Seahawks Training Camp

                                               

The Next Day

With everyone pretty much recovered from the concert and a long night of babysitting, we checked out of the hotel and stopped at Granville Island.

Lunch on the Island.  Then we got in our cars for a not so quick trip back to Seattle (6 hours) and then a whirlwind tour of Seattle on Monday.

 Feeding the seagulls at Ivar's.

The fountains half way up the Market Steps

Gelatto at the best gelatto place in the country.

 The fish flingers at Pike Place.

 Taking a load off. 

 It was awesome to see you guys and have you as our first visitors in our new place.

1D

Two weekends ago Matthew, Alex and I drove up to Vancouver Friday night so I could cash in my Christmas present.  Tickets for the One Direction concert with Colleen, CLaire and Addison (Claire's friend).  We were late getting to the hotel so it was a quick visit then into bed for all.

The boys were really excited about staying in a hotel.

Saturday afternoon we took the train to the Stadium so we would know where we were going for the concert.  There were already some things set up like photo booths and merchandise booths so the girls stopped for some pics and to buy their concert T-shirts when the lines were non-existent.

Since we were right near China town we took a stroll to see what we could see.

                                                   

Matthew got to sit in the seat right at the front of the train and be the engineer.

The concert started at 7:30 so we got down there in plenty of time to 

get in "line".  It was a giant mob of people.

These were our original seats until...

After the opening act a guy dressed in an official polo came up and asked us and the two girls next to us if we wanted seats on the floor.  Uh DUH!!

They were promotional seats that hadn't been filled and we were the lucky bodies to fill them.

Our new much more exciting seats.

The boys are onstage!!!!  And holy shit was it loud!!  

I cannot stress enough the incredible volume 30,000 teenage girls can achieve.

My head was vibrating and it felt like I was being stabbed in the ears with icepicks.  It was painful.

Until.....

I was tapped on the shoulder by a security person and handed these babies.

My favorite moment of the concert.  Now I could enjoy myself and could even hear the music better which was really pretty good.

 Most of the time the heart throbs were pretty far away and hard to see over the thousands of people in front of us (thank the lord for giant projection screens) but about 2/3 of the way through they climbed onto this little platform that carried them over the crowd and out to a little stage about 10 rows in front of us!

Now they were this close!!! And I could finally pick out my favorite one (a very important thing to know if you are going to be a 1D fan).  I chose Liam...ten years from now.

Thank you Colleen for giving me the experience of 30,000 screaming teenage girls (and some boys), watching Claire cry over her teenage crushes and a real live boy band in concert.

I will never forget it. and if you have to scream in my ear for me to hear you speak 40 years from now, you all know who to blame.  Love you.

First Birthday Party

Due to scheduling difficulties we didn't have Alex's first birthday party until July17. We rented the community center like we did for Matthew's but this time we did the bouncy ball party package.

 This gave us one of the racquet ball courts with a bouncy castle and several other fun activities for the kids to do.

 Daddy and Matthew playing basketball.

 Bouncing

 Throwing and chasing this awesome yellow ball.

 Daddy and Alex playing basketball.

 The whole gang, even the adults got into it with the hula hoops. Thanks to Erin for showing us all how its done.

 Cake.  I am covering Matthew's mouth so that there isn't 4 year old spit on everything.

 After gifts, Grandma Joyce entertained Alex while we cleaned up.

And Aaron took the other kids outside to keep them busy with their bubble wands.

July 4th, 2013

This year we checked out the fire works down at Coulon Park.  It was an evening of selfies.

An Afternoon in the Back Yard