Maritime Festival

Recently James had to work over the weekend, and I was kinda bummed.  He told me I should come down to the pier with the kids to see some of the stuff.  I'm glad we did, here's some of what happened at the Maritime Festival:

Wide view of tugboat racing

Helicopter during tugboat racing

Fire station boat(not sure what to call it) showing off it's abilities.  Check out Mt Ranier in the background!  So beautiful, and I didn't realize I was getting a pic of that too.

Miniature remote controlled boats

A gigantic walking clam

Boat making for kids

Indoor activities

I didn't get any pictures of the bouncy houses there, or the talking robot boat Coastie.  Coastie was about 3 feet tall, 3 wide, and five long.  Coastie moved, blinked and talked.  Coastie actually responded back, because...shh....there were two people several feet behind her- one with a remote control, and one with headphones.  The kids were so focused on Coastie they never even saw the people behind her, and kept up a long conversation with her...it was so funny!  The real reason we went was to the festival was to see Daddy's boat race.  He and his team had from the morning till the race at 4 pm, on a budget of $100, to build a boat and race it agains others' creations.  

About to put the boat in the water-going to see if she floats!

Here he is lining up for the race, the other boats were about to get in.

Here's James's boat, he's the one with a cap on

The boat his group made was super steady and heavy, this boat nearly sank when it bumped into it!

This boat did sink, but not because it hit anyone, just because of it's construction.

Some of the boats finishing the race.

They had to got down and around that buoy and return to win.  There were too many to race all at the same time, so some had to race a few times to secure placement.  Out of about 9 boats, James's group came in 3rd!  Not too bad for the first time!  We'll be back next year.  ( :

Dance Partay!

This is part of our homeschool physical ed curriculum.  Just kidding.  Normally my kids are fully dressed, promise.  It's when daddy gets home that crazy/fun happens and the rules get bent.  ( :  I love my boys!

My dear second child has quite the imagination.  And obsession with superheroes.  In one day he was at least 4 different superheroes, the orange one being "Orange Man", aka the superhero that hits bad guys with oranges till they stop being bad.  And he is followed by Buzz.  I don't always have my camera, so I didn't capture him as his other alter ego: Super Girl (a superman costume with a 70s wig James bought for halloween)

 The park we live in has a beach, though I don't know if there's a name for it.  It has a functioning light house on it that makes the scene super nice.

This picture of the beach looks straight out of twilight to me.

 I did something crazy, and I'm really not a crazy person.  I chopped off all of my hair.  In high school it was down to my waist.  That's the kinda person I usually am----long rod straight hair and muted earthy tone clothes.   As I've gotten older, I have branched out of my comfort zone and had some fun.  Here's another thing I can now say I haved tried: the pixie cut.  It was kind of a spur-of-the-moment thing, I decided that day to cut my hair and by 6 pm it was gone.  I didn't take any before pics, so these two silly/sweet pics with Micah are the best I have.

It's been a week yesterday and I'm slowly getting used to it.  Everyone says it's probably so much easier to take care of, but I haven't figured out how I like it best so it takes me a while to get anywhere.  I like it OK, but I'm not planning on keeping super short hair.

Home shots

I finally took some pictures around easter time of one of the floors of our house, here is the living room. This is one of the four fireplaces. I love all the windows! We haven't put up any wall hangings, I don't want to mess up this house at all! (it was built right around 1900) but I'll probably get over it soon. There are two staircases, this is what we call the grand staircase. It only goes from the main level to the second, not to the basement or the upper floor. Notice the Harry Potter room under the stairs, the first week we were here, my boys had to play in there with their flashlights.On the left side of this next pic is the front entryway.On the left side of the next picture is the room with the stairs, I'm told the foyee, or however you say it, and to the right is part of the dining room, with a built in hutch. This is the first time I wish I had fine china to display. I don't really have much to put in it to display. I forgot to take a pic of the kitchen, though it's nothing grand, but you can see the counter on the left, and to the right is the second set of stairs. From the main level this looks down to one of the two back doors and to the basement.

Here is a picture of the dining room from the living room. The hutch is on the wall opposite of the fireplace.

We love this place!! We are trying to see how we can finagle(is that a word?) staying here longer than we originally intended. The fact that this house is in a state park is just icing on the cake. The only thing I can really complain about is that it's pretty hard to keep cleaned...especially with three little boys who aren't quite ready to help with sweeping. I need to invest in one of those big brooms. ( : I'll try to take pictures of the second level with all of our rooms sometime this week.

Rainy Day outing

On another chilly, rainy day....we went to the science center and showed our guests around. These pics are all from the insect area:

Lucas's face... haha. I think he was looking at a mirror image of himself as a grasshopper unaware of Uncle Ryan taking his pic.This one of Micah is my favorite! He was on my shoulders in the butterfly house when a butterfly landed on him. He was so calm and loved looking at all of them, when this one landed on him he just watched till it flew off. So adorable!

Happy St. Patrick's Day

We love a good reason to do fun stuff, and St. Patty's Day is another. I found this link to free printables for sorting and graphing lucky charms. I don't normally buy sugar cereal, but the boys were in for a treat! I also bought mint chocolate chip ice cream under the premise that it's green. ( :

And one of the perks of our home, a huge cast iron claw footed bathtub. All the boys love to take baths in there, as you can see. Actually, so do I but with hubby gone it's not something I have been getting to enjoy. Next week Aunt Jackie and this little cutie Reagan are coming to stay with us until their house closes. (Uncle Ryan is driving up.) We are so excited to see the newest addition and .....to have family nearby!!! Yay!!

We are settling in to our new home. There is one problem with a ton of space...my toddler has the frequently used nickname of Sneakyboy. Micah is often in the snack cabinet, which is going to be moved to a higher one, I just haven't done it yet. There are also some ways you just can't baby-proof some homes. The day after we got here, my legs were so sore from carting things up and down stairs...but my body has finally gotten used to the stairs, which is good because it's the only workout I've been getting.

Last night we had some friends over despite our still messy-from-the-move house. They have kids just about the same ages as ours and all 4 big kids played hide and seek while we chatted. They were having so much fun we heard no complaints from the kids all evening, and it was so cute to see them decide to do it. We'd only played one one floor before, but they decided to play on 3 levels.

DH is leaving tomorrow for a week and a half...I'm a little nervous just being in a new place by myself so soon. Keeping myself busy is the only thing that makes the evenings pass better. Oh yea, I have an audiobook I've been ignoring, time to charge my ipod!