Nathan's 5th Birthday

Last month we celebrated Nathan's 5th Birthday.  How can he be 5 already??  That's crazy!  This is going to be a big year for him.  In the fall he begins Kindergarten so we are officially entering the world of elementary school.  I'm so excited for him and yet sad to be leaving his baby and little kid years at the same time.

Here is a little capture of what Nathan is like at 5 years old:

• One of the best words I can think of to describe Nathan is sweet.  I call him my "sweet boy" all the time and it's really true.  He is thoughtful, aware of others, polite (most of the time), good natured, and has a big heart.  He's always making cards for friends, wanting to host his friends at his house, doing kind gestures or gifts for family members, and doing good deeds at school.  In fact he has a hard time connecting with some kinds in his class if they use "potty" words or they are too wild and crazy.  He tends to stick with friends who are caring, calm and kind.  Let's hope that trend continues!
• Nathan is incredibly creative.  The things he comes up with continue to amaze us.  And he has the best imagination.  He'll build amazing Lego creations, put together forts or imaginative scenes, events or parties in his room or in our house (using every single material from around the home he can think of much to our chagrin sometimes with lots to clean up....trying to let it go :)), and has wonderful artistic abilities as well.  Thankfully he has his papa's and uncle Ryan's right brain genes.
• It is so fun to observe the learning that occurs at this age.  Nathan is reading and writing letters and numbers, learning math skills, and just absorbing so much information from school.  It's like he comes home with a new skill or knowledge every day.
• He is learning to ride a bike with pedals and no training wheels! 
• Some of his favorite activities include playing Legos, coloring, riding his bike, playing with trains or building elaborate train tracks, playing on the Kindle, reading books, playing with friends, gymnastics, and playing t-ball. 
• Nathan is our social kid and his friendships are very important to him.  One of his closest, most long time friends is Jazi.  They met each other in infant class (at 4 months old!) at the Early Learning Center and have been close ever since.  Nathan would consider Jazi his "girlfriend" and plans to marry her.  :)  Luckily she will be going to Snoqualmie Elementary as well so the long time friendship and plans for marriage can continue!
• Different than Cameron, Nathan is more cautious, hesitant, anxious, and fearful.  Sometimes this is helpful because he thinks before he does things.  But we have to work with him to push him a little bit and also have to be patient with him as he does things in his own time.  We are learning as parents that that's ok and the tricky balance between letting your child be himself and challenging/pushing a little bit to grow.
• I appreciate that Nathan is pretty self aware and confident in who he is.  He doesn't worry too much about what other people think or what he "should" do based on other people's expectations.  He is confident of what he wants, what is best for him, and what he needs most of the time.  And he communicates it.  I take lessons from him on that every day and so admire that trait about him.  I hope it sticks around as he gets older--especially in adolescence.

With 5 being such a big birthday in our minds and also because his school friends will all scatter to different elementary schools in the fall, we decided to do a big bash this year.  We splurged on doing his birthday party at Kidz Bounce.  Most of his friends' birthday parties have been at Kidz Bounce this year and they're always so fun.  Plus they can accomodate lots of people.  And they make it really easy by providing plates/napkins/utensils and help with set-up and clean up, ordering pizza, etc.  But when I say splurged--I'm not kidding.  Man when did kid birthday parties get so expensive??  It was worth it to us this year, but I think next year we'll go back to more simple, reasonably priced parties. :)

The theme of the party that Nathan chose was Dinosaurs.

Nathan had a great group of friends from his class attend his shindig along with family and family friends.  I was so proud of him as he was a wonderful "host" for his own party.  He waited at the door for people to arrive, made sure everyone was well cared for and having fun, and handed out his party favors as people left.  We definitely didn't experience any spoiled "it's my birthday" behavior.  I also wasn't sure how he would do with such a large group of people with lots of stimulations as sometimes Nate gets overhwlemed in those situations.  But he was in heaven and had a blast.  It was such a great party.

Here are some photos to capture it:

Grampa and Pops :)

Fun with Uncle Ryan

Amazing cake made again by Grampa.  Thank you Grampa!

After the party we went back to our house and Nate opened up this presents.  This was the year of Legos for sure. He probably received about 10 boxes of Lego sets.  Even now he's still in the process of opening them and building them.

We're so grateful for our sweet, thoughtful, curious, smart, happy, creative little boy and we can't wait to see what year 5 brings for him.  Happy Birthday Nate and we love you!!

Maui 2017

This is a big year for the Warner family.  The Warner parents both turn 70 years old.  Plus they are celebrating their 40th wedding anniversary.  Plus Ryan and Carly just got engaged!  A celebration was definitely in order.  Thanks to the incredible generosity of my parents, we decided to do a family celebration in Maui!  All 8 of us traveled to Maui for a little over a week, shared one condo and lived to tell about it.  ;)  Just kidding--it was an amazing trip and we're so grateful to my parents for making it happen.

We got to bring the boys which was really their first time being at a warm beach/tropical location.  It was so fun to see it through their eyes.  It was definitely a different kind of vacation to Maui than what we're used to (which is usually sans kids) but it was so much fun and still really rejuvenating (note to self--if traveling to a beachy location and the kids are coming, always bring along the built-in babysitters  grandparents).

It was a week and a half of sun, Vitamin D (thank God--finally!), gorgeous views, whale watching, incredible food, sand toys, ocean, pool, snorkeling, being goofy, naps, laughing, and being together. We also surprised my parents with a dinner sunset cruise one evening which was really special for them.  And they got to see whales up close!

But I'll let the below photos do most of the talking...

Airplane ride!  They did great for a 6 hour flight

The gorgeous view from our condo!

First umbrella drink

Cool dudes

Loved swimming with Nana & Pops!

Beach time

Nathan snorkeled for the first time and saw lots of pretty fish and a sea turtle!

James and I got a special date night at our favorite place Lahaina Grill.  A Maui trip is not complete without it.

Fun times with Ryan and Carly who are newly engaged.  Woo hoo!

Major highlight of the trip: the Maui Ocean Center

Just love this photo

Walking around Paia

Can't you tell they had a terrible time?

Shave ice!

"Rainforest" walk to Honolua Bay

Honolua Bay

The incredible Banyan Tree in Lahaina

One of my favorite photos from the trip

My sweet brother also did a couple of family photo shoots throughout the trip.  So grateful for his talent!

Happy anniversary to my amazing parents and thank you so much for this special, unforgettable gift of a trip.  We love you!

A Year of Dates II

As you may remember we started a new tradition in 2015-2016 to do a Year of Dates.  It was my Valentine's Day present to James in February 2015.  I gave him a stack of envelopes and on the 1st of each month, he opened the envelope and a date was pre-planned for us.  I captured that year of dates in this post.  We enjoyed the idea so much that I gave the same gift to James for Valentine's Day 2016 as well.  It's such a fun strategy because it gets us out of our date rut and because the initial idea is already planned, it's much more likely to happen.

This year's Year of Dates went a bit wonky at times for some reason.  As you'll see below, either our original idea didn't work out or that month was too busy or whatever.  But we still managed to get in some pretty quality dates and great memories.  The other fail this year was I didn't do as good of job of taking photos.  Bummer.  But I still have record of what we did and it's fun to look back and remember.

So here's the recap of A Year of Dates II:

March: March Madness

• Here's a prime example of the Year of Dates plan going wonky on us.  For this date I originally planned for us to go indoor rock climbing.  Sadly I got a badly pulled muscle in my back which prevented us from going.  Then we went on a family trip to Phoenix and never had a chance to fit the rock climbing back into the schedule.  So date fail in March.  :(

April: Laugh Out Loud

• We redeemed ourselves in April.  For this date we grabbed burgers, fries and milkshakes at Dan's Burgers in the U. District (YUM) and then caught a comedy improv show at Jet City Improv.  We hadn't done that in years and it was really fun.  Sadly no photos though.

May: Kamanawannaleime

• Sorry for the risque title.  We took a trip to Maui in May and our date took place during the trip so I thought this funny title was fitting.  This date took place at our forever favorite restaurant--Lahaina Grill.  We had an amazing meal as always and celebrated our 7th Wedding Anniversary.  

June: Choose Your Own Adventure

• For this date, James had a choice between a hike or golfing.  He chose golfing.  We hadn't golfed in awhile and were a little out of shape so we did a short 9-hole executive course at Willows Run Golf Course.  It was a beautiful day and good for us to work on our short game.  Then we had a yummy dinner at Matador and Blizzards at DQ.  Sadly just after this time my phone got dropped in water and I had to get a new one.  I lost some photos--including ones from this date.  Boooo!

July: Love Boat

• The plan for this date was to kayak in Portage Bay.  But sadly the evening we planned to do that, it was cold, overcast and potentially rainy.  So we bagged that idea and went to dinner instead.  We had arranged for Ryan and Carly to babysit the boys at their house in Ballard. Since we were in Ballard, we decided to try a restaurant recommended by Ryan called Stoneburner.  We are so glad we did!  We had an incredible meal and it's now a restaurant we can't wait to go back to.  We sat at the bar for dinner and the bartender gave all these drink samples to James as they were discussing different types of whiskeys and scotches.  He of course was in heaven!  So although missing the kayaking was a bummer, it was a blessing in disguise.

August: Like Kids Again

• August date plans got changed as well (see I told you it was a wonky year).  The original plan was to go to the Family Fun Center in Tukwila and do go cart racing, mini golf, arcade games, etc.  James wasn't too thrilled by that idea and since we were so bummed to miss out on kayaking, we decided to kayak for our August date instead. We rented a kayak from Aqua Verde and kayaked over to Lake Union.  We lucked out with a perfect Seattle summer evening and it was also a great workout for our arms.  :)  Then we grabbed dinner at Aqua Verde and watched the sunset.   Sadly no photos on this one either.  

September: The Glass House

• For September we veered from the original plans again.  The title of this date is kind of a spoof because back in college, I was an extra for a day for the filming of a movie called The Glass House.  You can even catch a quick glimpse of me going down a flight of stairs in the middle of the movie behind the main characters.  It's my one claim to fame.  :)  The plan for this date was to go to the Chihuly Glass Museum which I've wanted to do forever.  We were all set to go and then a last minute check of the event calendar revealed they were closed for a private event that evening.  Bummer!  So instead we did dinner and a movie: dinner at Peryssol (one of our favorites in Renton) and saw Hell or High Water at the movie theater.  Still a quality night.  Hopefully one day soon I'll get to see the Chihuly museum.

October: Faith, Hope and Love

• This was one of my favorite dates of the year.  For this date we went to Compline at St. Mark's Cathedral in Seattle.  Every Sunday night they have a group of priests do a service of chants and singing that is so beautiful and spiritual.  I used to go with friends all the time in high school.  It was nice to experience it together and start our week off feeling peaceful and closer to God.

November: Seeing the Big Picture

• The plan for this date was to see a movie at one of the theaters where you can order drinks/snacks while watching.  But November was such a crazy month with a trip to Salem, Thanksgiving, etc. that date night never happened in November sadly.  

December: Christmas in the Northwest

• Our new tradition is for the December date to be a fun and productive time of Christmas shopping.  This year it seemed we went all over the place to get all our Christmas shopping done and then we grabbed dinner at Yummy Pho in Redmond.  Although it was busy, it was a fun day of being together, planning gift giving for our families and checking off our to-do list.

January: Downhill Delight

• We copied our January date from last year and went skiing again!  Any chance we can get up in the mountains and stretch our ski legs and see the beautiful scenery we'll take it.  This year has been a banner year for snow in the mountains.  We chose a perfect day to go because we had fresh powder and it was much more forgiving on our out of shape legs.  We went to Alpental and were able to get in about 10-12 runs.  So fun!

February: It's Getting Hot in Here

• The final date of the year was a delicious cooking class called A Night in Paris taken at the Sur La Table in Kirkland.  This was something we did years ago and it was fun to do it again.  The night started off with a delightful small plates dinner and drinks at Vovina in Kirkland.  Then we cooked the night away making goat cheese fondue, a yummy salad, Coq au Vin, and chocolate suffle.  We were stuffed by the end of the night.  But we were paired with a really fun couple to do our cooking and our chef teacher was pretty entertaining too.  Luckily we got to bring all the recipes home too.  I can't wait to have that goat cheese fondue again!

And that's a wrap!  The baton has officially been passed and for this next year James will be planning all the dates.  I'm excited to see what he has in store!  I'm sure I'm in for some definite adventures.  :)