Stairs

Ben has figured out he can actually get up the stairs. Usually when one of us goes up, he will hang around at the bottom and go up one step but won't try to go any farther. Maybe we scared him last time he started up. The other day I went halfway down and sat and coaxed him to come up to me, which he did with absolutely no problem. So yesterday I went up and pretty soon here he was, cruising up the steps. He did it later when Jon and I were both downstairs. The gate promptly went up. I'm happy he can do steps, but he doesn't know how to get down yet, and that's what worries me.

Just for an update, I did finally get my puzzle done yesterday. It's nice when daddy's home during the day.

Puzzles

So I started the Mt. Rainier puzzle a couple of days ago. I got it out and Ben decided he needed to help. So he sat on my lap and tried to eat 2 pieces. Once he figured out that wasn't going to fly, he found a fun game of drop 2 pieces on the floor, pick them up and put them on the table, and get back up to mom's lap. This was a fun, exciting game for him and it went on quite a while. I had a sore back and very slow progress. Once I started getting chunks of the outside together, Ben decided he had to pull them apart. As any good mom would do, I finally gave him a couple of inside pieces and started throwing them a bit farther from the table so it would take him longer. At one point he tried to run away with them. That was enough of that. Yesterday I went back to the puzzle while he was otherwise occupied, but he again found me and had to help. By now I had started on a section inside. This time he had to help by putting the pieces back into the box-the exact ones I was working with. I tried to give him others but he somehow knew exactly which ones I wanted out. When he tried dumping the box, it was time to quit. Needless to say, puzzles just aren't the same with children around.

Mt. Rainier Part 2

Friday was our big day out last week. I got done unspeakably early with work, and as we sat around debating about a movie, Jon proposed we go back to Mt. Rainier. It was a beautiful day. We packed a lunch and drove. What an amazing difference compared to a month ago! There was still snow, but so much had melted and flowers were growing. The only obstacle we had to contend with was a bit of road construction in the park. It was nice and cool up there. We drove along with the windows down. We had lunch in a nice little picnic area and stopped at Paradise to see the view, which is very close to the mountain. We also bought a panoramic puzzle of Mt. Rainier, a tradition we started way back as a somewhat useful souvenir of our trips. We figure we won't stash it in a drawer and never look at it again. Below, Ben's not sure what to think of snowballs.

What Does He Know?

As I observed Ben this morning in his innocently destructive behavior, I had another wondering of what goes on in his little baby mind. He sat here shredding a section of newspaper, as he often has. He also will rip pages out of a magazine and tear them to little pieces. He's even ripped the covers off our logic book and crosswords. But earlier he found one of daddy's books and just sat calmly paging through. He does not rip pages out of books. He just flips through. Does he somehow know he'd be in huge trouble if he ripped daddy's books? What keeps him from doing it?

Now if he'd only stop going for the power button on the computer...

Holy Cow, Are You Here Again?

I have lately found my mind wandering back home to a magnet on my fridge. I received this magnet from a lady when I worked as a CNA in college. She made these for a lot of people, mind you, not just me. This magnet is a little red cow with the words Holy Cow, Are You Here Again? (I also received a rooster, but that's irrelevant to the story.) This magnet, of course, is made for you to put on your fridge and look at it every time you want to open the door. It has really only deterred me once or twice. Being pregnant, I feel like I am either eating or hungry all the time. I have noticed this more lately because a certain little boy will stand against my legs and beg or reach for what I have. He definitely has an eye for food. I wonder if he's picking up bad habits right now, even at 10 months of age? He seems content when there is not food around and will come after me when he's hungry. I suppose that's why we buy healthy food, right? I guess we can't have that baseball team or my kids will think I never stop eating:)

Who Needs Toys?

Yet another week and I really have nothing to write about, but I thought I would at least let you know since I'm sure everyone is on the edge of their seat just waiting to see what great adventure we've had this week. Sorry to disappoint. But I would like to show you Ben's fascination with the dishwasher. The first picture I'm unloading and he's going in and out with the rack and clapping. The second one I'm not positive what he's trying to accomplish. I always have a hard time getting the door closed when he's around. He also likes to pull out the silverware. Unfortunately, we won't have this "toy" back in Michigan.

We went to a little market on Saturday and got some fruit, including a little bucket of yummy strawberries. We also got some corn on the cob, so we'll have to try that this week. We were told it's very good. One thing I've missed is going out every summer and picking corn out of the field and having it that very night for supper. We broke down and bought some last summer from the grocery store, but it's just not the same.

I will spare you more reminiscing. Have a good week and I'll try to think of more exciting things to write about.

Another Weekend Past

Here we are on another Monday with another eventful weekend past. This time we headed back to Minnesota for my brother's wedding. We drove up to Seattle Wednesday evening and flew out at 12:40 to arrive in Minneapolis around 6:00 a.m. We spent Thursday and most of Friday preparing for the wedding, which was Friday evening outside. It was a beautiful day and a very nice wedding. Ben got lots of attention from both sides of the family. He also learned to clap. We got to spend time with friends and family and didn't get a lot of sleep all weekend. We flew out Saturday evening, arriving back in Seattle around 7:00 and finally getting home about 10:30. This was Ben's first airplane ride and he did well overall. The planes were packed so there was little wiggle room for him. This is the second summer in a row where I've flown pregnant, and I hope to not make that a tradition.

We went Sunday to worship with the Sea to Sea cyclists in a nice shady park. Ben got to try out his clapping in a real-world situation. It was a good service and we actually met a rider originally from our home church. What a Dutch world we live in! The first week has been a lot of work for them in the mountains, so hopefully the next few are a little less straining.

We are now trying to catch up on sleep, which I've heard is actually impossible to do.

I meant to post more pictures of our Columbia River trip, but I was having troubles last week. If you don't see any in the next couple of days, they aren't coming.

Columbia River trip

It's hard to know where to start. We have a ton of beautiful pictures, so it's hard to know what to post. We left Friday afternoon and crossed the river into Oregon and drove the interstate right along the Columbia River, taking a couple of scenic detours along the way. One took us up to some beautiful views. Another took us right along a bunch of waterfalls, one of which you see behind us here. Ben was very scared at the first one. You get very close to these and they are very loud. You can also feel the spray from them. He relaxed as we went. Latourell falls was great. It was a short walk and there was nobody else there. See Jon's picture below. (You might want to click on the picture for a better view.)
We spent the night in Beaverton. We tried Ben in the big pool. It was a little cold and he wasn't altogether excited about it, but he did pretty well. (It's foggy because there was also a hot tub in there.) We had some ice cream to end the night.

Saturday we headed toward the Oregon coast and drove up the coast. We stopped At Ecola State Park, which is where they did some filming of The Goonies. They had a beach there and we walked a bit in the 55-degree water. The sand was hard and full of bugs, so we didn't let Ben crawl around at all.

We drove up the coast to Astoria, where we got a picture of The Goonies house, and drove back across the Columbia to the Washington side. We headed up to Mount St. Helens but the road was still closed. We drove back home along the Columbia River on the Washington side.

We just got back from the Columbia Gorge. I will let Keri post more details soon. But here are some pics of Ben's trip to the Gorge and to the Pacific Ocean. Otherwise, we saw a lot of trees, water, and beautiful waterfalls

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A Few Firsts

Ben had his first pool experience on Friday (just a little kiddie pool). He was less than thrilled about the whole experience. He cried for a bit and then took a nose dive out of the pool. I then sat him back down and sat right next to him outside the pool. He soon became contented when he found some rubbery fun thing to suck on, but he refused to sit down. I have no happy pictures of this event. We'll try again on Friday.

Ben has now found the joy of going up stairs. Just 4 of them, and he hasn't tried it again. The stairs in our house are not really on his way to anywhere so it's not a big temptation for him. As little as a month ago, I was okay with him just crawling. I have decided in the last few days that he needs to start walking very soon. Towards the end of my pregnancy with Ben, I got winded very easily. Thankfully that was after our Indonesia trip where I climbed countless numbers of steps. I am finding that it's already happening this pregnancy, especially while carrying Ben up the stairs. I suppose this could be alerting me to something more seriously wrong with me, but that's for another day. So I have decided it would be in my best interest to have him walking quite soon. I'm sure he would enjoy it, too.

I finally made it to the library Friday. I am allowed 2 books at a time as I am not a citizen of Washington state, but I was going nuts without a book to read. (It's tough when a trip to town is a major event in your week.) I can only do so many logic puzzles that I don't actually have the logic for. I read my first book on Saturday as we did basically nothing all day. It was quite enjoyable.

We are doing an all-day trip Saturday to random spots Jon has chosen, one of them being the Columbia Gorge. He has Sunday off, so he will be able to relax a bit this weekend. Hopefully we will have some good pictures to post next week. These trips are rather fun for me. He plans it, tells me where we're going, and I get myself and the boy ready to go.

It's unfortunate Ben is not old enough to enjoy the things we are seeing this summer. Hopefully some day we will be able to come back and enjoy them with all of our children.

Nothing

I just want to say, I hate coming up with titles to things. I always thought it was stupid to put titles on my papers in school. I put my name on, you read it, we're done. Topic sentences are bad enough, but then I have to sum the whole thing up in a few words? Hence the title of today's post, because my original intent was to just put up a couple pictures and tell you the greatest irony I have found here in Sunnyside: Every day at 4:00 I can turn my TV on to Little House on the Prairie, a beloved show of my youth. The ironic part is that it's on the Fox network out here. Never saw that one coming. Anyway, below are a few pictures.

Ben was getting into Mommy's cupboards and started pulling stuff out. Ben helped Daddy mow at Grandpa and Grandma's. We put a hat on him and he zonked out.

Here are a few more from Mt. Rainier National Park

Mt. Rainier National Park

We drove Saturday to Mt. Rainier National Park, which is only a couple of hours away. We can actually see Mt. Rainier from our house on a clear day, but Chinook Pass just opened up last week and we thought we'd get a closer look. It was a beautiful drive as the brown hills gave way to tree-filled mountains and rivers. There were a few campers scattered here and there. It was quite cool when we started and just got colder as we went. We took a long detour to Bumping Lake. It was a beautiful lake but the water was ice cold and it was very windy. We didn't stay out very long, especially for Ben's sake.

As we drove closer to Chinook Pass, we saw walls of snow growing higher as we went, which was so weird to us since it's June. We got out to take a few pictures like we had never seen snow before. It was also quite foggy by then and the fog continued until the snow started tapering off. We did not actually get to see Mt. Rainier, but it was a beautiful drive. We hope to go back in August when Jon's parents come out.

There At Last

Well folks, we are here in the lovely state of Washington. We left Minnesota on Friday afternoon and drove to Rapid City. After being detoured off the interstate to navigate the city by ourselves, we finally found our hotel and got a few hours of restless sleep. Up at about 5:30 on Saturday, we took a scenic drive through the Black Hills and proceeded on to Missoula, MT. Ben did very well. He did a lot of sleeping but we heard minimal crying despite his teething and having a cold. When we reached Missoula at about 7:30 that evening, we got pizza and just relaxed in the hotel room while Ben explored. He had had enough of sitting in the car seat and enjoyed seeing what he could get into in the room. When we asked for a crib, we were told they had just given their last one away but they would call around and see what they could do and would let us know. An hour or so later, Jon called the desk and he was still working on it but would keep us posted. I went down to the car for something and he sure didn't look busy. By 10:00 we hadn't heard a thing and gave up. We made a little nest and Ben slept in our suitcase. He was the perfect fit and slept pretty well in there. We really didn't want him sleeping in the bed with us.

Up at about 4:30 on Sunday, we got another early start and started our drive to Sunnyside. I think going through the mountains right after Missoula was probably the most beautiful part of the drive, right away in the morning with the sunrise. Soon after we started, though, it rained and got foggy until we were partway into Washington. Then the rain suddenly stopped and the landscape changed to desert like with sage brush and lots of irrigation. We made it to Sunnyside around 1:00 on Sunday and were taken out to the house, which is a few miles out of town. We got our stuff moved in and went to church in the evening. We have some work to do on Ben's schedule, but otherwise we should be set here.

We have a beautiful house with lots of room for Ben to explore. Everyone has been wonderful to make this feel like our home. We're not sure we're leaving.