4th of July 2009

Hope everyone had a relaxing 4th of July this year. We kicked it at our friends, Scott and Angela's house along with another couple and their two little boys.

The boys all had a great time running around the yard, playing in the water and consuming a lot of goodies. Scott was cooking up a 4th of July smorgasbord of food that included pork roast slow cooked in the smoker all day, crab legs and corn on the cob along with sides of coleslaw, pasta salad and a fruit tray from the ladies.

Just before Jayden had to go down to bed, dad was able to sneak a few fireworks in this year. Nothing too crazy even though those are DEFINITELY available up here, crazy place up north called BoomCity that has 100 stands of craziness. Even though he was a fan of the few that dad set off he was still won over by what I think is the #1 firework ever made for kids - PopIts.

Happy B-day little man....

A few weeks back the little man made it to 3 years old. It seems like a pretty decent milestone in ones life. While he still has a fair bit of growth to go before he can jump behind the wheel of a car, fight for his country, vote for his leaders, put a Benjamin down on the Lakers to win the title or develop any other bad “grown up” habits, he still gets a pretty sweet step up in daily life at 3.

For one, his toy possibilities grow by about 200%. Whether it’s that he can easily now have toys listed as 3+ (which seems to be a boat load) or that we are more likely to let him have one that is 4+ or 5+ now, there are definitely more options. He’s been talking for a while now but his imagination has definitely been taken up a notch or two in the last month or so. He love’s to play freeze tag and hide and seek, even though he does not fully get the concept of “hiding”. When he hides, he usually just goes and stands next to a wall and giggles while we try and pretend that we don’t hear or see him. When we say “Jayden, where are you?” he giggles and replies “I don’t know, hehehe”. He also is a big fan of playing “grocery store” with his new cash register (the “money pinger”). At the moment he likes being the “shopping man” and dad or mom being the “grocery man” that scans all the items and takes his money. He also may start going to some sort of pre-school some time this year. There are several places around us that provide part time schooling for a few hours a day, a couple days a week at a reasonable price. Of course there is also potty training. We’ve been half heartedly working with him the last few months but will soon be going at it full force.

Better toys, new games, school and the loo! That’s quite a bit!!

Ok, well onto the festivities. His actual birthday fell on a Tuesday this year so dad took the day off of work and we headed to Chuck E. Cheese (a favorite of his, of course). Turns out Tuesday mornings at opening time is the perfect time to go because no one is really there yet!! (Yeah for mom and dad!!). We brought a few presents for him to open and much fun was had. He got to meet Chuck E. and had plenty of coins to plop into whatever machines he wished. We had amassed quite a number of tickets from previous outings and we added a bunch more this time (1300 total!). When it came time to leave we showed him all the cool toys he could pick from. He decided he just had to have this certain item and he would not be convinced otherwise no matter how hard mom and dad tried. What did he want? A mini Tootsie-pop, orange flavor, for 10 tickets. Oh to be 3… :)

After we left the mouse house, we went home and all took a nap. After nap time we decided to take him out to a birthday dinner at the mall. We went to Claim Jumper and had a yummy dinner. He got a special birthday cupcake that he enjoyed very much.

The next day, he had his two best buds come over for cake and ice cream!!

The next day, Thursday, we headed for Portland to see family for a long birthday/fathers day weekend. We started by going to grandma Smith’s house in McMinnville. Jayden had a blast playing out in the yard. He helped grandma water her plants, played hide-and-seek, and rode his little scooter around the grass. On the second day we went to this great big park next to were they live (sorry, no pics, forgot our camera). He had a blast playing on all the jungle gym stuff, in the sand, in the water jets and on his little scooter. Of course he loved playing with the dogs at the house and in his little room that grandma has set up for him.

On Saturday we all went over to grandma Shervey’s house for his big Transformers themed birthday party. Uncle Jon and Aunt Heather came over too and an unhealthy amount of spoiling ensued. :) The following day was Fathers Day but we ended up just relaxing and not doing too much, the week had worn out mom and dad. We did go to a cool little park when we had a break in the weather where Jayden got to play with one of his favorite playground toys, the scooper!!

We headed back the following Monday. We stopped at our friends, Chris and Tiffany, to see their little one, Sydney, and introduce her to Jayden (is there a future marriage in the works?? We shall see). Unfortunately, the little man was worn out and just wanted to go home (he was asleep 10 minutes after we left), so the visit was a short one :)

The following week Jayden had his 3 year check up appointment. We found out he was a perfect square, 39x39!! 39 pounds (90th percentile) and 39 inches tall (95th percentile). A big growth spurt in the last year!!

Merry Christmas Everyone

Just a quick note to say Merry Christmas to everyone. We hope that you all have a wonderful day.

Wanted to post a few pictures and videos of our day. Jayden was very much into Christmas this year and was very excited that Santa made his way to our house. Hope you enjoy the pics/movies.

Sorry, had to split the movies into 3 parts. Supposed to be one 13min video, but the web site I host pic's and vid's on has a 5min limit per video. So just watch them in order to get the same effect :)

Getting some Joy out of the Constant Snow Flakes

In case you have been under a rock the last week, it has been dumping snow up here in the great north west. Over the past week we have gotten over a foot of snow in Everett and 8" in downtown Seattle. For a place with lots of steep hills and annual snow fall is just under 3" that's a heck of a lot!! Of course that means most are not prepared for driving in it and that ends up causing wrecks, delays and all kinds of issues. In fact the last three bus rides I have taken (or tried to take) I have waited a total of 5 hours for the bus!

On the bright side I have "had" to stay home for the better part of a week and we have gotten out and enjoyed the snow as much as we could. Jayden seems to really like the snow and this is the first year he could really get out and play in it. Unfortunately the snow that fell was a real soft powder and not very good for making snow men, but mom did manage to snag the last sled from RiteAid and we had lots of fun with that. Hope you enjoy the pic's.

Trip to Spokane with Jayden is well overdue

Over the weekend of June 27th the Misses and I loaded up the wee-one and headed east. Much fun was had.

Background:
Before stopping in Oregon, Missy and her family moved out to Spokane from Hopkins (MN) some time during her days in middle school (mid 80's maybe?). Shortly thereafter her grandma, aunt and a cousin moved out to Spokane as well as the the Shervey's began to stake their claim to a piece of the great northwest.

I don't have a digital version of any of the pictures I have seen from this "Shervey Spokane Era". I have hand drawn one for you though:

Shervey Clan - Left to right: Middle-School Missy, No-Grey Jon (or one of the Cosby kids. I'm not certin), Less-Grey Wayne, Merry and Mittens

The Fun:
We took off from Everett on Thursday afternoon. Normally we would leave with Jayden later in the evening so he could sleep most of the way but Everett to Spokane is about 5 hours and we did not want to get in at midnight so we left early and prayed that he would do OK. He ended up doing rather well the whole way. Missy did a great job entertaining him by reading books and shoveling snacks back to him. Also a saving grace was a CD of songs from one of his favorite cartoons - The Backyardigans. He loved this and panicked whenever a song finished and there was a slight pause, thinking it had stopped. It saved much need sanity for mom and dad. (Thank you Jon and Heather!).

Snacks and songs got us to Ellensburg where I had looked up a state park we could stop at, have dinner and let the boy stretch his legs. Since he was a good boy McDonald's fries were on the menu for dinner and he enjoyed them with much happiness. It was a cool park/farm. I guess it is a working farm as well and they do school field trips with hay rides and the whole bit. Neat-O!

Dinner at park.

*Side note* - Washington rest areas and state parks have got to be the nicest I have ever seen (and I've seen my share, not a lot of airline miles racked up on family vacations when I was young). They are always very well kept and the bathrooms are always very clean, no matter where you are. GO WASHINGTON!

Back on the road we went. Jayden did really good the second half of the trip. He gets all loopy and giggly when he gets tired some times. He'll just laugh for no reason or you could turn around and look at him and say something silly like "Waffle House" and he'll just bust up. So funny. Jayden entertained Missy with this for about an hour or so at one point.

I had never been to Spokane so of course I had never driven there either. It was a really pretty drive. The first half in the mountains and trees and the second half in the high desert with windmills and farm land. It was really cool and reminded me of a lot of the trips we took as a kid through California, New Mexico and Arizona.

Sunset on the way to Spokane.

We got into the hotel around 9:30pm or so. Wayne had been in Spokane for a few days doing some roofing over at his mom and sisters place so he had already gotten our rooms. We had two adjoining rooms with the double door thingy in between. That worked out really well because Jayden could run back and forth. It was kind of lucky that we got the two rooms this way. That weekend was also something called "Hoop Fest". There where like 18,000 basketball players in town for 3 vs 3 tourneys so hotels were hard to come by.

Jayden stayed awake the whole way so he was really tired. Dad was too.

The hotel we stayed at had a very nice breakfast in the morning. Waffles, danishes, fruit, breakfast burritos, biscuits and gravy, etc. All for free. Jayden likes the Honeynut Cheerio's. Mom swore they had more "honey coating" than normal. Either way they were a hit.

The hotel also had a pool as well. We went out one day and it was nice. Jayden loved swimming around and splashing all of us. Sorry, no pics, we were all in the pool!!

One of the days we went to Coeurdalene, Idaho. Its only like 15 miles from Spokane. It was really cool. Lots of nice waterfront areas with huge parks and playgrounds. We kind of made the mistake of letting Jayden get in the water a little bit. He LOVED it. But we were not really prepared for the water so we could not let him get in very far and could not get in with him, so he was a little upset when we took him out. But he had lots of fun anyway and played a bit more before going back to the hotel for a nap.

Jayden loved the water and was looking very cool.

We went over a couple of times to see Wayne's mom (Jayden's great-grandma) and his sister Wanda and her son Paul. One of the evenings was for a BBQ. It was so nice out. Hot in the sun but really nice in the shade. We hung out in the yard and ate burgers and dogs. Jayden loved playing in the yard. Merry had got him a few other things for his birthday that she brought along to give to him. He loved them all of course.

Lots of fun at great-grandma's and aunt Wanda's

We had a great time visiting with family and friends. It was so great that Jayden got to meet his great-grandma and he really warmed up to her. He just loves grandma's. Hopefully we will make it back out to see them all again soon.

I enjoyed my first trip to Spokane and I'm sure it will not be my last. Jayden did great. We'll have to see if this gives us the courage to try other "road trips" this summer.

Ending Note: On the way home I think this started out as a "No you can have a drink, you can not hold it. No hold. Just take a drink, here take a drink, just............."

Guess who won that one....