Backyard Birthday Party

Josie and Bryn had a joint birthday party last Saturday. Thankfully, the sun was shining and we were able to have the party outside. The swingset was a HUGE hit.

Here are almost all of the kids at the party. Obviously the "Lined up" look doesn't last for long.

By chance, all the girls were wearing the same color pink and sat on the same side of the table. I know by the teenage years they will probably call and coordinate their outfits but this time it was merely coincidental.

Everyone brought a wrapped book for a book exchange. It was fun to see all the kids opening gifts and being able to take a new book home.

Balloons, balloons and more balloons. Can you have too many balloons at a kid's birthday party?

There were lots of hugs.
Here is Josie and her friend, Lowen.

Josie just adores Bryn's little sister, Ansley. She is always giving her snuggles and trying to play with her. It is very sweet. Thankfully, Ansley seems to like it, too.


Bryn, Josie and Lowen enjoying their gift bags and lollipops.

Bryn, Ansley, Josie, Derek and Lowen posing for one final picture.

More of Josie's actual birthday coming soon in the next post.

First Day of Preschool and Party Prep

Josie had her first day of co-op preschool last week. This year she will be very busy. She goes to co-op "English" preschool on Thursday and Friday mornings and will continue to go to Europa Kids "German" preschool on Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons. She will definitely be ready for Kindergarten. Both schools are great and it has been fun for both of us to meet some new friends.

Josie and Bryn are having a joint birthday party on Saturday. Today Bryn came over to play and the three of us worked on stuffing the gift bags for their friends. Smiles and giggles are never lacking when the two girls get together.

My camera is pretty much shot. Several of the main buttons no longer work and the zoom no longer works. Apparently it is not uncommon for a camera to have a 3 year life span!! I guess I probably did use my more than most over the last 3 years. This is one of the reasons for not posting much to the blog.
Since the camera is on its last leg we've decided to give it to Josie so she can take pictures. She obviously needs a bit of help but here are a few of her recent shots. You pretty much have to move yourself to get within her frame. She also likes taking pictures of people on Skype or the computer.

Every morning Marty reads a magazine while eating his breakfast at the bar. Here is Josie doing the same.

Vacation- Seattle and California

We had a great time with Marty's relatives from Germany. Kay (pronounced Kai) Susi and Danny fly into Seattle for a week of sightseeing, seafood and shopping The weather was perfect all week and we often found ourselves down at Alki Beach.
After their week here, which included going on the water taxi, monorail, visiting the Space Needle, riding The Duck, attending a Seattle Sounders soccer match, going to a Zoo concert, hiking near Mt Rainier, the underground tour of Seattle, the Museum of Flight, visits with family and much more.... we all took of for Santa Monica, CA for a bit of relaxation at the beach.

Here is Josie at the beach. She wasn't so keen on going in the water but slowly warmed up to the idea.

She did LOVE playing in the sand, though.

She also LOVED eating ice cream almost every night.

We were eating dinner one night and kids kept walking by with balloons from a different restaurant. Josie desperately wanted one. A little while later a clown was walking by and we asked him if we could buy one of his balloons. He was a rather sad clown and just said "here you go, take them all. It is my first day here. I'm from Turkey and I left my job and country to come here and be a clown." I'm not sure how he thought he would be able to support himself being a clown here. We wished him well and gave him a few dollars for the balloons and off he went. So now Josie had 6 balloons tightly tied to her wrist. Their was so much pull on the balloons that she walked around the rest of the night with her hand raised to at least shoulder level.

Danny and Josie became best of friends.

Marty has a friend that works at 20th Century Fox Studios. We got a behind the scenes tour or the facilities including seeing all the props for The Simpson's Movie.

Josie enjoyed dancing to the music every night. Thankfully a little girl about her age came over and started dancing with her. Finally someone her own age. Josie and this little girl had a ball as did everyone else who was watching them. They must have danced/run around like this for about 30 minutes. She slept well that night :)

Fun Times with Bryn and Harvest

We had a great week with Bryn. Yesterday we went to the Central Library downtown for what I thought was going to be a bilingual puppet show. It turned out to be a few actors talking about

the Day of the Dead. It was interesting but because I had told the girls we were going to a puppet show all they kept saying over and over and over was "where are the puppets, where are the puppets?" It was a packed room so it was a bit embarrassing because everyone else heard them too. Thankfully after the show was over I remembered they had little hand puppets in the kid's section of the library.

Earlier in the week Bryn met us at the zoo. We have discovered that the fake animals are sometimes more exciting than the real ones. Josie might be holding on just a bit too tight. Bryn's little sister, Ansley, is in the front.

We stopped by the bird cage where you buy a stick with bird seed on it for $1 and the birds fly right up and sit on your stick or hand and eat. It was a big hit!

It seems that the 100 degree weather really ripened up the fruit and vegetables. Above Marty and Josie picking plums from our tree. We never really had many plums from this tree until this year. We had to prune it back to fit the swingset and that must have really put the tree into production mode. We have more plums than we know what to do with. Josie is still working on not swallowing the pits. She must have at least 8 pits in her belly.

These are our first tomatoes and our first cucumber this year. We ate them last night for dinner and they were delicious. Nothing like fresh tomatoes from the garden.

Earlier in the week Josie and I went blackberry picking near our house. I picked the full bucket and Josie picked the not so full bucket. Notice the blackberry juice around her mouth... hmmm... wonder why her bucket is so empty :) Actually, given the fact that blackberries are not that easy to pick, she did great. She picked the low ones and I picked the higher ones. After several run-ins with the thorns, she started getting pretty good at steering clear of the prickly branches.

Good Friends and Hot Days

Wednesday was the hottest day on record in Seattle. It got up to 103. The last time I remember being that hot was in Sevilla. Except for there it was 120+ the entire week I was there and I didn't have to worry about anyone other than myself. It is a lot different when you have someone else to worry about and try to keep hydrated, cool and rested.

To beat the heat, we tried out a new spray park down in Tukwila. Josie had a great time with her friends Bryn and Lowen.

Josie and Bryn spend a lot of time together and when they aren't together they are always asking about the other one. "When will I see Bryn again, when do we go to her house, will Bryn be at the park" We have met several times at parks or wading pools this summer and every time we pack lunch Josie always has to pack two of everything so that she can give some to Bryn. Bryn does the same thing. Needless to say lunches have become quite the buffet for the girls.

We started our PEPS group when Josie was 3 months old. We are both so fortunate to have met such great friends. Thankfully all of her good friends have GREAT parents who are also my good friends. And to think, I wasn't even going to sign up for PEPS. Oh, how different our lives would be if I hadn't.

Along with Lowen and Bryn, Boyan is also a friend from our PEPS group. Unfortunately, Boyan and his family are moving to North Carolina at the end of the month. We had them over for a farewell BBQ on Saturday. Boyan and Josie had a ball on the swingset, eating ice cream....

and what evening wouldn't be complete without a kiss goodnight. The funny thing is when they were just 4 months old, Shannon (Boyan's mom) and I joked that we were taking them on the their first date when they were riding in the backseat together on the way to the mommy and child movies. Boyan and his family will be dearly missed but now we have a reason to visit North Carolina. I hear it is beautiful :)

SKYDIVE

Call me crazy.... believe me many have. Last Saturday I jumped out of a plane at 13,500 feet. It was a very spontaneous decision to join Jodi (Marty's on air partner) and her husband David. Jodi was telling me about their plans on Wednesday and because I have always wanted to skydive I got very excited for her, obviously. Noting my excitement, Jodi told Marty and they called me while on the air the following day. So I thought about it, worried about leaving Josie motherless and Marty wifeless. Apparently the risk of dying is 1 out of every 380,000 - so skydiving is actually safer than riding in a car??
I decided around 7PM on Thursday evening. About 36 hours before jumptime.

The 5 seconds before I jumped and the first 10 seconds of freefall were the most terrifying of my entire life. But I have to say that the 45 seconds to a minute of freefall were the most exhilirating. So, I guess I will take the horrifying to get the exhilirating. Although I don't think I would need to do it again, I'm extremely happy that I did it. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity.