Golf Cart!!

Nick would do this ALL DAY if he could. I kid you not. Here he is going on one of a bazillion golf cart rides on our recent vacation (see previous posts).



In a few years, we can just send him off on his own, right????

Long Beach Aquawarum

Nope, not a typo. That's how Nick pronounces aquarium. The weekend before our vacation, we headed down to the Long Beach Aquarium. Not a bad spot - certainly no Sea World or Monterey Aquarium, but it was still fun. Best of all it had some misters outside and was air conditioned inside. This was very nice given how hot it was that weekend.

Didn't take too many pictures, but HAD to get a picture of a puffin for Grandma Alice!!


The aquarium had those cool walk-thru tunnel tanks where you could get up close & personal with the animals. Here is Nick observing a sea turtle.


Outside by the misters (ahhhh). Nick driving the boat.


The also had a decent shark exhibit. I was able to stand up close to the tank for about oh, one minute, maybe, before I had to step away to prevent heart palpitations. Yes, I have an irrational fear of sharks. Yes, I know it's stupid. But it's not my fault. I blame my brother for tormenting me as a child with the Jaws theme & telling me there were sharks under my bed. They really are awful and we should stay as far away as humanly possible. God save me if Nick wants to learn to surf.

Ah, this is the life!

Or so Nick said during our vacation up to the Great Northwest. Yep, we were sitting around the dinner table up in Yaak, Montana when all of a sudden he whips out "Ahhh, this is the life!" I have no idea where he got it, but he was quite correct. I mean, if this is what you got to look at every day when you were eating your lunch, that'd be pretty cool, no? (click on the picture to get the full effect)


He now says "I see does and fawns and bucks and deers" - so cute.


As with his last trip last summer, Nick loved feeding the deer "corns" - he ran back and forth a number of times to make sure that corn pile was plentiful.


Here he is getting ready to go for a walk. Lucky guy - we brought the stroller with us so his "walking" was more like this: walk for a bit, climb in the stroller, declare "Hey! There's a rock!!", climb out of stroller, get rock, put rock in stroller basket, climb back into stroller, repeat. And considering all the roads and trails we were on were dirt... there were a LOT of rocks.


We drove and then did a short hike down to Savage Lake. Nick loved throwing rocks and sticks into the lake. Or as he was calling it, pond.


Grandma Alice surveying the rock-throwing.


Grandpa Bop surveying as well...


Digging in the mud. Thankfully he hasn't quite gotten into the full mud excitement yet, but I'm sure it's coming.


He was trying to skip rocks like Daddy. He soon got the arm motion down, but not the finesse yet.


Nick really wanted to put the "Big Stick" in the lake - it was tough, but he got it in!


One of Nick's favorite activities was helping Grandpa Bop work on the wood shed. Here they are getting ready to "work". Looks like Nick is checking his measurements while Grandpa Bop patiently waits.


Measure twice, cut once...


No one was hurt in the filming of this picture... He actually did really well in hammering. Hit the nail on the head every time and used enough strength to get it into the wood.


After working on the shed, time for happy hour on the swing.


Visitors during happy hour. Click on the picture to get the full view - a couple of bucks with a nice rack.


This picture kills me. Looks like he getting ready for a runway shoot or something. Strike a pose...


Total old man look - all hunched over. I have no idea why. But this is how many of our walks went. We were still on the driveway!!


It was a great trip. A little cold, but that was a relief given the hot past few weeks we had at home before we left. We also went to visit Uncle Jerry & Aunt Lou Ann at their house in Liberty Lake. They live on a golf course and have a golf cart that they use to head to the clubhouse, etc. Nick LOVED it. Spent most of the late afternoon & evening being driven around by various people on the cart. He also spent time on the practice putting green working on his short game. He wanted to hit the balls in the lake (there is a driving range on the course & the balls go into the lake). But since I told him if we hit them in the lake, we can't get them back, each time he went back to the driving range, he said "No, no hit in the lake!!" He'll be a pro in no time!!