She's Crawling!

Julia learned to crawl last week on the sail boat. What an accomplishment! And what a memory for us!

At the beginning of the week, she was a bit awkward but by the time we arrived home, she has it down! And she is quick! And she has even pulled herself up to stand twice.

Brett has spent the last 24 hours baby-proofing the house including our new fashionable tennis balls on the corners of our coffee table...worked for Oli and will now work for Julia!

Our First Sailing Adventure

Brett has had a life long goal of learning to sail and taking his family on sailing vacations. When he has spoken about this in the past, it was a retirement goal. However, a couple of months ago, he came home and said, "I have signed up for a sailing course.". And 2 months later, he is fully certified with his 'bareboat certification' enabling him to captain a sailboat upto 50 feet. I am so proud of him!

We spent a week on this wonderful boat named Wave Dancer and sailed throughout the San Juan Islands, creating many wonderful memories.

Oli loved the boat and his favorite part was his 'cabin' and the fact that you had to pump the toilet to flush it. That kid has never gone to the bathroom so frequently.

On our way to Sucia Island....a nice sunny day!

We had great weather but the mornings were cold! Here we are about to go for a morning walk in Friday Harbor.

This face shows it all!

Just used the dinghy to get to Stuart Island's shore. Stuart Island has 15-20 inhabitants and has this adorable school house that has 3 students this year, no electricity, no running water.

Waving goodbye to the boys who were dropping the crab pots off in Reid Harbor off of Sucia Island. Charlie, an avid crabber, doubted Oli would get any crabs but sure enough he did! We released them back to sea but not without having Julia pet them (photos on Maro's camera...will post later)

He LOVED driving the dinghy.

And even rowing it!

We spent a day at Roche Harbor bringing back many wonderful memories of our wedding 2 years ago. Here we are at the Roche swimming pool.

Exploring Sucia Island's sandstone caves.

On the lookout for more Seals or Dolphins.

Maro and Charlie joined us half way through the week and we were thrilled to have them onboard. They are very experienced sailors and it was fun hearing about their adventures when they spent 2 years on sail boat with their baby Charlie and then their many years worth of sailboat racing in Seattle and their countless summers spent sailing in the San Juans. It was a very special time for us, being able to share this experience with them. It's quite apparent that they are truly at home on the water.
Julia - a Helmsman in training here.

Oli loved sitting on the rail of Wave Dancer with Maro and Charlie (with a snowcapped Mt Baker in the distance).

Oli wanted Maro to sleep with him in the 'v-berth' cabin. Thanks, Maro for taking one for the team (more than once!).

Oli'ism #129

(this morning at home)

Oli: I miss the sail boat.

Brett: What do you miss about it?

Oli: I miss sleeping with Maro in my cabin. I miss pumping the toilet. But now that we are home, I like being able to throw toilet paper in the toilet again.

Second Annual Trip to Blake Island

The second annual camping trip to Blake Island was memorable, once again!

(Memorable, if not extremely bright without singlasses in the big lock!)
(Better with sunglasses now. Great weather, although Oli did feel a little sick for a while, apparently it was caused by carrying that heavy backpack. Great weather, great spot - one of my (Brett's) favorites for sure)

(Hard to believe that there's snow on the top of that mountain when it's as hot as it has been recently. Even the local wildlife, Racoons mainly, came knocking on the tent in the middle of the night asking for a drink.)

(The morning after, Oli complete with dollar from the Tooth Fairy, who paid us a visit in the tent overnight - it's amazing how she was able to find us all the way on that little island!)

(Oli was told to 'say cheese' before this shot - apparently you can see his toes grinning)

(Back on the boat on the way home& in the small lock this time (just to keep things a little interresting, especially with all those spectators, cant screw up now). Good thing that i had such a great Crew to help, Oli really listened to the instructions & was a 1st rate little helper.)

First time at the Beach

Another hot day here. The boys are off for a boating and camping adventure to Blake Island so us girls hung out at the beach.

She loved her first time at the beach!

We weren't early enough and the beach was all ours (at first...).

She squealed at the waves coming!

Doesn't matter what toy or activity we are doing, the iPhone is always the thing she reaches for.

Foster Kids 5k

It was a scorcher today! And still is VERY warm...as we sit in the house and do our best to cool it down.


As always, we enjoyed the day! Spent this morning at The Foster Kids 5k. This race was started a year ago by a couple of friends who want to race money to send less fortunate kids to camp. Brett thought that this was such a worthy cause that he has had Revel Consulting be the key sponsor last year and this year...and presumably many years to come.


Brett ran and I opted to 'walk and talk' with Julie. Julia joined the girls for the girl talk.

Go, Brett, Go! He ran very fast, finishing the 5k in 21:30. Impressive!

And just a quick photo from last night. Us girls went out to celebrate Natalie's birthday. She is such a dear friend who is so generous that it was fun to spoil her for a change!

Even though you cannot see Julia's mouth in this, if you look closely, her cheeks are giving it away...once again she is smiling!

The Nimmergut Family. Even though Skylar is not even 3 months old yet, she weighs the same as Julia. Healthy girl!

Spent the afternoon on the boat and in the lake (along with half of Seattle). It was the coolest place to be!

Our first injury on the boat (and please be the last!). Brett's business partner, Vikas and two of his friends joined us on the boat. Unfortunately, his friend knocked two of his teeth out. Here is his self-photo to check out the damage.

Catapults!

Darn the rainy weather! Brett and Oli had to postpone their annual Blake Island camping trip due to the weather. However, what a treat it was for them to have two days to play with no other plans.

When Brett asked him his favorite part of the day last night he said, "might have been the catapults we built, might have been that we took the boat to get ice cream, might have been the chess game that we tied, might have been playing baseball". Mission accomplished, the kid had a good day!


After trying peanuts and raisins, they figured out the popcorn was the best item to launch. The plates are marked 5, 10, 15 and points are achieved when hitting a plate. If you land on it, you get double. Not sure who wound up winning nor who had more fun.

But the best part is that they went and bought the catapult kit and painted and built them together. And even better, the kit cost $1.00 at Michael's. What a steal!

Couldn't help but include this picture...have to use more soap now that we have started solids. Scrub-a-dub-a-dub the the Sweet potato, mango and avocado away.

Oli'ism #127:

Brett: Which teacher do you think you will have for 1st grade?

Oli: Not sure, but I hope I have Ms. Bernstein.

Brett: Why?

Oli: Because she is pretty. And she has a black coat. And that makes her prettier.

It's a Plane!

Bringing two highlights of our weekend to you....

Michael Frante concert on Saturday night. It was a GREAT concert with GREAT friends.

If you've never been to Seafair...it is a huge party on the lake to see the Blue Angels. If you own a boat, you gotta go out, rain or shine. It is a thrill! Can you believe how low that plane flies across the lake???

Seafair 2010

Some rain and a lot of cloud cover didn't stop us from going out to enjoy Seafair's Blue Angels show. Hopefully the rain will subside for us today...because nothing, not even Oli's ear infection will stop him from wanting to go out again today.

At one point in the show, one of the planes comes so low and so fast, it is absolute thrilling!

Here is Oli's reaction.

Here is Cody's reaction.

Oli: "are you ok?" (checking in on Cody's little sister, Kelsie)

Just a couple of photos from last weekend when our dear friends, Mike and Nat came down to play from Vancouver. Now that looks like Seafair weather!

Mike captained the boat for the day, giving Brett a nice chance to relax on his boat. But soon he got twitchy and had to drive again.

Oli'ism #125:

Oli: Why do they call them nightmares? Mirrors aren't scary.

Oli'ism #126:

Oli: I had a really scary dream last night.

Wendy: Do you want to tell us about it.

Oli: Well, it was really really scary. I don't think you want to know. I will tell you one thing. There was a HUGE Chuck E Cheese balloon. And a dinosaur that was scared of water.

Oli'ism #127:

Oli: Why do they call them Honey Buckets. There is no honey and I don't see a bucket.

Julia and Scout - who's cuter?

Imagine that you ask a friend to babysit and in return you get these amazing photographs? I am THAT lucky. Lucky enough to have Natalie as one of my best friends.

Natalie and her friend and collegue Corey Moran (who happened to also be colleagues of Brett and mine at one point) practiced their photography talent on Scout and Julia last night. Excellent, huh?

Here are my favorites:


my absolute favorite

Maggie Gossett and Scout. Too cute!

Here are my two teeth. I am working on the top two now.

This is the wind blown look...