Nathan's 6th Birthday

Another year has come and gone.  I am truly feeling the old adage that the days are long and the years are short when you have kids..especially young kids.  Some days are still really intense.  But then all the sudden I blinked and Nathan looks truly like a kid now.  No longer a toddler.  It makes me sad and long for the infant/toddler days with him.  But I also love this early elementary stage so far.  So I'm just trying to be present in this current moment and soak it up.

Here are some things I want to remember about Nathan at 6 years old:

• He completed his first year of Elementary School! Nathan truly had a magical Kindergarten year.  His teacher was Ms. West who set the bar so high as far as teachers go.  She was energetic, fun, engaging, and brought lots of years of experience teaching Kindergarten so she was a pro!  Nathan absolutely thrived in her class and found a love for school this year. He made some really good friends, grew in his confidence, and developed in so many skills.  I feel like Nathan grows into his true self more and more every year.  I love that about him and hope he never loses that. 
• Nathan is reading!  He's doing really well with Level 1 books and he reads about half a book every night.  So a ways to go until he's reading full books on his own, but he's made so much progress this year. One of the most enjoyable things is watching your kids learn to read. What a gift that we have access to such great education and the easy opportunity to become literate.  I feel like it opens up another world for people.
• I've asked Nathan his favorite subject in school and his answer is science.  Looks like he's following in Papa's footsteps with his curiosity of how things work, passion for exploration, and being drawn to the natural world.  
• Right now Nathan's biggest love is TRAINS (hence the birthday party theme below). He's gotten some really cool Lego train toys recently and loves reading about trains and visiting the train store in Kirkland. 
• Other toys and interests right now: Lego Ninjago (toys and the show), Legos in general, Magic Treehouse books, building train tracks, setting up imaginary places like stores, forts, restaurants, etc., making cards for friends, YouTube videos about trains and Legos, and setting up villages with some Christmas houses Gramma gave him and his Lego train tracks, drawing pictures, gymnastics, and playing on the Kindle or iPad.
• He's gotten much better with his pedal bike this year with more practice and being taller
• He'll start swimming lessons this summer and we're hoping he'll be able to swim on his own without a floatie by the end of summer
• Nathan is still very much a social kid.  He is still really good friends with Jazi and then also made some really good friends in Kindergarten this year including Teagan, Eloise, Declan, Teddy, Griffin, and Emma. He is always doing nice things for his friends like making them cards, taking care of them on the playground, or surprising them with gifts.  
• All these years of dropping Nathan off at day care, with grandparents, and at the bus stop have paid off.  He's doing summer camp for the first time this summer and he's embraced it right away.  We're only 3 days in and he's loving it so far!  It's nice to see him becoming more adaptable and brave with new situations.  

To celebrate Nate's 6th Birthday this year we had a much smaller party than last year. It was an easy decision to host the festivities at the Snoqualmie Train Depot--easily one of Nathan's favorite places.  They have a wonderful birthday party program and made things so easy and fun!  Nathan even told me the other day he wants to host his party there again next year!  :)  Here is a synopsis of the day through photos:

We got to host the party in an actual train car!  The Depot makes it really cute with decorations and they even provide party favor bags.  Score!  And a engineer hat for the birthday boy.

Grampa went above and beyond again with a fabulous train cake!

One of the activities during the party was a little photo booth with the train as the background and fun little train props.

We also enjoyed some snacks and cake.

The highlight of the party was getting to take an actual train ride!  The party fee includes tickets for all the guests to ride the train down to Snoqualmie Falls and back (about a 20 min ride).  Nate's favorite part of course.

What a perfect way to celebrate for the boy who loves trains.  You are loved Nate and Happy Birthday!

Trip to San Diego

For spring break this year we took a family trip to a place that we've wanted to go for a long time...San Diego! And it was the perfect time for our family with the boys at the ages they are. Aside from numerous wonderful activities there are to do in San Diego, one of our biggest reasons for visiting was to see Uncle Dean and Aunt Carol (my dad's brother and his wife).  They were amazing hosts and took us all around the city to our planned destinations as well as to some gems we would have never known about since they know so much about the city. 

Here's a synopsis of all the fun we had:

Day 1: Flew into town and Dean and Carol surprised us by meeting us at the airport!  They helped us get settled into our hotel and then we headed straight to Old Town to enjoy a yummy Mexican dinner at the famous Cafe Coyote restaurant (sadly no photos).  It was also a special evening because we celebrated Carol's birthday!

Day 2: Our first official day was filled with the incredible San Diego zoo. It is no wonder why so many people rave about this zoo.  It truly is so great with so many animals that we don't have at our zoo in Seattle including elephants and pandas.  The boys were heaven!  That evening we got to relax at Dean and Carol's house and enjoy a yummy BBQ, playing in their beautiful yard/garden, having great conversation on the patio and enjoying the warm weather evening.

Day 3: This day was a treat especially for James because we visited the USS Midway aircraft carrier.  I didn't realize it, but when my uncle served in the Navy, he was actually stationed on an aircraft carrier.  It was so fun to hear his real life stories of what we were seeing as we toured the ship.  Such an incredible structure.  I can't believe something that big floats!!  We continued our day by visiting Coronado Island.  What a beautiful and luxurious place!  Dean and Carol treated us to a lovely lunch by the beach at Hotel Del Coronado and then we spent some time playing on the beach.  Now it was truly feeling like vacation!  That evening we just stayed at the hotel as a family. The boys played in the pool and we just enjoyed the happy hour snacks for our dinner.  It was nice to have some down time so we could gear up for the next day's major activity.

Day 4: Legoland!!  Quite possibly our boys' definition of heaven since they play with Legos literally every day.  And here was a whole amusement park devoted to their favorite toy!  Legoland did not disappoint.  It is a really nicely maintained amusement park with lots of fun rides and tons of Lego structures.  Our boys were almost at perfect ages.  Maybe next year when Cameron is 4 would have been absolutely perfect because there were a few rides where he was too small.  But any older than 8 or so and I think the boys wouldn't have enjoyed it as much.  It's a perfect park for smaller kids.  We saw lots of great Lego characters like Batman and the Ninjago ninjas.  The mini Lego structures were incredible!  The amount of detail and Lego pieces blew us away.  Both boys were brave and rode their first roller coaster too!  Nathan hated it and Cam loved it.  :)  They were brave in general though and did lots of rides that I thought they'd be maybe too scared for.  I was proud of them for getting out of their comfort zone.  James and I got a roller coaster ride in too (separately of course).  We ended the super fun day with dinner at In N Out Burgers too.  What could be more perfect?

Day 5: Dean and Carol met back up with us after having sat out of Legoland day which was a wise decision. They took us to a hidden gem that we wouldn't have known about otherwise.  We drove up to La Jolla and watched all the seals and sea lions along the coast!  It was so cool to watch so many of them lying on the rocks sunning themselves or swimming in the ocean.  We took a nice walk along the coast enjoying the ocean views.  Then they took us to one of their favorite beach eateries called World Famous in Pacific Beach area for lunch.  And then one other surprise--a cool train store in Old Town where they had a HUGE model train set up.  Nathan was in heaven!!  That evening we got to meet up with Levi (my step cousin I think??) who is in the Navy and was currently stationed in San Diego.  We all went out to dinner to Dean and Carol's favorite Italian restaurant for yummy pasta and pizza. 

Day 6: Another one of our most favorite days because we visited SeaWorld!  I haven't been to SeaWorld since I was probably 7 years old.  And it's still really great--definitely didn't disappoint.  Our boys were in heaven especially since they love animals so much.  Dean and Carol were troopers and did the whole day with us (do they ever run out of energy?  I'm so impressed!).  We saw all 4 of their shows--the sea lions/otter show, the pet show, killer whale show and dolphin show.  We rode some more rides and went to tons of exhibits to see the sea animals.  We basically were there from open to close.  And we felt like we could have used one more day to see everything.  So much fun!
That evening we had our final meal at Casa Machado, a fantastic (and Dean and Carol's favorite) Mexican restaurant which is at a small municipal airport.  So while you're eating your dinner, you can watch the small airplanes take off and land.  The food was so good!  Perfect way to end such a great trip. 

Thank you Dean and Carol for your wonderful hospitality.  We were so grateful to finally get some Vitamin D.  And what a perfect place San Diego is for making really great family memories.  We can't wait to go back soon!