Kubota Garden Adventure

With many of our favorite parks and playgrounds closed this year Dom and I searched for new places to explore. In late summer we discovered Kubota Garden in Rainer Beach, and it has quickly become a favorite outside adventure spot. Taking advantage of non-rainy weekdays, we visited twice in October. Most of the time we are able to explore the paths alone. Last week we both took our cameras to capture the early stages of fall colors. Elliott came with us in the hope of seeing the Koi, and the senior groups wandering the paths loved Dom’s interest in photography.

Dom’s Photography

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Discovery Park

No long post here; just a bunch of photos I took during our hike (with Melissa’s sister) through Discovery Park this past Saturday. Mom did what I would estimate was three miles with the brute on her back – go mom! If you know anything about the park, you know it’s not flat. My fitbit says I did 39 flights that day and our bedroom is on ground level soooo… yeah, hills. My guess is we’ll spend a lot more time in the park during the coming months given it’s 500+ acres and only two miles away. We can head over for a picnic and some kite flying, then be home for mid-day nap. Bring on summer!

Have I mentioned how much I love this new lens??

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18 Months

As I was creating this post, it occurred to me that we never posted anything about Dom’s first birthday. Life was complicated about then and there weren’t a ton of pictures, so we never really got around to it. We marked the occasion by moving our annual summer BBQ to Labor Day weekend (Dom’s actual birthday was Labor Day and we went to a Mariners game).  We invited friends old and new and, well, wrapped everything up well before our previous BBQs did.

Anyway… 18 months. Dom’s about the size of a two or three year old, depending on the kid. We have a bunch of sounds that resemble words, but he’s still not really using them to communicate. The sounds things, like animals and trains, make are our sweet spot at the moment. Well, except he does say please at times when he wants something. Other than that, he’s very much a toddler. He tests boundaries, pretends he can’t hear you, but also understands consequences… like when I give him a choice to listen to his mother or be put to bed. Overall, he’s a really well-behaved kid who always eats at the table with utensils and tells us when he wants to go to bed (~7:15p) nightly. He sleeps 11 hours a night and naps 2-2.5 hours mid-day, so we have no serious complaints. That said, we’re definitely feeling being 40 and chasing a toddler around.

Here are some photos I took today, to help mark the occasion. We had breakfast with friends in the area, so we decided to run around a bit on the playground at Volunteer Park. Steps seem to be Dom’s favorite thing these days, so we spent much of the time climbing them and finding fun ways to get down. We were <10 minute walk from Bruce Lee’s grave, but getting home for nap time was our top priority. That’ll have to wait for another day.

P.S. – This new 35 mm is really working out well.