21 Months

Today is Kayla's 21-month birthday. She is such a big girl! These are some of her favorite things right now:

• Reading stories and watching movies
• Mooching food from others
• Goldfish crackers and pretzels
• Ice cream and other sweets (we had Hersey's kisses out for Valentine's Day, I don't know how many she ate before she got caught...but she sure was happy!)
• Sitting on the counter watching and "helping" prepare food
• Trying to use the potty
• Getting her picture taken and looking at her beauteous self
• Swinging like an acrobat (sign this girl up for Cirque Du Soleil!)
• Saying "peeeese!" (ie. "please") to get something she really wants
• Singing, dancing, and jumping
• Cleaning (really, she just spilled some water then got out the paper towels to clean up!)

We love our baby girl who has turned into a toddler right before our eyes.

Spot the Difference!

10 points to the first person that can spot the 10 differences in these 2 photos:

The sun was shining yesterday, so we took advantage of the momentous occasion and headed to the sound, and checked out the Chittenden/Ballard Locks.  It's where the water from lake Washington meets the Puget Sound, with the locks at the point of juncture.  As well, they have a fish ladder where you can see migrating Salmon traveling upstream from the ocean to the fresh water of the lake to spawn.... unfortunately migration season is during the summer.  They have a glass wall set up, kind of like an aquarium, but we only saw one little fish that was having a hard time making any progress.

                      

and so begins our "playing in the dirt" - or rather, mud - in Seattle!

On a side note, have any other bloggers out there ever checked your blog stats and noticed the random search keywords that bring people to your sight?  Some of my favorites here: "incredible edibley", "dirty little girl", "black swans zoo", "find kayla dirt", and "kayla - sweet little chocolate".  Google is incredible.

Oh, and before I forget, those boats at the top are in the locks.  The lake and the ocean are at very different levels, so the locks enable boats to pass through - just like the Panama Canal! We watched them stack the lock full of 6 boats or so, drop the water level, then open the gate and away they went.  This set of locks was built about a hundred years ago - a true Modern Marvel!  Oh and I have no idea if there are actually 10 differences between the two pictures.  So if you can find 10 differences, I just bumped the reward to 20 points, count 'em - 20!

Later we went and checked out the Fremont Troll under a bridge in Seattle (in the header and below)

For those of you that haven't seen/heard about this, it was pretty awesome. Not every day you get to see the troll under the bridge! They're usually so sneaky-hidey...

*Correction*

Here at Playing in the Dirt we aren't afraid to admit our mistakes, and correct them when necessary.  After reading some of the comments - and we love your comments, it gives us great satisfaction knowing that yes, someone actually reads our blog - apparently our last post gave the impression that we drove 3000 miles across the country in 4 days with our 20-month-old toddler strapped in the back seat.  We apologize for this misconception, Tiffany's Mom actually watched Kayla-bear in California while we made the drive, and then flew up to Seattle to reunite us as a family.  While that would have demonstrated our awesomeness as parents, we need to give credit where credit is due, so thank you, Grandma Wolf for helping us out.

We never intended to overblow our awesomeness as parents, and for that we apologize.  That trip with a toddler would have been a nightmare.  However, our awesomeness at wall-climbing can never be question.

 And that, my friends, was truly awesome.

Coast to Coast!

We began in Cambridge, then onward!

 Conneticut!

 Illinois welcomed us to Chicago with a toll...  we felt somewhat unwelcome in our former state.

 Wisconsin welcomed us twice...

 ...and began the fridgidocity!  -5 degrees!

 -10 degrees!

 -22 degrees!

 Montana was all ablurr... a frozen, frozen sub-zero blurr

 A 737 following us to Seattle!

 The West! - Northern Idaho is beautiful.

 Um, that sign says "Welcome to Washington!"

 We made it to Sammamish!

 Time for a rest in the pre-couch apartment.

And we're done! West Coast Baby!

The trip was mostly uneventful, >3000 miles, 3 audio books, no flat tires, no gas-outages, and we only got pulled over once!  About an hour from Sammamish an officer noticed a headlight had gone out, but was nice enough to let us off with a warning.  Phew!!! 

28 Years Young

We're so lucky to have you in our life. Thanks for all you do!

Happy birthday!

Love, Kayla and Tiffany

We made it!

After four long days in the car, Braden and I finally made it across the United States. We got here a week ago and are starting to feel less crazy. I even made it to the grocery store without using the GPS yesterday (it took me over a month to accomplish that in Boston!). Our internet gets set up on Friday, so hopefully we'll be better at posting then!

Worth 2 in the Bush

For the finale to our awesome ThanksgivingChristmasNewYear’s celebration, we headed up to Tahoe with Tiffany’s parents to have some fun in the snow. We broke out the snowshoes and headed to a viewpoint not far from the cabin.  As we trekked through the snow we met a local gentleman that informed us we were on “Chickadee Ridge”, and that the chickadees would eat from your outstretched hand.  I tried it and sure enough, one of the little birds flew down from the trees and alighted on my hand – disgusted I’m sure because I didn’t have anything in my hand to offer.  Luckily our local friend had brought some seed with him and shared with us, and so I was able to redeem myself.  As per usual, Kayla fell asleep in the backpack, which is just as well I’m sure because while we planned on going out for only an hour or so, we had such a good time we stayed out for close to 3!

The next day we hit the sledding hill – Kayla is yet to be enamored with sledding.  I don’t think she likes the cold snow that kicking up in her face.  Tiffany, however, is completely in love with sledding (as evidenced by the picture below), so I’m sure its just a matter of time until Kayla-bear comes around.

Now the vacation has come to a close and we’re back to reality (sort-of).  I’ll be flying around the country touring manufacturing facilities for the next two weeks, and Tiff and Kayla get to hang out in California until it we move to Seattle at the end of January.

So consider this your warning 2011: You’re about to be seized!