Wow, a lot of stuff happened in the second half of June.
Mom came down for several days to help out. We were able to get out of the house without the kids for a beer, which is a rare treat. We went to a relatively new place called Imbibe, which is a style of place that I like very much: Half beer store, half beer bar.
Tom and his small army came out to Washington in their tour bus. I think the purpose of the trip had been to see his wife’s niece’s graduation, but they also planned their second daughter’s 8th birthday party at Remlinger Farms. They planned to stay two weeks with his sister in law, but cut the visit in half based on the quality and cleanliness of the accommodations. Based on what they told me about the place, this was probably a good decision. Tom brought two of his daughters over to our house, we made them dinner and I got to chat with him for a while in a less chaotic environment. He also bathed his kids at our place so he wouldn’t have to subject them to the tub at the other place.
Remlinger Farms was a great birthday party place, except that it’s so big that for the most part people split up and went their separate ways. Lots of rides and attractions and interesting things to do, and the kids enjoyed it, but our interactions with the other partygoers were mostly limited to whenever we ran across them walking around the park. It was awesome to see Tom (and even his little brother Dan at the party), but I wish I’d been able to spend more time actually hanging out with him, and less time with both of us fathering our separate families.
The day after the birthday party was the Washington Brewer’s Festival and Father’s Day, so the kids made me breakfast in bed. They wanted me to still be in bed when they brought it to me, but I intended to get up at 6 to get something done — so I subtly hinted that the kids could probably convince me to go back to bed to take a nap once they got up and wanted to make breakfast. It was awesome and adorable.
The beer festival was also awesome, as usual. Mom was there to help babysit the kids and our picnic table “base”. Chilkoot independently decided that he wanted to wear his red lederhosen, which he was calling his Mickey Mouse shorts (red shorts with big buttons in the front). Which, of course, is painfully cute. There were at least a couple other people (adults) wearing lederhosen, but Chilkoot wore it best. It was also funny when someone came up to him and said, “Sprechen sie deutsch?” Chilkoot looked blankly at the German and hid behind his parents. P-Dubs and T-Dog came out as well, and we met up with my friend Jay and his two kids. We drank a lot of interesting beer. Some of it was super good. Some of it was just OK.
Chilkat finished kindergarten, and we went to her school for the little graduation ceremony and sort-of party. A neighbor gave away a bigger bike, which is now Chilkat’s, although we haven’t found training wheels we can put on it yet. I took the kids for their dentist appointment, and they were both perfectly well behaved and we learned that Chilkat has her first loose tooth. We went to a birthday party for L, one of Chilkoot’s day care classmates. It was racing themed at a go-kart place. The kids had a little parade at day care in celebration of Independence Day (a yearly tradition, which is cheesy and goofy, but the kids like it).
Mr. I, the colleague I took with me to Japan, got married. It was a small outdoor ceremony at a tree farm in Issaquah. I think it turned out very nicely. Mr. I is a curly-haired blonde, and his mother doted on Chilkoot for reminding her of her only child’s childhood on his wedding day. After the garter toss, Chilkoot came up to KrisDi to tell her that “She has weird things under dress!” They made friends with the flower girl, rolled down hills, roasted marshmallows, ordered his first drink from a bar (and got one for his sister, too), danced up a storm, and were generally awesome as usual.