Our own private museum.

So after 2 days of this:and this blog.seattlepi.com/.../2012/.../watch-sofa-sledding-at-gas-works-park/

Max and Zoe were ready to play inside for a while. The big thaw started this morning and it was awful out. Warm, drippy and very slushy. I braved the drive to downtown to the children's museum and was rewarded with the whole place to ourselves. We painted, drove the fire truck, shopped at the mini met market, built with legos, played with the castle and even put on a play. ALL BY OURSELVES. A few other families showed up as the morning wore on, but then we went for a private story reading in the annex. As you can see, the pixie was most disappointed when we finally decided to leave.

Snow days

We awoke this morning to a couple of inches of snow. Sledding, skiing and snowman building mean I'm too tired to write, but it was an epic day of sledding down at Gasworks park. Max and Zoe's favorite new saying? "Heads up!"

On belay!

When they asked George Mallory why he wanted to climb Mt. Everest his reply was 'Because it is there.' That is pretty much how Max and Zoe feel about climbing anything. They seem to climb everything 'because it is there.' So today I took them to an indoor rock climbing class to see how they liked it.

The class was at Vertical World climbing gym in Redmond. They do a class called Rockin Tots for 3-5 year olds. The maximum number of students is 4, and the teacher was 'teacher Dan.' As with all climbing instructors he had a massive beard and a pony tail and was very zen and soft spoken. He was wonderful with the children and his enthusiasm for climbing really rubbed off on the them.

The class began with stretching, warming up and then Max and Zoe had to traverse along the rock wall following the teacher. They were naturals and did well. After that Dan placed all these little boxes and plastic monkeys just out their reach and that had to climb up and get them.

When they were used to moving across the rock Dan asked for a volunteer to climb up to the top of the wall and get a balloon. No surprise that Pixie couldn't get the rope tied fast enough and after she had said her safety commands she danced up the wall like she'd been born to climb. The teacher was quite amazed at her bravery and skill and she reached the purple balloon easily.

I have a little bit of rock climbing experience and can tell you that coming down is a lot scarier than going up, and Zoe felt the same. She got scared coming down and Dan had to go up and help her. She recovered quickly though and then it was Max's turn. He did a fantastic job giggling his way up to the top and 'rescued' both the remaining balloons. He came down with an enormous smile on his face, and couldn't wait to go and get the stuffed animals that Dan said are trapped on the ledge. He had them thrown down in no time and proclaimed 'I am fireman Max, Yeah I saved the day', and gave himself a big cheer.

After all that excitement the final part of the class was being hoisted in the air and swinging on the rope. They hung about 10 feet in the air just swinging and giggling, it was hilarious.

Max already wants to climb again tomorrow, but Zoe got a bit spooked I think. We'll see how it goes next week, but she'll let me know. One thing is for certain the Pixie won't be doing anything she doesn't love. She's just that shade of pink.

Garden D'lights

A few pics from a very cold and rainy trip to the beautiful light show at the bellevue botanical gardens. The kids made it round in about 45 seconds, they didn't have great interest in the lights but running really fast in a big screechy gang was awesome:)

Train Spotting

Well happy New Year!

So we've been doing so much fun stuff I haven't had time to write. This includes a trip to Children's hospital on New Years day, and a fantastic bout of stomach flu.

I had great plans to go tubing on New Years day and we were on our way by 7:30 am. We stopped in North Bend for coffee and the short version is that Zoe got her hand crushed in the door at Starbucks. It was a mangled mess so we had to come back and go to the emergency room. Four hours later, no fractures but a very sore hand and a very tired toddler. It took 3 days before Zoe could use her hand again, just in time to get stomach flu. The worst part of this is that I got it. I am not a good sick person, I do not like to soldier on. My daughter was a star compared to me.

Anyway, enough complaining. Here are a few pictures from the model railway festival in Tacoma. It was on at the Washington State history museum and was a great day out with the BFF's. It started out on a high note with a breakfast of cake pops and cocoa, then we spent the morning looking at the trains, doing a treasure hunt through the exhibits and playing in the activity room. After a subway lunch we ran around the water front and looked at some of the glass designs from the museum of glass. The kids loved all the water pools and burnt off energy running up and down the ramps.

We finally lost steam about 2 p.m. and I headed home with two children snoring in the back of the car. Here's hoping 2012 brings more days like this and that we got the ER visit and the puking over in the first week.