Time flies

I can't believe it's been a whole week since I posted. This week (and weekend) went by really fast.

Craft stuff:
I have been spinning on my Turkish some more and last I posted I had 2 completed hanks. As of this morning I have 3 complete hanks and another cop of singles almost done. Before I go to bed tonight I hope to have finished plying and setting this yarn (hopefully it will be the last hank - I am enjoying the spinning but I am really ready to start knitting with it).
I also finished the body of one of my teddy bears and now I have to stuff it and call my friend to come and pick it up.

Food stuff: We tried a new recipe this week (on Wednesday) - Brian made butter chicken wich is an indian dish made with onions, tomato sauce, diced tomato, a bit of cream, roast chicken and some spices (those are just the basics) all together in a sauce and served over basmati rice.
On Thurday Andrew and Eldon came over and Andrew cooked - he had some left over smoked Turkey and made us enchilada's it was quite good.
On Friday Brian made hollandaise sauce and we had eggs benedict with crab instead of ham - it was fabulous. Totally worth the time to make the sauce from scratch and shell the crab. The kids did not have any crab (shellfish, young kids, yada yada) but they seemed to enjoy it also.

Family stuff:
On Friday Jacob went with Julie and Ron for his weekly Grandpa Day. Normally it's on Thursdays but Julie had Friday off and wanted to spend some time with him too. They also had Eve (Jake's cousin) so the kids got to play together. Fridays are the start of Brian's weekend as well (damn economy...4 day weeks for quite a while, but he still has a job thank god and he gets to spend more time with the kids). So we puttered around the house until after Abby woke up from her nap and headed to Red Robin for lunch (gift certificate from Christmas - it only cost us like 10 bucks out of pocket). Then we thought it would be fun to take Abby to the 'baby animal playground' at the mall. So we wandered in there and let her run around. This place is really great for the smaller toddlers out there. All soft and cushy but still firm enough to climb on. Then we wandered into Victoria Secret and I ended up buying a new bra. I am so happy I did - I forgot how comfortable VS bras are (they damn well better be for 40+ bucks a pop). Then Brian went and picked up the tabs for his truck and we met at the grocery store to pick up stuff for dinner.
On Saturday we woke up and were hanging around the bedroom with the kids and Brian asked what I wanted to do for the day. I said, "I don't know, it looks like a really nice day, let's do something with the kids, like NW Trek or something." After a few minutes in his office (at the computer I assume) he came in and said "ok, let's go. They open at 9:30, lets try to leave the house by 9" I am thinking 'awesome!!!' So I got the kids ready to go and then I made a quick breakfast of scrambled eggs and cheese with some english muffins. 20 minutes later we were there. Now I had never been to NW Trek so I didn't really know what it was going to be like and I had a ton of fun. First we saw a golden eagle, and through the trees we saw the bald eagle on our way to the tram station. While waiting for the tram Jake kinda freaked out and decided he didn't want to go because "the moose has big eyes" (which I thought was weird because he has never seen a moose before). We told him that he would get to see a squirrel if he went on the 'bus-train' After we started seeing animals he started to get less afraid and more excited when he realized they couldn't hurt him. Let's see we saw: Moose, Bison, Elk, Mountain Goats, Big Horned Sheep, Deer, Swans, Geese and Duck. I may be missing some but I think that is most of it. We got really lucky - because these animals are basically free-roaming in a natural habitat they are not always close enough to the road to see...Brian said he has been on the tram and only seen 1 or 2 things. The tour lasts a full hour and by the time we were done Abby was asleep and Jake was starting to get a little cranky. We plopped them in the stroller and went to see the animals in 'exibits.' The first one we saw was the black bear - at wich point I dropped the camera, breaking it - so that is why no pics (the brand new one we got for Christmas).*
I was surprised that the animals were not behind glass, or even a fence. You stood in the covered viewing area and looked into the fenced habitats. I have only been that close to a bear once in my life, and last time it was NOT FUN - we were just getting out of the car at my Grandpa's house in Glacier National Park. Needless to stay we all got back in the car and waited until Grandpa fired the gun a few times (not at the bear - we were in a park) and it went away. Also a black bear now that I think about it. Anyway the ony thing between you and the bears is a ditch and a single line of electric fence on their side of the ditch. After the black bear was the grizzly bears. Large and impressive - reminds me of an old joke: "how do you know if you are being chased by a black bear or a grizzly bear? - The black bear will climb the tree - the grizzly bear will knock it over" (ba-dum-cha!)
After the bears we say gray wolf, red fox, and coyotes - they were RIGHT there only yards away. it was really neat. Then there were the bobcat, cougar and lynx. Holy crap those cougar were HUGE! there were two of them and for obvious reasons the viewing area was elevated much higher and the 'ditch' was actually a rather wide, deep moat (cougars can jumb 20 feet vertical). I am fairly certain there was no way they could jump that high from floating in the water.
From there we saw the smaller wetland animals - raccoon, rover otter, beaver, wolverine, porcupine, skunk, badger, and fisher (I had never heard of nor seen a fisher before - really cute little things). Then we saw the barn owls, horned owls and snowy owl and headed to lunch. The cafe had a lodge type setting - the booths were wood and it had high open rafters and a nice large fire place with a fire blazing. It was great - we picked the booth closest to the fire and had a darned good lunch before heading back to the van. Jake fell asleep before we were out of the park driveway. We got home and put the kids down for naps (I had one too - all that walkng made me tired).
So that was our weekend so far. It was a ton of fun...now I have to go do laundry and pack some bags because the kids and I are headed up to Orcas for the week tomorrow.

*camera fixed now...no worries

Catching up from Camping plus Potty Training Trials

Ok so last week we went camping...we got home on Friday so, here is a bit of an update on what I've been up to during that time.

On Saturday morning we got up and hit the road. I think we were rolling by 7am. We stopped at a rest stop and got the kids dressed and in dry diapers. Brian and I swapped seats and we were off again. By lunch time we arrived at the campsite and started to pitch our tent. Man that thing was a monster. 9x17 feet. Don't get me wrong I LOVED having the space but it is definitely a 2-3 man job to set it up. the best feature of the tent is that it has a hinged door on one side - a total life saver when you are toting a baby around. By the time we got set up and unloaded we were dying hot and so we immediatly got changed into shorts. Don't really remember much more of the first day other than hanging at the campsite...oh, and we went swimming too. Abby's first time in the pool! She loved it...her brother wasn't so sure (never has been).

We hung out on the lawn after dinner and had a grand ol' time...The only bummer was that we didn't have a campfire...you need to use a fire pit at these sites and ours didn't fit...plus it was too windy anyway.
The next morning we all got up and had breakfast...Jake getting ready to head out of the tent in his jammies with his shades on because "a sun's too bite 'or my eyes, Mommy"
At this point my days pretty much start to run together. On Monday (day 3 into our trip) I got the wonderful surprise of starting my period for the first time in 3 1/2 years...Joy. I was not able to go swimming from that point on but that meant I had someone to be sure to get pics!

By the last day we were in the pool Jake let us float him by himself...as long as he didn't know you had completely let go.
Jake had the 2nd ice cream cone in his lifetime thus far and really enjoyed it.
One of the days after getting out of the pool we had lunch and then kids decided they wanted to run around on the lawn through the sprinklers...it was a lot of fun and quite nostalgic to watch them.
Another day Grandpa took Jake and Eve out on his boat...they really loved it and did not want to get off when we docked...until we got to the sno-cone stand.Guess what color Jake picked?
Another evening Brian and I took Jake and Abby to the miniature golf course so Brian could teach Jake how to play golf (Jake had been saying for days "Daddy teach me play golf" it was adorable). Jake even had his own club that we brought with us (I bought it for him shortly after we found out we were having a boy).
I cant remember if he is trying to 'read the putt' or yell at the ball in this picture...he was so darned cute when the ball didn't go in he would say "no, no, no" and then go pick up the ball, set it about 3 inches from the hole and hit it in. I think its funny he didn't do what I expected him to do and just put it in the hole with his hands. While Jacob did not win the day, he did beat Brian on at least one hole.
One of the days we tried to keep up with giving Abby the opportunity to try 'solid' food and for the first time she actually ate it! Not only that but look at that bib! That is at the end of her meal and she was eating sweet potato...that tongue thrust reflex is finally gone! Now we all eat 'real' food at meals!
Another cute one of Abby - She napped in her playpen in the shade and she kept her legs pulled up until she was very deeply asleep - it was rather adorable.I think it was on Wednesday that I went hunting for a geocache up at Dry Falls in Sun Lakes State Park. It was a wonderful hike and climb. See that tiny dark spot near the center of the photo just to the right of the large cliff? that was where we headed to. More than I was expecting to do but so very glad I did it. My friend Krista came with me (she is my sister-in-law's sister and comes camping with the family every year). She took some pics of me that I need to get that I will post at another time. But basically we hiked to a lava tube and crawled through it into a collapsed lava bubble. We climbed up and out of that to stand on top for a spectacular view and then looked for the cache. We did not find it but found the only place it possibly could have been. I have not yet checked the geocaching website to see if it was removed intentionally or not. I left a note in the spot and we headed on back.On Thursday we went to Dry Falls as is a tradition with us. It is a massive dry waterfall and I reccomend ya'll go check out the history sometime, it is amazing.While we were there I found a geocache. Actually I should say Brian found it. It was the first thing he saw and we kept looking because it was so inconspicuous. But after we came back to it and looked closer at it we realized it was a microcache, not a standard geocache. We logged our names and put it back. Spoiler pic to follow so don't look if you are ever gonna search for this one.See that bolt looking thing? that was it. when pulled out there was a capsule on the end that contained a small scroll of paper.
One morning the kids were restless - I brought Abby to bed with us. Shortly thereafter Jake woke up so I put him in bed too...I curled up on the end of the bed with his blanket. It was not too bad and I think I even dozed back off for a while.
Thursday evening we packed up as much as we could and on Friday morning we got up and totally broke camp and headed out. Per tradition we stopped in the nearest town and filled the gas tank and had McDonalds breakfast. Driving back home was harder on us. Brian and I were very tired. He drove the first bit and I napped for a bit until I noticed he had his window down in an effort to stay awake. I tried to talk to him to keep him engaged until we stopped at the Thorp Antique and fruit stand, again per tradition. We wandered the antique mall (I saw a pair of hand cards for 20bucks. I would have been all over them if I didn't already have a pair...I should have bought them for my friend Andrew though now that I think about it. Oh well). Then we walked around the fruit stand part of the place and I picked up some apple butter. Jake was allowed to pick his own snack and much to our surprise he walked right past the many flavors of kettle corn and went straight for the apples. He ate more than half of it too. I took over driving from there. I stopped at a rest stop about 20 miles down the road to feed Abby and change diapers and then we hit the highway again. Thank goodness for iPod's man. It was a really long drive home and it was overcast or raining most of the way.
I think once we were home we pretty much crashed. I know at one point I took a shower and while I did that Brian unloaded the van (I was thrilled!) I pretty much igorned putting anything away for several days though. I did get through the laundry and I worked here and there at putting stuff away.
From the day we got home we put Abby in her crib in Jake's room and she has been sleeping there ever since. I have only had to get up in the middle of the night once to settle her back down. Now we work on getting her to go down at a scheduled bed time.
On Saturday we went to Eldon's 5th Birthday party. It was a lot of fun (even if it meant eating yet more BBQ). Here is the birthday boy with his favorite gift (grandma and grandpa always nail it)
That's a fishing pole in case you can't tell from the pic. He was just elated and thankfully there was not only a lake stocked with rainbow trout in the park but Walmart was across the street so they were able to get him a fishing liscense as soon as he was done opening his gifts.
There was a HUGE playground too and Jake had a ball on that.
How's that for a goofy look? So we have been settled in and Jake has been really liking his sister a lot lately and one night he decided that he really needed to be the one to feed her......until she reached up and grabbed his hair - then he was done with her. So I took over from there. He has been just loving sharing a room with her too. When I bring him to bed he says "need Abby" it is so cute.
The other major undertaking we have been trying since being home (well, since Monday) is we are potty training. We just went straight to underwear in the hopes that he will be more inclined to notice than if he is in a pull up. We did potty sits every 1/2 hour the first day and didn't manage to make it in the potty once. Day two was pretty much the same except by dinner time when he started to go he would say "oh no!" so he is starting to recognize what is going on (instead of making a puddle and ignoring it). Yesterday he went in the potty once on one of our hourly potty sits and then not at all again until after his nap (when he was wearing a pull up - come on people there is only so much laundry I can handle and I am already majorly handicapped in that area). We had one accident after dinner and then moved to a diaper and jammies. Today is Grandpa day, so we'll see how he does - I think I'll send him in pull ups just in case. Between him and the cat I am so tired of cleaning up pee I can't even stand it although Jake is better than the cat at this point (for some reason she gets her front half in the catbox but not her back half). Jake has been telling me his potty hurts him and when he gets up his little thighs have some serious red marks on them so I do believe him. He will try out the potty at Grandpa's today and if he isn't bothered by it we'll get him one of those (ours is a 10 yr old hand me down).
Well this post is long enough. Until next time folks.

Adventure Day

Well, last night after Brian got home we went to REI and took the plunge into the world of GPS. We have talked about it for a while and finally decided to just go ahead and do it.

Last night I read over some of the manual and this morning I played around with it until I had it pretty well figured out.

I got myself to the geocaching site and looked a few up. There was one pretty close to home and while it was in walking distance I decided to drive since it was basically on the way to another one.

I got the kids some breakfast, got them dressed and I made up a few little mini knitting needles with some knitting on them to leave behind in the caches (if you want to take something you have to leave something).

We finally got out the door at about 11:30 so I knew it was going to be a late nap day for Jake. Fortunately the first cache was exactly where I thought it was and I was able to park the car right next to it and not get the kids out of their car seats (really it was only a couple of feet from the car). I was so very excited to make my first find! It will take a bit of getting used to using the GPS device as it only gets you close, but that is part of the fun too - you actually have to LOOK.

Sooo..into the bush next to the car I went...

I found it!

Here it is with it's Camo on.

Open:

All the stuff that was inside, plus my knitting...I took the scented bubbles for Jacob.After signing the log I headed off to Wapato Park to start searching for the next cache. This particular cache is something called a multi-cache where the coordinants to first clue are given and once you find that spot you get coords to the next and so on until you find the actual cache.
We walked around until I realized we were going to have to hike up a small but steep hill. Not easy to do with a 2 year old and 15lbs of baby strapped to your chest. Anyway at the top of a beautiful waterfall in the park with this beautiful view. See that fencepost on the right in the shade?
how about now?:
And bending around to see the side I found the next set of coords!:
We headed down the hill (btw it's even harder to go down hill while carrying both children- even if Abby was strapped in) and started to look for the next spot but ended up passing the playground and that was the beggining of meltdown.
One of the clues said something about walking the plank and there was a dock very close so I managed to get Jake to head that way with the promise of coming back to the playground. I think I searched that stupid dock for 15 minutes before I got the bright idea of actually looking at the GPS and seeing that I was WAY off of where I needed to be (there was another dock on the other side of the lake). I decided to stop my search for the day and let Jake play on the playground. On our way back we were followed...
Make that chased:
I kid you not this damn goose was inches away from us and wouldn't leave us alone until he saw someone else at a picnic table with food. Aparently someone has been feeding the critters cuz they are are pretty fearless and bold around people...plus poor Jake- that thing was as tall as he is.
Anyway he got to play for a while and then we loaded up into the car, headed to the store, grabbed a few things for dinner and headed home.
I got Jake some lunch and then put him down for a nap around 3 (he usually goes down around 12). Got a break for about an hour and then it was time to start dinner...I made some yummy yummy mac n cheese from scratch...I use the Fannie Farmer recipie with WAY more cheese than it calls for but this time I used blended up fish cracker for the topping (rather than bread crumbs with butter) and that was absolutally the way to go. I reccomend it.
Anyway that was the day of adventure we had. Hopefully the cache will be worth going back to find another day.