Cap'n Red Gnome

Give him a hat and a peg leg...

Add an eye patch and a parrot on the shoulder.

Don't forget the sword...

...and a beard...
...And you've got Cap'n Red Gnome, scourge of the Salish Sea! Aaarrgghh!

(Taken at O's birthday party, several weeks ago. What a blast!)

Parade Picture Palooza!

Thanks to his preschool, Silas got the chance to show off his tricked-out bike at the 4th of July parade yesterday. I walked with him, and D took lots of pictures...

Getting ready, along with the other preschool families:

The anticipation is mounting!


And we're off!
As nervous as he was before the parade began, it wasn't long before he started hamming it up for the parade-goers.
According to their website, this is the longest continuously running parade west of the Mississippi. So there you have it, we're part of history :)
This was my favorite float. I had to include some shots of the circus troop. They were awesome!
Check out the bearded "lady." The parasol was a nice touch.
Loved the mustached strong (mini) men with dumb bells.
The weather was PERFECT and our day was delightful. Hope yours was too!

Preschool-related post

Every Wednesday, kids can show up at the playground adjacent to the preschool for an informal play date. We brought sidewalk chalk alone last week, and had a lot of fun.


Superheroes:
And from earlier this month...This is a scene from our preschool walk-a-thon. We walked down to the farmer's market, where they held drawings for several raffle prizes. After the walk, everyone met up back at the school for the end-of-year picnic. The weather cooperated, and we had a lovely day.

Our Dad's Day tradition

Here's a picture post in honor of Father's Day, featuring my boys, out and about in Port Townsend.
PT is our destination of choice for Father's Day, though it is 10 shades of awesome any day of the year.
Hope all the dads out there had a great day :)

Are you ready?

Silas is ready for summer! School ended last week, but we have much to look forward to. He goes to cooking camp (at his preschool) next week, and nature camp at an environmental learning center in August. He'll also be participating in the 4th of July parade with the rest of his preschool, and our little family will hopefully escape to the ocean for a few days as well.

I've got a few more preschool related pictures to share, so stay tuned.

Foulweather Bluff fieldtrip

The weather could not have been better for Silas' school field trip to Foulweather Bluff a few weeks back. A short hike through the woods led to this tide pool, ripe for young ecologists to explore:

Silas touched an anemone with his science finger:

They found some newly hatched fish in the shallows by the eel weed. Silas was one of the lucky few who manage to pick one up. Whenever the children handled animals, Teacher Debbie was careful to say "This is the kind of environment it came from so it must like living there. Put it back in its environment." But the kids couldn't resist putting the fish in slightly deeper waters, just a few feet away. There was just no stopping them from "rescuing" the tiny things.

Silas stands proudly where he released his baby fish:

Teacher Debbie examines some seaweed with Silas and friends:

One of the more curious finds...I thought this was trash actually. It looks and feels just like a rubber tire. But Teacher Debbie schooled me. This is the sand collar of a moon snail, made by the mother snail from sand, tiny eggs and mucous. The collar protects the eggs from the shifting tides.

A sun star. We counted at least 18 appendages.

A sand dollar in each hand:

Jellyfish:
Other non photographed animals: eagles, sea stars, geoducks, hermit crabs, horseshoe crabs, etc. etc.

Grandma and Papa at the zoo

This may be the longest stretch I've gone without blogging since Silas was a wee baby. Well, I needed the break apparently. To begin the game of catch-up, here are a few pictures from the zoo, which we visited while Grandma and Papa were in town.

Grandma bought Silas a pair of sun glasses, so he could be "just the same as everyone else" (his words, not mine, the little conformist):
The zoo has a great play area, complete with a cool slide. We could have spent all day right in that area and I think he would have been content.
The zoo's awesome view of Mt. Rainier:
One of my favorite things about this zoo is it's Red Wolf program. Red Wolves were driven to the point of extinction over the past several hundred years and only existed in captivity by 1980. This zoo's breeding program helped save the species. They are now on the way to recovery and have been reintroduced to the wild. We got to see several while we were there(a rare treat as they are not active during the day and like to keep their distance). There are less than 300 red wolves alive today, but at least their numbers are going up rather than down.

I've got some pictures to share from Silas' school field trip, and I promise not to go another month before posting them :)

Mother's Day Tea Party

Thanks to my understanding boss, I was able to "escape" an all day meeting for several hours today in order to attend Silas' preschool Mother's Day Tea Party.

The delicious lunch was prepared by the children. When I got there, Silas led me into the room and right to our designated places (marked by our personalized place-mats). After the main course, the children all brought their mothers dessert, and then helped clean up.
We had a printed menu listing our lunch and tea selection, and on the back were quotes from each of the kids, listing thier favorite things about thier mothers. Silas' read: "I like to play with her. We play the bus game. We drive buses around. She cuddles with me at night." Yep. That sounds about right :)

I was also delighted to receive a beautiful flower brooch that he had made for me.

Thank you for a wonderful early Mother's Day, Silas!

Hop to it

The Easter Bunny hopped on by, hiding some eggs, and an Easter basket for Silas:
Have you ever tried to find a chocolate Easter bunny without dairy? I didn't actually succeed, but I did find a chocolate Easter bear that, according to the ingredients list, was milk free. He gobbled it up later in the day with no apparent ill effects other than a tremendous sugar rush, but what he was most happy about, was this:
After sorting through his goodies, we proceeded to the egg hunt, which took place inside this year, due to the fact that kiddo was pretty sick.
Easter also brought this astonishing site:
While the moment did not last long, there was only a minimum of growling. Was it just an Easter-Day Truce, or the beginnings of a slightly less hostile relationship? We shall have to wait and see.