Visit to Yellow Stone

For the first time ever I went to Yellowstone National Park. As you can see we all loved it. Never mind the little boy who won't show his face because he was hot and over tired. It was beautiful, exciting and HOT! I keep forgetting Washington is so much cooler than the rest of ...well, the country. Or at least everywhere else we ever go to. Luckily there was a breeze but I was in constant fear of loosing my hat (as you can see by how far it is pushed over my eyebrows). If your hat blows off on the path surrounded by gysers there's no going after it.

We saw at least 3 or 4 hats that endured a similar fate.

And of course we need to visit the ever famous Old Faithful. We sat and waited about 30 minutes for it to go off (I ask you, what's not to love about sitting around waiting for water to boil?). And shortly thereafter, Ezra's good mood went off with it. Definitely worth it but we probably won't do it again until he's older and better able to appreciate it :)

Jumpin' Jack and Jill

I don't know who had more fun, me or Ezra. My friend Juliet works at a bouncy fun type of house, Jumpin' Jack and Jill. I wish I could say she got us in for free but...we did get a great coupon for our next visit and really I only had to pay for Ezra. I was only in their in a supervisory capacity (at least when the other adults were looking). It was so much fun, there were slides, video games, jumping castles, something of an obstacle course and lots of other fun games.

I didn't get a good shot of Ezra's friend but this is Kingston. We met his family at an FSA (Families Supporting Adoption) activity. It is actually really awesome to know other families that are also going the adoption route.

The aftermath...another advantage of having your friend work there, we got to watch it all come apart.

A little visit from Birth Grandma's family

So there were some people in town and they stopped in to see us-mostly Ezra-actually I always want to say that but it's just not true. And in truth we love them too.

I could not get a good picture. Ezra moves too fast. This is Ezra's birth Great Grandma. We don't see her as often but she made it to our home for a quick visit.

This is Na-na-bug. At least that what Ezra calls her. (I think her real name is Celina but she lets us all call her Na-na-bug. How are they related? Well, she's Randy's cousin. So I think that makes them...2nd cousins or cousins once removed? Anyway, she's family and we love her.

This is Na-na-bug's mom. Sister to Grandma Kolene, Clista. She made the best Mexican food at our house once. It forever changed my Mexican cooking-despite having grown up in a town 45 minutes from the Mexican border and a mom who served a Spanish speaking mission, her's was better.

And of course Grandma Kolene. Ezra's so lucky. It's not every little boy who gets 3 sets of grandparents. And they came with a lot of other family who adore Ezra too. I guess I can't blame them. We love him too.

Trade shows

Ezra and I took a road trip on the bus to hit a very special trade show to see his daddy in action. Here we are on the bus (which was supposed to only take an hour but really was 2 hours but worth it. Luckily we got a picture early on before Ezra and were a little more tired and grumpy).

Ryan and his partners had a trade show promoting the business. Here are Ryan's other 2 partners. Left is Michael, middle is incidently also named Ryan but to avoid confusion he's going by Ezra's middle name Blake. I guess you could say we named him after Ezra (although I don't think he-Blake [who is really Ryan] finds it as amusing :)

Preparing to be foster parents

We got a bunk bed to make room for foster kids. We thought we'd try it out and see it's a good route for us to adopt more kids.

Ezra loves the bed. He can hang from it, build forts, get way up high and look out the window. What is not to love about it?

Front yard landscaping

Well, I know everyone's been dying to know how our front yard looks by now. It does look a little better than after we first dug it out with the mini excavator but it's still not done. At any rate, these are the retaining walls Ryan designed. He built wire cages and filled them with rocks. A unique and less expensive way to do it. Ryan sold me on the money savings but really he went this route because he's an architect. You can't build a simple wall with the blocks they sell at the hardware store for that purpose. It must be original, a work of art, never been done before on our block. Such is the blessing and curse of being an artist.

Lots of sand

My good friend gave us a half a yard of sand. Sooo...like any good parent Ryan dropped everything and made a sand box (quit his job, bishopric-that's why he's still wearing his office shirt to do his real full time job). Ezra was very useful at scooping the dirt out into position. We mortgaged the house, sold everything to make the nicest sand box on the block (granted it is the only one on the block). It would've been cheaper to have bought a cheap plastic already made one but Ryan's an architect. He built it.

Ryan used up some materials he got for free from an over stock warehouse (the advantage of being the part owner of a design build firm). Normally this attractive plastic sits decoratively in our garage taking up the length of a car. It seems a shame to not use this $995. priced sheet on something a little more exotic but it's out of the garage (and in fact we still have it's twin occupying the adjoining space). And it does make a beautiful, rain resistant cover (and bottom if they ever dig that far).

If that wasn't enough sand we had another day of sunshine so we ran to the beach. True the Washington beaches are more rock than sand but we found a small patch of not-to-rocky comfort. And after all boys can make use of water and earth of any kind.

We went with Ezra's friend Jameson. Between the two of them (and perhaps a small contribution from both of their moms) we had enough sand to add a nice new layer to the sand box. Unfortunately it the sand mostly got as far as the car :) And yet we love and always go back for more whenever we get the chance.