Moving Forward: July: Dirt, Water, Seattle Family, and More Water

After Israel, we spent the usual week recovering from the 5 hour time difference and 20 hours of travel. My sweet kids were traveling angels again with lots of sleeping and very little crying. The time transition was rather smooth for everyone but Nahum as I think he got a little sick. We spent the 3 weeks after Israel and before Seattle spending lots of time outdoors in the gardens and kiddie pools.

July 4: Boosting the immune system by

eating dirt smothered pork rinds and

generally cover themselves in soft vegetable garden dirt.

At their insistence, Nahum began their driving lessons. It is now a ritual, if we're outside when he gets home, to sit in his lap and drive up and down the driveway a couple times before parking the car in the garage.

July 8: We built our own water park. I decided to experiment with putting this plastic slide in their pool after the new pool with blowup slide that ties with rope to the bottom was such a "flop". Much to our pleasurable surprise, the bottom sunk creating a stable water slide both kids could enjoy. If you want to see water park fun in action here is a video I put together.

On Friday, July 13, we headed to Seattle for 10 days with some of my extended family. My father's oldest brother David, youngest sister Candace and their families all live in the area plus Michael and Melinda were and would be, respectively, visiting too. Shayna had a ball will all the toys David's granddaughters' have at his house (where we stayed) with the mermaids being her favorite. We spent as much time splashing in water there as we did in Israel as the lakes are all public with several parks for unsupervised boating, fishing, and swimming access around each. David and Vicki also had a 2'-deep, extremely cold, new, above-ground pool in the back yard. We all bought City Passes which allowed us to visit the Seattle Aquarium, Pacific Science Center, Space Needle, Harbor Tour, and Woodland Park Zoo. The kids loved seeing all the cool new places and things we visited. One of my favorite days was our visit to the PSC because we got a babysitter for Elijah so were able to just have fun with Shayna. It's kid oriented but still adult compatible so we all were able to do/see things that we found marvelous plus I got to just bathe in Shayna's enthusiasm. I love hanging out with just her as I can be silly and fun in a totally different way than when I've got both kids to worry about. When it's just the two of us (or three as in this case), we spend most of the time acting goofy, doing silly games, laughing, and teasing each other plus investigating the world around us at a much higher level than Mr. E allows. The aquarium and the zoo were perfect for both kids. They were fascinated by the water, fish, animals and all the new places to climb at both sites. The Sunday before we headed home, Candace and Tom took us out on their speed boat on Lake Sammamish. Tom let Shayna and Elijah drive from his lap a few times and Shayna still talks about how she, "made Tom go faster and FASTER!" I also got an evening out with my family while Nahum took the kids home and put them to bed by himself. I saw my first velodrome track bike races at an outdoor track. If you've never seen one, check out this video of the racers. Today we looked through the pictures from our trip and she said, "Can we go back to Seattle soon? That was a lot of fun."

June 15: Checking out the freezing cold pool: kids, mom, and grandpa. You just can't keep this family out of the water.

Family dinner at David and Vickie's (Michael, Melinda, Vickie, David, Nahum, and Shayna).

July 16: The kids and I usually take early morning walks with time zone changes so others can sleep. As usual, dirt was found to play in.

Shayna at the touch pool at the Aquarium with starfish, anemone, and something squishy whose name I can't remember.

Watching the water in the tide pool with Grandpa Michael.

Under the dome aquarium.

July 18: Our 2nd Lake Sammamish swim.

Throwing rocks and warming up.

July 20: The kids played and chased the ball around as I was finally tired of the cold water. Shayna could right herself if she slipped but I was prepared to leap in should Elijah. No one needed rescuing except from the cold.