They are ready to celebrate!

in the tv room

the green room

vests, bandanas, eye-patches & gold earrings for everyone.

the goodie bags

the kids and I made repurposed crayons in pirate shapes.

looking in to the front door area

arr...

arr...

arr...

arr...

After a lunch of macaroni & cheese, pasta salad, green salad, rolls & fruit… it was time to hit the piñata.

Wesley starts us off.

Then Addison

Jillian

Stellanne

Aidan

Lilly

Ben

Aidan

then Wesley again with a strong finish!

they quickly filled their treasure chests.

Then it was cake time.  To see more about the cake you can see the post I did about it here.
Before we sang to Wesley, the kids who wanted to – got to launch the cannons too.

Wesley launching the cannons.

a nice and powerful jump.

Jillian launching the cannons. The small black dot near the edge of the table is one of the cannon balls.

Singing "Happy Birthday" to Wesley. (not quite sure what Jillian is doing...)

Wesley is still talking about his party and had such a wonderful birthday!

Thank you to all of our guests – you really made it magical for him.

 

Today we picked at Larsen Lake Blueberry Farm in Bellevue.  We would probably go there again – the berries were close to the parking lot and they had real bathrooms.

We took Sarah with us today.  She is in kindergarten with Wesley (and she was also in his preschool class).

They are ready to GO!

Sarah suggested we stop for another picture on the way...

We found a row to pick on.

They got right to work!

Showing me her favorite berry.

He could not decide - so he chose two.

Jillian just did it because the others did it too.

He was very proud of his way to use both hands.

We finally made it to the “lake”.

A few more pictures with the berries and the lake in the background:

So much love!

Such good friends!!

After picking for an hour – they were done.

And I picked 1.17 pounds.  And the price was really good too – 2.39 pounds = $2.98.

We really did have a good time!

Yummy! Let's eat them.

 

The Strawberry Hello Kitty Cake

All of our yummy snacks.

All set up for our pin the bow on Hello Kitty game.

Goodie bags for the kids. They included: a Hello Kitty coloring book that I made, bubbles and strawberry milk straws.

We had tattoos.

All of the kids put some on.

In the backyard we played catch

and horseshoes.

Then we played "Pin the Bow on Hello Kitty"

Wesley is ready to go...

Here is where everyone placed their bows.

Next we opened gifts - and boy was Jillian loved!

this one is from Wesley.

Blowing out her candles.

Super yummy cake!

Most the kids who celebrated with Jillian.

Then Jillian opened one last gift... a big kid bike and a new helmet!

With Yaya, Papa and Aidan.

With Grams and Aunt Ashley

Our attempt at a family photo...

Here first ride on her new bike.

Happy Birthday Jillian.  You are one lucky girl.

And thank you to everyone who came to celebrate with us.  Jillian has been talking non-stop about her “Special Day” and how much she loved it!

 

The room is all set up for making recycled crafts.

Big things for the projects: boxes, milk jugs, egg cartons...

Lots of small items for the crafts.

I made these tape dispensers! http://www.instructables.com/id/3-Roll-Masking-Tape-Dispenser/

The cups are from Red Robin. They collected 22 cups for me that were going to be recycled in the 1 hour we were there for dinner.

Snacks - I reused items from past parties. Plates from Wesley's 4th birthday, napkins are from Becca's baby shower for Lila, blue cups are from Jillian's 3rd birthday party & the colored bowls are from value village.

Bug cake...again. He had this cake (with the same bugs) for his 2nd birthday.

Goodie bags are made from reused food contaners.

In each goodie bag is a shirt - monogramed for each kid. I got the shirts used from value village. And I made the stamp (several years ago) out of a block of wood and craft foam.

He's ready to party!

The kids are very ready to make their crafts.

Everyone is working so hard!

After creating for over an hour – they made some wonderful things.

Stellanne's creations.

One of Lily's.

Wesley's flying car.

Aidan made a ton of things.

Jillian and Kailyn worked on "Jillian's doll house"

This peacock Kailyn made is just amazing!

The kids are all eating a snack and watching Wesley open his gifts.

I asked him to thank everyone for their gift...and he fell over... As you can see by the mess - he got a lot of great stuff.

Time for cake!

Blowing out the candle.

Everyone clapped so W & J had to cover their ears.

Then it was time to say goodbye…

To Great Grandma & Great Grandpa

to Lily

to Ben and his creation.

to Grams

to Pat

to Stellanne

to Papa (& Yaya too)

to Aunt Dri

to Aidan, Kailyn & Derrick

What a fun and creative day!   Thank you to everyone who made the day so special for Wesley.

Happy 5th Birthday Wesley!

 

We are really excited to welcome another new baby this week!  Mat and Becca greeted their new baby boy Zane Raymond Myers at 2:20pm on June 29th, 2010. He weighed in at 9lbs 30z and 21.5 inches long.  Go get ‘em Django!

 

Tiffany, Quinton, Kevin

Stealing from Kevin’s Facebook page:

I’m happy to announce the entrance of Quinton Dashiell Hooker into the world on 6/25/2010 @ 7:11. He is the most beatiful baby boy I’ve ever seen and I can’t wait for any and everything that’s ahead of us. He is 9lb 5 oz and 21 inches long of pure joy!

I couldn’t be more happy for Kevin. He is the rare kind of guy that wanted nothing more than he wanted to be a dad. And I know he will be a good one. Quinton, you’re a lucky kid.

All our best to Tiffany, Kevin and Quinton!

 

We headed to the U-district and picked up Pat and then to Fremont in the drizzle (it didn’t last). We found our spot for watching the parade and then waited. Being a solstice parade it starts exactly at noon. We had an hour to kill. Luckily a guy was walking around giving kids chalk. So Wesley and I partook in one of his current favorite activities: hopscotch.

The bikes, and their naked riders, are only sort of semi-official it seems. They lead off the parade before the real parade begins. So shortly before noon Wes and I gave up our game (I was leading 5 to 3) and took to watching some naked people ride bikes. Seeing the men, you realize just how much everything gets squished. Here are a few examples of probably a hundred or more different riders.

Probably Wesley’s favorite part:

Jillian couldn’t take her eyes off this bathtub and its ducks.

After the bicyclists, the parade gets going in earnest.  You never really know what you are going to get. The floats, puppets and entertainment are all hand made by volunteers. You don’t know what you are going to get, but you’re probably going to like it.  I’m not sure if this guy was the master of ceremonies, but he was throwing beads (we caught some gold ones) and was on stilts that made him about 10 feet tall.

The banner and mostly naked women always lead off…

Wesley got to spend most of the time on my shoulders. It gave him a better view and me, well, I’m a little shorter now.

Belly Dancers.

Huge, human powered puppets.

This guy (and a bunch of others) were giving out hugs. He tried to hug Wesley on my shoulders. I leaned forward and Wesley leaned as far back as he possibly could to avoid the hug. Cracked up the crowd. I got a nice hug though.

While he didn’t want to have a hug. And didn’t want to play kickball in the street, he jumped at the chance to get run over by a giant beach ball. He was awesome. He had a great time and a huge, huge smile on his face. Click for bigger pictures of him.

Because the parade is human powered and because there are so many interactive things going on, the flow can be a bit messed up. It moves in fits and starts. Sometimes people just breeze on by and other times they get stalled in front of you and you get a really good chance to see what they are up to. One of the times the stopped in front of us we got to listen to some good Mardi Gras style music. Another time we got hula hoopers.

The military presence is a little different in Fremont.

There were lots of dancers, but this group had the most coordinated effort. We were lucky that they stopped in front of us for a bit and we got to see most of the routine.

No Solstice Parade would be complete without the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. This picture doesn’t do them justice. They are always a big hit and do some good charity work, too.

Jillian fell asleep on the walk from the car. When she woke up, she was interested, but grumpy. On the way back she was upset because she wanted “to hug someone in a costume”. We found several people in costume and they agreed to a hug, but I guess they weren’t the right people because Jillian refused and then repeated that she wanted to hug someone in a costume. She was pretty upset.

After the parade we headed to the U-district to have lunch at Fondi. Really good pizza and yummy gelato at a reasonable price. I’d recommend the salted caramel if they have it. Wesley and Jillian (who did perk up at lunch) really liked their birthday cake flavored gelato. And it really did taste like birthday cake. Wesley insists my blackberry tasted more like raspberry. I won’t argue with him, but it was good either way.

Here is a gallery of 47 pictures (including the ones above) that we’ve uploaded to our server. We also have 551 photos in our 2010 Fremont Summer Solstice Parade set on Flickr. Already (only about 3 hours now since they all went up, we’ve had about 16,000 hits on those images. Update: After 1 day Flickr is reporting 42,000 views). A little nudity sells(even body painted public nudity). If you check it out, remember you’ll see breasts, butts and penises. Just so you know.

 

To start with we flew standby saving us about $500 in airfare.  Thank you Marty.  I’m not sure I’d do it again.  On the flight out we got the last four seats on the plane. All middles and all in different rows.  We weren’t supposed to get on at all, but somebody didn’t show. The flight back was better, but we still had to trade around to get seats next to the kids.  We did learn a few things: 1) Alaska’s non-stop flight is awesome.  2) Sitting one parent and one kid in one row while the other parent sits with the other kid 10 rows away is great. They can’t fight, fuss, or want to switch parents.  Made the ride easier than I expected. We’ll be buying tickets like this in the future.

The first few days of our trip we just kind of lounged around. We did visit Amber’s mom on Thursday and my dad  Friday. At my dad’s the kids chased chickens, fed fish and generally went back to the land.  It was good to see my dad after almost 2 years.

All photos from 2009-10-08

All  photos from 2009-10-09

On Saturday morning I took advantage of the good weather (and the threat of coming rain) to hike Sauk Mt.  I was all alone during my trip with a few people pulling into the parking lot as I got ready to leave. It was gorgeous up there. I took way too many photos with the plan of combining them into panoramas. Here is one shot of Mt Baker made of 20 or so photos.

Tons of photos of/from Sauk Mt.

Later that day we visited Molly, Casey, Ari and Cecily in Ferndale. We ate, played and did a little sword fighting.  I’m still recovering from my injuries. Amazing that Ari was Jillian’s age when we first met him.

More Ward Family Photos.

Sunday the 11th was the day of the big event: Kathleen and Dave’s wedding!  We chipped in as best we could to get everything ready.  Everything went off without a hitch (well, they got hitched, but you know what I mean).  Wesley was a ring bearer and Jillian the flower girl. Jillian decided to stop and pickup the flower petals midway down the isle so she’d have more to throw later.

Our photos from the wedding.

It is at this point (cleaning up afterward the wedding actually) that I started to get sick. By Monday morning I was sick and spent pretty much all of Monday through Friday in bed with a fever.  Because we didn’t have too many fixed plans and because I was sick, Amber and the kids mostly hung out for the next few days. Hoping I’d be better soon.  We didn’t want to visit people with me this sick (not that I was up to it anyway) so we didn’t get to visit Grandpa Joe or anyone else really.  They did visit the new children’s museum at the mall a couple of times. Quite nice I hear.

Photos from 2009-10-13

Photos from 2009-10-14

On Friday Night Susie came over and we carved a few pumpkins. We’d wanted to go to a pumpkin patch (since we don’t have real ones here in Texas), but it rained so hard all week they were all t0o muddy and wet.

More photos from 2009-10-16

Saturday we payed another visit to my Dad.  We even caught a half dozen frogs and a salamander. Then we headed to Seattle where we were staying the night. We met Pat for dinner at U-Village and got some treats at Starbucks.

Photos from 2009-10-17

Sunday was our last full day in Washington. We ate breakfast on Alki and then had lunch with Jessica, Nic, Kailyn, Derrick and Aidan.  Baby Grace was still a few weeks away from arriving. Finally we had dinner with Janette, Lisa and Stelanne.

Photos from the morning of 2009-10-18

Photos from the afternoon of 2009-10-18

My apologies to all the people, places and activities that got slighted by this blog (eg, the wedding, Corey’s house, Dave’s family, etc).  There is just too much to cover if we ever expected to get anything posted.  If you want to see all the photos head to our Washington Trip collection on Flickr.