First Day of School

Yesterday Alistair had his first day of his second year Preschool. He started off the morning with a hearty breakfast of Chicken Apple Sausage and Milk - nothing more!
He had on his new shoes and sweatshirt, backpack full of his supplies for the year and a fresh haircut. We took him to the bus stop and met his new bus driver Brenda. This year because he is 40 pounds, he gets to sit on the seat with a seatbelt instead of a carseat like last year.

We drove and met his bus at school and walked him down to his locker and classroom. He found his locker with the help of his teacher, Monica, and got his coat and backpack hung-up.

Alistair posing next to his locker. He seemed excited to be back. Obviously he knew people this year and he had also spent most of the summer playing with at least 3 of his classmates, so he was super excited to see them!

Gillian wanted in on the action too. She kept leaning against the lockers saying, "Cheese! Cheese!"

Alistair made it home on the bus with his driver Linda. One of his classmates, Ethun, rides his bus and they are seat buddies! He made sure today that I said Hi to him when I got him off the bus! (:

Moran State Park

This Labor Day weekend we did our traditional trip up to Moran State Park on Orcas Island. We went up with Carolyn and Njord. We decided to go Saturday to Tuesday to hopefully miss some of the traffic on the usual travel days. Our plan worked! (: We had decent weather Saturday and Sunday. It wasn't hot, but it was warm, as long as you stayed in the sun, and the nighttime didn't get AS cold as they predicted, but was still chilly. We went old school and took the tent. The park is pretty tight for trailers, although people do bring them. We also didn't want to have to pay the additional surcharge our pop-up would have incurred over the utility trailer we did take.
We packed lunch stuff and had ourselves a nice spread on the trip over to Orcas. Carolyn and Njord quickly found out the downside of holding a toddler eating peanut butter and jelly!

We went on a hike on Sunday. We thought we would find something shortish and hopefully something Alistair could walk most of. Wishful thinking there. After 20 minutes he was tired and wanted a ride. So we put him in the backpack Seth carried - it is rated up to 65 pounds. Poor Seth! I had Gillian in the soft-sided carrier on my back, but would have much rather carried her in the other pack! Oh well!

As we made our way up the trail, we kept thinking we were almost there. Once we got to the "top" we were sorely disappointed to find an elevation and not one view, just more trees! Oh well. The trail was pretty with lots of thistle and foxgloves. We also saw 3 or 4 deer. In the end, we ended up hiking about 7 miles! We would not recommend this hike unless you were doing it as part of the larger loop it can be part of!

Monday morning we got up to drizzle. It started raining sometime in the night and it was still doing so when we got up.

We built a fire, made coffee and hot chocolate and huddled around the fire while we planned our day. Alistair really wanted to go to the top of Mt. Constitution. So we got breakfast made, tucked everything away to keep dry and headed out.

We were the only car in the parking lot at Mt. Constitution, if you can image that! We made our way to the tower and were greeted by pelting cold rain and wind. The view was not what we were used to up there!

We got up to the top of the tower and ducked into the lookout area where it was dryish and not windy. We look like we are dressed for camping in November, not August/September!

Despite the yucky conditions, the kids still had fun!

We spent the majority of the morning and early afternoon taking a driving tour of Orcas. We took a wrong turn and ended up on Westsound instead of Deer Harbor. Nobody could take it anymore and needed to get out to stretch legs, get a snack and some fresh air. We decided to head back to Eastsound for some actual food - although the wheat bread dipped in peanut butter wasn't too shabby!

Gillian had had it! While at lunch, we kicked around the idea of leaving and found a ferry schedule to see what our options were. We walked around Eastsound after lunch and then headed back to our sites to see what was going on there. We arrived to find both our dining canopy and tarp over the trailer heavily drooping with water. Seth made the statement, "nobody is going to give us a medal for sticking it out!" We decided to pack up and make the 8:35pm ferry.

After pulling everything out of our tent, we found a nice puddle of water in the corner of the tent under the pack and play. I can only imagine how much larger it would have been the next morning after it rained all night!

The trailer also was wet and had wicked water about a foot up the boards! We packed stuff in neatly and threw a bunch of wet stuff in on top. We got the tarp all bungeed on and were off. Halfway to the ferry Alistair got sick and we had to stop to clean up the mess. Leaving the island that day ended up being a blessing in disguise!

After a good night's sleep in a dry bed, Carolyn and Njord came over for breakfast and to help get everything pulled out and dried out. It took us a few hours to get everything pulled out and hung up. We had fans running all day in the garage to aid in the drying process.

Our garage looked like an outdoor store for used equipment!

Carolyn and Njord came back over in the afternoon to get everything taken down, folded up and put away. We had dinner and toasted to the end of a fun trip despite the early departure!

Minneapolis, our second home

At the end of August, we made our annual trek to Minneapolis to visit the Sandholms. Alistair and Sully were so excited to see each other and had each been talking about the reunion since we last saw each other in January! As usual we had a blast hanging out with them and it just makes us miss them more not living around here anymore! ): We went to the Minnesota Zoo, spent some time swimming at the lake, did some sightseeing around Stillwater and hit the Minnesota State Fair. Gabe and Ranae also arranged for the kids to be sat while the four of us went out for some adult time. Having a meal without being interrupted by inane lines of questioning, cutting up food into little pieces or cleaning up messes was heavenly - not to mention getting to just hangout and chat! For a complete pictorial review of our trip, visit this link: http://picasaweb.google.com/kellyhennessey/Minnesota82010#

School friends, summer buddies

Alistair, David, Noah & Connor at Tucker Willis in Snohomish

One of the moms of one of the kids in Alistair's class at school sent out a schedule of play dates for her younger daughter's playgroups in hopes that her son's friends would come and he would have someone to play with too. Well it ended up that every Tuesday a group of at least 4-5 moms would show up and our kids would run around the park, we would all pack lunches and have a picnic and we would just hangout and chat. The boys and girls got closer as friends, Gillian now has some friends too with younger siblings of Alistair's friends and I have met some new, wonderful women that I hope will continue to be my friend well after our kids have graduated from Sorenson and go on to their own schools! It was a fun summer and I always looked forward to Tuesdays!

Paling around with David & Connor in the sandbox at St. Edwards State Park
Alistair opted out of this photo, but Gillian, Nathan, Grace, Connor and David stuck around! (:

Blueberry Picking

The second weekend in August we joined Auntie Ann and Uncle Bob in North Bend for some good old fashioned blueberry picking. We had gone last year and Alistair has brought it up numerous times since then so we felt we needed to take him again! It was a very hot morning to say the least!

Gillian rode on my back for the most part. She was mostly content there as long as I or Ann handed her blueberries to snack on. She probably ate her weight in blueberries!

Alistair did a great job picking. He hung out with Seth for the most part and probably picked 1 1/2 - 2 pounds himself!

Gillian started breaking down, no matter what I did. She was hot and wilted. I finally got her to sit under a bush in the cool shade and moisture of the remaining cool morning dew. It seemed to soothe her and I was able to sit with her and still pick - tons of berries down low as people don't like to stoop to pick! Alistair came and joined Gillian and the two of them sat there and ate berries out of the bucket while we continued to pick!

An hour and a half later we decided we were done. Seth and Alistair went to pay and brought our loot back to the car...19 1/2 pounds of blueberries! WHAT??? Let's just say if anyone asks us to bring a dessert...don't be surprised to find blueberries in it! (: