Splish Splashin'

As our summer break is winding down, Eli and I have been staying busy with play dates and just having fun together. Monday found us playing at the park with one of my coworkers and her little guy who is 3 months older than Eli. That was great! The boys hadn't ever played together, so it was good catching up with her and watching them interact - and do their own things!

Today we spent about 3 hours swimming with our good friends, Sandy and Drew. Drew is a lot older than Eli, but he is such a good sport and seems to really enjoy playing with him. They play cars together when they can. Today, Drew did a great job of humoring Eli as he continued to drop water toys into the pool for Drew to dive down and recover. It took Eli a while to actually want to go in the water though. He was content dropping toys in the pool and playing with his cars. I was finally able to get him into the hot tub (it was only 85 degrees) then after a few minutes got him into the pool. Of course going from the hot tub to the cooler pool didn't make him a very happy swimmer, but it didn't take long before he was smiles and loving it.

Cars are usually involved when Eli and Drew get together.

In the pool. I love the goggle eyes from Drew in the background!

Goggle boy...

Wah-lah! No more goggles!

Giggles in the hot tub.

Jumpin' In!

Can We See the Fishies?

Today we had to run into Seattle with my parents, then decided to visit the aquarium. This was Eli's first time at "our" aquarium and he loved it. Before leaving my parents this afternoon, they have him a new truck. It is now referred to as "Papa's car." We can't call it Papa's truck because he already has one with that name and you can't have multiple cars with the same name and every car must have a name.

We love how this looks like he's just zooming along

Today was the first time I've been able to see anything that looks like me in Eli. We have the same chin!

Our little jellyfish

A little lovin'

JoAnn Update!

Honestely, I never thought I would hear anything back from my call to corporate about Eli's and my interesting visit to the fabric store. I was told that they would send me a gift card because of the hassle, and assumed that if that truly happened, it would be around $20. Yesterday I got a $50 card in the mail! Talk about a surprise! I have a few projects that I want to do, a new shower curtain and a drape of some sort for the window above the stairs, now I can set out and possibly do so once I get movitivated! LOL

Since it's so chilly this morning I'm thinking maybe Eli and I will go into school and unpack a few boxes from my move to a new room. He usually enjoys playing in my classroom, so we'll see how much of a dent I can make in the massive pile of boxes today!

New Do

Last week was hot. I couldn't stand having hair on my neck anymore. So I did what I always do...I chopped of my hair! Katharine cut her hair too and it looks absolutely adorable and I told her I'd post pictures of my new do, so here I am and here it is!

I'm not entirely sure why, but I have my head tipped down at kind of a weird angle. Wy I don't know, but I'm not retaking the picture.

On a side note, we get our house fixed tomorrow! Hopefully Jess will be back to his normal self by the time Ron, our contractor, arrives at 8am. Poor guy has been sick as can be today.

Playing Around

Friday found us down at Gene Coulon Park waiting for the Blue Angels to practice for their Seafair performance over the weekend. Sadly, we were there too early (I must have read the schedule for practices wrong, or else they changed it from when I first looked on Monday morning). At any rate, Eli got to play on the toys at the park then we just wandered around enjoying the morning. We even got to see one of the planes in the factory just after they opened the hangar doors.

When Eli finally saw these he was super excited, yelling, "MOTORBIKE!"

He loved it.

On one of the big toys - cheeseball grin and all

Mom and Eli

Giving Daddy a hug on the little pier

Throwing rocks into Lake Washington

Playing in the pool with his plethora of toys on Thursday.
He LOVES the pool.

On a side note, the contractor comes on Wednesday to fix our house! YAY!

And it doesn't cost nearly as much as we though it would to fix. Thank goodness.

Changes Around the House

In addition to everything else going on right now, our community is in the middle of getting a major face lift. The houses are all getting painted. As part of the LP Siding Lawsuit from 5 or 6 years ago, one of the stipulations was that our houses have to be repainted every 5-7 years. Sooooo...it's that time again! We have a great paint crew that is working their tails off painting the houses in our neighborhood. I love the colors, they are very earthy and really make our landscaping (or lack there of) really stand out. I need to do a little repotting and get some plants out next to the garage along the walk to our door.

Before the painting project began, this is what we saw from the street looking at our house. How boring and drab!

Now, is what our house looks like. I absolutely positively LOVE it. They aren't completely done with our trim (notice the drop cloths still on the roof), but they're close enough to post a picture. Don't you just love it?!

I was also finally motivated and finally finished painting our upstairs bathroom. I finished the walls and then painted the cabinets white. I still have some things that I would like to do in there, paint the baseboards, redo the flooring, make a new fabric shower curtain, replace the hinges throughout, however we have some other things that we need to get done around the house ASAP, so those might wait a bit. We'll see. I will, however, get the handles on the drawers soon, we have them, we just had to get some longer screws as the ones that came with the handles weren't long enough. No biggie!

More Than Just a Trip to the Fabric Store

On Wednesday Eli and I ran to JoAnn Fabric to get some fabric for my cousin's new baby. While we were there we ran into our own little piece of excitement(?).

It all started as I was pulling some fleece off the shelf. The fabric was stuffed in so tighly, it was quite difficult to pull it out. Apparently, as I was pulling it, the top of the bolt must have caught on their signage that extends the length of the wall. There wasn't much space between the top of the bolts of fabric and the sign-apparently! The entire sign crashed to the floor, nailing me on the top of the head, and bounced down Eli's back! I'm not sure how long the sign truly was, but it was pretty long, at least 10 feet and the crash was not quiet. It was pretty loud. If any of the employees missed the banging coming from where we were, Eli's reaction sure wasn't something one could miss. He rarely screams or cries that hard, but I had to work to calm him down. If you know our Eli, he is so easy going and moves on quickly. Not this time. At no point did anyone come over to see what was going on or why there was such a ruckus where we were. I finally got the other bolts of fabric pushed back in and went LOOKING for an employee to pick up their sign - it wasn't my responsibility to do so. As Eli and I were looking for someone, I kept checking the top of my head because it felt like I was bleeding, thankfully I wasn't. Upon finding an employee, it took a while before she actually acknoledged me and when I told her what had happened she, and the other gal who was near her, simply responded with "Oh. Huh. Ok. Where was that again?" Not once was I asked if either one of us was hurt. They stayed right where they were and continued what they were doing. We walked back to the fleece section and got the fabric we needed, as this was the only place I knew had what we were looking for and I had a coupon to use. We headed back to the cutting counter, where we reported the whole incident in the first place. FINALLY the gal I reported it to moseyed over and looked where I walk talking about and came back with the sign. Since nothing was said to us up to this point, I thought maybe they would ask if either one of us had gotten hurt, still nothing! I couldn't believe it. When I got home, I looked up their corporate office number and called to report the incident. Not because Eli and I got hurt, but because there was so little concern on the employees behalf. Something much more serious could have happened and having worked in a retail store, there are protocols that should have been followed, or at least ask if we were ok! Today's day in age, too many people are sue happy, I would like to think they'd like to cover their behinds just in case. Apparently I have the wrong idea.

2 days later, I still have a small bump on the top of my head and it is still quite sore to the touch. Eli has one long and one short bruise down the back of his shoulder (yesterday it was 3 distinct bruises down his back, but today the top two have combined making one long one).

I am still amazed we didn't even get a simple "are you ok?" Is that too much to ask?


On a side note, Eli and I made banana bread today! It is so yummy! I don't think I've made banana bread since well before Jess and I got married. Maybe I'll have to do this more often!