Fun at the Zoo

To start off Jason's week off, we took the bookends (aka 1 and 4) to the zoo with us. The weather turned out to be nice and cool so the animals were fairly active. 

Isaac, shockingly, still isn't as tall as male polar bear. Gotta work on that.

 It is always fun to touch the wildlife.

Sadly, Isaac's favorite exhibit is no longer there, but he and Josh did spend a few minutes in the Hurricane Simulator. It was hair raising.

As usual, Isaac took a spin on the carousel. He is the only one who wants to and will do this, but based on his facial expressions it may not be his thing much longer.

We ended with a trip to the gift shop where we spent more than we should have. Then a final pic with the gorilla and our time at the zoo was done.

Terrariums R Us

It was a lovely Saturday afternoon when Mom and I hauled ourselves to Tacoma to learn how to make a terrarium (aka a way to kill plants more slowly). She looked happy at first.

And yet, when they started handing out the plants, she seemed less confident. The instructor was helpful and entertaining so we began making our terrariums with confidence, warranted or not. 

The finished product!

Well, products!

The instructor informed us that plants want to live. Which seems to imply that all the plants I have had either were suicidal or trying to live Irene-adjacent was enough to drain them of their will to live. We'll have to see how this terrarium survives...or not.

Point Defiance with Nana

It appears that visiting Point Defiance Park is the new Shenandoah Park annual visit with Nana. Fewer rocks, more flowers. 

We aim for a window of time when the roses and dahlias are in bloom. We managed to arrive this year after the peak of the roses and before the peak of the dahlias. For the win?

This is definitely a day to stop and smell the roses.

This time we also visited the Japanese Garden Pagoda which is a lovely spot.

I, ahem, may have orchestrated this picture which everyone, except Isaac, thinks is hilarious. 

I made up for it with this one.

And a picture of the teen!!!

Of course we hit up the slides and ladders and enjoyed a picnic. It is lovely to have traditions with Nana.

Point Defiance - Flowers, Turtle Island, Picnic, and Hungry Ducks

 

Summer Week 5 (Chehalis, Quarantine II, Point Defiance)

Sunday

I spent the morning on a 24-mile bike ride and now have biked the entire Chehalis trail (though not on one day).

After that I put a call in to the on-call pediatrician because one of our children had a low-grade fever and some other covid-19 symptoms.  Unfortunately, covid-19 is a bit of tricky disease and can exhibit in several different ways. It wasn't very likely that he had it as we've been fairly cautious, but we do see people (ie his 29yo grandmother) who are high risk so we made the call. Which lead to another call on....

Monday
....which lead to a follow-up call leaving a message with the nurse...who didn't call back which lead to an email conversation on...

Tuesday
...which lead to an appointment in the afternoon for a double nostril swabbing. Which is about as fun as it sounds. The nurse was kind enough to tell him that it wasn't going to hurt, but it was going to be rather uncomfortable.

She was right.

Before all that though, we spent a rather rough night in our it's so FREAKING HOT AND WE HAVE NO A/C house trying to sleep.  We were sleeping rather fitfully when Michael came into our room with blood pouring off his upper lip.

First we had sleep peeing in the trash can (Josh) and then sleep peeing in the bathtub (also Josh), but now we have sleep shaving (Michael). The latter being by far the most dramatic of the sleep behaviors. He woke himself when he gouged a chunk out of his upper lip.

Luckily he found the whole situation amusing and was pretty patient while I dug through the cabinets for a band-aid that would fit.

Wednesday
As soon the ped and I decided Michael needed to be tested, the whole house had to go into immediate quarantine. We really haven't been doing all that much or going to that that many places, but it highlighted just how much we actually have been able to do when all of a sudden we were back at square one.

Back to Josh asking in the evenings if we are going to do anything tomorrow and me quoting the irrepressible Brain.

Josh doesn't usually find that nearly as amusing as I do.

I felt badly for him though so I let him con me into letting him play Just Dance on the Wii for his exercise time. Entertaining for him. Entertaining for me.

Thursday
We got the good news more quickly than expected! NEGATIVE! The only person who was at all sad about this was Michael who thought this was going to be his ticket to getting out of hiking this summer.

Mwah ha ha ha!

Friday
To celebrate our newly (again) found freedom, we took Nana up to Point Defiance park to check out the Rose (and friends) Garden and to track down the relatively new chutes and ladder area. The flowers did not disappoint.

The older boys were indifferent to beauty surrounding them, but Isaac had enough enthusiasm to make up for all of his brothers....and then some.

Michael tried to impress me with his fake enthusiasm for gravel.

Isaac did more than stop and smell the roses.

I was even able to get a rare picture of Nana. I'm not sure if she was overcome by the beauty around her or the epic memories she was making with her grandsons, but I got a few pictures.

We eventually moved on to an activity with a bunch (and I do mean a bunch) more stairs. I only made it to the top twice to enjoy all the slides back down, but the kids had a fabulous time going up and down and up and down and up and....you get the picture.

It took a while, but eventually everyone was tired of running up stairs and we drove to the beach. We weren't there long, but we were there long enough for Josh to find a piece of kelp with which to whack his brothers.

Our last stop was the duck pond where it is clear that not everyone reads the signs about not feeding the animals. A duck waddled up quite close to Michael and then pooped right in front of him when it was clear that no food was going to be forthcoming.

And Ben, ever hopeful, made sure to check for blackberries.

No berries, but Josh found the shell of a bug he thought looked tasty. Or, at least, that's he wanted this picture to look like.

When we got home I did something I've been thinking about for a long time: I bought the old school Super Mario Bros 3 game. The boys thought it was hilarious. Also more difficult than expected. Also weird because of some of the glitches (like the one seen below). Also crazy because you can't save where you are in the game when you turn off the Wii.

Welcome to the Dark Ages of video games my children! Bwa ha ha ha!

Saturday
Back in fun sick land, Isaac climbed into our bed first thing and then puked.  And then kept doing that off and on for a few hours. It's been the kind of week where my mantra has been "at least it's not lice." ::facepalm:: Several hours, several Pedialyte popsicles, several snack bags of Scooby-Doo graham crackers later and he was doing much better.

Hopefully next week will be healthier.