The Big Day

Today was Josie's big day....

She had her tonsils and adenoids out.  The tonsils were moderately enlarged, but when the surgeon got in there he said, "Oh, my gosh!  The adenoids are huge!"

She's always spoken like her nose was stuffed up, even when she wasn't sick.  It's affecting her speech development, so now was the time to finally take action.  Don't be fooled by the happy face in the photo.  That was after they gave her the "happy medicine."  The surgery went great and she's happily sitting on the couch eating an ice cream bar and watching Strawberry Shortcake.  It looks like our week is pretty much planned.  Ice cream.  Netflix.  Repeat.

Mini Vacation

If there's one thing I have learned from moving around so much, it's that you should see the sites close to you while you're there.  For the past year, I kept thinking we should take the kids to Seattle.  We were supposed to go last summer, but it just didn't work out and our cousins went without us.  This past weekend, though, we packed up the family and headed west.  We got the Seattle CityPass so we could take in as many sites as possible.  Here are just a few highlights:

Like the Hippo behinds in the background?  We saw more behinds than faces there.

In the birdhouse.  Nathan didn't want to get any closer to the tree-- afraid of getting pooped on.

At the top of the Space Needle.

Seattle from the Harbor.  The harbor cruise was actually my favorite part.

A bunch of fat sea lions in the harbor.  The life of a sea lion seems ideal.  Eat.  Sleep.  Bask in the Sun.

Butterfly House at the Pacific Science Center.  The butterflies were VERY cool!

We had fun, and Nathan, who is totally not a city-vacation kind of guy, was a really good sport about the whole trip.  So, I have now checked Seattle off our must-see list.

On a fun side-note, I have successfully raised three thrifty kids.  They all had their own allowances to take with them.  What did they buy?  Almost nothing.  Stretched pennies were the souvenir of choice.  Just $.51, except at the Space Needle, then it was a whopping $.76.  Mazie splurged and bought a stretched penny collectors book for $4.99.