So, we survived the two weeks. On her way home, KrisDi managed to successfully stand by on an earlier flight, which brought her into the airport just barely before the kids’ bed time. I tricked the kids. They’re still young enough to be awfully gullible. I told them we were just going to do something different for bed time, and go for a little drive, and then go home and go to bed.
“Where are we going, Dad?”
“Just for a drive, sweetie.”
“But where?”
“Oh, I don’t know, we’ll go out a little ways and then come back. You can watch videos.”
“OK!”
…later, “Hey, we’re at the airport!”
“Really? Wow, I think you’re right!”
“Maybe we’ll see Mommy!”
“Mommy’s supposed to get in later than your bedtime, isn’t she? Are you in bed yet?”
“LOOK IT’S MOMMY!”
They thought it was pretty silly I accidentally drove to the airport.
We went to B. False Alarm’s third birthday party at Old McDebbie’s farm. Same place as last year, but the freaky safety hazard has been transformed into a pirate ship. Kids played and ran and yelled and rode ponies. They also ate lots of sugar, and reluctantly, some pizza.
Afterward, we went to Olympia and let the kids play around at the children’s museum there. Then we went to 3 Magnets brewing so the grown ups could play. They had pretty good beer and a surprisingly interesting menu. Service was a little flaky.
Chilkat’s been working on “sight words” — words that aren’t necessarily easy to sound out, but are very common (think, “are” “that” “they”…). With a moderate ability to sound stuff out and a moderate collection of sight words under her belt, KrisDi encouraged Chilkat to read a book, Put Me In The Zoo. She of course needed a little help, but she did remarkably well. I’m very proud of her.
We took the kids on their very first camping trip. We wanted to take them out away from near horizons and light pollution. Sort of spur of the moment — we ordered things like tents and sleeping bags a couple days before we left, assuming Amazon Prime would get it to us in two days. It worked. Most of our stuff arrived Friday, when we left on Saturday.
We went to my co-worker’s kids’ birthday party at a pool, and then we drove three hours out to Sun Lakes. We stopped at Whipsaw brewing on the way out (decent beer, nice place), and filled a growler at Iron Horse brewery. KrisDi and the kids helped me build our gigantic tent for the first time. I miss the privacy of camping in North Dakota. There was like a thousand people at that camp site. Anyway, the kids got to cook Little Smokies for dinner and s’mores for dessert, and then we set out a blanket and watched the sky for meteors. KrisDi saw one, and I saw one, and that was all. I think we (or I) misread some article and thought the peak was Saturday night, when it was actually on Thursday. The kids loved it — campfire, tents, sleeping bags, staying up late. Everything. Monday after, Chilkoot said something like, “…when we go camping in four days!” and then he burst out crying when KrisDi told him we’re not going camping again in four days.
On our way home, we visited Ten Pin brewing (weird divy casino vibe but good beer). Chilkoot then fell asleep in the truck, and continued to sleep while I pulled him out, had dinner and beer at Dru Bru (cool vibe and very good beer), and put him back in the truck. Then he slept on the couch for a little while while we unpacked. And then he went right to sleep at bed time, like 45 minutes after we got home. I think he was a little tired from staying late.