Back home again!

Well everyone! We're back home again. We arrived back home on Sunday night and Grandma was there to pick us all up! Thanks Mom, we sure do appreciate all the help you have been over this past few months! We love you so much!! Even if Jakey calls you "Grammy"!!! LOL

The trip was fantastic. The second week was just as cool and exciting as the first. We did go to everything I told you we'd do, with the exception of Mt. Rainier...we were recommended that perhaps we skip that, as they had a really bad storm there with a bunch of flooding and there was roads closed all over the place still...so we just decided to skip it! It wouldn't have been that interesting for the boys anyway...so instead we spent time at Snoqualmie Falls and up in North Bend (the town where the show "Twin Peaks" was based from.)

We really did have a fantastic time! I know the boys really miss Todd even more now since we spent so much time with him. I certainly do! I honestly can not wait for all this to be over with. I'm so proud of Todd for doing what he did with his dedication to this program and I'm thrilled that he continues to further his education and his career! I can just honestly say...I hope we never have to spend that much time apart again in the near future! It's too hard on all of us! In the end, it was worth it for sure, but I'll be honest and say, I'm thrilled he's home in 2 weeks!!! LOL

Well...I'm going to fish through some pictures over the next little while...I'll post more from our trip shortly! Just wanted to let you all know we were home safely!

Lots of Love:
Kim (& the boys)
xxoo

P.S. Lukey learned how to crawl this week btw!!! Real crawling!! It's way too cute!!!

We are having a BLAST!!!

This is Pike's Market, this is where the Flying Fish were. This man is from the US Coast Guard, he was at the Science Museum and he was teaching the boys how to survive if they fell in the cold waters of the Artic! (cuz they might need to know that! LOL)
Welcome to my favourite part of the Science Center...the Grossology Exibit! It was hysterical watching these boys go nuts over all the "gross" things the body does! They certainly did a great job with this display! The boys learned so much! Very cute and even more funny!
We all stood inside this guy's nose, we tickled the sides and he "sneezed" us out! (you could actually feel the air blowing you out!)
These are my three little toots! In this experiment you could make different sounds of toots! Kinda funny, but way gross!
The two boys "built" a house together with plastic walls and nuts and bolts at the Children's Museum!
This was the boys at Pike's in the Turkish Delight Store! Luke and I in the "Fun Forest" at the base of the Space Needle.
Daddy and Luke in the Dinosaur section of the Science Center.


All three boys had me paint their faces at the Children's Museum. Jake was a pirate and the guy working there also made him a felt eye patch to go with it. Luke barely "allowed" me to paint an animal face on him, and Joshua, for the very first time allowed me to paint his face and arms with a space theme. He had a whole solar system up and down his arms and astronauts on his face.


Jake, the pirate on his ship and Joshua rock climbing at the Children's Museum.

The rest of these pics are all from the Children's Museum. They had such a good time there. We spent hours there!

Hi Everyone:

I know I said I'd update lots, but apparently I didn't account for the fact that I'd be this darn busy all the time! Sorry about that! However, we've been busy, busy, busy! We're having a great time!

So far we have been to: The Experience Music Project (a place that is a museum dedicated to music, mostly pop/rock, based on Jimmy Hendrix, lots of guitars and such, but the big draw to this museum is the Sound Lab the kids got to play in. They played real guitars, drums, keyboards and even "mixed" their own songs. They enjoyed it.), Pike's Public Market (wow, that place is huge and absolutely amazing! We have been there twice now and didn't expect to love it quite this much! Josh was very happy because he got some fresh made Turkish Delight there! We discovered a new bakery delicacy there as well...Piroshkys...man those are amazing! Yummy! Not to mention the flying fish! Man, we wish you were here to see that Nan and Papa, it was so cool!), the Sci-Fi Museum (which I lovingly nick named "Geeks-R-Us"....Todd and Josh really liked this one, lots of Star Trek and Star Wars...Jakey liked the very few ET things he saw.), the Space Needle was very cool too (seems so small when you compare it to the CN tower, 1/3 it's height), the Children's Museum (this was waaaayyy too cute! We spent over 5 hours there! It was the best, the kids painted their faces, played imagination in the travelling Bob the Builder section, and travelled from country to country exploring all the differences in the different places, it was way cute! We really enjoyed this visit!), we have also been to the carnival called "Fun Forest" downtown (there are rides there and everything you'd seen in a typical carnival type place).

We have one week left until we are back home and back to school. The agenda has a tonne of things on it still like: a boat tour of Elliot Bay, the Woodland Zoo, the Seattle Aquarium, the Museum of Flight, Snoqualmie Falls and Mt. Rainier as well. Lots and lots to do. So much more than I ever expected Seattle would have to offer! It's been a great vacation so far and I'm sure we'll love the rest too!

The boys all say Hi to everyone and miss you all! Hope you are all enjoying your March Break (if you are getting one of course!)

Love you all!

Kim and the boys

xxoo

Well...we're here in Seattle!

What an amazing place to visit! The rolling terrain is absolutely amazing and so neat to see! Way for different that what we're used to at home! Way off in the distance you can see the majestic mountain ranges....way to beautiful! Thank you God for such an amazing creation!

Well...we're on day #3 now....the airplane ride here was good for the most part. The two older boys were on their very best behaviour (and thank God, because I was sure either Grandma or I were going to have to kill them the couple days leading up to the trip! LOL) Luke did well on the trip as well...fell asleep as we took off and slept about a 1/2 hour and then later in the flight (total 5 hours) he slept another 1 1/2hrs. I was so glad! The only two "not great" things were really minor really....he decided to be Sir "poops" a-lot and that is always an adventure to change a baby in a tiny airplane stall....brings a whole NEW meaning to joining the MILE HIGH Club!!! LOL Then I had to apologize to a few of our fellow passengers because my darling sweet baby decided to become a baby terradactyl during the flight! They were happy noises....they just broke the sound barrier of all human beings! I'm sure many of us will be scheduling hearing tests this coming week to see if these "lovely" squeals did any serious damage! LOL

We arrived right on time on Friday and Todd was there waiting for his family! I seriously question who was more excited to see who??? We quickly gathered our 7 pieces of luggage (ok...sounds worse than it was...two were car seats and two were the boys "special" small kiddie suitcases...wasn't that bad really!) and we went off to rent the van.....the only unknown part to that was that we needed to load ourselves AND all our luggage/stroller/car seats/kids and travel a distance on a shuttle offsite and get our van. Great news was that we got a brand new Chrysler with the stowngo seating and that leaves us with lots of room for all this crap! LOL (I can hear Catherine saying now .... "purge....purge..." Yes...YOU ARE RIGHT!!! lol)

Todd took us for a lovely tour of the area...and over to his office and then eventually over to the apartment. Wow...what a beautiful place to stay...I'll post pictures soon. It's a 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom, fully furnished and lovely apartment...only about 2 blocks from downtown Bellevue! It is within walking distance of everywhere! It's great!

So Todd surprised me on arrival day with a lovely little birthday dinner...we had flank steak, I just loved it! It was great! He even baked me a chocolate birthday cake! I really appreciated that! He had the boys sign a b'day card for me and they bought me some of my favourite bath products (I'm very excited about these) and they also surprised me with an iPod Shuffle...what was really funny was when we had gone to the mall...they had an Apple Store and I went in and said "You know, some day, I'd love to get one of these little ones!" Low and behold...it was already waiting for me at home! Anyway...we had a lovely supper and then the night ended very early at 8pm with the boys and I totally conking out! LOL We were done!!!

The next day Jakey woke us all up (except Todd of course...a train through the bedroom can't do that! LOL) at 4:30am!!! Yikeso....we'll were pretty much ready for lunch by the time Todd got up and he only got up at 9am! LOL Anyway....I was surprised with a wonderful trip to the Eastside Oasis Spa for a therapeutic/massage pedicure! It was lovely....very different...but lovely! It was a little Vietnamese lady..very nice...but man..those pedis just are not the same there as at home! I got "beat up!" LOL The good kind really...it was nice! Now I have bright blue toenails and happy feet again!

So then they all picked me up after that and we headed downtown Seattle! We were in search of an interactive museum called "The Experience Music Project" (EMP) It was very cool...the boys were able to play guitars, drums and keyboards...they even were able to "mix" their own songs...they had a Disney special exibit going on and that was very cool too exploring sound effects behind the cartoons and listening to how they wrote certain popular pieces to some of the current popular Disney movies! The boys truly had a great time!

Then we walked around a bit scoping things out...there is a lovely carnival called "Fun Forest" right downtown...the boys are very excited about that...they have bumper cars, a huge ferris wheel, and many other very cute little rides. We'll probably go down and do that some day that Daddy is working. It looked very cool!

So then today...it's day 3, we went down to the Pike Market Place...WOW...THAT'S ONE AMAZING PLACE!!! It's like nothing I've ever seen before! The market is just HUGE! There is a little diner in there that Tom Hanks filmed a scene from Sleepless in Seattle in and we took pics of that...we found amazing shops and artists and really had a lovely time. The boy's favourite part was the "Flying Fish" part...they were way too cool! The workers all Hoop and Hollar and make a big production out of someone buying a fish and then they throw the darn thing way across the marketplace....it was way cool! Mommy's LEAST favourite part was the big "Gum Wall"!!! It was just absolutely DISGUSTING! Apparently it's an 'attraction' of sorts...down an alley beside the market (part of the market) there is a wall where all sorts of people have stuck their chewed up gum on the wall...they have even in some circumstances made letters and shapes with it! Probably the most disgusting thing I've even witnessed! Yucko! However, my sick little boys thought it was way cool! LOL

Well that brings us to tonight where Todd and I are just sitting to have dinner and I'm sure I'll keep you posted on our crazy explorations each day! Hope you all had a great weekend as well!
Love ya all!