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This marks one year of living in Seattle.  As I type this outside on our back deck basking in warm sunshibe, I am reminded of how blessed we have been with a sunny and hot summer.  This weather is, of course, not “normal” for here, so I am enjoying it to the fullest.  I am also feeling blessed that we are happy in our house, and that we have a wonderful huge deck to enjoy the sun.  We are fortunate.  My sister and Zack came up on Tuesday to enjoy one last summer visit before school starts.  These last-minute-hop-in-the-car visits wouldn’t be possible if we hadn’t moved to Seattle.  And speaking of hop in the car visits, Ben promises to come up in a couple of weeks also, but first he has a 2 week consulting job in Sourthern Oregon.  That is a  big blessing!
Really, when it comes down to it, the only real downer about living out here is that we are short on grandparents.  Four of them, to be exact.  It is a major undertaking to fly all the way across the US to visit.  I wish they could be in the kids’ lives more regularly.  Coming back to Seattle after seeing both sets of grandparents in Dayton was a downer.  We have made new friends but no one can stand in for the grandparents.  They are just away.  This is what weighs heavily upon me.
We, as a family of 5, are thriving though.  The big draw to this job was that Chris would not have to travel, and having him home every night at dinner and every weekend for the whole weekend is so valuable.  Harry LOVES his Daddy and of course the girls do too, but I always feel like it’s especially important for a boy to have his Dad around.  I know lots of families get along ok while the dad travels, but it’s tough. 

So, Chris’ sister-in-law, Maggie, has a family blog and had the good idea to have her blog made into a book.  I am going to copy her idea, have my first year made into a book (psedu scrapbook) and I will write about our second year in Seattle at this web address 

http://seattlebrowders.wordpress.com

We returned from Ohio a week ago.  I would be lying if I said we had a great trip.  But, there were great memories from the trip.  I’ll start with those.  My nephew Zack was obsessed with bugs.  He taught Harry the real word for bugs:  ”zzzst”.  Whenever you want to look for bugs or if you spot a bug, you make that noise and everyone understands.  While “zzzsts” can refer to bees, or other typical buzzing bugs, it can also mean ant, or pill bug.  No matter.  It’s all good.

One night my mom and dad took the girls to Chucky (or is it Chuck E) Cheese with my mom’s co-worker Casey and his wife, Teresa.  Casey and the girls have a special relationship.  He is like an adoring uncle and they would spend all week with him if they could.  He showers them with attention and they turn on the charm.  I didn’t go to Chucky Cheese, but listening to my mom talk about their night out sure was fun.  I’m so glad they got that special time together, without me to spoil the fun.  Let’s face it, sometimes parents are a real drag.

The weather in Dayton allowed us to take full advantage of my parents’ newly rennovated pool.  We spent hours and hours in the back yard, with the boys padding around looking for zzzsts and the girls swimming happily.  We had raft races, swimming races, even an hour of  leisurely floating and reading.  The backyard pool is always a highlight in the summer.  To be able to wake up, walk out the back door and into the pool is really something else.

We got to see lots of people while we were home.  My aunt was able to come for a few days at the beginning of our trip, and Chris parents, his sister in law and his 2 nephews were also in town.  I saw 3 high school friends one evening–we met for dessert at Cheesecake Factory for a few hours.  

Then there was my trip to Cleveland.  Not long ago I read a book called The Lonely American:  Drifting Apart in the 21st Century.  Before reading this book, I had been waffling about whether or not I really wanted to make the trek up to Cleveland with the 3 kids by myself.   I knew it would be fun to see everyone, but I wasn’t totally sold on the idea for several reasons.  After I finished the book, I was reminded of how important those face -to- face connections are.  No matter how often you email, or even talk on the phone, nothing can replace actually seeing and spending time with someone.  So,  I decided that if my Cleveland friends were really important to me, I needed to go.  SO, we went.  And that’s when the disaster hit.

We arrived Tues night and added chaos to craziness at my friend Elizabeth’s house.  She was hosting a “hair” party where everyone was getting haircuts and color while the  kids ran around getting into things.  We did eat really good food though.  Wed. we woke up to a gorgeous morning and went to the park so the kids  could play.  We had a late lunch, we hung out in the back yard, we visited.  It was good.  Thurs. morning I went to my old gym and got to attend my friend Tonya’s spin class.  I had been looking forward to seeing her and taking her spin class since last year, no joke.  She is an amazing motivator, and an inspiration.  Her son Hunter was born not long after Harry, and she looks strong and lean after just 6 months post baby.

Anyway, I’m glad I got to enjoy that morning, because what waited for me afterwards was 2 long weeks of sickness.  Camille got sick that morning and we had to cancel the 2nd half of our Cleveland visit.  All of our playgroup (7 moms and their 19 kids) had planned to get together at a park, and all of the moms had planned a special night out, kid free.  BUT, we had to drive immediately back to my parents’ because no one wanted a barfing Camille (cute as she is).   No one, except my sweet parents, that is.  

God bless my poor parents.  Camille got sick unexpectedly on (or I should say “all over:) their couch, and their rug.  And then again in the bedroom, and near the toilet in the bathroom, etc.   The loads of laundry  associated with having company without sick guests is a lot, but my mom must have done 25 loads before she even started on everyone else’s bed sheets and towels.  They were concerned, nurturing, great thermometer readers, and I wouldn’t have wanted sick kids at anyone else’s house but theirs.  If you have to be sick away from home, Gigi and Pop Pop’s is the place.  It helps that they are a nurse and doctor by trade:)  

Elyse got sick the morning after Camille.  Camille’s fever got up to 104 1/2.  She was a fireball.  Elyse slept a lot.  It was sad to see them lying around when there was so much fun to be had.  But they were up for nothing  Friday, Saturday, Sunday all wasted.  By Monday they were fever free, but we wanted them to have a day of laying low.  Tues night was Chucky Cheese and they were feelin’ alright.  Wed. Camille’s fever returned.  So did the upchucks. 

We finally broke down and took her to urgent care Thurs morning before I was to fly home solo with the kids.  That kind Dr. said she’d be fine to fly home.  Probably just a lingering bug. 
YEAH, except it just kept coming back!!  And she molted.  As in, HER SKIN IS FALLING OFF!!  She made the weary trip on the airplane (God bless her little warn out body) and rested a lot over the weekend (as did I) and the fever returned again Monday.  That’s it, I decided.  I took her to our pediatrician here and lo and behold she had scarlet fever (which is strep with a rash).  I also had been feeling not so hot.  I wasn’t sure if I was having ”sympathy flu” or if I was a hypochondriac or not, but as it turns out, my 24 hour strep test was positive as well.  Long story short ( or long in this case), my parents got sick, Andy (Zzzst’s Dad) got sick, Bitsy got a touch of it, and we have been to the doctors and the pharmacists 7 times in 8 days.  Chris went to bed early tonight complaining of a sore throat and heachache (hello—the whole family will be on antibiotics soon) and my mom is getting a thoat culture tomorrow too.  And remember my dear friend Elizabeth, who was TOO important to me not to visit…she has strep, her kids got the throw ups, and so did her mom who was visiting at the time.  SSSSOOOOOOOOO, next time I offer to visit you, you might want to think twice.  We just may be a little too generous in our “sharing”.

We have arrived

Wow.  We made it safe and sound around midnight on Thurs night and all bags arrived as well.  We were only about 20 min. late.  Luckily the kids were amazingly good.  Couldn’t have asked for a better 2 flights with them.  The only thing that really bothered me on the flight was the fact that there were tv screens on the back of every seat flashing images at you constantly trying to lure you in to paying the $6 to get access to unlimited tv and 24 different channels.  OR, for a mere $8 you could also get movies.  Call me old fashioned, but do we REALLY have to have access to tv ALL the time?  Can’t we be up in the air for 2 hours and 20 minutes and survive with just a book, or some markers and crayons.  I was a bit offended that my 15 month old baby had to have tv images right in front of his face.  Grr.  Can’t I turn this thing off?  Apparently not.  I pride myself on the fact that Harry hasn’t watched tv, nor is he interested in it.  But geez, I’d like to have just thrown a blanket over the screen because the images are very distracting.
Anyway, we are here in Dayton, had a good day of sunny weather yesterday, and today promised the same (well, at least it’s sunny right now).  We are looking forward to seeing everyone and enjoying Ohio:)

Promise delivered

For 7 summers we lived in Fairview Park, a pool-less community.  We would go down to Dayton for our pool fix when we could, or hope to be invited to someone else’s neighborhood pool.  Right about the time that Fairview finished their new community center complete with (at least) an indoor pool, Chris took the new job with Amazon in Seattle.  The girls and I were bummed.  Just when we were finally going to have a pool to go to…
SO, when talked about moving, we promised the kids that wherever we moved, we would find a neighborhood with a pool.  Well, community/neighborhood pools as I knew them are few and far between in Bellevue.  I grew up in Oakwood where the community pool was 2 blocks away, and very reasonably priced.  Here, they have “swim clubs”.  You can’t just pay on a per visit basis you have to be a member.  You have to drive there, and they aren’t nearly as reasonably priced as a community pool.  As with pretty much everything here, I struggle with sticker shock.  The club costs were too much for me to swallow.  I figured this summer we’d see how many days were actually “pool-worthy” and how much we got invited to other people’s pools.  Plus, I knew we were going to go to Dayton for 2 weeks of the summer.  Who needs a pool membership??  Well, it turned out the number of pool worthy days were more than I thought.  We finally broke down this weekend.
We are now official members of the Samena Swim Club.  We bit the bullet, spent the money for the yr. round membership (the only option since they don’t do “summer” memberships) and we have spent the last 3 days enjoying our new swim club.   Hopefully we will be able to enjoy it all year.  They have an indoor and outdoor pool, as well as small fitness room where Chris can work out, limited group classes and a preschool, where all the kids swim daily at the end of school.  I’m told that lots of Eastgaters (our elementary school) are members, so hopefully we’ll get to know even more people.
The girls have another week of swim classes and we’re thinking that Camille may be able to pass the deep end swim test by next week.  This involves treading water for 1 minute.  swimming the length of the pool, and jumping off the side, swimming to the ropes and then back to the wall.  If she can do this, then she can go off the board in the deep end.  The diving board is her motivation.  Elyse is doing well in swimming class as well.  Both girls moved from level 2 to level 3, but Camille really wants to go off the diving board.  Elyse is not super interested in that.  (She is interested in doing it in Gigi & Pop Pop’s pool though.)  Elyse may have found a different passion though.  While my brother was here, he made use of the ball pit balls and plastic piping that was supposed to be used for a soccer goal (but was just strewn about the back yard) and made a faux baseball game.  Elyse had excellent hand eye coordination.  Softball maybe??  She loved smacking the ball with the “bat”.  Sadly, this was not something I ever even thought to do with her.  But, I am trying to teach the girls to knit.  This seems like a good quiet activity to do since Elyse has some sort of stomach bug.  How she got it, I don’t know.  No one we know has a stomach bug…probably picked it up from that nice pool club membership, right??

Toddlers and Hoopers

If Chris and I could manage to work together, this text would be mixed into the videos below.  BUT, patience has never been a strength of his (or mine) and so he did his part and now I will do mine.  So the videos of the girls hooping are really for my Grandma.  She wanted to see video of them “playing” but I had trouble capturing that on camera today.  When they were playing, I was not able to video.  Camille did dress up her small bunny (which at one point was attached to her blanket) in a straw sun hat tied around her neck, Barbie halter top, pants, and a bow tied around her ear.  I wanted to take a photo, but by the time I got around to it, bunny had already changed out of the getup for bed time.  Sorry.
The video of Harry toddling around is my favorite.  In the past few days, Harry has moved from occasionally walking to get from point A to point B to almost always walking.  He truly looks like a drunk little man.  He did before in the videos of 1st steps, but the difference now is that he actually manages to catch himself before he falls, and then keeps going.  But he definitely looks like he has had a few too many drinks when he staggers around.  Chris’ parents got me a singing birthday card with the chicken dance song.  The message inside says “don’t even try to look dignified”.  It’s a good one.  Harry and the girls love to dance around to that and at one point Harry was dancing and hopping across the floor on his knees.  Camera was not handy at the time sadly. 
My neighbor said the other day that Harry sees himself as a big kid like his sisters.  It is true.  One day this week I pushed Harry on one of those tricycles with a handle to our neighborhood park.  Elyse walked, and Camille rode her bike.  On the way home, Camille’s legs gave out and she wanted to walk.  Harry was walking at that point too but I couldn’t manage to hold his hand, push the trike and walk Camille’s bike simultaneously (imagine that!!–what kind of a wimp am I?).  As it turned out, I didn’t need to.  Harry wanted to ride Camille’s 2 wheeler, no joke.  And Elyse and Camille took turns pushing the trike.  Harry was extremely proud of himself riding the big kid bike.  Never mind that it was pink. 
While my sister was here we took the kids to the craft store.  Harry had been interested in drawing and so we got him toddler crayons in the shape of a ball that his fists can hold onto.  They say they’re for ages 18 months+ but we all know he’s artistically ” gifted”.  I mean, did you see the fingerpainting video in a previous post??   But…NOPE.  He doesn’t want the “baby” crayons.  He wants the markers, with caps he can take on off and put on.  Well, not so much with the “on” part, just mostly off.  An then leave them hiding under furniture to eventually dry out.
To help me celebrate my 35th b-day, my neighbor Jennifer took me and her sister (whose b-day is also the 15th) to dinner in Seattle on Tues night.  I had a good time looking at the characters walking the streets of Capitol Hill.  It’s a colorful neighborhood, to say the least.  I can’t wait to go there again.  I want a seat by the window so I can people watch.
Chris has been working from home lately because of construction on I-90.  He worked from home yesterday and was able to take a 2 hr. “lunch” so that we could go for a bike ride.  We rode to Mercer Island.  It was fun because we could actually have a conversation  while we rode the island.  We don’t get to talk as much as we’d like.  It was also nice to do that kind of thing in the middle of the week.  The weather was hot and sunny, just how I ordered it.  My brother arrived in time for guacamole and chips on the deck and then dinner on our new outdoor dining set.  It was one of my best birthdays in a long time.  Having a babysitter for those 2 hours was a good call on my part.
It is hard to believe that 2 weeks from today we will be in Dayton.  I look forward to it, but feel sad that the summer is going at lightening speed.  I need summer to be 2x as long as it is–we have only just begun!!

Video Help

Here are some videos Emily wanted to post.

Photos uploaded

http://picasaweb.google.com/chris.browder/LateJuneEarlyJuly#

Beware.  Chris took 99% of these pictures.  I love Chris, but he takes TOO many pictures without people.  I like people in my pictures.  Many of these are BORING.  Just a heads up.  On the other hand, there are some cute ones of the kids.  I know you have to take lots  pictures to actually have one good one, but still, there are about one hundred that we could safely delete if only there was an easy way to delete large groups of pictures on Picassa.  But I do not know how.  And, upon reflection, many of you would probably say the same about the verboseness (is that even a word?) of my blogs.  Probably we could delete about 90% of the words and it would be better.  Anyhoo, the pictures are uploaded.  I’ll leave it at that and head to bed.

We have been blessed with lots of company the past couple of weeks.  Bits, Andy and Zack came the last weekend in June, and then Bits & Zack stayed for the week.  My cousin Kate, who lives in Istanbul, joined us mid-week and stayed until Sunday, and on Friday my friend Kerrian from Baltimore arrived for the long 4th of July weekend.  It was so much fun having everyone, but we were too busy enjoying each other’s company to catch up on the blog.
We went to several beaches beacase we had really warm weather.  Plus it was an activity that everyone could enjoy (kids and adults).  Friday we spent the day in Seattle doing touristy things like walking around the Pikes Place Market, and the space needle, and tons of walking.  Then Chris took the kids home for dinner and Kerrian, Kate, her friend Liz, and I went out for a drink and then dinner in Capitol Hill at a Thai place.  It was so fun for me to be foot loose and fancy free. 
On the 4th, we couldn’t actually go to fire works because Harry would need to go to bed, so after a late dinner Chris took the girls (big and small) around the neighborhood in search of some fire works in the distance.  I stayed back with Harry and caught up on some kitchen duty.  Kerrian and Kate and I got to do some good hiking/walking through the neighborhood, and so I’m not sure how much they enjoyed doing it again, but they were sports about it.  
After 10 days of gorgeous weather, this week has been cool and gray.   This week the girls have swimming lessons every morning from 9:45 to 10:30.  They are really tired from all of this, so our afternoons have been low key.  Today they are watching Mary Poppins.  It’s nice to have down time.  Chris is in Minneapolis this week, but I”ll try to get the rest of the pictures on picassa for viewing.

Fun, on a budget

I just got home from a walk.  I was having  a very nice walk until a too large cat walked across the street.  It was a cougar.  I was slightly afraid.  I wasn’t sure what to do when it looked at me so I ducked behind a truck.  I waited and I’m not sure where it went, but I turned around and walked the opposite direction.  Geez, I’m glad it wasn’t dark out.  I might have been scarred for life.

So I made a huge mistake this morning.  We had to drive Elyse to school today because we all slept in and she missed the bus.  SO, since we were all in the car I decided to run to Lowes and get Camille’s replacement window screen.  We got the screen and then I had a last minute thought that I should run into Costco quickly to get baby wipes.  OK, you can NEVER go quickly into anywhere with a 1  yr old and 5 yr old, and especially not to Costco.   That’s like saying I’ll just eat one potato chip.  Remember my last attempt to go to Costco with the kids?  Nightmare.  This visit, no better.  Since we are expecting house guests this weekend I couldn’t help but feel obligated to also get some extra food too, and we were low on diapers…so hundred dollars later, we are ready to leave the store when I realize we absolutely HAVE to get more laundry detergent (or risk all of us breaking out in a skin rash again from the toxic powder Chris got last time).  Where is the laundry detergent??  In the absolute BACK of the enormous store of course.  This is why I should NOT go to Costco, ever.  Too big.  So  I abandoned my cart near the front and run back carrying Harry in my arms.  Dumb idea #2.  I have to carry Harry in one arm and the laundry detergent in the other.  My biceps are fairly strong in a static hold position from Harry, but trying to carry 20 lbs of  Tide in one arm and a flailing toddler in the other is not easy.

SO we get through the checkout and unload the groceries into the car only to realize that somewhere in the store Harry has lost a shoe.  YEP.  We have to go back into the place where we were just going to QUICKLY run in and search the entire store for a stupid shoe.  UGH.  One hour later, we finally leave the store, one shoe lost, and really grouchy.  Good thing we got cookies at Costco.  Cookies, and chocolate make everything  better.

That’s ok I figure.  We can have a good afternoon instead.  The girls have been wanting to go to a kids’ yoga class for a while now.  After much research and calling around I found a Wed. class at 4:30 in Issaquah (one suburb over).   We load everybody up and the girls are so excited to try yoga.  They even have their yoga pants and shirts.  I thought I knew where the Yoga Barn was, but I got anxious and turn ed too soon.  I then ran into a shop and asked where it was.  They directed me to a yoga studio a block away, but it was the wrong one.  So I asked in a toy shop, they told me another one around the corner, but it was Hot Yoga so I  gave up (it was 20 minutes into the class anyway) and drove back home.  Turns out, who needs yoga.  Wait till you see what the girls did instead…