Washington Summer 09 and more

Washington was great. We had a blast. The car ride out (13 hours) was a bit long. Matthew and Cameron weren’t the most cooperative, but they could have been a lot worse. We left at 3 in the morning so we could travel as much as possible while they slept. The challenge was just making sure Scott didn’t sleep too :).

Matthew had cousins to play with and loved being outside. He especially loved jumping on the trampoline. There were a few times I was a bit nervous that we might have to rush off to the emergency room with a broken bone—I guess it is a good thing kids are so resilient.

Some of our highlights include: staying up late talking/watching movies, hiking to a waterfall, the zoo, yummy food and just relaxing.

Rebecca (Scott’s sister), husband and three kids surprised us all by driving over from Idaho to visit for part of the weekend.

On our drive back from WA we stopped at my parent’s house to enjoy the end of Scott’s break and help them with a garage sale. They are moving to Granite Bay (near Sacramento) next week and will be renting out the house in Fairfield. We are excited for the big yard, which I am sure Matthew will love to explore, but not really looking forward to the extra hour in the car. It is funny how each year the drive gets a little longer… 30 minutes, then one hour and now two. It’s worth it though, since we love them :).

Crazy how fast Scott’s break has gone. Now we are back at home and I am looking forward to sleeping in my own bed again (although I am not looking forward to Scott going back to school). Matthew and Cameron have been doing pretty well sleeping in the same room at night… and on vacation they slept in the same room during nap time too… so tonight we decided to try Matthew out on the twin bed and put Cameron in the crib. (Matthew has been in the crib, with Cameron in a pack-and-play.) We put some pillows on the ground, just in case. If all goes well tonight, we will try it out again during nap-time tomorrow and hopefully we will be able to arrange our rooms how we want them and put the pack-and-play in the closet.

And now for some pictures...

Above: Matthew looking out at Snoqualmie Falls

Above: The gang in front of Snoqualmie Falls (you can barely see the mist in the background) Unfortunately this was the end of the hike... you can't get any closer to the bottom

Above: I don't think I can count how many times Matthew falls

Above: Scott and Cameron chillin' in the pool at the Cranes

Above: When we went to the zoo we got to ride the Merry-go-Round. And the best part was, it was FREE! I think we rode it about 4 times

Matthew and cousin Sydney playing the piano at Grandma's house

Our Camping Adventures

A little more than halfway there, I turned to Scott and said, wouldn’t it be funny if we forgot one of the bags (since we are leaving for Washington right after we get back and packed for that trip as well). I then proceeded to ask Scott if he had packed a small black bag with the boys clothes in it—he told me that it was by the Washington bag, so he thought it was for Washington. Woops! So we start our camping trip with no sweatshirts for me, Matthew and Cameron and no extra clothes/pajamas for Matthew and Cameron.
Shortly after setting up camp, we walked down a little trail to a stream. Matthew had a great time throwing every single rock he could find into the water. Well, Scott and I looked away for a second to find Matthew standing in the stream up to his ankles. Soaking his socks, shoes and the bottom of his only pants we had.
When we got back to camp, we built a fire and hung up Matthew’s pants, socks and shoes to dry (while he was in the tent wrapped in a blanket). The rest of the time Matthew smelled so strong of campfire, that Scott and I had a hard time going near him. Poor kid.
At home we have a little bed-time routine where we read a book, say prayers, sing a song and lay the boys down in their own crib/pack and play to let them fall asleep. Some nights Cameron will cry, Matthew and/or Cameron will talk/make noises and other nights they are just quite. Well, since there is no way we were bringing two pack and plays camping, we decided to just make one giant bed in the tent and rock Cameron to sleep and then let Matthew stay up until we went to bed. Cameron went to sleep like a charm and after some mores and a nice campfire we went to bed with Matthew. We thought he would just lie down and fall asleep with us. Well, I guess he was a little too worked up that he just wanted to keep playing (even though it was a good 1 ½ -2 hours after his normal bed-time). Eventually we got him settled down and we all fell asleep. Cameron woke up a few times squawking a bit—if we were at home, we would just ignore him and he would fall back asleep in a few minutes, but since we were out camping—that is pretty rude to your neighbors. So we tried desperately to make him stop immediately. About 3:30 or so in the morning he woke up and wasn’t going back to sleep, so he and I spent the rest of the night in the car. I think I finally got him to fall asleep around 4:30. Luckily, he took a decent morning nap, so Cameron and I slept in the tent after breakfast while Scott and Matthew went exploring. We ended up coming home a night early, since we didn’t really want to re-live the night part again. Everything else was great. We had tons of yummy food. Matthew managed to submerge his entire hot dog in the ashes. There were all sorts of trails to walk on, rivers to throw rocks into and sticks to collect. We also saw a raccoon which Matthew called a monkey.

Above: Matthew's hot dog covered in ashes

Spilled milk and a Vacuum

Now that Cameron is sitting at the table with us when we eat, we have to be extremely careful not to leave things within his reach. Well, Matthew was throwing his food, so Scott got up to take Matthew to time-out and set his cereal bowl on the edge of the table. Cameron seized the opportunity and grabbed Scott’s bowl. This is what I saw a few seconds later: Look at him! He is so proud of what he just did. You may need to click on the picture to see full details :)

Later on in the day…

I saw Matthew move his high chair away from the crumbs, then go over to the coat closet and say “vacuum.” I pulled the vacuum out and he motioned for me to plug it in and wheel it over to the carpet where the high chair usually is. He vacuumed up the crumbs (with the hose) and then proceeded to vacuum out the high chair.

Sometimes I wonder if Matthew purposefully throws his food/makes a mess so that he can get out the vacuum. The other day he squished his gold fish in the carpet and then went to the closet and told me to get out the vacuum. Either way, I guess it is good that Matthew likes to clean. The funny thing is Matthew is terrified of the vacuum when I vacuum the carpet (not using a hose).

Heat and Graduation

We went to my parent’s for the weekend and when we returned our apartment was HOT! Apparently Matthew was playing knob and twisted it so our heat was on the entire time we were gone. Hopefully our bill isn’t too high.
The weekend was fun—Hannah graduated from High School and gave an amazing speech. Miriam was in the play High School Musical and Grandma and Grandpa Rasband came to visit.

Scott has finals this week and then he will be done with his 2nd year of dental school. Can't believe he is almost half way done!

2 year and 8 month stats

Not a very exciting post, but I wanted to record stats from this week's appointment before I lose the paper.

Matthew (2 years)
weight: 28.1 pounds
height: 34 inches

Cameron (8 months)
weight: 17 lbs, 4 ounces
height: 27 inches
head circumference : 44 cm

I never know how accurate these stats are. All I know is what clothes they wear... it is weird that Cameron is wearing shirts that Matthew wore less than a year ago... when he was walking and Cameron can't even crawl.