Flying Rockets

We took care of Saben & Annika Friday and most of Saturday while Kari joined Amy and Lara in Seattle for some back to school shopping. I was invited to join them, but because of my hand and my energy level since the surgery, decided to stay home. We found out that Meera, Zach, and his parents were staying nearby, so we invited them to join us for breakfast Saturday morning at IHOP. We enjoyed our breakfast with them and Saben & Annika were very patient since Grandma thought to bring some stickers to play with. The stickers went from a sticker book scene, to a piece of paper and finally ended up on their legs, arms, faces and on a secret place on Saben (his stomach under his shirt).

After breakfast we went to set off some rockets that Kari, Todd, and Ken made years ago. Saben had discovered them at our house awhile back and had been anxiously waiting for a good time to set them off.

It turned out to be a great day for setting off rockets. We had 4 different rockets and were able to send 3 of them up, the last one was missing a piece and was unuseable, so we sent one of the others up twice. Saben liked putting the rocket on the stand, but as soon as it was on the stand, he took off running to get out of the way, even though Ken still needed to hook it up to the battery, so there was no way it could have taken off. He is very cautious that way, and wouldn't even stand by Ken when it was time to start it up.

I did a series of fast shutter shots and got this great shot of one of the rockets taking off. You can even see the fire coming from the end of the rocket.

Surgery

After a fun start to the week, with the adoption finalization and a trip to the fair, I ended the week with surgery. It was a planned surgery, that I finally found some free days to have done. It was carpal tunnel surgery, so I won't have numbness or tingling in my fingers any more when I do certain things, like drive, do computer things, etc.

I have to have this bandage on for 2 weeks, and it needs to stay dry, so I get to shower with a bag on my hand. The pain really hasn't been to bad, actually a lot less than I expected, but it is really getting tiring having to do everything with one hand. I can use the fingers on my right hand a little, but if I try to do to much, I feel pain pretty quickly.

As is often the case, you don't realize how important something is until you lose it. (Everyone who reads my blog needs to try washing your hand using only one hand to appreciate having two of them.)

A Day at the Fair

Just so you know, I am typing my blog with just my left hand. There's not much I can do with just one hand, but I can type, it just takes longer.

Tuesday, I joined Kari, Saben, and Annika in a trip to the fair at Lynden. The first thing we saw was displays of things made out of leggos. Saben loved looking at the elaborate things made from leggos. Next, we spent time looking at the different animals, Annika seemed most impressed by watching the cows making cow pies in their stalls.

After lunch, Kari and Saben met some friends and went on some rides. Kari thought Annika would enjoy watching a horse show, so I took her to that. She actually didn't pay much attention to the horses, she was concentrating on getting every morsel of cotton candy out of her bag instead.

Later, I took her for a ride on the merry-go-round, which she enjoyed, but I couldn't get her to smile for the picture. (she was also getting tired by then.)

Since it was a pretty hot day, we all cooled off with a sno-cone before heading home. It was a lot of fun, but I was pretty tired by the time I got home.

The Newest Voelker

Monday, we joined Todd, Betsy, Seth, and her parents at the courthouse in Seattle to finalize Seth's adoption. There were 3 adoptions taking place that day, so there were a lot of happy families gathered together.

Each family was called into the court room, one at a time, then asked some questions by the judge. After she looked at the paper work given to her by the lawyer, Todd and Betsy had to raise their hands and swear that they were able and willing to take care of Seth for the rest of his life.

After all the official stuff was over, we were invited to take pictures of them with the judge.

We had some time to wait while the lawyer went to file the papers, so we spent it playing with Seth. When the lawyer brought back the papers, he said that a new birth certificate would be issued, with Voelker as the last name. He told us that it could take at least a year since it had to come from California and that they always take a long time, which we had already figured out, since it took 7 months to get the first one. But at least, the adoption is final now.

Birthday Gift For My Mom

This year for my Mom's birthday, the kids and grandkids pooled their money and gave her a day out. I drove to Wenatchee Saturday morning, arriving around lunch time. Tim, Debbie, Darcy, my parents and I went out for lunch, then while Tim stayed with my Dad, the girls went to get a pedicure.
This was my Mom's first pedicure and she really enjoyed it.
Darcy had to wait for a chair, so while we were drying our polish, she was still getting hers done.
The finished product. Those that know us, have another chance to guess whose feet are whose.

After our pedicures, Debbie, Mom, and I went to Leavenworth, where we browsed through a few stores, then had dinner, before going to the play "Singing in the Rain", put on by the Leavenworth Summer Theater group. The play was held outdoors and was very well done, however it was getting kind of cold before it was over at 10pm.

Seth finally, got his picture added to the family picture collage that we gave my parents last year for Christmas.

Weekend of Aug. 13-16 (Part 2)

While Ken was at work this morning, Annika and I took the wagon down to the playground where we live. She usually likes the slide and climbing the best, but today she liked the tire swing the best.
Ken came home at lunch time, so I could go work at the food bank, while Annika took her nap. After she got up, we headed to a kangaroo farm just 10 minutes from our house. We had heard about it, but had never been there before. It was pretty cool, since you got to walk in the pen with the kangaroos and feed them small pieces of bread. Ken helped Annika feed them at first, but eventually...
...she was willing to feed some on her own. They have some farm animals also that you get to feed, she didn't like feeding the big goats because they were kind of pushy, but she did feed the smaller goats.

Ken was constantly encouraging her to feed and pet the animals, sometimes, she would and other times she wouldn't. Unfortunately the battery died on my camera, and I left my purse with some extra batteries in the car, so I was unable to get a picture of the funniest animal feeding that we did. The guide had some pellets to feed the llamas, but instead of feeding them by hand, they are trained to take the pellet from your lips, if you hold it lightly between your lips. Have you ever had a llama kiss you? That's kind of what it was like, but it was so quick and light, that you almost didn't know it had taken the pellet. I really needed a picture of that! (sigh)

Weekend of Aug. 13-16 (Part 1)

Our "weekend" started Thursday afternoon, when I met Kari in Mt. Vernon and brought Annika home with me. After Ken got home, we decided to get the blueberries from our bushes picked. I gave Annika her own bowl to put berries in, but as soon as she had a couple in her bowl, she took them out again and put them in...
...her mouth. She did this over and over, no matter how many times we encouraged her to put them in her bowl,(which she did do), she just couldn't be convinced to leave them in the bowl. I guess they were just so good right off the bush, that she couldn't wait to eat them. After she had eaten quite a few, I decided I'd better take her elsewhere, so she didn't make herself sick eating to many of them.

Later that evening, before bed, Ken started throwing her onto the mattress and told her she was flying. Several times today she wanted to do more flying, I decided that since Ken started the flying thing, he was going to be the one to continue it, which he did for awhile tonight before bedtime.

B's Birthday 2009

We continued the new tradition that we started last year on my birthday, by finding a place to ride our bikes on Tuesday. (We did it the day before my birthday because I wanted to go to the women's Bible study that I'm in on Wednesday nights.) Since we have been gone a lot the last month, we decided not to use the whole day this time, but just make it a half day trip. Our plan was to have lunch at home, then drive to Anacortes and catch the 2:30 ferry to Lopez Island. We would spend 5 hours on the island and catch the 8:30 ferry back to Anacortes, getting home around 9:15. So much for plans!

The ferry was 30 minutes late both going and coming back, so we ended up spending almost as much time waiting in line to get on the ferry as we did on the island. Once we did get there, we had a nice bike ride around Fisherman's Bay, where Lopez village is located. There were some nice bunches of wild sweet peas,(see top picture) that framed some nice pictures of the bay and boats.

Lopez Village is a nice, very small town, with a great restaurant, which is where we had dinner. We ate outside with a great view of San Juan Island, which had boats and seaplanes coming and going from it. We wished we could have stayed at the restaurant to see the sunset, but wanted to make sure that we caught the ferry, since the next one didn't come until 11pm, and we didn't want to get home at midnight. (As it turned out, we could have seen the sunset after all, since the ferry was late, but who knew that would be the case.)

We enjoyed our time there, but felt we needed to go back some day, since we really saw very little of the island. For some reason, we had never really taken time to visit it before. Before dinner we drove to an scenic area, with some nice overlooks, where we could take a short walk. Apparently, this artist thought it had some nice views also.

Fun in the Sun

Annika is once again sitting on animals, this time, it's her dog, Roxy.

After lunch on Monday, we headed to a water park, so the kids could play awhile before Annika needed to take her nap.

Both kids enjoyed running around through the different water sprays.

I was surprised to feel how cold the kids were from the water, I guess that means the water isn't heated at all before it sprays out at the kids. It would probably be to cold for me to get in, even on a hotter day than what it was on Monday. Saben took a couple of breaks from playing in the water to get warmed up.

Down One Day, Back the Next

We made an overnight trip to Portland on Friday to attend the wedding of some friend's son. We have known this family for years and have watched him grow up. It was fun to see him grown and ready to take this important step. The wedding was outdoors and since the sun was still up, it was pretty warm during the ceremony, but it got quite pleasant as the day went on. They did something during the ceremony that I had never seen before, and I really liked what it symbolized. The pastor expained that in olden days, a covenant was made between 2 men by taking a pinch of salt (a very valuable item back then) from each man's pouch of salt, then each man put the other's salt in his pouch. The covenant was now in effect until the salt could be separated into each person's salt again, obviously an impossible task. Kyle and Brittany used 2 colors of sand instead of salt that they poured together into a container, to symbolize that their covenant was forever. I hope you understand my explanation, anyway, I thought it was a unique thing to do, instead of the usual unity candle.

We decided to make a side trip on our way home today. We have zoomed many times by Olympia in the years we've lived in Washington, and today we decided to stop and take a look at the state capitol campus. We took a tour of the capitol building and walked around the grounds, where there are lots of gardens and statues.

This is the room where a lot of news conferences take place. I'm not sure what announcement Ken is getting ready to make. The flag behind Ken on the wall is the only flag with 42 stars, and was made when Washington became a state. It was never an official flag, however, because they only make official flags for the year each year on the 4th of July. On July 3, of the year Washington became a state, Idaho became a state as well, then on July 10, Wyoming was going to become a state, so they just made the flag for the year with 44 stars. I had never know that before and found it very interesting.

Nose to nose with the Father of our country.