Happy 232nd Birthday America!

This year Walter went on a road trip to Gold Beach, Oregon, which is just about to the California border, to attend SCA's Antir West War. With limited seats available in our friends van and no real good reason to why Padon and I should go other than to see what their was to see at Antir West War Padon and I stayed behind and Walter left bright and early Thursday morning. Walter's Dad, Leo, watched Padon all day on Thursday while I took the ferry from Bainbridge Is. to Seattle and then the bus to work and then back. This gave us the great opportunity to visit with Leo and to have a fabulous steak dinner with the neighbors who gooed and loved all over Padon who was in an especially fabulous mood.

-

On Friday we took the ferry back to Seattle and I was excited to take Padon up to the passenger section of the ferry, not knowing if Walter had already done that with him or not. He was such a ham and the minute I pulled out the camera he was all smiles. We sat by the window, ate a little lunch, and then stepped outside.

It was super windy but Padon still held onto the fence and looked around.

Before it became too windy I asked a nice gentleman to take a picture of us with Seattle in the background.

Once we got to Seattle we made our way down to Federal Way to see my parents for their annual 4th of July bash. Overall the day was full of memorable moments. Padon got down that if he threw Roadie's ball for her she would go get it. Sad for her Padon throwing the ball meant it only went 6 inches. She was sooooo good about him touching her ball though and was full of patient angst. She was so good the whole weekend.

I was looking forward to a hot weekend so we could swim in the lake but while it didn't rain during the fireworks it really wasn't swimming weather. Everyone had a blast on the water trampoline anyway and everyone found themselves on it at least once.

Erin, Evan, Eliot, and Ivor came and brought with them a bag full of fireworks which Eliot couldn't wait to light. It was awesome because they were all the perfect kind of firework to slowly introduce Padon to.

Eliot and Ivor were too cute in setting down their fireworks and watching them as Evan lit them.

They even shared their sparklers with Padon who wasn't quite sure what to make of them, other than he really wanted to taste one, and his face didn't change much from the way it looks below the whole time.
We had hamburgers and hotdogs and Ivor was so cute to share his soda with Padon.Later I caught Padon, having crawled across the grass to discover a pile of fabulous treasure, a pile of plastic watering cans, squirt guns, bubbles and plates. I just couldn't capture on camera how cute he was and he was totally oblivious that anyone was watching him as he was really engrossed in a red watering can and bottle of bubbles.In all we were gone from home for 4 days and while it made for a tiring weekend it was as if we had gone on our own trip. Padon had a really good time hanging out with his Grandpa Leo and then again hanging out with his Grandpa and Grandma Devine, and Aunts and Uncles. It's hard to believe that another 4th has passed by. Next year he will be able to do so much more and with the help of Eliot's fireworks Padon has already started to become conditioned for fireworks and isn't as scared as he was in the beginning. Maybe next year we will get our own small bag of fireworks. We'll see.