Good Friday

To help make your Good Friday a little 'gooder' (as Aeden would say) here are some pictures from our morning.

We went to a huge park where Aeden and I walked a (short) trail. We tried to share the iPod headphones but the height difference made it a bit difficult!

He had some fun throwing an eraser and running after it...for a little while.Our self-portrait on the trail. Running ahead.

Looking absolutely adorable...if I do say so myself!

Goofing off on the playground.

If you are interested in watching Aeden actually maneuver on the monkey bars, click through to view the video. :)

PS: Once again I forgot to watch how the camera was going so just pick up your monitor and hold it on its side to view!

Homework Time

As a special treat Aeden and I went to Starbucks yesterday. We ordered our drinks and sat down near the window. Then I had Aeden do his homework. It was quite nice having some one-on-one time with him.

Aeden's Economics

I shamelessly stole an idea that a teacher used with his fourth grade students. I asked Aeden the same questions he asked his students and here are the answers:



Question 1: What is more important: to grow up to earn a lot of money, or to find a job that you enjoy? a job that I enjoy



Question 2: Do you think owning more stuff will make you happier? yes



Question 3: How does advertising affect you? only things that are Mario and Poke'mon (ed. note: he is quick to find things on commercials for me)



Question 4: If your friend gets a new object how does this affect you? glad, if it is Mario or Poke'mon I want one too



Question 5: What are credit cards used for? to buy stuff that you don't have the money for



Question 6: If you earned $500, how much would you save and how much would you spend? I would spend $250 on stuff I want and I would get stuff I need with the other $250; I remembered that you can do a split, I was going to do $200/$300 but that wasn't a split.



Question 7: How much money do you expect to earn when you leave school (either high school or college)? $1,000/year

Seattle Day 4: The Pacific Ocean

Our last day took us to Target where I bought "Twilight" because it had a free movie download for iTunes (I was going to buy it anyway). Eric didn't want to spend 3 hours sitting at a Starbucks waiting for it to download (I mean really? What a silly guy!) so we decided to head to the Pacific Ocean.

Apparently it is about 3 hours away from Seattle. That rules out Seattle as my dream retirement location, well that and all the houses/people/wow!

We couldn't get close to the ocean at the state park we found but if you look closely you can see the white caps of the waves in the background.

Aeden is thrilled to be on his way home, he was exhausted!

Seattle Day 3: We hit the tours...

On Sunday we headed out early to do the walking food tour of Pike's Place Market. I think it is a great way to see the market with a 7 year old in tow.

We rode the monorail downtown.

Aeden found the idea that a pigeon was in the market amusing. The pigeon flew off right after I snapped the picture, apparently he didn't want to be photographed.


We went to Market Spice and Aeden enjoyed trying some smoky type of salt.

He enjoyed tasting the smoked salmon and salmon jerky even more.

Although I didn't get any great pictures of the flying fish, Aeden did enjoy touching the fish that were stationary.

The pig seems to be much like the horses here in Saratoga. Spirit Bear and Aeden posed for us outside the market.

All-in-all we sampled donuts, fruit, tea, hot chocolate, cherries/nuts, salmon (3 types!), cheese, piroshky and coconut cream pie. All was delicious!

After the food tour we headed to the Underground Tour. I must say, the history of Seattle as told by the tour guides was really fascinating.

In true 7-year-old style, Aeden loved the historical parts about poop.

Of course we had to stop at Starbucks often! Especially given our permanent state of jetlag. ;)

At the end we took the monorail back to the hotel.

Seattle Trip Day 2

Day 2 and Papa brought us to Vancouver. Thank goodness he was there because driving through Vancouver was an absolute nightmare and I was very happy to be in the backseat!!

Before we got to Canada Aeden got into trouble and lost his electronics. Here he is trying to sweet talk me into giving back his DS. It didn't work.


Yay! We arrived in Canada, my first visit to a foreign country.

Here I am in Canada, Tigger took my picture for me.

Lots of birds by the harbor (port?) in Vancouver.

When we weren't taking pictures of the birds, I was attempting to photograph us via reflections in the building.

The Peace Arch on our way out of Canada.

Self-portrait of me leaving Canada.

Aeden got up at 4:30 a.m. Seattle time and absolutely refused to nap. It wasn't until we were back into the United States and all his electronics had run out of power that he finally gave up the fight and fell asleep.

We spotted a lot of wildlife on our drive through Northern Washington. We spotted several hawks and various other birds. In addition, we saw at least four different bald eagles.