the stomach bug she had to miss a few weeks of training. Amazingly she made it in just 1 minute and 30 seconds past her goal. She was pretty frustrated to have pushed herself HARD during the whole run and to miss it by a minute and a half. Oh well, maybe the next one.

What a gorgeous day, gorgeous city, with a gorgeous view!!

Until next time . . .