Weekend? What weekend?

What a whirlwind of a weekend! We were kept on our toes but had a great visit with friends and family.

On Thursday, our good friends came for dinner while they spent some time in the Pacific Northwest. We got to meet their little girl, Avery, for the first time. Eli enjoyed having someone to play with although she wasn't quite as mobile as he would have liked. The next time we all get together that will be another story!

Sweet Avery

Jess, Christel, Eli, Shannon, Avery, Rob

Shortly before they left, we welcomed Jess's brother and his family to the crowd. We got to spend the weekend with Ryan, Sarah and Brooklynn. On Thursday, Ryan and Jess played had fun competing on the Wii (yes, I participated too). Friday we went to the Seattle Aquarium and had fun looking at the fish. Eli and Brooklynn had fun getting to know each other a little more, too.

Brooklynn and Eli playing in the yard

Ryan and Jess dueling in sword fighting

Brooklynn loving Eli's bike

Eli and the otter bench

Jess, Eli, Brooklynn, and Ryn

(I love how Brooklynn is leaning into Eli)

Saturday found us at Woodland Park Zoo. We all had so much fun, couldn't believe we spent 4 1/2 hours there when we finally left. Eli has asked several times if we can do that again. Tonight as I was putting him to bed he was listing off the animals that he wants to see again (ok, probably just the ones that he could remember at the time). For the most part, they were they farm animals...and penguins! I was picture happy (is this a shocker? No, not really), and got a LOT of really good pictures so it's hard to pick just a few to post. I really need to send Ryan and Sarah a copy of what I got, there are some adorable pictures of them and Brooklynn.

Daddies and their kiddos

Eli LOVED it!

Sarah and Booklynn

Eli and those beautiful big brown eyes

The Petting Zoo!

Brooklynn has the cutest little curls!

We also had our other good friends stay with us this weekend! (I told you we were busy!) Friday through Sunday found Brandon, Lindsay and baby Jayden staying with us, too. Jayden is coming up on 12 weeks in a hurry and is as cute as a button. Auntie Christel got her to smile quite a bit and giggle a few times. What a cutie! Unfortunately, I haven't downloaded those pictures to the computer yet. Soon! And when I do, I'll post a few of her and her cute little mommy and daddy!

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!