Studio711.com – Ben Martens

Every year since Tyla and I met, we have purchased a new Christmas ornament at some point in the year. (And every year I write a blog post that starts with a sentence like that.) This year we took two vacations and bought an ornament from each one. The first was a trip to Great Wolf Lodge and the second was our weekend in a caboose. The Great Wolf Lodge ornament was pretty easy since they had a gift shop full of choices, but for the caboose I had the idea to go on eBay and buy an HO scale version of the caboose we stayed in. It’s not exactly the same caboose number, but it’s the same generation and I’m not a train nerd so that works for me. I’m sure I enraged some of those train nerds when I drilled a hole through part of the caboose so I could hang it from the tree.

You can see our past ornaments in these posts: 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2008-2010

Mom was surfing the internet a few weeks back and found some incredibly cheap plane tickets so she and Dad came out here for Halloween weekend. It was a trip that was too short, but you can’t argue with the price. We spent a lot of the time just hanging out at the house so they could get maximum Elijah-time. It was good to see them again, especially since we aren’t going back to Indiana for Christmas this year.

Elijah chose to be a bumblebee this year. I don’t know where it came from but he made a pretty cute bumblebee (and it was thankfully an easy costume to put together!) He got a lot of use out of his costume. He used it at our church’s Trunk or Treat program, a Microsoft family day, a nursing home program, and of course in the neighborhood on Halloween night. He didn’t care much about the candy he receives but he loved being on both ends of trick-or-treating.

Below are a couple photos of him in his costume. My favorite is one from church: he’s wearing a bee costume, wearing some silly glasses that he “won” playing a game and riding a tricycle.

The pumpkin patch is an annual tradition in our house. We’ve visited quite a few different ones but Bob’s Corn is our favorite. They have lots of activities, good food and, oh yeah, pumpkins. Ever wanted to shoot an apple out of a big air cannon? Bob’s Corn has you covered.

This year we snuck in on a day that looked a bit rainy so the crowds weren’t too big. We made the rounds and spent plenty of time watching Elijah ride a bike with training wheels. He’s really eager to get a “pedal bike” but we’re trying to get him comfortable on the Strider and skip training wheels. One of the tricycles was big enough to squeeze onto so I rode next to Elijah for a while and he got a huge kick out of that.

They also have a giant pile of pumpkins next to their barn which makes a great spot for photos…

Elijah started swim lessons a year ago (or was it two?) and he has been steadily moving up through the levels. Tyla is usually the one to take him to his lessons but I go every few months to see his progress. On this latest trip, I took the camera along and captured some video. This is totally one of those “proud dad” posts, but too bad. I love seeing him be obviously pushed outside of his comfort zone, make it through and then realize that he accomplished something he was hesitant about. It’s also nice to know that if he did fall into water, he’d have a chance at getting himself out.

It has been 10 months since the last update on Elijah. He has changed just a little bit since then…

He’s three years and three months old now and boy is it a big difference from a year ago. We’ve finally turned a corner and it feels like things are getting a little bit easier, specifically around bedtime. It makes our evenings a lot more enjoyable.

He just started preschool. We’re thankful that our church has a preschool so Elijah was already familiar with the building, the two teachers and some of the kids. He attends two days a week from 8-12. It’s a good opportunity for him to learn to take instruction from someone other than us.

I find that I’m able to do more activities with him around. The other day I set him down on the floor in the garage with a pile of Matchbox cars (thanks Ken!) and he played happily for an hour while I worked on some shop projects.

I know I’ll look back longingly on these early years, but right now I’m excited to be able to do more activities with him.

This year, Elijah is attending the preschool at our church. It’s a big step for all of us! Thankfully it’s a very comfortable environment. He has been going to this building every week since he was born, he knows the teachers, and he already knows some of the kids from our church who also go there. I dropped him off in the morning and he really didn’t care that I was leaving. Tyla picked him up at noon and that’s the only time he cried… because he didn’t want to leave!

We have some pretty good fairs in the area. The Puyallup Fair is one of the biggest in the country with over a million annual visitors. The sheer size is fun to see, but lately Tyla and I have been going to the Evergreen State Fair in Monroe. It’s smaller, but it has everything we need and it’s not so crazy crowded. I generally take a day off so we can go during the week when the crowds are even smaller.

This year I took the Friday off before the long Labor Day weekend. It was a good choice in terms of the four day weekend, but it was a terrible choice in terms of weather. It DUMPED. You know it rains a lot in the fall, winter and spring around here, but you may not know that it rarely rains hard enough to need an umbrella. But Friday we had actual rain storms come through with torrential downpours. Thankfully I had packed a big golf umbrella in the truck and that kept us dry. There were a few breaks between the soaking events so we were still able to have a good time and see lots of things, but it will forever be the day we refer to as, “Remember when we went to the fair in the rain?”

Elijah was finally big enough to go on some of the rides, but he wasn’t big enough to ride them all by himself. That’s how I ended up riding a little kid’s ride all alone with my son in the rain. Plus five daddy points. His favorite activity at the fair is riding the pedal tractors that the antique tractor club always brings. He was there for a solid 20 minutes and we still had to pull him away.