Cameron's 5th Birthday

Somehow we blinked and we no longer have any toddlers.  Our baby has turned 5!  I can't believe it.  I am loving these ages right now, but was also watching videos the other day of when the boys were little and it's just crazy how time flies.

We had a great time celebrating Cameron's official birthday at the Packwood Cabin.  But then he also got to celebrate with his friends at a joint birthday party with his close buddy, Vander.  Vander's birthday is on Sept 7 so it made a lot of sense to have a joint party since they have so many friends in their pre-K class.  Similar to Nathan, we told Cameron he could finally have a birthday party at Kidz Bounce at age 5.  And it was easy for he and Vander to agree on the party theme....Star Wars!  Cameron and Vander have a great group of friends that they've grown up with at school.  This is the last year all of them will be together so it was nice to have a big celebration.  The party involved lots of bouncing, light sabers, Star Wars doughnuts instead of cake, and even a visit from some very special guests!

King for the day!

Cameron and Vander....buddies for life!

We love you buddy!

Cameron's favorite gifts this year were large super hero figures, a special Paw Patrol Marshall truck, a red Dragon figurine, a paint with stickers book, and a Star Wars LEGO set.

Here are aspects about Cameron at age 5 that we don't want to forget:

• Cameron is a physical kid in so many ways--loves to wrestle, very active and naturally athletic and tough, loves to snuggle, and connects through touch
• We have noticed that he has good focus especially when doing art or his paint by sticker book.  He can work on art activities for a long time without getting distracted or moving on to something else.  Hopefully that trait will stick around when he's in elementary school.  
• His favorite activities are riding his bike, playing soccer and t-ball, playing with his brother, building Legos, running, coloring and drawing, watching shows like Wild Kratts, Paw Patrol, Lion Guard, Daniel Tiger and Ninjago, and playing with toys such as "guys", Paw Patrol, super heroes, dinosaurs, and animals.  
• Cameron holds a pencil/pen in perfect form and is very good at writing his name already
• Sometimes Cameron's temper gets the better of him and he can get very frustrated and not know what to do with his anger.  Sometimes that anger comes out in physical ways so we're trying to teach him about thinking before reacting, breathing, etc.  Thankfully he's learning meditation and breathing techniques at school too which is helpful.
• Cameron loves his brother and wants to be like him, do things with him and wants what he has most of the time. It can be tough to be a little brother.  Luckily the boys get along most of the time.  But we're very aware of trying to help Cam be his own person and figure out who he is and not feeling like he always has to be just like his brother.
• He can finally say "yellow" instead of "lellow"!
• Nathan has started piano lessons which has encouraged Cameron to play a lot more as well.  He has a natural music talent like his papa where he can easily memorize songs or figure out the notes by singing the song out loud.  We're excited to get him in piano lessons soon.
• Cameron is a very sociable kid.  His friendships are very important to him and he tells us stories about his friends and mentions his friends all the time.  He easily makes friends and is good about being kind and including others.
• I love Cameron's fashion sense.  He loves choosing outfits and cares about looking good.  But also has his own flare.  The other day he wore his Flash t-shirt, with a red stripe shirt underneath, jeans and his flash socks.  It's common that he's in some kind of superhero shirt or his Star Wars shirt.  But he's also good about getting dressed up for special occasions or church.
• Cameron continues to be our old soul.  He is just such a joy to be around--very sweet, thoughtful, aware, good at conversation, and just seems mature beyond his age.  He also has a wonderful sense of humor and has me laughing out loud on a regular basis.

Things just keep getting better and better on this parent journey and we're excited to see what year 5 brings for Cameron.  Happy birthday buddy!

Summer 2019 Highlights

We are officially into September, school has started, and soccer is going strong.  Fall is truly upon us.  I'm sad to see summer go as I love the pace, beautiful sunshine, and all the fun activities we get to do.  But I also love fall so I'm pretty ready for the change in season. 

Before it's totally gone away, I wanted to reflect on our summer highlights (in addition to Chelan which I already wrote about).  Here are our fun summer memories captured in photos:

Started off summer with our annual Snoqualmie Ridge 4th of July Parade and Celebration. Yes, summer in Seattle really doesn't start until 4th of July.

James and I got away for the weekend to go camping with friends in Leavenworth at the KOA. We love our summer trip tradition with this group of wonderful friends!

Nathan made great progress on swimming this summer!  And he got over his fear of the deep end!

The boys got their faces painted for the first time!

The library put on a fun event called the Stuffy Sleepover where the boys took their stuffies to spend the night at the library and the stuffies got into some mischief.  :)

Watched the amazing Blue Angels perform at Seafair

Went on our annual camping trip to Johnny Creek with the grandparents and Uncle Johnathin and Aunt Jacky

And celebrated James' birthday while camping!

Megs had a fun girl night at another Chateau Ste Michelle winery concert seeing Amos Lee.  This has become a fun tradition!

Nathan had tons of fun at summer camp this summer.  He did a Disney camp and performed for all the parents at the end of the week

He also went to several weeks of Camp RAD where they go out and build and play in the woods at a fun place called
Elk Horn. Gramma, Grampa and Cam got to visit it one day.

We capped off the summer visiting a special place for the Spauldings--the cabin in Packwood, Washington that Barb's dad and family built by hand when she was a teenager.  Someone else owns it now, but rents it out!  It was a special walk down memory lane for James' family and such a fun weekend!

We celebrated Cam's 5th birthday at the cabin too!

Whew! And sprinkled in among all this were smaller family fun times too like riding bikes down into Snoqualmie, nights spent outside by the firepit roasting smores or eating dinner on the deck, lots of visits to the park, playing outside with neighbor friends, and seeing summer movies.  So many great memories to look back on.  Thank you summer for refreshing us, giving us Vitamin D, and helping us slow down a bit and really soak up time together.  Until next year! 

The Family Who Triathlons Together, Stays Together

A couple weeks ago we made our annual trip over to Lake Chelan for the annual ChelanMan event.  This has become one of our favorite annual family traditions. We are pretty sure that James has participated in the annual tradition 6 years in a row (I've only missed one of those years for a wedding I was attending out of town).  And now the event has become an entire family affair!

First of all, Lake Chelan is by far one of our favorite places as a family.  It feels like true summer when you're there (if there's no smoke from wildfires).  It's beautiful, warm, lots of fun things to do and the lake itself is just so clean and refreshing.  There's truly nothing like that lake.  And now we've been there enough times that we have our favorite restaurants, activities, etc. that we like to do every time.

The other fun thing about the annual ChelanMan trip is it brings us back together in sort of mini-reunion style with our friends/community from Eastlake Church.  We don't really see each other during the year, but without fail the group makes it to ChelanMan every year.  Even people who aren't competing in the race still come back just to all be together.  Instead of renting a big house this year like we usually do, we basically all took over the Lake Chelan Motel.  A darling little place just 2 blocks from the race location (no parking drama this year yay!) with a major bonus--a pool!  We've never had a pool before and it was a game changer.  It was so nice to just hang out at the pool and have an activity for the kids.  We had a room without a kitchen which was a little tricky, but we've already booked the place for next year and made sure to get a kitchen. ;)  It was so so nice being walking distance from the park where the ChelanMan is held.

James did the Olympic triathlon on Saturday and did awesome.  He came in at around 3 hours, 10 minutes and felt strong and good.  The weather wasn't terribly hot either--it was a gorgeous day.  We celebrated afterwards by hanging out in the pool all afternoon and then had a pizza dinner at a rented house that one of the families stayed at.

My Sprint triathlon was on Sunday (always hard having to go the next day--builds up the nerves too much!).  Except for a challenging swim this year, I had a really good race.  I got overwhelmed in my swim and couldn't catch my breath.  It took me awhile to get in my groove.  I finally did and made up some time, but man I felt like the swim would never end.  The bike part was great--that's always  my favorite.  And I only stopped once to walk during the run!  I came in under 2 hours (1 hour and 50 minutes I think) which is always my goal so that felt good.

Of course we couldn't leave out the boys!  ChelanMan has a great Splash n Dash kids triathlon to wrap up the event weekend.  This is the third year Nate has done it and second year for Cam.  They did terrific!  They basically "walked" the swim part through the shallow water.  But then both were super fast on their bike and run.  They did great!

We spent the rest of the day at Slidewaters--the wonderful waterslide park in Chelan.  It was the best thing we could have done because it kept our bodies moving and it was refreshing to be in the cool water all day.  And this year we decided to stay an extra night--another fabulous idea so we could just enjoy time as a family and relax.  We went to the Lakeview Drive-In for dinner and then played in the pool again the next morning.  It was a fantastic weekend and not long enough.  Can't wait to go back to Chelan again!

10 Year Anniversary

10 years ago on May 24, 2009, James and I said "I Do" in front of all our favorite people in the world and started on our marriage journey.  On one hand it feels like it was just yesterday that we were dating, planning our wedding, living in Seattle, and getting ready to do life together.  And at the same time I look back on all that has happened in these 10 years: buying a house, having 2 kids, traveling, developing our careers, growing our little community in Snoqualmie, etc.  It's been a full, rich, challenging (in a good way) and happy time--definitely the best decade of my life.  One of my anniversary gifts to James was a word art piece that took over 150 words/phrases that meant something to us or signified a memory and the artist put them all together to form the number 10.  It was such a fun and overwhelming exercise to think back on all that has happened and all that these 10 years have meant to us and try to capture them in words.  I am so grateful for the gift of an incredibly loving and fun partner who so understands me and accepts me. And grateful for this life we've been gifted and have worked together to create. 

To celebrate our anniversary we decided to travel to one of our favorite cities again--Victoria, BC.  We also traveled there for our 5 year anniversary.  We love it because it's just far enough away to feel like a real getaway and it has such a great European vibe to it.  This time around we decided we just really love the Canadian culture and people.  Everyone is very friendly, laid back, and polite.  It was a nice break from the Seattle city intensity and "keep to yourself" mentality that we sometimes feel. 

We took the ferry up to Sidney, BC from Anacortes, WA which is actually one of our favorite parts of the trip. It takes awhile, but it's so beautiful and relaxing.  Random puzzles and games are left on the tables around the ferry and we got hooked on a puzzle that we almost finished.  I can't remember the last time I worked on a big puzzle!

We stayed at one of our favorite places--Abigail's.  It's a sweet little historical inn in the middle of the city (it's walkable to pretty much everywhere).  After checking in and resting a bit, we ventured out to walk the city and explore since the weather was so nice.

Upon returning, Abigail's had their daily happy hour snacks out and we grabbed one of the bottles of wine we brought.  Just as we were about to sit down, I recognized some people in the lobby.  It was Carol and Paul Abodeely, DeeDee's parents!  DeeDee has been a dear friend since childhood and so Carol and Paul feel like second parents (as do many of my childhood friends' parents).  They were randomly staying at Abigail's too and just enjoying a long weekend in the city like us.  They joined us for appetizers and we had a wonderful conversation.  It was not lost on me that we had this serendipitous moment with a couple who has been happily married for a long time and truly enjoys life. Definitely a God moment. They are wonderful role models for us.  We saw them throughout the weekend which was nice--such kind and loving people. 

One of the highlights of our weekend was a long bike ride.  We brought our bikes up with us because we're training for ChelanMan.  I had no idea Victoria was such a bike friendly city.  Lots of trails, bike lanes, etc.  I guess many people commute by bike.  We went along the Galloping Goose and Lochside Trails up north, took a short lunch break in Oak Bay and then rode back along the coast.  It was beautiful and such a fun ride.  I think we'll definitely do that again in the future!

Other highlights included visiting a new neighborhood area called Cook Village and eating at the yummy Pizzeria Prima Strada, an anniversary dinner at our favorite restaurant Il Terrazzo, an afternoon stroll through Butchart Gardens (and a fun ride on the most beautiful carousel), seeing the "Biggest Little Farm" movie in the theater, eating dinner at the bar and meeting new Canadian friends at Fiamo's, and the delicious breakfasts every morning at our hotel.  The biggest highlight for me aside from quality time with James was he surprised me and gave me a diamond band to add to my engagement ring and wedding band.  So sneaky!  It took my breath away. 

It was just the trip we needed after a busy winter season and just the right trip to celebrate 10 amazing years.  Plus there was a bonus--our puzzle was still there on our way back on the ferry and we were able to finish it!  Looking forward to seeing what the next 10 years brings!