Mummy is a giraffe!

Hi! Sorry that this is a day late but we ended up having an old friend of Tim's visiting last night and I wasn't able to write the blog before she came, unfortunately! Sorry!!

We are fine here and are looking forward to Mum and Dad arriving tomorrow. Tim left for Las Vegas this afternoon having worked from home today, which was good as this meant that we saw him before he went away. The girls were very upset that he had to go away - poor Naomi was in tears but she cheered up when she thought that she might get a present out of it! To be fair to Naomi though, she did also say that we should buy a present for Daddy and the girls made him a card to take with him, so he didn't do too badly either!

Silas if course took it in his stride until bedtime when we came up the stairs and he started calling for Daddy. He was OK and went to sleep quickly as he was tired. The girls were awake for ages though tonight! I was not impressed!

We have had a few interesting occurrences this week that I thought I would share with you. They probably won't be in any order and so will confuse you totally but there you go!

Firstly, when we were at the mall on Wednesday with Lisa and the twins we started off on the upstairs boat, which was fine but Silas was getting adventurous and was starting to wander off and so we thought that we would go down the lift to the bottom boat which was more contained! However when we got to the lift, it just wasn't there!! We were most confused and didn't know where the nearest lift was. In the end we went to the escalator and took 4 trips to get 5 children, 2 adults and a buggy down! We started off taking my girls down whilst Lisa stayed at the top with Silas and her girls. I made sure that my girls stayed put and went back up the escalator to fetch Silas, leaving the buggy on its own at the top. Then Lisa took her girls down together and I gave her Silas and went back up for the buggy. Then I came down with the buggy! Thankfully, Silas was quite happy with Lisa and she took him to the boat to wait for me without him murmuring which was very good!

My hope that Silas would be more contained in the downstairs boat was short lived and he spent the whole time running off with great glee, especially when he realised that next tot he boat is a jewellry store that has pretty shiny things in it! At one point I asked Sarah to hold his hand, which she did but then instead of Silas being led by Sarah back to the boat, Sarah got led by Silas into the jewellry shop! Oh dear! At one point Silas got confused as to which twin was which and was trying desperately to take Katie's hand and she was not having any of it!! Given that Silas is 27lb and the twins weigh less than him (each, not together !!!!) it is not really surprising that it is Silas that is leading them astray! he could knock them over with a sweep of his hand!

On Thursday at the park, Silas was playing with a ball and it was fascinating to watch him. Suddenly, as he was playing with his ball, an older girl (about 8 I think) came over and picked up her ball. AS she did so, she started to bounce it, which Silas noticed and then he started to make his ball bounce too. Since then he has been trying to make the balls bounce when he has been playing with them and was laughing and laughing when i was trying to get the ball through the hoop on Friday when we were watching the girls play basketball!

Naomi and Esther did well at their sports class on Friday and managed to also shoot the ball through the hoop during their time. After Sports we went to Barnes and Noble to buy a copy of Northanger Abbey for me,  a birthday present for a friend and then went over to Trader Joe's to buy a couple of things from there too. IT was very wet on Friday afternoon and it was  a good way to spend it!

On Friday I was wearing a new jumper that has a diamond pattern on it. It is blue but the pattern is in black and brown. It is nice, I liked it but I was very put off it on Friday as every time Silas saw me (especially if I had been in the car or when he hadn't seen me for a few minutes) he pointed at me and said "arf" ("giraffe")! It was very funny and kept on happening throughout the day! Even when Naomi and Esther asked Silas "where is the giraffe?", he pointed at me! Oh well, it could have been worse - he could have called me an elephant!

On  Saturday we went back to clearing out the garage! I have not itemised most of what is in the garage that is going to be sent to GoodWill but we still haven't been able to get rid of the rubbish. I think we are just going to have to pay someone to come and get rid of it for us! The girls had a good play outside on Saturday morning and Silas enjoyed playing in the house for a long time. In the afternoon we went to a park in Klahanie (another neighborhood) which was fun but we weren't there long as it started to rain again.

Yesterday we went to church in the morning and then went to lunch with another English family who also attend. The family have 2 children, a little girl (Rebekah) who is in Naomi's class and a boy who has just turned 3. The children played really well and it was lovely for us adults to be able to get to know each other! It was a cold but beautiful day yesterday with wonderful views. Unfortunately, my glassed broke and I had to spend the afternoon without them before Tim managed to mend them! I went to the optician this morning to get the screw tightened and so hope it lasts!

If i told you that our clocks were going forward this weekend, I apologise, they haven't, it is next weekend but I have got so muddled up! On Friday I was reading the Issaquah Council information that is sent to all the houses in Issaquah and in it, it said that the clocks went forward this last weekend. When Tim was speaking to his friend on Saturday night, I reminded him to tell her that the clocks went forward but also (thankfully) suggested that she check with the hotel. Well, we then promptly forgot all about it and went to bed, got up and went to church (on time) on Sunday morning and it wasn't until half way through the afternoon I remembered that clocks were supposed to go forward according to the Issaquah information. Well, I was horrified as I thought that Tim's friend may not have checked and would've just moved her clock an hour forward last night! I realised that they couldn't have moved though as we had all been at church on time! I was so relieved when Tim's friend arrived last night and hadn't put her clocks forward and hour after all as the hotel had told her not to!What a silly thing!!

Well, this is it for now as I am tired and need to go to bed! I hope that this finds you all well! Bye for now!