Some cruise pictures

This is us as we are departing Seattle. It was beautiful this day. Actually the only day of sun on the cruise. This was our evacuation drill. This was miserable for Caden since his life jacket was actually a mummy suit. His arms are zipped inside. He screamed the whole time! What a start to the cruise! We just unzipped him and held onto him for the sake of us and everyone around us.
After our day trip to Sitka, Caden fell asleep in the back pack. I asked someone to take our picture. Justin, his mom, sister and others were out on a whale watch cruise - no pictures to show since I had the camera. They did see 1 humpback whale and lots of birds. While we were in Sitka, Caden & I and his great grandparents went shopping. (Great Grandpa waited outside for us) While we were in the 3rd shop, I got a little too close to a display case and Caden reached out to grab the trinkets. Lucky for us, they were wood carvings, and not crystal or it would have been an expensive day in Sitka.
This is just a picture of some scenery from the boat. The mountains were huge!
These are the killer whales I saw while Caden & Justin were napping. I was just sitting on a deck, reading my book when someone says, "I think I see Orca whales. But they are not killer whales. " Don't worry, I let them know that they are killer whales and that they were Orcas. I didn't even have to go on an official wildlife cruise to see this either!

Fun on the cruise ship

This is a snippit of what Caden likes to do - Repetition. He was entertained for about 5 minutes by moving Ashley & Chris's legs around. When you are 1 1/2, anything you can be in charge of for 5 minutes is pretty great. This was while we were waiting to get off the cruise ship. He also will pull your hands to take you somewhere when he wants to show you something. Today he pulled me to the door because he wanted to go outside. We put on our shoes and hit the deck to play with the bubble mower.

This is another video from the last day of the cruise. Caden was running back & forth between the seats and me. Ashley was keeping him entertained while we waited to get off the boat.

1 year old birthday party's

1 year old birthday parties are for the parents. Recently we have been to 2 parties in the last month. The first was for a set of twins (I work with the mom). The little girl twin is tiny, but what made us all laugh was when Caden went over to her and patted her head. He was so gentle, but it was funny because she has more hair than he does. We actually got a picture of it happening below. These are the twins with their cakes. They each had a half sheet cake to destroy!
This last weekend, we went to another birthday party. Caden had lots of fun walking around the back yard. He took swim lessons with the birthday boy and I work with his mom too. Here we are with our party hats on. Amazingly enough, 3 kids have the hats on.
I just thought this was funny. One of the kids had brought the hulk hands. We put them on Caden but he didn't know what was going on. This older boy came chasing me with the hulk hands, I had to let him know I wasn't playing, his dad told him not to punch strangers. Whew!

Caden wearing the hat!

We hit the jackpot!

.... At the garage sale that is. These pictures are actually from a few weeks ago, but show some of the great finds from the garage sales. This picture is actually of Caden eating a snack with the spatula. (not from a garage sale). We found him a shopping cart (free) and 2 bags of plastic fruit for $3. He is actually trying to eat it in this picture...
He is playing with the pop pop popper in this picture. simple toys that don't require batteries! It turns out they do exist. Just want to point out that is pretend cheese and pretend croissant on the ground. we don't let real food go to the ground if we can help it.
Caden is eating a big boy dinner off a plate. Note - spoon in hand!
this is just a typical afternoon, having some juice by the door, watching the dogs.
For anyone that is curious, Caden weighs 25.5 pounds now. He is 17 months old in a week. Today is 1 year since Justin left Arizona. (my 1 year is coming up mid august). Oh yeah, yes jeannette, I will be making multiple posts today after 3 weeks away.....

We are busy!

So it's been a little crazy around here. Long Beach was good, I have been back for 5 days. We are going to Seattle tomorrow to leave for our cruise. Oh yeah, the 3 days I was at work this week, we changed software systems and couldn't do any work that we needed. I definitely need a break!

Last weekend for an early father's day, we went to my sister's house, and we all went hot tubbing. Even Caden. He only dunked himself once. It surprised him a little, but he was fine.
Caden really likes his new cousin Annie. When we were at Jeannette's house, Caden liked to pat her head and just touch her. So different from Charlie's reaction to Caden it's funny. Caden also likes to give Annie her pacifier. It's pretty cute. This is me saying gentle Caden, as he is reaching to pat her head.
Well, we are off early in the morning to fly to Seattle and meet up with Justin's family. Cruise departs on Friday, so we will be out of touch for a while.

A little daycare update for those wondering about the attacks... Caden did not get attacked this week. He did come home with 2 different socks yesterday, but I took them both back and came home with the right socks today.

Bon Voyage!

What's going on this week?

Well, I am on the go again. Today I flew to Long Beach for a client meeting and a tradeshow. I have been looking forward to this trip since I get to stay at the Hyatt, go back to southern California for a visit, and hopefully get some good leads on groups for Spokane. The weather is muggy here right now, but it was about 75 when i got off the plane. The Long Beach airport has baggage claim outside the airport. Pretty wild. From there, I went to my hotel and then dinner. I am travelling with some of our hotel sales managers, so it's a bit different than some of my other work trips. We are all at different hotels, so it takes some planning to meet up.

I just logged in to my computer and the battery on my wireless mouse just died. I don't like the sensor mouse on the laptop... life's tough.

This morning before I left, it was almost like Caden knew I was going to be gone for a few days. When he got up, we snuggled on the couch and watched some Barney. I certainly won't miss the Barney tunes for the next few days... But I might already have some of the songs in my head permanently. My parents are picking Caden up at daycare and feeding him dinner, giving him a bath and putting him to bed each night. They are pretty great. So far so good. Only 1 call so far, the kitchen light switch was hidden and they looked everywhere. I agree, they are not where you would look for them. Everything was going smooth for them, so things are good on the home front.

Caden can say "eye" and point to his cheek. He can point to the eye on a stuffed animal, so it's just making the connection of where his eye is. Pretty good for a little human that is only 16 months old.

Well, it's off for my beauty sleep!

A tale of 2 fishes

Justin's mom sent us the picture of Justin's first fish he caught. For comparison, this was the first fish he caught this year.

Notice that the fish is on the fishing pole for each picture and he is pretty happy about both. It is the simple things in life that make us happy. For Justin, it's catching a fish!