A moving we will go

I don't have any pictures yet, but we have been moving into our new apartment this weekend. I have been madly trying to get the kitchen all unpacked and am almost there. I have found there is a big difference between an in-town move vs moving to another state... you have to unpack all your stuff at once. There is no leaving certain rooms to the end and getting that stuff later when you are ready for it. Right now I have 100 boxes in our house + our furniture which is making it pretty icky to get around. I think I have about 10-15 boxes done. Hopefully today I will get the rest of the kitchen done and moved onto the bedroom.

We picked up Jack a new bed @ Ikea yesterday. Randy has it almost all the way together. He and Will worked on it last night and it seems as though the Tidd family is evolving. They worked together quite nicely, no yelling @ each other, no swearing & they used their words instead of just pointing or sticking out their hand expecting something.

Here is the bed, I will post a picture when Jack's room is all together.

Vancouver Visit

Yesterday Jack and I headed to Vancouver to visit Bethany & Mason. We had a great time and hope they did too. Jack was completely entertained and I sat there and relaxed. I love their front porch and it is my hope to someday have one, it really is an extension of their house. In fact I think I have spent more time hanging out on their porch then in their house.

Jack's favorite things about the trip:
Seeing the girl (Jack met their neighbor, Jenna a very adorable four year old.)
Hopscotching with Mason


Driving his batmobile around last night (this has become a nightly pastime for him)

This week seems like it has gone by pretty quick. Jack started swimming lessons on Monday and they are going very well. He likes his teacher and is doing better in the water. Tonight Jack & I went over to the pool and did a little practice in the water. Tomorrow is the big move day... wish us luck!


Jack hopscotching it up.


Jack running through the sprinkler


Our tootsies enjoying the fantastic morning light in Bethany's spare bedroom.

Portland Weekend

We headed to Portland for the weekend for Wendy's birthday. All in all we had a good time. It was good getting out of town and seeing our family. I was grateful to be around people other then Jack and Randy. I know that might sound bad, but outside of Will I have talked to pretty much a five year old these last few weeks. I really need to find some friends here. Unfortunately for me, it sounds like most of Randy's work colleagues are single, sigh. So single friends... there are some well off nerds on the market here.

Randy filled gas for the 4th & 5th time this trip, he is getting better. At least he is not thinking they need to replace the nozzle after each fill. We had a bbq on Saturday night for dinner to celebrate Wendy's birthday. Sunday on our way back to Seattle we stopped and saw Bethany & Mason for lunch. It was so good seeing them. It is nice to at least be closer to them being up here.

It is also Randy & I's 6 year wedding anniversary today.

I caught Bev & Jack watching TV together on Saturday morning:


Sunday after we got home we headed down to the coffee shop and had a coffee. Here is mine. I felt like I was right out of an episode of Friends with my big coffee cup hangin out playing board games in a coffee house.


Jack's favorite things from our trip:
Seeing my family(Papa, Wendy, Jeff & Grandma)
Outdoor bbq with cake
Spiderman 3 Sorry game @ St. James coffee place with mom & dad

This section brought to you by Jack:
once i loved my mom and wendy
once i loved my dad

The last few days (7-15-08 - 7-17-08)

The last few days have been pretty good ones for Jack and I. Tuesday we went to storytime where we learned about bees and got to make a bee craft. Wednesday was storytime in the park, we packed a lunch and ate in the park. We also found a bakery and got some cookies to go with our lunch. Today we ventured to Puyallup wa to visit my old friend Annie. She is living up here and it was great to see her. I don't think Jack knew what to think of her two kids, but they are a lot younger...

Jack's favorite things:
Seeing Uncle Will on Wed night
Playing @ goldsmith park
Going to storytime in the park & @ the library

Seeing Annie today was great. I got caught up on all the gossip from the old crowd and being around another girl was nice for a change.

Tomorrow we head to Portland for the weekend and I am pretty excited to see people other then Jack and Randy. I might runaway to Vancouver for awhile and catch up with Bethany & Mason.

714-08

Not much went on today. Jack and I hit Target in the afternoon for a few necessaties. He picked up a batmobile, which he has been wanting since he saw it a few weeks ago and we got some new puzzles to work on.

This evening we made our usual treck to the park. It has become a nightly ritual, after dinner we walk to the park. Tonight I had Randy stop by the coffee shop I had been wanting to try out, and I was so happy that I did. It was seriously one awesome latte. I don't think I will be going to that seattle based franchise across the street again as long as we are in this neighborhood. This place was great. The baristas were all artsy with their foam and there were tons of books and games, like they actually wanted you to hang out there. They have a little library in there were you can borrow books and bring them back. It was great. It is what I remembered coffee houses being like when I first fell in love with them.

Jack's favorite things from today:
Getting to go to the park with his Daddy
Learning to play checkers @ the coffee shop
Getting to play

Walk to the park

These are some of the flowers and plants we see on the way to the park everyday:


This bush is covered in these pretty pink flowers. It smells really good too.


This is my new favorite lilly color combo. The evening I snapped this was the last day these lillies looked nice. The next day was a hot one and all the blooms wilted.


I am not even sure what this is, but when I have a yard, I want this little tree, it is sooo cute.


Jack looks up @ these leaves and always says, "Look mom, tree stars"


Jack spotted this lady bug on the walk home from the park the other morning. He was so excited about seeing a lady bug, that is was very old and that it crawled all over his finger. It was the perfect lady bug moment. After a few minutes he relocated the lady bug to a nearby flower patch so it would be safer.

Day 7 (7-13-08)

Today we headed to the Seattle Aquarium. We had a little hickup with the directions, one of the hwys we were supposed to use was closed so we had to figure out an alternate route. But we got there.

The aquarium was really nice, we saw lots of fish, a giant octopus, otters, sea lions, puffins & lots of other things. Jack played in the tidal pools and got touch starfish, sand dollars, sea annonome & sea cucumbers. It was pretty cool.



Jack's favorite things about the aquarium:
The sea otters
Going to the aquarium
Seeing a baby shark

It was a really good day. Randy nearly killed us getting back onto I5 from downtown, but we were all ok. I do think it shaved a year off my life though. Will came over in the afternoon and stayed for tacos.

Day 6 (7-12-08)

Today was a fun day, we went to the park that will be behind our new apartment. It is really nice and kind of tucked away in the neighborhood so it is not as busy as the one we go to everyday. Jack had fun checking out the new equipment. There is a trail that goes from the door of our new apartment to the park-- its about 100 yards from the front door to the yard-- which will be so nice.

Jack and Randy convinced me to look through the windows of the new apartment, it looks pretty cozy... not sure where that hutch is going to go.

Randy located a meat market close to the new place too. It is AWESOME!! We picked up a "John T Fox" sirloin and some ground beef. The service was so good, the guy behind the counter recognized we had not been in there before and asked if we were knew to the area and we mentioned we had just moved from out of town. Apparently all new customers get a few sample of their fresh made peperoni sticks-- which are awesome. We will definitely be regulars there. It also did not hurt that they had a huge cardboard cut-out of Barack Obama in the shop-- their cars were all decked out with bumper stickers too. So we felt @ home.

Tonight we walked down to the waterfront and grabbed a cone from Ben & Jerry's then walked over to the park. After Jack playing for a bit, we watched a baseball game for awhile and headed home.

Jack wisdom for today:
We were driving back this afternoon from some grocery shopping and I made a comment to Randy that I wanted a new car. Jack piped up with a, "Mom, just as long as it's not a clown car. Cause Mom then you would have to dress like a clown and get a clown nose." He was referring to my desire for a mini cooper-- which I have pointed out several times to Randys since moving here that it would be convenient for parking in tiny spots. It was so hilarious the way he said it. That kid is funny sometimes. So now I will probably never get one, because I will always here in the back of my head in Jack's 5 year old voice, "Mom- don't buy clown cars."

Days 4 & 5 (7-19 - 7-11-08)

Jack and I layed pretty low the last few days. Thursday we had to return the rental car. We picked Randy up for work and I left the rental contract on the counter back @ the apartment. So we just had lunch instead. I mentioned that I had to get gas in the Honda... & Randy told me something really funny. He had to get gas for the first time a few days ago. Keep in mind he has maybe filled gas 4 times in his life. In Oregon they have to pump it for you. He noticed a sign that said, "Please replace nozzle after filling." So he finished up, got his receipt and walked over to tell the attendant he was done and could he help him replace the nozzle... He understood the sign to mean they replace the nozzle between each fill-up. Thank fully he figured out the sign before getting to the attendant. That really was the funniest Randy momement in a long time.

Friday Jack and I hung out around the house. We made lunches and took them to the park to eat (ham rollups, peaches, raisins & a brownie). We ate while a baseball game was on. Then Jack played in the park.

Day 3 (7-9-09)

Jack's favorite things from yesterday:
making dragonflies after story time
the teacher reading me a story
going to the library

Jack's favorite things for today:
going on the hill for story time in the park
looking at the pictures of the big book
playing at the park with mom & dad after dinner

I can't post any pictures from today. There seems to be a problem with the photo editing software I have been using... boo.

Jack and I took it easy today, we hung around the house in the moring. He watched some cartoons while I got our sandwiches ready for stories in the park. Around 1130 we headed over to the park and started munching on our lunch. Unfortunately the PA system the librarian was using stopped working, so we didn't hear very well-- but we are looking forward to next week. The cars came today and Jack and I had fun getting them parked and situated. After dinner we headed off to the park with Randy to do a little before bed time playing.

Day 2 (7-8-08)

Today was a pretty good day for Jack and I. We started out the day by straightening up our house a little. I unpacked the last remaining boxes of temp housing items while Jack caught up on some cartoons.

We had breakfast in the park, grabbed some bagels from the bagel store (jack had chocolate chip & i had everything + plain cream cheese) & shared an o.j. After we ate Jack got some playing in at his park. Where he snubbed a little boy who asked him to play with him. I secretly giggled, the boy came up to him and asked Jack how old he was, Jack looked him up one side and down the other and kind of cocked his eyebrow and said, "I'm five" in a very serious I am not impressed with you tone to his voice. He also held up his hand and showed him how many fingers 5 was--in a way I could tell Jack expected this child to not understand just how many five is. The boy replied with a, "I'm five to, wana race?" which really sounded like, "I fife too wana waaaace?" Jack just looked at him, turned around and walked off. That other little boy found someone else to play with after going through the same scenario a few times. After whitnessing this I remembered what it was like when I was little-- at least I always had my sister, otherwise I never probably would have had anyone to play with. I could tell Jack thought it was going to take too much effort to interact with this "lesser being."

After the park we headed to the library for reading time. The librarian for story time was really awesome. I discovered just how painfully shy Jack was-- he picked a spot up front off to the side not realizing that during part of story time the group would turn to the other side of the room and he would be front and center. It took some coaxing but I finally got him to participate a little bit. I remembered just how I was as a little kid. Knowing what I thought was a lot and not wanting to make and mistakes, I could see the look on his face that I must have had so many times... hopefully a few more times and he will get the swing of it. We got to make a craft and he was excited about that.

We then headed home and made lunch, played his maze game we picked up at the coast. After nap time he had a little conversation with gma Beverly and worked on some homework. I can tell he is really smart because he gets frustrated with simple tasks-- but seems to sail through more uper-level cognative skills. We'll see how some math goes tomorrow....

We got home from the grocery store late today-- so no top favorites from Jack tonight, but I am sure he will have some tomorrow.

Day 1 (7-7-08)

Today was Randy's first day of work & Jack & I's first day together. I had planned on taking him to the library in the morning and going to the park afterword. The library was great, Kirkland's public library is very nice and they have a good children's section. We read a few books together and Jack practiced sounding out and reading new words. After the library we headed over to the park and Jack played for awhile. I attempted to make eye contact with some of the other moms and they just looked away.

After lunch Jack worked on some homework and took a nap. I rememered just how tiring being a stay @ home mom can be. But rewarding, I feel like I achieved something-- Jack sounded out some pretty big words @ the library today, and I think part of that is me working with him.

Sorry no new pics today. I forgot the camera on our travels. But tomorrow we will get a pic or two up.

Jack's favorite things about today:
Going to the park x2-- Randy took him in the evening
Running down the ramp
Having fun with my family

Below is brought to you through the magic of Jack's little fingers:
the park love mom dad love jack

My favorite things about today:
Jack waking up after his nap & being excited to see me
Watching him play @ the park and have a good time
Reading books at the library together and Jack reading the words he knows

Kate 7-6-08

I have discovered something about men... & why they do not have very many shoes. Men are picky. I used to think it was just Justin. Today Randy needed to get new shoes for work-- we went to 4 different places, all with rather similar shoes, and he finally settled on one pair after about an hour and half of looking and lamenting and trying and testing. Something was just a little wrong with each pair until he found just the right ones. After about the 15th pair, it dawned on me-- it must be because they are so discerning in their choices, that is why they only have a few pair of shoes. That must be it.

Me, I walk into any shoe store and I can find if not many at least one pair of shoes that strike my fancy. Like the ones I found today.

My favorite things about today:
Watching Jack sound out 5 simple words for a word search-- he pretty much did it on his own.
After 3 years of searching for the perfect color blue/slate/turquoise bed spread finding it @ Target.
The new coconut 7 layer bar flavor @ Ben & Jerry's-- it is yummy.

Jack 7-6-08

Jack's favorite things about today:
Going to Ben & Jerry's for a cone-- (he got chocolate brownie fudge chunk)
Going to the comic book store and getting a Transformer comic book with Dad
Buying new flip flops at Payless

Jack's witty advice for today-- during dinner I was lamenting that I should have gotten the very cute yellow flip flops @ Payless. Jack said, "You know Mom, we can go back tomorrow and buy them for you."

This section brought to you by Jack:
Jack says, "I love Momma & Daddy."

love batteries

Jack's new flip flops... I can't believe I did it-- but apparently we were a little late in purchasing sandals this year.
I promise I did not pose his hands on his hips like that - it is a natural talent
my pedicure from last week with Lynlee

Jack 7-5-08

Jack typed the following, "jack kristin randy i love mom & love dad."

Jack's favorite things:
Riding the carousel
Playing air hockey
Chocolate milk from starbucks

Jack's quote of the day, "You know dad, when you get lost you see things you never would have seen before."

Kate's favorite things:
Watching Jack on the carousel
Watching Jack nearly beat his dad in air hockey--seriously Tidd's don't play down to little kids either.
Getting us lost so I was able to hear Jack impart his wisdom for the day

Jack says, I love you everyone.

Pics from day in seattle

I missed the "done" button on the last screen. What can I say, first post and all.

Day in Seattle

Jack and I headed to Seattle for the day with Randy. We went down to Pikes Market and saw the fish tossing. We walked down to the waterfront and had lunch at a place on the water. Then Jack and Randy rode the carousel. It was a pretty fun afternoon and it was good to get out of the house.