Month: October 2011

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Wonky Fingers

As seems the norm these days our weekend got off to an eventful start. You wouldn’t think anything could go wrong when all we had to do was get up, get dressed and go out but it did. As I came down the stairs Harry was standing by the dining table shaking his hand and pulling a face. When asked what the matter was he said he’d done something to his finger and it hurt. He was adamant he didn’t know what he’d done though. He’d been playing around with Match Attacks cards so I asked if he had a paper cut. He didn’t. I told him hurting fingers were a sign of naughty fingers and left him too it.

A few minutes later the house was full of Harry having one of his dramatic crying escapades. His fingers really hurt and he couldn’t be consoled. Big tears, big huffs and puffs and hyper-ventilating but still no idea what had made this happen. I thought he was having one of his attention seeking tantrums so carried on loading the car. Tracy was a bit more patient and eventually Harry revealed that he’d put his fingers on Tracy’s hair straighteners. This wouldn’t normally be a problem but unfortunately for Harry they had been turned on in preparation for some hair straightening action! After some cold water, savlon and three Spongebob Squarepants plasters Harry was finally able to leave the house.

Later at the Pumpkin Patch Harry revealed that he hadn’t just touched the straighteners – he’d put his fingers between the tongs and closed them on his fingers. Donut!

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Pumpkin Patch

I don’t know how I’d found it but I had – a glass blown pumpkin patch show in Issaquah. I thought it sounded interesting so on a beautiful autumnal Saturday morning we went to the farmers market in Issaquah. The patch was in the hay barn and very impressive it was too! At least I thought it was anyway! The glass pumpkins are blown by a company in Tacoma, which is a city famous for its glass blowing, so we may take a trip down there to see the glass museum and blow our own pumpkin.

After much umming and aaahhhing (and me announcing that I wasn’t leaving until we bought one) we chose a single, flat pumpkin. It’s the most expensive pumpkin I’ve ever bought but I think it was worth it. We just need to keep the boys, balloons and balls away from it!

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We’ll be back at the farmers market soon – they sell British bacon and bangers! It was all we could do to drag Tracy away!

 

 

 

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No Soundwave Video?

A Sounders update without a video of Soundwave!? Whoever would have thought it? Trouble was I’d forgotten to charge the camera battery so video footage was at a premium and I didn’t want to miss out on any potential celebration filming. Oh the stress of it. I don’t know how I coped!

Anyway, leaving those stresses to one side, it was the day of the cup final and Grandad had arrived the evening before. If he followed the Sally approach to overcoming jetlag the ticket we bought for him would have been a waste of money, however, either the magic of travelling first class or the Tuesday afternoon nap meant that Grandad was bright eyed and bushy tailed (sort of) come 5pm on Tuesday and ready to go to the game!

A pretty high attendance for the game was being forecast (they had opened the Hawks Nest) so we left in good time. Traffic wasn’t too bad – a few queues over the floating bridge but then, as always, the traffic just disappears as we appear out of the second tunnel.

We parked the car and went into the stadium. Much to Harry and Toby’s delight we were given free Seattle Sounders ponchos in case it was raining. They’d been asking if we could get a poncho all the way over in the car so to be given some for free was a right result! After introducing Grandad to the Soundwave we filled our tums with burgers, hot-dogs and pizza and took our seats ready for the 7pm kick-off. They don’t take a lot of notice of start times for sport in the US. The cup final kicked off at 7:15pm after all the national anthems, fireworks and such had been completed.

The game started well, and in particular for the Sounders. After a while though it developed the feeling of being one of those games. Sounders had chance after chance but could not score. I was convinced Chicago Fire were going to go up the other end and score but for once the sporting gods were shining on a Seattle team. Two late goals gave Sounders the cup one of which was just about captured on camera:

httpv://youtu.be/wS5hWCN33dI

This goal was swiftly followed by the celebrations:

httpv://youtu.be/BBkzqOFXy3A

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So a great night was had by all. Sounders won the cup, Grandad stayed awake and the boys got free Sounders ponchos. Who could ask for more!?

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Gate Rides

On Saturday we had intended to tidy up the house ready for the arrival of Grandad. This plan went out the window as the boys proved to be incapable of playing together nicely and instead we decided to get out the house and keep them busy! I’d seen on Twitter that the Pacific Science Center had taken delivery of lots of new butterfly larvae so I thought we would go there and see what it was all about.

First of all the boys started by spraying water at a variety of shapes and spinning them around and then we went inside and saw a whole bunch of things including:

1. Watching a boa constrictor eating a rat – it was pretty gross!
2. Watch naked mole rats – which were pretty ugly but quite funny
3. Solved balancing puzzles
4. Saw a variety of dinosaurs
5. Mixed music
6. Played a piano and giant guitar
7. Checked out some bugs
8. Went for a walk round the tropical butterfly park
9. Watched butterflies emerging from chrysalis
10. Read about the history of farts!
11. Sat at a giant table and chairs!

httpv://youtu.be/Fwyu9LjLfzk

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After a few hours of fun at the Science Center we went back to Bellevue and the mall. I sorted out my watch at Macy’s and then we went for an early dinner at Earls. As we left Earls and walked back to the car someone asked us if we could spare any time to answer some questions about gay rights. We said we didn’t and crossed the road. As we reached the other side of the road Toby asked “what are gate rides anyway?”.

 

 

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Harry’s Birthday

As you might expect the birthday day started early but not necessarily for the reasons you might expect. At about 6am Tracy and I woke suddenly to see a dark shape looming over us. It was Harry. It wasn’t an excited, happy, eager to open his presents Harry but a Harry whose throat and neck really hurt. It was all dry and he was starting to cry so emergency medical help in the shape of a bottle of water was required. He had a few gluggs, was wished a happy birthday and told to go back to bed!

Just after 7am the birthday started again! Harry arrived in our room and got a round of birthday songs. Toby arrived soon after with a present and some more songs. Harry opened this first present and was possibly slightly underwhelmed. Toby had been given the option of a number of presents to give to his big brother however none of them had really appealed. They didn’t quite have the feel of that certain something he wanted to give his brother. So a couple of days earlier Toby had gone into the playroom and picked out something to give to Harry as a present! So, the first present of Harry’s 9th birthday was a toy lorry that Toby had found in the playroom!

Once Toby had stopped laughing we went downstairs so Harry got to open some proper presents:

httpv://youtu.be/CQ09epvyqCc

As each present was opened by Harry it was accompanied by “ooh, I wanted one of those” from Toby. Harry didn’t manage to have the same (slightly forced) patience Toby had with presents on his birthday. He knew the school bus would wait for no-one so he ripped through them!

There was then a lull in the birthday celebrations due to the interruptions of school, although his birthday was announced over the school tannoy, his school dinner pin machine wished him a happy birthday and they got a longer recess because everyone was singing happy birthday to him.

In the afternoon Toby had his Coyotes soccer practice before we could go out to the restaurant of Harry’s choice. This week the Coyotes were playing the Panthers in what turned out to be a tough old battle. Toby had gone to the match intending to score one goal for his brother but as it turned out Toby put in (another) man of the match performance and scored a hat-trick. Coyotes won 5-3, with Toby dedicating one goal to his brother, one to his mum and one to his dad.

Once we got home and gave Harry his birthday cake, we jumped in the car and went to Zeeks Pizza in Kirkland. After throwing lots of dough at each other and eating yummy pizza we went home for chocolate cake. When we got home Tracy went upstairs with Toby while Harry and I put the TV on. A little while later we went upstairs and found both of them asleep in bed! And with that birthday month in Bellevue was over!

httpv://youtu.be/MJgBRoG2sm0

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Harry and Toby playing football manager on his new laptop: