Back from Seattle…

We’re back from Seattle and because I think I’ll be spending the rest of this week recuperating from our busy weekend, over the next few days I’ll just be sharing photos (and stories of course) from our time there.  If I have anything to say about it, I don’t think the rest of our week here will be very eventful…

A lot of the boys’ time was spent riding bikes – finally a space with what I’m sure seemed to them, an endless stretch of pavement to coast and speed. Papa even made ‘lakes’ with the hose to drive through and he didn’t mind one bit when they discovered they could skid to a stop and leave a long streak on the pavement. 

When we first got there on Saturday and Gage asked Papa to get his bike out, Papa produced this 10-speed.  I was shocked that he could ride it … not quite as shocked as Gage was when Papa yelled, “Do you know how to use the breaks?” Gage immediately pushed back on the pedals (because that’s how his other bike works) and the pedals only kept turning.  His face went from fun to frantic and his reaction was just to fall over.

Enough of that bike. 

Kaden looked cute on the sidelines…

Then it was over to the driveway to get bikin’ and to hear the rules of the road.  Helmets and pads, no going into the road and watch out for each other. 

Although they look completely thrilled here, they really did have a good time riding.

I don’t remember what was so funny, but my favorite moments to capture on camera are those of genuine laughter… 

And us adults were tickled to find out we could even ride the little bike Gage had tried out earlier (I even got on, which was the first time I’d ridden a bike in probably 6 years). 

And then, Cooper was done for the afternoon… literally.  He sat here for about 10 minutes in a complete daze…

…Rescue-squad Grammie took him back to the house…

… where during dinner he spiked a fever, threw up, and went to bed at 6:30.  Quite a way to start our adventures at Grammie and Papa’s house.

So not all of their time was spent being active… there was some down-time, too.

 

But not much… by the next morning (at 3:30am to be exact) Cooper was all better and rarin’ to go.  He got Grammie up and told her he was ready to be up for the day.

And the next day, UP he was.  Up in the apple trees…

Up on the teeter-toter…

And up on the “Zippin’-Line”…

Ahh, the zippin’line.  What an unusual thrill we all get to have with this contraption my dad made. 

I got my thrills by standing directly in the flight plan of the chair, snapping pictures as they raced toward me.  I’m sure the boys would have though it hilarious if they’d careened into me…

My dad thinks that he’s going to set this thing up at our house… “We’ll attach it to the trees and they can go whizzing down the hill through the branches…” Yes, that would be fun for the 20 seconds they are zipping down the hill.  But not so much fun for me as I pull them back up the hill over and over again for days on end (because they love it). 

(This kid is thinking that ‘tongue-out-cross-eyed’ pictures are great, lately. Whatever floats-his-boat.) 

More pictures to come from our picnic, of my beautiful cousin, Lindsay, and from our totally-did-me-in trip to the zoo…