Happy 11th Birthday to Max

 Happy birthday to my darling Max! For quarantine birthday this year, he requested a day of backyard games (with prizes!), all is favorite foods (birthday cereal: Chocolate Toast Crunch, Dad's crepes for lunch, and the girls' musubis for dinner). This year marked the third year he requested a bubble gum machine cake (this kid has asked for this precise cake THREE times in his life... who knew gumballs were so awesome?)

We had a low key day of friendly competition, watching The Incredibles together, and showing our boy how much we love him! Max is such a steadying force in the family. He is funny, quick-witted, has a great love of reading, and a perfect match for his wily younger another. We could not love him any more!

Staycation 2020

 I know people sometimes do the "staycation" thing where they take time off work, and stay around town visiting their local fun spots. I guess in the era of quarantine, this is going to be more of a thing. For us, it came about sort of by accident because we had planned on a camping trip with a large group of friends, sharing campsites. As the time got closer, it just didn't seem like the right health choice for us to be in a large group like that. It was a hard decision, and we really lamented the social filling this would have brought all of us. Chalk this one up to one of MANY hard decisions. It did reveal that we have incredible friends, who never made us feel bad for making this choice. All the other families went on the trip, so we could easily have felt like odd man out. 

So! Instead of camping, we decided to take the kids on some local adventures (two trips to our new favorite spot on the Wilson River, and one trip to the coast for a beach/kayak day). Beautiful weather, and so fun to get out of our house and visit a few of the MANY gorgeous places where we live.

We love "our" river spot so much, we brought our cousins from Seattle to visit, when they were in town. 

We also got a visit from our other cousins, and were able to throw our sweet Maya a little mini-birthday party in the backyard too!