Alaska Trip

We went up to Alaska a couple weeks back--long pants and jackets hooray! The locals complained about their bad weather, but I thought it wasn't to bad. We had a handful of rainy days, a few drizzly days, and some really pretty ones too.

In anticipation of rain, mom had rain suits and boots for the boys ready--the first day of the visit they insisted on putting on all the gear. Because it was cloudy outside... slightly damp on the ground... and probably 70 or so...

Building a fort in grandparents forest (there's a Ryan camouflaged in there)

There was a site nearby requiring a backhoe--so the driver let the boys each have a turn operating. This was a huge highlight. Trevor is still talking about driving a backhoe when he grows up.

They got to do this twice during the visit. The second time Trevor comes back and reports--Ryan almost hit a house, but he didn't.

Nora loves Bapa tootoo :)

At the park in Soldotna on the way to Kasilof

Ahhh! Watch out for deer!

All ready to go fishing!

Trevor didn't hook any, but he got to reel in a couple and was pretty excited about that part. They were out most of the day, I was impressed by his trooper-ness and his ability to subsist on sunchips and root beer.

The catch

Grumble Bunny at the airshow--I think he was complaining about not getting a toy he wanted. Parents are lame.

  John, Nora and I rented some bikes to ride part of the coastal trail/planet walk. I put most of the pictures on facebook, but here's a couple--Nora examining the sun and John and I at Uranus brought to you by Chilkoot Charlies

On one of the inside weather days we took the boys to the Natural History Museum. It's pretty small, but has some interesting things to look at and a pretty entertaining activity/toy room

Trevor's comment when he saw the lions--"I bet that they would win if they battled me". Yep.

I thought this perspective was a bit artsy.

They found the legos... now we're talking

Nora and Great Grandma Betty

Getting ready to sit for a couple pictures

The kids are all distracted by something, but still cute



Cheese!

Can you spot the child who'd rather be doing anything else?

Four Months and Growing

Nora had her 4 month check up yesterday (she turned four months last Thursday). So here's her stats:

Length: 26.25 inches-- 97th percentile

Weight: 13.8 lbs-- 50th percentile

Head circumference: 16.5 inches-- 75th percentile

Playing with her new bestie

Upright toys!

Legoland Trip

We made the trek out to Legoland last weekend. The boys are very lego-focused right now, so it seemed almost cruel not to visit. We got into San Diego early evening and stopped by a park to stretch our legs before dinner and then hotel. At the park we had Nora try out her first swing. She seemed to enjoy it and the boys enjoyed her doing yet another new thing.

Weeeee!

Whoa!!!!

It's hard to see, but Ryan's face is pretty excited

Dinner time

We spent the first full day doing the general park stuff. I'm not sure exactly what we expected, but John and I found it to be a little less lego-y than we imagined. We didn't do too many rides because the lines were very long and they required an adult to accompany each child, with no lap infants. So that made it a bit difficult. Fortunately the boys were happy to play with all the other more interactive and open play areas and didn't seem to mind passing up many of the rides.

Nora unsure why she had to sit in a car for so long just to sit in a car seat with a toy she could have been playing with at home...

They had some cool lego stuff

John seemed to find watching us, and by 'us' I mostly mean 'me', to be hilarious. There are way more pictures of us on this ride than seem necessary. It was a race where you pump the lever and push on the joy stick to get your truck over to the building and put out the fires with the fire hose gun thing. My team was not high on participation... the guy in charge of the ride ended up coming over and asking if we needed help finishing. I was adimate we did not, but he felt the need to at least work the joy stick for us. We placed a distant fourth... out of four.

Lots of Starwars legos near miniland.

That's a lego statue--pretty cool.

Ryan was very interested in perusing the lego merchandise throughout the park.

Building and testing area--making cars and then racing then down a ramp

This was a person in a suit, not a statue--that's why Ryan looks so suspicious of the robot thing

More building areas

Nora being generally cute. She did not appreciate the longer car rides, but seemed to enjoy being different places and staring at different things.

You build a structure and then turn on a vibrating plate to see if it stands. This building was pretty neat because it would almost fall and even separate in the middle but still stay standing. The kids seemed pretty protective of their building and would hold it while it was vibrating a lot to help it stay together. John had to wait until they moved on before he could turn it on high and watch it collapse.

More lego statues.

Why isn't this made of legos?

This was a ride they could go on by themselves, but they had to be four. So while in line John whispers to Ryan that on this ride he gets to pretend he's four years old (instead of 3). When they got to the front of the line the guy asks John how old Ry is and Ryan enthusiastically starts yelling "I'm four! I'm four!". Smooth.

I explained to Trev that this was a good guy. But he still decided to attack. We should probably see the movie sometime.

At the aquarium. Ryan is a rooms surrounded by fish, but is mostly interested in the entry stamp on his arm...

Touch tank

What you lookin' at?

She seemed to really like staring at the fish

Alaska!!!

Before leaving to head home we told the boys they could pick out lego sets at the big store. Ryan was ecstatic and the entire walk out kept confirming that we were indeed going to buy a set, not just look. And that we were going to take it home with us. And that we were doing that today. And that it was right now.

Ryan picked out a superhero set with a lego robot, superman and wonder woman. Soooo excited.

Both boys posing with their sets. I couldn't get them to stop looking at the boxes and look at the camera instead. They both were able to handle not opening them up until the next morning, since we got into town late that night. Ryan was allowed to keep his box in his bed, promising not to open it until daddy was there to help him in the morning. I think that next day their eyes were glazed over with lego-ness.