4 Kids, 2 Happy and Tired Parents: July 4th and Dream Came True!

I cannot believe it's July already and it feels like summer is slipping through fast. Although it's non-summer-like, we do have more sunshine than wet June and the Campbell kids are taking advantage of it. We had a nice 4 day weekend since Mike took Tuesday off last week.

On Saturday, Sean and Alyson went with Mike to speech therapy in Redmond. Saya, Noah and I met up with them at the Saturday farmer's market and bought some fresh organic cherries and sweet onions. The market in Redmond is much bigger than the one in Crossroads. There are more organic vendors and even there is a stall that sells gluten free breads and sweets. We bought one chocolate zucchini cupcake for Sean and he immediately wanted to go home since we told him he gets to eat it after lunch. Sean is always in a good mood when we go out as a family.

On Sunday, we took the kids to a park in Mercer Island. It was a beautiful park by the water and had an awesome playground. They had a big pyramid shaped climbing wall with long slide. We were surprised that Saya decided she wants to try it after seeing her big bro and sis climb. She climbed it all by herself and threw herself onto the long and high slide without hesitation. She did fly out upon exiting and landed on her back, but that didn't stop her from trying it again. She is something else! We spent quite a bit of time there since they were having fun. Daddy was the Noah watcher and he followed Noah around the park. The rest of the kids were busy playing on the equipments.

We had a date night that night, so took off to Seattle to our favorite Japanese restaurant in International District. Unfortunately, the food wasn't as good. We concluded that it must be because their regular chef is off since it was Sunday. When we left the restaurant, a woman smoking by the door started to talk to us casually as we've known her for years. I thought Mike befriended her at the restaurant inside, but he later told me no. She said she is a best friend of the owner, but she recommended another Japanese place down the street. As we were chatting, the owner of the other place came by and he invited us to take a look at his restaurant. They were very friendly and we felt like a tourist. The restaurant had outdated interior and small, however they seem to have a good track record for serving delicious food. So, we are going to try it on the next date night and see if the new found friend still remembers us when he is sober!

July 4th was a very good day for all of us. We went on a bike ride to Marymoor Park after lunch and enjoyed outdoors and each other. Mike pulled Saya and Noah on a bike trailer, Sean rode his blue bike, Aly pedaled her trike and me on mine, which Mike bought me for my birthday back in California. A lot of families were enjoying their bike rides and some were having picnics on the grass. Everyone seems to be having a very good time. I felt very happy seeing my husband with two adorable children in the trailer, my big boy riding his blue bike, and beautiful Alyson pedaling fast to catch up with us. I've been wanting to be a part of the family bike caravan all my pre-kids life. To me, that was the picture of happiness, sort of like a family of ducks swimming together on a pond. Life is good and it was one of those moments I felt pure joy.

It's been a while since my last post, so I do have a lot of things to write! I want to write one more thing - about the fireworks... Sean's been talking about fireworks since he heard them outside at nights prior to the 4th. He said he wanted to go see the firework show at night, so Sean and I went to downtown Bellevue to see it. I grabbed Mike's ear muffs for yard work just in case he thinks it's too loud. I am glad we took it, but that didn't help much! We were right by where they shot up the fireworks and after about 30 seconds, Sean was terrified! I didn't want to upset him, so we left pretty much right after it started. Poor kid was so scared, he could not walk. I had to carry him half of the way until he could not see them. But we are glad we tried it. Now we know. Enjoy them from the distance!!

Funny quote of the week:

Me: Sean, your chicken nuggets are getting cold. You have to sit down and eat.
Sean: (upon hearing "old" instead of cold) Mommy, you mean they are all dried up and have spider webs on them?