Golden Oak Leaves

I think autumn arrived early this year. A couple of oak leaves fell on my shoulders this afternoon.

Scenic Railroad

The train excitement continues...we took a ride on the Mt Rainier Scenic Railroad this afternoon. We convinced Claire that our engine was a friend of Thomas' (she actually said we were riding on Percy), and Thomas was off doing other work. The whole family enjoyed the ride. The scenic portion definitely reminded us that we were in the Pacific Northwest--it rained nearly the whole way and the mountains (especially Mt Rainier) were hidden in the misty clouds.

The "Brawny Beetle" was a real live steam locomotive -- it was neat to see and hear one in action. As we started up the hill and across the trestle you see in the video, he was putting out a lot of steam, noise and soot that came showering back down on the open air crowd!

Look at our big girl!

Claire's tricycle (or try-sa-cycle, if you ask Claire) finally arrived yesterday evening. We pulled it out last night and had it waiting at the bottom of the stairs for Claire this morning. She was pretty excited to see it, and spent half of the morning trying to ride it inside the house. The traction's not so good on the solid surfaces inside and she couldn't pedal on the carpet, so I took her outside as soon as Maddie laid down for her nap. Boy did she have fun! She started out timidly, but was soon tearing up the asphalt (concrete?) on the sidewalk. She barely noticed that it was misting and about 55 degrees outside (though I sure noticed!). I hope the sun comes back, because it looks like I'm going to spend the next week outside, watching her ride her new trike!

still singing

Just wanted to add that I'm still singing in my head
"They're two they're four they're six they're eight,
Shunting trucks and hauling freight,
Red and green and brown and blue,
They're the really useful crew,
All with different roles to play,
Round Tidmouth Sheds or far away,
Down the hills and round the bends,
Thomas and his friends"

Ack!

Thomas!

OK, Western Washington experiences a lot of rain throughout the year. A LOT of rain. But every July the clouds part, the sun comes out, and the sky is a beautiful shade of blue for the entire summer. The temperature hovers around 80 or so. It's absolutely perfect. Unless, of course, you have purchased tickets to go to Day Out with Thomas where most of the activities are outside. Oh well, at least we all own rain gear.

We met up with several of our friends and braved the weather and Thomas together. Boy did the kids have fun! I even got a little caught up in the Thomas excitement and bought each of the girls a wooden train engine for the train table they don't have. Claire didn't let go of her new Thomas engine until bedtime tonight.

Afterwards I just had to stop by Ikea since we were already so close, so we didn't start heading home until around 2:45pm. Since today is Friday the traffic was absolutely horrific. We got drive-thru food for dinner (looks like I'm cooking from scratch this weekend to make up for all of this fast food this week!) and STILL didn't get home until 6:33pm. But it was evidently worth it because Claire asked to watch a Thomas video as soon as we walked in the door! There are some marketing geniuses working for Thomas...

EEEEEK!

OK, I just let the dog out for his nightly business and when I opened the back door I nearly screamed. This is what was right outside my door:








This must be one of the buggers who has mistaken my dahlias for the local all-you-can-eat buffet.

I would like to say I set him straight and introduced him to the joys of salt, but I was too afraid he might retaliate and bite me or something. Bailey jumped around him and Mr. Huge Slug continued along his slimy route. Man they grow 'em big up here.

Daylilies are in bloom here too

We missed out on the annual sale at Grandma's farm but my yard looks pretty nice too, thanks to Mom and Aunt Cindy, who have stocked me with lots lovely flowers.

We had a laid-back day here today. Had to run some brownies over to the squadron for the Turkish Air Force (lots of foreigners in town for an Air Force competition) then we watched the airplanes circle around while eating Burger King on-base. Claire was in heaven. She loves fast food and airplanes and there was plenty of both. When I asked her what she wanted for dinner tonight she told me, "Brownies." I like junk food, but even I'm not THAT bad (really Phil, I swear she had carrots on her plate tonight and we did not have brownies as a main course)!

Maddie added another word to her vocabulary today. She now says "Baby Doll". To the untrained ear it might sound more like "Day-Dah" but she only says it when she's holding a baby (or poking it's eyes) so I'm giving her credit for it. I can't believe she's old enough to start trying to say words. This latest word joins Mama, Dada, dog, uh-oh, and no-no-no.

Look who stopped in today!

We were excited to see some family again today! This time it was Uncle Den, Aunt Jude, Grandma Shea, and Aunt Marilyn for a quick visit. Once again, Claire managed to get a few books read to her and Maddie managed to get everybody to hold her. These girls sure do love seeing family!

How's Christmas in Oklahoma Sound?

It's official -- we should be there by mid-December. No orders, but confirmation from the boss. That means wedding with the bro, birthdays with the girls, Thanksgiving on the move and Christmas with boxes again!

Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes

Today at BabyGym Maddie impressed the crowd by performing the Head, Shoulder, Knees and Toes dance. She crawled right into the middle of the circle and did her moves for everyone to see. You could tell she was pretty proud of herself. She's not quite coordinated enough to really do it, but she definitely makes an effort now every time she hears the song. I tested her out during lunch today and she was still into it:


Yes, that may just look like a baby smacking her own head to most of you but trust me, she's dancing. Claire likes to sing the words for her while Maddie does the motions (or motion). They're pretty funny.

A Walk Down Tumwater Falls

The weather this weekend was so nice we took a little jaunt to Tumwater Falls park for an evening walk. The rhododendrons weren't blooming any more so a lot of the pretty flowers were missing, but it's always a nice walk. Claire especially enjoyed looking for fishies and running across the bridges. I got to play with some of the settings on my camera and got a couple of neat slow shutter "waterfall pics" with the salmon ladders.

Mommy's flying an airplane!

OK, I didn't actually fly the plane, but I got to ride on one of Phil's planes today while Phil played with the girls. Phil's squadron did a special flight today for the spouses. It was fun to kiss Claire goodbye and tell her that Mommy was going to fly on an airplane today!

Two of their most experienced pilots (I hope) and several loadmasters took us up and showed us what the airplane can do. We got to experience an assault landing, a combat offload (of stuff, not us!), and they opened up the back end of the plane during flight so we could see out the back while we cruised past the Space Needle and Lake Washington.

I also got to ride in the cockpit in a jump seat for awhile and take in the nice views that Phil is treated to on a regular basis. It was really an amazing experience and we had a beautiful day for it.

I was proud of myself for not getting sick during the flight -- they're a little more -ahem- aggressive with their flight maneuvers than one would experience on a commercial flight. Check out the horizon here:

Phil and the girls came to the base to meet me after the flight and we watched the next spouse flight take off from the lookout park. It was a fun day!

PS - you can click on any of the photos above to see the other photos in the album. :)

The rocket's red glare

OK, so I know we've told lots of people how crazy everyone here is with their household fireworks, but I don't think we've been able to adequately describe the scene here. I tried to take some videos so we'll see how they turned out. Be sure to turn up your sound:



As you can hear, our neighborhood sounds like a war zone. Those big fireworks were being shot off three houses down from us on our street. Here's another:


Yes folks, those videos were shot right in front of my house! This is why we don't feel bad about missing the big fireworks display downtown!


My next door neighbor had a bunch of fireworks and told me that those big ones are only about $10 a pop. Not too bad. And you can get yourself a great big finale box for about $50. Simple bottle rockets, on the other hand, are illegal because they are considered missiles. Crazy.

Happy Independence Day!

I don't think we'll make it to the fireworks display this evening, but the girls had a GREAT time celebrating Independence Day at the Tumwater parade. They both held up quite well during the motorcycles, the police cars, and the firetrucks. The very last fire truck of the parade finally got to Maddie and she whimpered for a few moments, but they both really enjoyed it most of the time. We found a nice shady spot to sit in and actually stayed for the entire parade this year - a first for us. Usually Claire starts looking pink so we bail out early. Claire especially liked the horses and the "princesses" (the Lake Fair queens). And we saw our old friend Clyde, the clydesdale:

We met Clyde last weekend when we went on a carriage ride downtown. We didn't have our camera with us (this seems to be a common problem lately) but both girls had a great time. They gave Claire a tiara to wear and she got to be a princess and wave at everyone as we rode along. Lots of fun. Clyde's a nice guy.

This afternoon we're going to Weemo's house to cookout and let the kids splash in a kiddie pool. Hopefully we'll have the kids in bed and fast asleep before our neighborhood starts with their home fireworks.

Hope you all have a fun and festive July 4th!