March at the McKees

Ashley, Caitlin and I spent the start of March playing a lot with our friends Oliver, Eliza and their  mother Maylynn. We have a lot of fun with them. This month Oliver and Eliza joined is in our back garden where the girls have great fun digging. There is a particular patch under a small tree, which seems to provide optimal digging fun. Beside the little tree is a bush on which Caitlin loves to hang her bucket. Then she digs and shovels the dirt into the hanging bucket.
 
We also enjoyed visits to Seattle Gymnastics Academy and Volunteer Park Conservatory. At the indoor playground at the gym the girls enjoyed jumping and swinging into a big foam pit, bouncing on a two person trampoline and running the length of a long rectangular shaped trampoline they call the Tumble Trak. Caitlin was quite the little imp on the the latter. She clearly understood that she was only allowed to run one way (for safety reasons) and then had to get off onto the floor at the end and make her way back to the start. Every so often she would look at me with a mischievous glint in her eye and try to run along the trampoline the wrong way. I'd have to catch her quickly before she collided with another child. Then I'd hold her for a minute, which she did not like, until she eventually got the message that if she ran the wrong way she wouldn't be able to play. Needless to say she stopped running the wrong way, but every so often she would give me this look and smile like she was thinking about it!
 
Our visit to Volunteer Park Conservatory was also a lot of fun. In the Bromeliad House, while Maylynn read to Oliver and Ashley on a bench I played with Caitlin and Eliza as they ran along the paths and admired the little water feature in the display. (Bromeliads are members of the Pineapple family and there are over 2000 species, not all of which are in the conservatory! :)) We all admired orchids and ferns and had a great time in the Cactus House. While the children admired the cacti, and Caitlin learned the hard way why we don't squeeze these plants (ouch!), the big hit was all the little stones covering the plant beds. After the Conservatory we walked to the Asian Art Museum close by to avail of their ir toilets and lovely little cafe, which is located on the area dedicated to scultures and reliefs from India.
 
Ian and Janet (James' parents) visited during March. We love being with them. Unfortunately both Caitlin and Ashley became ill during the visit. Caitlin first, which required a visit to the ER at Children's Hospital. She seemed fully recovered by St Patrick's Day. We had a brief trip to REI that morning and then Ashley became ill in the afternoon. Still, even hanging around the house with them was nice. It was great to have the company of people we love while the girls were sick. Fortunately neither grandparent picked up the virus to hamper the return flights to Ireland. Despite the illnesses Grandma and Granddad managed to frequent their usual haunts-bookshops, restaurants, music shops and the University Bookstore for Granddad's favourite calendar. Some of these excursions we were able to do together in the first days of their stay. While they were here they witnessed James' training for the STP (Seattle to Portand) ride in July. Around 7,000 riders took part last year. 204 miles in two days! After that James is going to need to rest his legs. We hope to have a holiday on the East Coast after the ride. We're excited that Grandma and Granddad plan to join us so that we'll see them again soon.
 
The end of March saw Ashley start her first dance class. She was nervous and only watched. She loves to dance so I suspect she will eventually warm up to class. The hurdle for her is that eventually neither Caitlin and I will be there so she is trying to adjust to the prospect of her first activity alone. It will prepare her a little for pre-scholl in the autumn.
 
We took advantage of a sunny Saturday morning on the last weekend in March while James was cycling to head to the beach at Golden Gardens Park. There is a playground and train track where we can watch very long freight trains pass. The girls wore their sunglasses and brought buckets and speades and had a great time on the beach. On the Sunday we went with Christian and Jenn to the Japanese Gardens to see the cherry blossoms in bloom. Ash and Caitlin were more interested in the gravel than the trees, turtles and koi (carp) fish.
 
Ashley's alphabet really took off in March. Ash showed great interest in learning how to identify and write the letters. Her drawing has also developed quite a lot this month. She drew her first representational figure with a head, body (+belly button), face and hair (previously she has drawn a lot heads with very detailed features).

Caitlin has developed a fondness for wearing my ski hat and a Christmas snowman scarf that Ian and Janet gave Ashley as a Christmans gift two years ago. She likes to wear it even on relatively warm days when she doesn't need a coat. She looks amazingly adorable when she adds her sunglasses to this little ensemble. Her favorite words this month were:

"Hunya" (honey from winnie the pooh);
"Dora" (in February she switched from saying DorDor to Dora-however this was a Dora-free month as we
didn't borrow any of the DVDs or books from the library);
"two" (her one and only number that she uses for everything and completely understands the meaning when she wants weetabix, cookies and yoghurt pretzels).