Dancing on the Edge

Did You Miss Me?

Ok - I know the answer to that is no but still - it's nice for me to *pretend* I was missed. LOL!!

Our mini-vacation was awesome! We stayed in a really great hotel with an atrium - complete with waterfalls, streams and koi ponds. And, of course, the all important swimming pool....and even that had a waterfall in it. Kelton was in heaven! Kaylen had her first pool experience and it's clear that we have another water-bug on our hands. :)

Koi Pond

This is where breakfast was served each morning. It's also the view from our front door.

We see this a lot these days...they love to hold hands and walk together.

Kelton on the walkway.

First thing in the morning, after enjoying a really amazing breakfast at the hotel, we drove by our old house. It looks exactly the same as the day we drove away (except for being able to see a couch through the front window). The squirrel feeder is still attached to the tree in the front yard. The flower box is still on the front porch. The compost bin can still be seen in the back yard. The wood shed; still there (even though we replaced the wood burner stove with a propane stove two years before we moved and there is no need for the wood shed). The raised garden beds in the back; still there. The plants we planted are bigger but basically it looks like we still live there. It's kind of eerie. We pointed out the bedroom that was Kelton's and answered all his questions about his "first, old house". The neighborhood looks the same. Almost like everything was frozen in time.

We then went to Alderwood Mall, which looked nothing like when we used to live up there. It was renovated and really quite nice with a new play area (always important when you have kids)and chairs clutsters here and there for resting (or, as Kaylen discovered, napping. Kelton has always wanted to visit the Build-A-Bear workshop so we made a stop in there. I am happy to report that it wasn't nearly as expensive as I had always thought but then, Kelton didn't want clothes or accessories for his new friend and I'm sure that's where the money starts to add up.

The play area

Catching a few Zzzzzz's

Helping to stuff his new friend.

Giving his bear a bath.

One happy boy who is taking her new friend, named Kelton Bear, home!

After a full morning at the mall, we headed to the Everett Children's Museum. This is a not to be missed place if you are ever in the area. The roof top exhibits are worth their weight in gold. :) We spent about two hours playing in all the exhibits (and we didn't even see half of them.....that's ok though, we have a membership since it's a place we like to go whenever we visit up there).

Dino Dig

Playing in the water room

Flying a plane

After the museum, we went to the home of my parents and spent a few hours visiting with them. The weather was beautiful so Dakota took the kids on an adventure around the compound and they found plastic Easter eggs from last years Easter egg hunt. Use your imagination as to what the still-present candy looked like when the eggs were opened. Ewwwwwww!!

We had dinner with them and then headed back to the hotel. Kaylen fell asleep about 10 minutes from the hotel and was pretty much down for the night. When she woke, I changed her into her jammies, nursed her and she was back out. Dakota and Kelton hit the pool for an hour of swimming and then even he went down without a fight. It had been a busy, fun day and our little ones were exhausted....so were we. I was in bed by 9pm and Dakota, after putting in some study time, was down by 10:15pm. That's quite early in our world. :)

Stay tuned for Saturday's Adventure. :)

PS...anyone out there blog-saavy? Why oh why did my profile stuff move to the bottom instead of staying on the right hand-side of the screen? Grrrrrr.