Splash pad

Peanut, peanut butter and jelly!

 He takes his work very seriously.

Seattle

We stayed in Seattle for the weekend after meeting Thomas.  Donna and Gordon's daughter-in-law's adopted mother (did you follow that?) is Dr. Marsha Linehan- a world renowned psychologist and creator of DBT, which is a really well-known form of psychotherapy.  Marsha is fascinating, as you can imagine, and her house is gorgeous.  We enjoyed spending time with her, as well as bopping around her neighborhood and exploring Seattle in general.

We took a ferry ride over to Bainbridge Island.  The weather was spectacular, as you can see.

Olympic Mountains

Owen and Papa Gordon

Donna and me with the boys

 

Dylan LOVED the breeze on the ferry.  He excitedly flailed his arms the whole time.  It was pretty adorable!

See Mt. Rainier??  Above the clouds!

Possibly the worst family portrait ever, but we take what we can get!

Heart melt!

It was such a fun trip to Seattle, and we loved having some fun quality time with D & G.  :-)

Snoqualmie Falls

After meeting Thomas we stopped off at Snoqualmie Falls.  We had seen one view of the falls on our Thomas train ride, which was pretty awesome.  We decided to go to the actual park and viewing area to get more photos.  

Owen and Dylan stayed in the car with Donna, while Gordon, Kraig and I went to the Falls.  Hey, we'll take the few kid-free moments when we can get them :-)

I love him.

THOMAS

Someone got to meet Thomas the Train....

We drove up to Snoqualmie, WA for a very special Day Out with Thomas event.  Owen was SO excited!

We bought a special shirt for him :-)

The actual event was interesting.  It was rainy and thus muddy, it was louder than Owen was anticipating.  We were rushed due to traffic (note: we left 6 hours before the event.  It was supposed to be a 3 hour 15 minute drive.  Uh, we ran in JUST as our train was boarding!)  We didn't get a chance to help Owen transition and prepare for the, uh, chaos.

So yeah.  He was a little upset (as were most of the other kids) on the train ride, especially since he didn't get to see Thomas until AFTER the ride.  And since he thought we were riding on Thomas, he was confused (read: upset) that we were getting on a train car that did not at all look like Thomas.

Anyway, it was all good once he "met" him!

Are they twins or what?  Oh my goodness.

Getting his temporary tattoo!

This was what our passenger car looked like.  It says Portland!  Woot!

We got some books and gifts for Owen, some that we set aside for later gift-giving opportunities :-)  We didn't get to spend as much time at the event as we'd planned, but he enjoyed it!  I hope he always remembers the day he got to meet Thomas the Train!

Swimming Lessons

Owen had two weeks of swimming lessons at the community pool. I was very pleased with his infinitely patient teacher.  He learned a lot of new skills while also having a lot of fun with his new friends!

He will stay at the same level until he can blow bubbles for 5 seconds.  Then he can move up to "Penguin", which he is really excited about!

Buesch Gardens

Oh, gardening. 

I love it.  I love, love, love it.  It is tedious and wonderful and boring and nerve-wracking and exciting and busy busy busy.

I do an early morning walkthrough everyday.

I check my sweet little baby plants, see if anything needs harvested, pull up a few weeds, and water every few days, depending.

Here is our pallet garden.  It is in our driveway.  Yep, we have lettuce and herbs growing in our driveway.  That's a pretty big WIN if you ask me.  

We grew mesclun and oh.  Oh my.  It is so delicious.  We've had about 5 harvests (about 14 large salads' worth) and it looks like we'll get a couple more, though I've had to pull up a few bolted lettuces.

We're growing parsley (top left) and lemon basil (top right) as well as another basil (I forget the type right now...) in the bottom left.

Here we have more mesclun and more basil, some sage (bottom left) as well as two cilantros.  Yum.  I love having fresh cilantro.

Kraig has 3 pepper plants that are doing great.  Here is chimayo

Poblano

and anaheim-

For the grand reveal, we've got our sunflower wall that is basically all volunteers.  Woot!

It's quite a walkway we've got here.   Much like a jungle.

Okay over along the fence we have 4 tomato plants and 2 cucumbers.  We also had garlic that I already pulled up.

Here is our Green Zebra tomato

Cucumber

Celebrity tomato

Early Girl tomato

Ananas Noire tomato

Ananas baby!

Early girl babies!

And our gorgeous sunflowers getting ready for their big moment...

I know what this is, but I forget the name and I have no idea where it came from.

Also these fuchsia flowers?  I have no idea what they are or where they came from...

Cosmo bud, getting ready!

My favorite sunflower photos-

In our front flowerbeds we also have blue fescue, portulaca, bachelor buttons, and sage that are hidden behind and under all the sunflowers and cosmos.  

I've also harvested a ton of lavender.  

I like this gardening thing.  Very rewarding.  We have a modest start this year, and we've had a few fails (ahem, dill and kale), but we don't want to overdo it.  I'm certainly learning as I go, so I am all ears if you have tips!