Adventures in Backyard Swimming

Eli is a total crack up.  HILARIOUS! 

The warm Western WA summer weather brings out the annual appearance of the backyard pool.  This year we had to invest in a new one as the one from las summer would no longer hold air.  Just a tad problematic for an inflatable pool. 

Anyway, Eli has spent much of today splish splashing in his pool.  While he was going down the slide, he actually asked me to get the camera.  It's a toss up how Eli responds with the camera.  On some occassions he actually requests pictures, like today.  Other days he is either puts up with me taking pictures or he'll turn away from me and let me take pictures of his back.

After these were taken, he decided he was done with his swim trunks and that he wanted to go swimming in the buff. I guess there's nothing wrong with a little backyard skinny dipping!  He really enjoyed going down the slide skin to plastic.  Man almighty, he slid down in a hurry.  We were both laughing pretty hard after a few trips down the slide.  What a goof!

JBLM Air Show

We went to the Joint Base Lewis McChord Air Show on Sunday.  Let's just say that was an amazing experience.  Eli has been enamored with jets ever since, flying around the house, playing with toy jets, looking for them in the sky.  When we got there it was overcast and pretty cool.  By the time we left, 4 hours later, the clouds had mostly burned off and it seemed like a nice summer day.

Two of the Patriot team jets 

The Patriots were by far the highlight of the day for me.

I am so glad we got a better zoom.  However, this was the first time I actually wish it was bigger yet!  LOL

The C-17 always reminds me of our good buddy Brian who is currently stationed in Afghanistan.  This one's for you buddy!  Two and a half more months until you come home.  We hope you're safe and think of you often.  XO

I'm pretty sure this was during the F-18 demonstration.  Eli liked the jets but thought they could tune down on the noise factor.

An F-18 and unknown jet (for me) 

Jess loving the demonstration, Eli was a little unsure of the noise

Checking out the cockpit of an F-18 (??)

Showing the speed capabilities, this jet broke the sound barrier for us!  It was amazing.  Of course, timing is crucial to capture.  This was the initial boom, you can see the break through.

Zoo Trip Numero Uno

Last Sunday we ventured to the Woodland Park Zoo with Jess's sister and her family, Danielle, Rob, Cameron, and Kendra.  We had such a fun time seeing all the animals and spending time together.  This is more like a scrapbook than a real blog post.  I am so addicted to taking pictures, I wanted to share some of what we captured on our outing.

I have no idea what this bird is, but it was colorful, beautiful, and turned out pretty neat.

The wonderful cousins: Cam, Kendra, and Eli.

There was someone with us who could actually take a family picture of us.  These are pretty rare as I am usually the one behind the lens. 

The new meerkat exhibit.  I think they were posing for me.

Another shot of the cousins.  This time on the Gila Monster statue.

We had the best luck and most interesting time with the bears.  Once we ventured into their covered viewing area, it was feeding time.  Eli happened to be right in front of the bear while he stuffed himself on cantaloupe, carrots and other large fruits and vegetables.  Eli had the best view in the house! 

Once we got to the Kookaburra, Danielle and I started signing the Kookaburra song of course.  Eli doesn't particularly care for Mom to sing and since he was on my shoulder during this bit of our trip, he quickly took care of the situation.  He definitely knows how to solve problems.  

We also decided we would get a seed stick and feed the birds.  Honestly, I didn't think he would be very keen on this idea, however, he loved it.  When the first little bird landed on his stick, he looked like this:

 ...then was quite interested in this flying, feathered friend.  

Nothing screams cousins and zoo than a little rodeo riding on the snow leopard statue.

I loved these little guys and wanted to bring one home as a pet.  Until they started "talking."  OH MY GOSH!  Talk about noisy and LOUD little things.  You may stay at the zoo.  Thank you very much.

Eli is enamored with his cousin Kendra.  She could say "jump!" and he would ask "how high?"  It was fun watching them all interact this weekend.  Here she's taking him to see the pygmy donkeys.

Being in the petting zoo part with the farm animals, Eli had to "drive" the tractor.  Cam and Kendra were great and jumped up there with him.

When our trip was over, it didn't take long before Eli was sawing logs in the backseat.  His last sentence before zonking out was so slow and drawn out...one word at a time.  LOL  He was like this all the way home....and then some.

The Zoo...TWICE!

We've been to Woodland Park Zoo twice in the last 6 days, quite the adventure, but Eli LOVES it.  Like his Auntie Danielle, his favorite is the bear exhibit, however it is more exciting when you actually see them.  On Sunday, we got a front row view of breakfast with the bears.  One ate right in front of Eli, the only thing separating them was the glass window.  Talk about an experience!  We have great pictures to share, but they are on the other computer, we'll have to share that experience later. 

Today we had another opportunity to visit the zoo.  Katharine, McColley, Brayton, Warren and Devon met us at the zoo this afternoon and we got to spend a few hours with them.  I know they have a very busy trip planned, so we jumped at the chance to get together with them while they're visiting the west coast.  Afterall, it won't be long until they're living in England.  Craziness...

Eli wanted to pose with the "fake cow" as he called it. 

Mac and Eli listening to different mammal heartbeats

Jess, Eli, KC, Brady and Mac watching the elephants

Me and my boy

Playing with the baby elephant statue

WOAH!  It's a snow leopard!

He reminds me so much of Brian.

Trying to feed the birds

Brady and his Grandpa Warren feeding the birds

Jess and Mr. Brady

Having fun laughing with Jess

The catch of the day: McColley!

Deep in thought

Warren and Mac

Katharine and Brayton

I'm so glad we got together today!  It was great seeing you!

Out for a walk in the field

A New Bike and Civic Duties

ELI'S NEW BIKE!

Grandma and Papa brought Eli his very own big boy bike on Saturday.  Eli LOVES it.  He has already put several miles on it riding around the block and back and forth in front of our house.  He got a name plate with his name on it (one says Eli, the other Elijah) and he wanted to put the "Eh-yi-jah" (as he pronounces his name) one on his bike, after all a bike it not complete until it has a licence plate.  Here he is carefully watching where his wheels are going pre-licences plate.

I wanted to have one picture of him smiling, but requesting this always results in his cheeseball grin.  None-the-less, I think he's still a cutie.  Oh, and yes, he does have a Hot Wheels helmet.  Our little shopper was able to find it, probably because he always has his Hot Wheel radar on and found the one that came with the free car.  And yes.  He CAN tell you exactly which car he got with his helmet.  It's the purple one.  He informed me of this today.  And no, you cannot try to supplement with a different one.  He knows.  KNOWS!

He couldn't spend all of his time on his new bike.  Liam had his car out which meant Eli had to have his out too.

When they had enough of bikes and cars, it was clearly time to go for a spin in the wagon.  Liam climbed in and Eli loved pulling him.  He didn't want to share the pulling. 

MY CIVIC DUTY

Yesterday I had my first experience of being summoned for jury duty.  I can honestly say that I wasn't exactly thrilled to go, but was still interested in the process.  Knowing of others' experience with the process, I had my laptop with me ready to work on some things for school.  Unfortunately (?) I never got the opportunity to pull anything out and get anything done.  After sitting in the initial jury room for about 15-20 minutes, a judge came and greeted us to the Kent Regional Justice Center (RJC).  He was humorous and was fun to listen to. 

After watching a few videos explaining the process, which was really hard to listen to thanks to the two total chatterboxes behind me - not a word of English either by the way, but sure loud enough, a clerk came out and said they were randomly pulling 62 names for the first group to be selected from.  I did not make that group, however not 5 minutes after this group was pulled, as second group of 18 was called.  I was part of this group.  We went upstairs to a courtroom where we were greeted by another judge, a prosecutor, two defense attorneys, and the defendant.  Our judge was hilarious.  He was always thoughtful of the "jury" and explained everything to us in detail. 

The lawyers asked questions for a while, then we were asked to go to the deliberation room while they made the final cuts.  We went from 18 to 7 (one person was the alternate, however we had no idea who this person was going to be).  After being sworn in as jurors and listening to opening statements, we were off to lunch.  After lunch we listened to the first half of the witnesses and went home around 4:30.  Today we had to report to the courthouse by 9:00 when the trial was underway again.  At this time, we finished listening to witnesses, had lunch, then had closing statements.  Again, very interesting.  At this point, we, the jury, went back to the deliberation room, were chained in (seriously, there was a chain that spans the doorway-held on by magnets so not to be a safety hazard), and came up with out verdict: Not Guilty on both counts if you cared.  The whole process was pretty interesting and I'm glad that I participated and was chosen to be on a jury.  However, those poor people who were called in the initial 62, they were still trying to "Strike the Jury" (narrow down to their 12 jurors) today when we left.  Clearly that is a much more significant trial than ours was.  I am thankful I wasn't called for that group.

As for my fellow jurors, we had a great time together.  We laughed, a LOT, and definitely made the best of this experience.  Sadly, we had a pretty new group of attorneys....and we could all tell.   They were confused during the trial, the witnesses were....well....interesting to say the least, and caused for a lot of laughing when we could finally talk about the trial.  HAHA  Once we were dismissed today, four of us went to a shoe store at Kent Station and did a little shopping.  They liked my flip flops and two of them left with matching sandals.  LOL  They are by far the most comfortable pair I have EVER had.  There was more laughing, talking, and then we parted and went our separate ways.  These last two days were quite the experience and one that I will never forget.

Oh, and because I know you want to know....

The trial that I was a juror on was for two counts of violating a No Contact Order.  We felt like we were jurors for a set of middle school kids who couldn't solve a problem on their own.  The "victim's" witnesses testimonies didn't match and the state could not prove without a reasonable doubt that the defendant wasn't following the order.  There were too many inconsistencies and through the collection of witnesses, it sure sounds like he was doing his job and following the order and that she was trying to cause problems.  Hopefully this man has learned his lesson and will no longer frequent these places, even if he had been going there since before they started dating. If you want to avoid the drama, don't go!