babyblog

Spring Break

There's a definite art to filling up ones days during the school holidays - in this instance 'Spring Break' week. There's another art to doing so without bankrupting oneself.

On Sunday the boys and I went and bought a bike trailer so that the three of us could spend some time going on bike rides this week. Dylan has finally overcome his fear of his new bike and is riding like an old pro. Turned out it was in 7th gear when he first tried it and he couldn't pedal so thought he had forgotten how. He and I went for a little ride together to get his confidence up then decided it'd be good to get Harry in a bike trailer behind me and go out alot this week.

There are alot of bike trails in these parts - Redmond hails itself as 'The bike capital of the North West'. My favourite trail follows the river, it's flat and the scenery is good. We tried it out on Sunday afternoon - Harry thrilled at the concept of riding behind in a trailer and shouting 'Wheeeeeeeeee' as we pedalled along. Dylan was Mr Confident and infact got stopped a couple of times by people asking where he got his bike - it is by all accounts 'very cool' and they wanted one for their sons. This boosted his ego no end!

Yesterday we were going to go again but it was raining so we ended up going to the Library with a friend and her daughter. The library is enormous and there's a great childrens section ....Harry was in heaven as books are his absolute favourite thing at the moment.

Today we have sun so we're going to go biking again. Tomorrow we're going to either the Aquarium or the Zoo depending on the weather, with some friends. One of the really good Microsoft benefits is something called the "Prime Card" which allows employees and their families discounted entry into alot of tourist venues, museums, discounts in stores, restaurants, travel, etc. Most of the major tourist attractions cost $3 per person instead of $15, so it's really easy to pop to the zoo for a few hours or the like, and the kids love to be able to go to these really cool places regularly. Last week we went to the Childrens Museum in Seattle which is really good hands on fun for the little ones and a great place to while a few hours away at for $3.

Meanwhile we're still working away at the downstairs bathroom. Andrew, a family friend, arrives next week for a visit and as we totally failed to get the bathroom ready for dad's arrival we are aiming at a new deadline. 99% of the tiles are on the wall now with the exception of the window area and one thin edge of wall at the front of the shower. Last night G grouted the floor tiles so my task today is to clean off the excess crud and then scrape off the wall tiles so that we can grout those this evening. Then hopefully at the weekend it's only going to be a matter of fitting the few extra tiles, installing the loo, sink, lighting & mirror...... oh and painting!

Can you believe my husband has remodelled a bathroom from absolute scratch? Including plumbing? I can't!