a little wet weather

We love visiting the Northwest.  Not for the gorgeous sunshine of course.  But because we love visiting my brother Derek and his family.  And we love the feel of a different climate, lots and lots of trees, and how everything is green.  And usually our trips up there include some sort of rainy day adventure.  Maybe we really should plan a trip for the summer next time...nah, that'd be too easy!

We flew up Thursday afternoon, which worked out great for a long weekend.  On Friday Derek had work, Elena had school (as she's a big 1st grader now, can't skip school so easily these days), but the two preschoolers Connor and Ryan skipped school and the rest of us went into Seattle to visit the new Museum of History and Industry.  A really cool museum, right on Lake Union, filled with local inventions and history.  Worth a stop if you are nearby.  Then we walked 3 blocks up to the middle of Amazon headquarters, to have lunch with Uncle Derek.

I wanted the boys to put their hands on this huge lightbulb just for fun, to pretend it would light up, and it really did light up!  

Lincoln's Toe Truck (I remember seeing this in the city back in the good ol' days)

one of the coolest parts of the museum, a wall of all things Seattle (with dials you can turn to make them "come alive")

the kids hard at work building a railway

Kaitlyn fell in LOVE with Trevor.  Such a patient, old doggy.  He tolerated her so well!

On Saturday, after Elena's soccer game, we all went for a walk around Mercer Slough in Bellevue.  A great little walking path, filled with lots of fall colors.

can't get these monkeys to hold still for even a second

Love Elena's smile!  She lost her front tooth the night before we got there

Later in the day, Eddy and Derek went to the Cal vs UW football game, so Kim and I held down the fort with the kiddos and took them to the playground which just happened to be covered in leaves.  Perfect.

an action shot, but love how Kaitlyn pretty much followed Elena around the whole weekend 

lots of leaves!

another attempt at the cousin photo

sliding into leaves

silly photo

kisses!!

on Sunday we woke up to some rain, but since when has that ever stopped us?  So we went over to explore the farm animals at Kelsey Creek Park.  A perfectly fine activity in the rain.  The sheep, horses, goats, and chickens sure didn't mind the wet weather either.

And we had a short delay for our flight home, and what better way to get the wiggles out before the plane ride than the play area at the Sea-Tac airport.  Not sure who had more fun, Ryan or Kaitlyn.  But either way, the kids were happy, which made us adults happy as well.

Thanks again Kuzaks for a fabulous trip to the great Northwest, yet again!!!  Can't wait to come again.

Christmas shopping

No way.  I haven't even started thinking about this stuff.  But we got a few toy catalogs in the mail the other day (none that we asked for or requested mind you...they just come to our house anyway!), and Ryan couldn't stop looking at them, telling me about every single thing he wanted from Santa.  In fact, he couldn't put it down long enough to use the bathroom.  So there was this...

Some of one's best thinking often occurs in this space.  Funny that it happens at the ripe old age of almost 4!

pumpkins

It's that time of year again...time for some pumpkin love!  

I worked this past weekend, so Eddy took the kids to a local produce stand that does a pretty great pumpkin patch theme of their own.  And the kids managed to bring home dried corn kernels tucked into their pockets and crevices (from the huge pit of dried corn they crawled through) that I've been finding all over the house this entire week.

not a great expression on K's face, but that is a huge pit of dried corn kernels

the scene at Larry's Produce

And then yesterday Ryan's preschool had a field trip to Stanley Lane pumpkin patch.  The same one as last year.  And just as much fun.  Kaitlyn was a bit bigger than last year, and she loved it even more.  I mean, what 15 month old doesn't love picking up and throwing lots and lots of hay? Oh, and of course there were pumpkins...

she has entered the pointing at everything phase

Nanny came with me, to help chase both of these kiddos around.  Thanks for the help Nanny!

just a boy and a cool and old old tractor

peek-a-boo

inside the giant haystack pyramid

that is one big pumpkin...and sadly, no, this is not the one we ended up bringing home

even Kaitlyn got to ride the huge pumpkin

I couldn't get these two in the same place at the same time, sadly this is the only one I got 

boy bonding

Eddy grew up going to the Cal football games with his family.  And regardless of how terrible the team may be, the Bayer clan tends to make good attendance at each and every game.  I think from the day our son was born, Eddy has been eagerly awaiting his chance to take Ryan to these games.  Just like his dad did with him.  So this year they gave it a go, and Ryan has loved it!  They've been to 2 games this year so far.  And word on the street is that Ryan does pretty well with sitting still, watching the game, and they have managed to stay through the whole thing both times.
Now if only Cal can step up their game and make it to the Rose Bowl one of these years...that's all Nonno wants, really.  Come on Bears (and that means a lot, coming from a true Husky fan)!

this would NEVER have happened last year, but Ryan is finally no longer scared of Oski the Bear

Kaitlyn's 12 month photos

As is par for the course on my being a few months tardy, here are Kaitlyn's 12 month photos we had taken back when she was 12 months old.  It was a wiggly session, as she had just started walking and really wasn't interested in listening to us try and get her to smile.  Not like that has changed much in the last 3 months.

  We had Ryan jump in for a few pics, because he was there with us.  More proof that it's nearly impossible to get one good photo of them both at the same time.

a couple of frogs

A typical morning at the zoo.

Our kids have been to the Oakland zoo so many times, I think they'd rather climb and play than actually look at the animals.  Oh well, today I actually got to see the lion walking around his pen for the first time ever (he's usually sleeping in the grass...and seriously I had never ever seen him before).  So it was worth the trip.

five years

Last weekend Eddy and I celebrated our 5 year anniversary.  Doesn't sound like much, but we were happy to leave our kids with Nanny and Dzia Dzia and get out of town to reflect on that weekend 5 years ago.  It was such a great weekend...and this past weekend was another great one.  We went to Bodega Bay, a sleepy little coastal town about 90 mins from where we live.  We totally lucked out with the weather, and had gorgeous sunshine.  We slept in, ate great food, took walks on the beach, took a long bike ride up the coast, and really just enjoyed spending time together.  Amazing what uninterrupted conversations are like -- we had forgotten!
We are so grateful to my parents for taking wonderful care of our kiddos, so we could truly get away and reconnect/unwind/rest.
And without little kids to take pictures of, I barely took any photos of the weekend!  Sad.  But you get the idea from these few I did take.

the view up Hwy 1, from our bike ride

a beach selfie

Eddy booked us a package deal through the hotel, "Birds of Bodega Bay".  I laughed at him, because the idea was take digital photos of up to 15 birds (from a list they gave us) and earn up to 15% off your room.  Now, we are not really bird watching kind of people.  And we didn't spend much time bird watching on this trip, but we did take an evening walk and brought the camera along for fun.  We managed to take (pretty crappy quality) photos of 6 birds, some of which may or may not have even been on that list, and then we showed them to the front desk as we checked out...and we scored $70 off our stay!  Good call Eddy, good call.