In Seattle

Our super awesome niece Cara performed in the Washington Junior High All State Choir concert on February 19 and we were excited to go down south for the day to see her and the rest of the Segos.  Of course, going down to Seattle usually necessitates a visit to Ikea.  Benjamin has asked me at least every other week for the past 6 months if we could go to Ikea (because they have an awesome play place for kids) so it was nice to finally be able to say yes!  While we were there we bought a large area rug for our apartment in Ketchikan (yep, still going there, just not so soon now), which has hard floors all over.  I must say I was a bit disappointed in the rug selection at Ikea.  I expected better.

Anyway, after a hot dog lunch at the Ikea food court we met up with "our cousins," as Benjamin and Rhett call them, and had a fun little time walking about the Seattle Center.  (After paying $12 for parking there's little else to do...)

Benjamin and Breton take turns being the fish

Paul and Landon chat and stroll

The day was beautiful and sunny, but cold

The kids all wanted to climb on the whale tale, but this is about as good as it got.

Landon called these pictures "poor man's memories," since none of us could actually pay to go up the Space Needle.  But we were there!

While the venue for the choir concert wasn't ideal and we didn't get to actually hear most of Cara's performance, Paul and I did get to listen to the last two songs and they were great!  It was totally worth the trip, even if we hadn't heard a single note of song.  Thanks again, Segos!  It's always a good time!

More September

Grandma and Grandpa Duersch's visit also included lots of Lego building!  I'm not a very creative Lego builder, so it was a treat for the boys to have people play with them and actually make cool things.

 

 

We also paid a visit to the marine life center at Bellingham Bay.  We were hard pressed to keep Rhett from taking a swim with the anemones.

Nemo!

This is my favorite picture.  You stick your head in this dome to view the inside of the fish tank.  This time it was filled with different varieties of fish and prawns and sea creatures that clung to the sides of the tank.  Rhett thought it was great, and Benjamin stuck his head partway in for the first time ever.  He has always been scared of it for some reason.

Next we went to another pretty spot nearby in downtown Bellingham.  The boys were obsessed with the patch of blackberries we found and kept trying to go back for more, even though they were quite out of reach.

A big highlight of the month was the set of train tracks that Grandma and Grandpa brought for the boys.  Not a day has gone by since without train tracks laid out across the floor and some sort of scuffle over who gets to play with which trains.

On Labor Day we braved a rainy Birch Bay beach.

 ("They're dead..." said a dejected-sounding Benjamin of the crabs found on the beach.)

 Later in the week Grandma Key came for a visit as well.  She too was a fantastic Lego-building buddy.  We also visited Cloud Mountain Nursery and considered the many options for fruit trees, something Paul and I hope to get planted in our yard in the very near future.  Unfortunately we didn't get more pictures, and she was only with us for a couple of days.

 

 

Phew!  But that's only halfway through the month!  Still more to come.

Busy September (part 1)

Where did September go?  The month was so busy for us that it seems all a blur in retrospect.  Fortunately it was full of fun, happy things.

Rhett saying "Hello Doggies!" at the home of a family in our ward where we were having our youth activity early last month.

Grandma and Grandpa Duersch came to visit from Utah for five days.  When they arrived they found a little bird on our walkway that seemed to have flown into the window and become temporarily unable to fly.  The boys enjoyed looking at her (and poking and prodding her) until Grandpa placed her on a branch of a bush to recover.

Benjamin and Rhett couldn't have been more thrilled to have people to play games with them!  Grandpa was oh-so-patient playing Hungry Hungry Hippos...

and Grandma was a great Candy Land traffic director, keeping Rhett out of Benjamin's way while they both navigated the board.

Grandpa's new iPad was a huge hit.

On the second day of their visit we drove to Mount Baker and went on a little hike.  The boys enjoyed the snow!

Benjamin loved using the binoculars.

Rhett insisted on being carried the whole way down.

On the way back from Mt. Baker we stopped at Nooksack Falls.  It was very awesome, but the splendor of it all was hard to focus on while Rhett was trying to slip through a gap in the fence, on the other side of which were slippery rocks and a steep drop into a rushing river.

 

More to come.