Washington Corn Maze

On Saturday we went to a corn maze. I didn't even know they had corn mazes in Washington. I guess I thought they were one of those Idaho treasures that everyone else thinks are lame. So we went to one that was about 30 miles north of Seattle. It was awesome. They have a whole farm set up with a petting zoo, play area, corn maze, bakery, pumpkin patch, putting course, etc. We had a blast. And the corn maze was shaped like the state of Washington, complete with real landmarks and roads. Most of the pictures were a little rough. There was a combination of bright sunshine, shadows from the corn, Jackson sprinting, and Tyler not realizing that I had left some weird camera settings on.

The hayride to the entrance of the maze

You entered along the "Idaho border"

About half way through, Jackson decided to be brave and started running off the path into the thick corn and hiding from us. It made me a little nervous because a couple of times he completely disappeared from view and would crouch down and wait silently while we called his name and crawled in after him.

Zoo Therapy

Today we needed a zoo escape, just Jackson and me.

Favorite Jackson quote of the day:

(sternly pointing his finger) "Monkeys, No no! Too loud!"

Favorite moment of the day:

We were all by ourselves watching the snow leopards. They were, of course, all the way at the back of the exhibit, lounging on the rocks and doing nothing interesting. Then one of them stood up. He's ears perked up and he looked right at Jackson standing behind the glass all the way at the front end of the exhibit. He crouched down and glared. All of the sudden, he jumped off the rock and sprinted down the hill. He was to us in about 2 seconds and he ran right into the glass that Jackson was standing on the other side of. He got up, came back over and just stared at Jackson. Their noses were about 6 inches apart with a thin wall of glass between them. Jackson loved it. I was thinking of all those news stories where zoo animals get out and attack guests.

My favorite animal of the day:

The brown bear, but only because he came over and lounged on the rocks right in front of us. It was the best view we've ever gotten of him.

a very poorly taken photograph, but Jackson wanted to be in one with the bear

It Shouldn't Be This Fun

Tyler has informed that it's time for a blog update. I replied with, "Maybe you should do a post." And his response, "I guess we don't really need one right now." Haha, well, here it is anyway. My lack of posts has been due to a lack of exciting things going on around here. In fact, last week was filled with a bunch of silly, little things that shouldn't be that fun, but they were.

On Thursday a fabulous package arrived, my new toy (pictured below). Cleaning carpets shouldn't be a fun thing, but for some reason I was thrilled when this arrived and spent my entire afternoon shampooing the ridiculously white carpets in our house. Once again, white carpets in a student-family apartment complex? Give me a break! Anyway, they are sparkling clean again. See how beatiful they look? I'm guessing next time they need to be cleaned, I won't be so excited to do it.

On Friday, an even better package arrived. My best friend still lives in Idaho, so we have to find ways to cheer each other up from a distance. Last week I had a particularly bad day and told her I needed her to skip work and spend the afternoon with me, which she obviously couldn't do from so far away. So instead she mailed me a "girly afternoon package" including bright pink nail polish, a cucumber face mask, and a Glamour magazine, which she had already read and written little comments all over for me to read. So I spolied myself for a day and pretended she was there. Again, way more fun than it should be :) Thanks, Lara!

Another big part of my week was reading. Althought I hate reading, I've managed to plow through almost 4 books in the past few weeks, and my house is cleaner than ever. I guess it motivates me when I actually have something good to do with my free time. Maybe I should decide I like reading... maybe I already do.

I started with this book, which was interesting and way different than what I usually read. I actually really liked it. I can't decide if I would recommend it to friends. It would probably depend on the friend. But I'm glad I read it.

The last five days have been devoted to these. I'm still in the middle of Mockingjay, so don't spoil it for me :) And finally, because I know the grandparents are reading this, and I know what they care about seeing. Jackson is still just as cute as ever. He's looking particularly handsome and grown up in his new fall clothing.

15k

After Tyler did his triathalon, I decided I should do something like that too. I talked my friend into training for a 15k (9.3 miles). For any of you who run, that probably doesn't sound like much, but for someone like me, it was a big deal. We only had 5 weeks to train (which ended up being about 3 weeks if you don't count the time that I was either sick or injured). Well, Saturday was the race and somehow I made it. I finished the race in 1 hour 33 minutes. My goal was to do it in under 2 hours, so I was proud of the accomplishment. Unfortunately, the camera was on the wrong settings and all of the race pictures turned out blurry (or maybe I was just running that fast), but there were a couple of cute post-race pictures.

Jackson enjoying my post-race cookies. Apparently he thought he had earned them.

My friend and her cute family. Our husbands are in school together, we work together, we live across the parking lot from each other, and now we run races together :)

Randi, Brevic, Madden, and Alex

For Labor Day weekend, we had visitors from Idaho. Tyler's sister, Randi, and her husband Brevic and son Madden, and Tyler's brother, Alex. It was so fun to have family around. We had a blast. I love Seattle, I just wish it was closer to Pocatello so we could see everyone more often.

Jackson really enjoyed spending time with his only cousin. Jackson definately knows he is the older one, and he picked on Madden a lot, but in a few years they will be great friends.

The boys were lucky enough to meet a guy while golfing that gave us free Mariner's tickets in the fancy terrace seats.

Jackson with his uncle Alex

A beautiful sunset at Carkeek Beach

Big boys having fun on the little kid toys. The best part is clicking on the pictures and zooming in to look at their facial expressions. It was way more intense than it looks in these pictures.

In case you were doubting their speed, I slowed down the shutter speed in this picture so you can see their movement... kind of a cool effect. It also makes it look light outside, even though it wasn't.