Archives for June 2008

Lake Chelan

The kids had an amazing time at Lake Chelan with their friends. Steve and I are exhausted. 🙂

Here are the highlights:

– The water park with slides was a hit. The kids went on all the rides they could with us, and then the beginner slides by themselves. It was a hoot to see Allison buzzing down the slide with her arms straight out and her mouth in a big smile. Allison tried everything without hesitation. Katherine resisted the longer slides until she saw Allison go down three times with Steve. Katherine had to try it then. She kept going at full speed until we all left.

– We spent much of our free time at the beach, building sand castles and flying kites. Steve practiced his kite technique, while Katherine ran around with her kite (thankfully not wrapping the line or kite in a tree or a person).

– A different family would host dinner each night. That meant the kids would run around before and after dinner in the RV Park. They befriended a neighbor girl who had a Pink ATV and let the kids ride it. Allison TORE around the park with Steve chasing her. The kids pretended to be a car wash, to fix the ATV, etc. They made up all sorts of chase games and pretend games to occupy themselves.

– Allison bowled for the first time — ball between the legs straight down the alley. Wouldn’t you know it, she won the first game too. This wasn’t really fair since she had bumpers. And, Steve would give the ball an extra nudge.

– The cherries from the fruit stands were delicious. We hit 2 or 3 stands during the course of our trip, indulging in Bing, Chelan and Ranier cherries. The kids also went back to their favorite ice cream store (Das Big Scoop) in Leavenworth for enormous ice cream cones.

– We also visited Ohme Gardens, which was originally created privately by a family and later purchased by the state. The kids ran around the park, perched on a mountain over Wenatchee, like mountain goats. We later visited the Rocky Beach Dam, checking out the fish ladder (and one sole fish swimming through) and the exhibits. The coolest part was standing inside the dam, looking out a window directly that the spill water.

We have TEN car seats

Today we managed to finally start culling down our herd of car seats. Patty mentioned, as she was about to re-install the Britax Roundabout in her car, how Allison was the only kid who could fit into the seat. It dawned on me that we could swap out the Roundabout for a larger car seat, allowing Patty to keep the seat in her car. So, here’s the conversation we had as we drove along:

Mom: We have 3…no 4 Britax Roundabouts. And, we have 2 boosters without backs, and 2 boosters with backs. And, we have 1 Britax Marathon and then 1 travel car seat. Wow, we have a LOT of car seats.

Allison: We have 10 car seats.

Mom: What did you say? (looking around from the passenger seat)

Allison: (with 10 fingers up) We have 10 car seats!

Not sure if that was a lucky guess, but we all stopped to listen to her. Now, we’re down to 9 car seats. I peered at the manufacturing date on the Roundabout, and sure enough it was manufactured in June 2002….almost 6 years to the day. If you believe the “plastic starts degrading at 6 years,” that means the car seat has only one place to go. Sigh!

Storm Game

Last night was a big night for the kids. After taking afternoon naps and eating dinner, they went to the Seattle Storm game – courtesy of friends who gave us courtside tickets! Big highlights included:

– Free licorice at the courtside entrance!
– Dibs ice cream, popcorn, pretzels
– High-fiving Doppler, the team mascot
– Running onto the court for the train!
-….and holding onto the game ball during one time out!!

How did we get the ball? One of the refs saw us sitting with the kids. After the whistle blew, he walked over, handed the ball to Katherine, and said “will you hold the ball for me?”

Needless to say, we got home very late. But with school wrapping up on Wednesday, it was worth it!

Giraffes at Appreciation Day

A couple weekends ago, we went to the Zoo for MS Appreciation Day. Since we got there before the zoo opened, we were almost first in line, and the kids received cool pink backpacks with lots of zoo stuff. One the big activities that day was giraffe feeding. As you can see, both kids and Steve enjoyed sticking up various branches and leaves for the giraffe to eat!

Would You Like Some Lemonade?

6AM: Katherine woke up on Saturday to prepare for her lemonade stand. She and Steve hand-squeezed lemons. The kids had made both sugar and chocolate-chip cookies the day before to sell.

8AM: She and Allison were parked with their table and sign by the side of the road waiting for the garage sale to start.

9AM: She kept asking, “Where are all the customers?” I headed out to put more signs out directing buyers to our neighborhood garage sale (and to our house!)

10AM: She and Allison had sold 2 cookies. I kept promising her that people would arrive and to hang in there.

Over the next couple hours, we were on a roll. Despite the kids running off to the neighbors during lulls, Katherine managed to sell a good amount of lemonade and cookies. I would take the lemonade out of the cooler. She would then carefully pour the lemonade into cups and hand it to the customers. I would remind the kids not to touch the cookies directly. Allison must have spent the first couple hours practicing how to pick up cookies with napkins. She took her job very seriously.

Throughout the morning, they’d ask customers:

Katherine: “Would you like some lemonade?” (sometimes asking 3-4 times)
Allison: “You want some cookies??” (again asking 3-4 times)

I’d remind them that once they asked, they should let the visitors look around and not keep asking. But, boy, was it hard to be patient!

Through some very nice customers who donated an extra 25 or 50 cents each, and one larger donation, they managed to sell two thirds of the lemonade and more than half the cookies.

As expected, we didn’t make very much on the garage sale as a whole – but accomplished our goal of cleaning out the house. We delivered our remaining goods to Goodwill that afternoon.

Katherine raised $24.50 for the Hopelink End Summer Hunger Program. She decided, after hearing about the program and getting the materials at school, to donate all the $ from the lemonade stand to the program.

My Last Name is NOT Two!

Allison says the funniest things, although most of the time its unintentional. Today in the car, Katherine was warbling a made up song. It went something like this…

My last name is Bush and Daddy’s is too…
Bisco’s last name is Bush and Allison’s is too…
Mom’s last name is Chang…
<etc. etc.>

Well, a few more lines later, Allison piped up in a very upset voice. “My name is NOT Two. My last name is Bush!!”