April 2016

One evening, at the end of March, as I was watching Li'l C complete his swimming lesson, I got a call from my niece, Kaelyn. She wanted to come out and see us, and her sister Mary. We made arrangements, and she arrived the following week. I took a day off work, and we went to the Coast together. It was so nice to see Kaelyn. She had stayed at our house 10 years earlier when she was a teenager, and having a hard time too.

It was one of the most beautiful days I had ever seen on the Oregon Coast! I'm very glad that the three of us had some quality time together...

When we got back, the boys enjoyed wrestling and playing with their big cousin!

The second week of April, we went on a vacation to British Columbia for Spring Break. Mary, sadly, didn't have a passport, so she offered to stay home and babysit the cats.

First, we stayed with our friends in Mount Vernon:

And, then we got up, EARLY, to take the ferry to Victoria, B.C.

We spent the first few days in Victoria in a hotel right by the Harbour. It was lovely. The weather wasn't too rainy, so we walked everywhere. Teo had just finished a unit on Native People of the Northwest, so he loved seeing the totem poles and native culture everywhere.

We went to the Royal BC Museum of Natural History...

We walked around the Harbour...

 

Visited the Empress Hotel..

 

...and the Parliament Buildings...

Visited the Victoria Bug Zoo...

Holding a millipede

Admired the artwork on the buildings...

Visited the famous independent bookstore named Munro's...

And had delicious treats at Murchie's next door...

C chased pigeons...

 Then we took the ferry from Victoria to Vancouver B.C., and spent three days there. We used our OMSI card reciprocity to go to the Science World museum.

Afterwards, we took a water taxi across False Creek, back to our hotel...

We happened upon this lovely playground in the city on the walk back to our hotel. The boys loved it!

 

  

We went to Granville Island for dinner one night...

The brothers always have such fun in hotel rooms!

We went to the Aquarium in Stanley Park, which we had taken Teo to on our last trip to Vancouver when he was age one!

Touching stingrays!

And, we cycled bikes around Stanley Park for about 15 minutes until we realized it was super cold and windy, and we had forgotten to bring cardigans or jackets!

The boys had a chance to watch Minions in the hotel lobby while SS and I had a drink together. Win-win. :)

After all that activity, it was time to drive back to Seattle, where SS had to go into work (already) at her new job for the day. I took the opportunity to take the boys down to Seattle Center for some fun. 

We used our OMSI reciprocity, again, to visit the Pacific Science Center, and then we went to this amazing park that opened recently near EMP. I had seen a blog post about it, and knew that the boys would LOVE it. I didn't tell them about it, so their eyes lit up when they saw the enormous, high-up play structure, and they just took off running!!!

They played for a long time, and I just sat back not having a clue where they were, but overjoyed that they had the opportunity to have some risky, outdoor play that day...

When we got home, we knew that the cats had had a good time with Mary, but we could tell they missed us too:

Aimee resting her head in Li'l C's palm...

Annabelle giving me a kiss!

 After Spring Break, it was time to focus on getting the house on the market as soon as possible! Luckily, our friends Lisa and Trung own a real estate business, so we asked them to be our realtors. We met for dinner one evening to discuss the plan... Our kids have grown up together for the last 4 years, are they will miss each other so much when we move...It's been great to have them living close to us, Teo and Allison attending the same school, and our kids being very close in age.

Teo's class had another out-of-school experience when his teacher, Mrs. Taylor, set up a Scavenger Hunt (using the Dewey Decimal System) at the library, one evening. They had read Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library as one of their family lit. circle books, so it fit with the theme. Teo had such a good time with his friends that evening, and Li'l C got to tag along with him too.

 Cedric's older brother (a middle schooler) helped their group out with the clues. :)

At the end, they got to play the board games that they had created as a homework assignment. His teacher is so creative, and thinks outside the box. Teo really enjoyed all the field trips and outside-of-class activities! He also went to the LeLooska Cultural Center for a Living History Program after their Northwest Coastal People unit, and to the Rice Museum of Rocks & Minerals after a geology unit. In addition, he took part in the Culture Fair and Parade at Fort Vancouver, and created a poster and did research on a specific country. He chose Ireland. :)

In mid-April, Li'l C finished a set of winter swim lessons which he really enjoyed, and learned a lot of skills. Two of which were swimming forward stroke (crawl) across this pool with side-breathing AND treading water. We were so proud of him.

The cats continued to be adorable and fun:

She crawled all the way under the covers for a nap!

 As April went on, Teo's 9th birthday was fast approaching, and he originally wanted a slumber party, but we didn't want that many kids overnight at our house, so we compromised with a Rock Climbing party and his two best friends coming over afterwards to spend the night. He was in love with this idea. :)

This was the Rock Climbing cake that I made for him...

He invited mostly classmates, and a few other close friends. We ate some snacks and cake in a party at the Jim Parsley Center first, and then had some climbing time on the rock wall.

Ready to climb...

Teo at the top!

Some of his friends had never done any rock wall climbing before, so they were nervous, but they all attempted it, and most of them stuck to climbing up the smaller wall on the right, which they could do without a belay. It was an energetic party, and lots of fun! Teo had such a great time, and loved that he could still have his close friends over to stay the night after. We can't believe our first-born is nine-years-old now!

After Teo's birthday, it was a mad rush to get the house ready to put on the market. Lisa & Trung arranged for a cleaning service, and a handyman to come over and do any repairs, and spiff up the inside and outside before it went live. We appreciated that so much during that crazy, stressful time when we were both working, and taking care of two kids and two cats.

Speaking of the foster cats...we had to make the agonizing decision to let them go (this was after we had already made the decision to adopt them!). It was just too crazy, hard and stressful to keep the house as clean as it had to be for showings with three adults, two kids, and two cats in the house. Something had to give. The kids and I were heartbroken! We gave them back to the Furry Friends Shelter, and are hoping to maybe adopt them when we get a new house up in Seattle.

By the end of April, our house was on the market and Lisa & Trung had an Open House the first weekend, to which many people attended. Our hopes were high that it would sell fast!