Washington DC

We got back last night from a long anniversary weekend in Washington DC visiting our friends Nathan and Blanca. Matt left last Wednesday to attend and give a presentation at the NALEO conference (National Association of Latino Elected Officials).

Daniel and I flew in Friday morning. We spent a couple of hours in Matt's hotel resting and then we went (or attempted to go) to the Smithsonian while Matt was finishing up a lunch meeting. On the way over to the Smithsonian, Daniel fell asleep, so we spent two hours in the Union Station parking garage while Daniel slept. Matt met up with us and we all went over the the Museum of Air and Space. Daniel had a blast. He loved seeing all the real planes and spaceships hanging from the ceiling. Daniel rode in his first taxi and proclaimed that he "loved taxis." We met Nathan and Blanca at their apartment (which has a great view of the Washington Monument from the roof deck)! We had a great dinner at a small Malaysian restaurant and then just headed back to their apartment to catch up.

On Saturday we all walked down to the White House, the Washington Mommyment (according to Daniel) the WWII Memorial, Lincoln Memorial and the Vietnam War Memorial. Daniel thought that Lincoln was a little too big and didn't want to stay to long there. According to Daniel "That man is too big he scares me!" After going back to Nathan and Blanca's for a nap and some air-conditioning we headed to a Washington Nationals baseball game on the subway. Daniel thought the trains were great. National's Park just opened up this year so it was neat to go to a brand new stadium. Nathan let Daniel bring one of his mitts which he loved. During the game there was a 1 hour rain delay, complete with thunder and lightening. Daniel has never seen a rain delay, since it is a common event here and they built a roof on Safeco Field.

We went to a couple of more monuments on Sunday. We saw the FDR and the Thomas Jefferson memorials. The Smithsonian was putting on a Folk Life Festival. NASA was one of the main sponsors so there were a lot of tents with robots for kids to play with as well as a lot of space ships. I think we may have a future astronaut . We ended out trip with a quick dip in the rooftop pool at Nathan and Blanca's looking out over the Washington "Mommyment."

http://picasaweb.google.com/jebarreto77/WashingtonDC2008

Father's Day Weekend

It has been a great weekend here is Seattle. We FINALLY had two days of weather in the high 60's with SUN!!!!!! I forgot what it looked like.

Matt's cousin Erika came up for business, but stayed with us for the weekend. We went to the Hiram Chittendem Locks yesterday to watch the boats and look at the salmon ladder. Daniel loved to see the boats go in and out of the locks. We went down to the salmon ladder, which takes you underground, but only saw a couple of small fish, so we didn't stay long there. We went back to the locks and there is a really nice grassy hill that was perfect for rolling down. Somehow Daniel talked us all into rolling down the hill with him! He thought that was the best.

Matt's father day present was some tickets to the Seattle Mariner's game on Saturday. We had a great time. Daniel really enjoyed watching the game and liked cheering for the M's. Daniel also really enjoyed the 7th inning stretch where he same "Take me out to the Ballgame." Although the M's lost, we had a great time.

This morning I made Matt breakfast. We had homemade breakfast sausage and biscuits, fruit and some peach Bellini's. It was fabulous. Erika was still here and our friends Sam and Francisco came over. After breakfast we went over to UW and went canoing in the arboretum. We beached the canoe for awhile and relaxed in the sun and the boys played football.

Click here to enjoy some pictures from this weekend: http://picasaweb.google.com/jebarreto77/FatherSDay2008

Memorial Day

We went down to the Oregon coast for Memorial Day with our friends Dave and Christian and their daughter Rian. We went to the Inn at Otter Crest in Linclon Or. Christian's mom works there so we were able to get some really great rooms with awesome views. We had a really rocky view from our rooms, but it allowed us to have a view of the seals that sun themselves on the rocks. The kids loved to watch them.

We were expecting a weekend full of rain, but we ended up having some great weather. On Saturday, we took the kids swimming since we had some sun. Then we headed down to the beach to look in the tidepools and to build some sand castles. At dinner that night Daniel told me his name was "Dan" and when I tried to call him Daniel agian he said "No mommy, I'm Dan."

On Sunday we went to a historic light house in Newport Oregon, just down the road from where we were staying. There were great tidepools there where the kids could look and touch starfish and sea annenomies. There were also seals close by sunning themselves on rocks. We also took the kids to a great beach to fly kites. They loved it! Rian was an old pro and got her kite up really high. Daniel had a spiderman kite and loved watching it go up in the air.

If you would like to see all the pics, click the link below:

http://picasaweb.google.com/jebarreto77/MemorialWeekend2008

First Kiss.....

Our friends Dave, Christian and their daughter Rian came up last weekend from Portland to celebrate Daniel's birthday. Daniel and Rian love playing together; but when she tried to kiss Daniel, he wanted nothing to do with it. Rian is such a little girl and Daniel couldn't be more of a boy! These two pictures are SO cute that I had to share them specially.

The Big 3

I can't believe my baby turned 3!!!! When did that happen?!?!?!?! Daniel had a great weekend. On Friday Daniel celebrated his birthday at Laura's house (his babysitter) with chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter frosting. Late Friday Marge flew in to help celebrate the big day. Daniel's big present this year was a bouncer (which Matt let him open EARLY!) and it was a hit at the party. Daniel didn't want to get out of it to do anything, not even to blow out the candles out on his cake. I have to thank Marge and Dave for taking all of the pictures. They really turned out great.

Daniel got a lot of great presents for his birthday, but I have to say the one he liked best was 2 NASCAR cars from one of the people I work with. Hope you enjoy the pictures! http://picasaweb.google.com/jebarreto77/April252008

Snow in Seattle!!!!

It's April 18th and we had a couple of inches of snow tonight. Can you believe it!!!!! Daniel had a great time building a snowman for Soli and throwing snowballs at me. I can't believe that it's a week until Daniel's birthday and we have snow. I have to say that I thought that Spring would be here a lot sooner than this.

Turtle Bay, Hawaii

We had an awesome time in Hawaii. We stayed at the Turtle Bay Beach Resort on the North Shore of Oahu. Daniel LOVED the ocean and building sand castles (really it was knocking them down). He never wanted to get out of the water!!! The resort has 5 miles of secluded beaches so we really enjoyed going on long walks. Daniel liked looking for crabs, shells, coral and even coconuts! We took my parents down to Kailua one day, which is the town we went to last year for my birthday. We all ate as much shave ice as we could. We even went to the the first shave ice on the island, Matsumoto Shave Ice in North Shore. On the way to North Shore we also stopped at Turtle Beach and there were five giant green sea turtles (honu) sunning themselves on the beach. We had a great sunset dinner at Jameson's By the Sea. The last night we were in Hawaii we went Waikiki for dinner and walked along the beach before we had to head to the airport. Click here if you would like to see all the pictures; http://picasaweb.google.com/jebarreto77/April102008