Ice Bucket Challenge accepted

It was just a matter of time before one of us was nominated for the ALS Ice Bucket challenge, and Karyn went above and beyond by nominating our whole family! We weren't sure if the boys would be up for it, but we set up the camera and gave it a shot. To our surprise, they both loved it and went ahead and dumped water on their own heads! Unfortunately, we realized after the fact that the camera stopped recording right before the first water was dumped...so we had to do it twice. Here's take 2!



We also donated to www.alsa.org and passed the challenge along to Aunt Jess and Uncle Peter as well as our friends Caitlin and Dan Grigg.

Thanks again, Aunt Karyn, it was actually kind of fun! :)

Foam pit!

The boys went to a Frozen-themed gymnastics birthday party today, for Simon's school friend Bella. They both had a ton of fun playing on the equipment, with the trampolines and foam pit being the two highlights. Check out their form as they each jump into the foam pit!

Rite of passage!

Dick's Drive-In is a Seattle institution with a bunch of locations around the city--they sell burgers, fries and shakes, and that's it. Somehow, Simon got it into his head that he wanted to try a cheeseburger last Sunday, even though he doesn't really eat beef and has never had one. So we told him that we would take him to a place that had amazing burgers and that if he ate it, he would be a true Seattleite. Well, he was a little unnerved when he actually got home, unwrapped it and realized what he had gotten himself into. But he pulled through, and not only tried it, but liked it and he ate almost the whole thing! Little bro followed suit, of course!

TugBoat

Work hard, play hard

My team at work has been pretty busy recently and in an effort to keep us all sane, our manager planned a couple of back to back team outings a couple of weeks ago.

On Wednesday, we took off mid morning and headed out to Woodinville. We started with a great lunch, and then went to four wineries for tasting and tours! It was a great time, lots of laughs and a very raucous party bus heading back to Seattle around 6PM!

Then, that Friday, we went to the Seattle Tennis Club, where our manager is a member, and had prime seats for watching the Blue Angels in their final rehearsal for Seafair Weekend. It was pretty fancy, right on the shore of Lake Washington. What a cool experience!

And lastly, the following Saturday was our company picnic, and all four of us went. It was at the zoo, and we had a barbeque lunch, rode the carousel, got Simon's face painted and procured me a glitter tattoo as well! Simon loved the bouncy castle slide and Nate charmed everyone he met.

Kangaroo playdate take 2

We got the Kangaroos together for another playdate last weekend at the wading pool. It was adorable! Nate's two best friends from school were there--Elijah and Lilah. According to his teachers, Nate and Lilah are little an old married couple--they play together and squabble a lot!

Nate and Elijah!

Nate and Lilah!

The crew

Simon helped the lifeguard collect toys from the pool when they needed to test the water.

Simon and Nate giving a warm Winstanley goodbye to Elijah!

Fancy hats

I bought myself a big pink sunhat for the summer. See here:

But when it arrived, there was a small hole in it. When I tried to return it, Amazon said to just keep it and sent me another one. What do you do with two big pink sunhats?

Put them on the two boys!

And of course, a special shout out to Matt for his birthday! The boys, Aunt Karyn and I made him birthday cupcakes and we had a really nice weekend...Happy 37!