First day of summer fun

Eric's day off this week was yesterday, which was also the first day of summer. It was a beautiful, warm day. After golfing and the retirement party at my old school, we went with Eric's brother's family to their friends' pool. The girls had so much fun.

Kaylin and Ryanne

Lauren and Christopher

Lauren was so content in the floaty. She was in it for about 2 hours! She watched everyone, splashed around, played with a few toys, and had a great time.

Kaylin and her noodles.

I was totally surprised that Kaylin had no fear about the water. She took swimming lessons 3 years ago, more like "get used to being in water lessons" at that age. She's been in lakes a few times, but that's a lot different than a nice, warm pool. We showed her how she could swim with the pool noodles and she was off. She also found she loved jumping off the edge of the pool to Eric.

With the weather we're supposed to get the rest of the week I really hope that the first day of summer isn't our only day of summer this year.

Before my mommy days...

Before I had kids, I taught high school math. My former colleague retired this year. I was able to attend a dinner last week and a dessert reception at the school this afternoon in her honor. It was so fun to see my friends and also kind of weird to hear about the teaching world that I'm no longer a part of.

The cool math kids. The guest of honor is in the number shirt--how appropriate!

I do miss some aspects of teaching, but I am so grateful that I am able to stay home with my girls. There is no place I'd rather be and no place where I can make a greater impact.

Bainbridge Island

Have I mentioned that I live in one of the most beautiful places on earth? Well, I do. Maybe I'm a little biased, but it's my blog. Saturday was an amazing Seattle day. There wasn't a cloud in the sky and the temperature was in the mid-70s. We had to take advantage of it, so we went to Bainbridge Island. We caught the ferry in Seattle and off we went.

The girls on the ferry.

Since there were no clouds, we were able to see amazing views:

Mt. Rainier

Downtown Seattle--the Space Needle is on the left.

The Space Needle

I liked how far the sailboats were leaning.

The Olympic Mountains and another ferry.

We ate lunch at the Bainbridge Bakery and then started to drive to a park. Lauren fell asleep, a rarity, so we drove around for half an hour while she napped.

Here are a couple of views from the island:

Seattle

Mt. Baker.
This view always impresses me because Mt. Baker is east of Bellingham. Bellingham is 90 miles north of Seattle and Mt. Baker is about 60 miles east of Bellingham. Assuming these are straight lines and using the Pythagorean Theorem, that's about 108 miles as the crow flies. I have to throw some math in here sometimes. Anyway... You don't see Mt. Baker from Seattle all that often because we have a lot of clouds. And 108 miles is a lot of space for clouds. Moving on...

Once Lauren woke up, we drove to Battle Point Park. They have the most amazing playground I have ever seen:

That's Eric pushing Kaylin in the swing.

Kaylin and Eric on one of the slides.

Those pictures show only part of the playground. Kaylin was in heaven. She played for a really long time and wasn't too happy to leave. Lauren liked it too, but she didn't grasp the enormity of it like Kaylin did. Plus there were so many details. If you're ever on Bainbridge you should definitely check out this park.

Then it was back to the ferry for another fun and beautiful trip home.

I'll say it again--I love Seattle! Out of town friends: We've got room if you want to come stay and play!