Studio711.com – Ben Martens

We had a family company picnic at a local park. Elijah had a blast and loved the merry go round on the playground. When he sat in the middle and spun, it reminded me of one of those “choose your character” screens from a video game so I made it into an animated gif and chuckled:

The city of Redmond puts on a parade/carnival called Derby Days in July every year. Tyla and Elijah have gone in the past but this was my first year. We went there mainly for the parade and Elijah loved it. In true Redmond style, it was full of politicians and special interest groups, but that all went over Elijah’s head and he had fun watching everything go by. His favorite were the fire trucks at the beginning and the street sweeper at the end. A local Mexican restaurant, Ixtapa, had a fantastic showing with lots of dancers, a mariachi band and 20 horses.

After the parade we walked past Ooba’s Mexican restaurant. They have an outdoor restaurant and Elijah said “That looks delicious!” It was almost lunch time and Tyla and I love that place too so we stopped in. Elijah ate more food than I think I’ve ever seen him eat in one sitting. It was great to see because he was very sick for almost a week before that. He’s obviously rebuilding a lot of the mass that he lost.

We headed back to the car after the parade without checking out too much of the carnival, but it was a nice morning and we avoided the rain that came later in the day.

Tyla had some great ideas for photos of Elijah at three years old. She picked out outfits, bought a prop and corralled Elijah and me for photo time. Here are a couple of the better results. Thanks for all your hard work, Tyla!

On a very hot day a couple weeks ago, we took Elijah down to the Puyallup fair grounds for Dozer Days. It’s a charity fundraiser event that gives kids the chance to drive and operate big construction equipment. We didn’t really know what to expect when we headed down there, but it was an excellent event! The whole day was very well organized. Each machine had it’s own area to operate in with dirt to dig, etc. In addition to the operator in the machine, there was a helper moving kids between the line and the machine. They organized the lines in such a way that you never had to wait too long for a turn. Everyone working there was a volunteer and they were great with the kids.

If you’ve ever seen Elijah around construction equipment, it’s no surprise to you have that he LOVED it. We let him pick out any of the equipment and he always chose the smaller machines. That was fine with us since those lines were generally shorter. He got quite a few turns and we also spent some time walking around the static displays.

I don’t know that this is something we need to do every year, but I’m sure we’ll go back at some point. Why don’t they have this for adults?!

Last weekend we had a small birthday party for Elijah. Elijah thought it was extra special that cousin David was in town to come to the party too. His cake was a Dairy Queen ice cream cake with Thomas, Annie and Clarabel trains on top. After cake and presents, our neighbors came over so their kids could help Elijah smash his piñata. Everyone got a turn, but it didn’t take too long for them to break it open to find the candy and toys inside.

The highlight of the day for me was watching Elijah’s face as he heard everyone sing Happy Birthday to him. I can’t describe the pure joy on his face, but I think it’s evident in this picture below.

For Mother’s Day weekend, Tyla suggested that we go to watch the Windermere Cup which is the finale of the UW crew season. She had previously read and enjoyed The Boys in the Boat which tells the story of a UW team that competed in the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Ever since then, she has been itching to see a race and some of the history on campus.

We have never been to a race there and I’ve only been on campus a few times but it all worked out pretty smoothly. We parked on campus just north of the stadium, walked to the east end of the Montlake Cut and then followed the water all the way down to the end of the race course. There is a race every few minutes so it’s not too hard to keep a toddler entertained.

The race goes under the Montlake Bridge. At one point we were standing almost directly under the enormous bridge and Elijah thought it was really neat that the boats got to go under the bridge. Unprompted, he started clapping and yelling as loud as he could: “YAY! YOU DID IT! YOU MADE IT UNDER THE BRIDGE!”

The weather was beautiful and we watched almost all the races (with a slight detour to a bouncy house.) After the race, there is a boat parade so we stayed to watch the marching band float by on three boats and then see the fire boat go by with all it’s pumps turned on.

The area was busy but not nearly as crowded as I was expecting. It was a nice even to watch and I can see us doing it again at some point.