Seward Day 1

I had the day off on Friday, and it was so beautiful so I packed up the kids and drove to Seward. It is about 130 miles, so not a short trip, but not too long either.

Here they are after we arrived  around 1PM, watching some cartoons and eating lunch while I brought up the bags.

 A view from our window

 Me relaxing too, watching some Peter Pan

By 2:00PM we had the bikes out. The Sea Life Center would close at 5PM and I wanted to make sure we got there before 3PM. The Sea Life Center is about 1.5 miles from the hotel, so I expected it to be a short trip, but we left a lot of time since we had never done it on bikes before.

I put Van in his snowsuit just in case. He was too warm, but I wanted to make sure.

Esther in the Burley. She loved wearing that helmet

Van biking through the streets of Seward

I wasn't sure if the whole ride would be on the streets, but luckily there was a great bike path 80% of the way.

It's not in the picture, but during this part I saw a group of 6 seals and then I saw a whale! I was so excited. We never saw any other whales the whole trip so I wish I had stayed to watch this one more. Van missed it altogether. But we were so focused on getting to the Sea Life Center.

We made it, this is inside the Sea Life Center.

It's funny because the main reason for the trip was to go to the Sea Life Center, but we probably spent 45 minutes there. It's pretty cool. But for whatever reason, it doesn't hold the kids attention for that long. We had passed a really cool playground on the way there though, so I suggested we go back to it.

 Cool playground

And the playground had a skate park nearby, Van's favorite.

The biggest hit of the trip was this new bell I got for Van's bike. I bought it as we were driving out of town, I was buying a bike lock as well. When we got to the Sea Life Center a man at the front desk helped us install it. Van loved it.

Van and Esther at the skate park

Then we decided to play at the beach. Van had to go in the cold water.

Esther wanted to follow him of course.

Now it was about 5:30 and we needed to find some dinner.

We biked to 3 different places until we found one that was open. Luckily this Chinese place was great. The kids eating their egg soup.

At the end we got fortune cookies. Van's said, 'You have the making of a great leader instead of a follower'
He took that very literally and wanted to lead the whole bike ride home.

When we got back to the hotel, it was time for the pool.

I was going to swim too, so I didn't bring my camera. Here they are post pool, watching some final cartoons before bed.

At 9 I turned off the cartoons and Van was asleep within 60 seconds. After all, he'd probably biked 6 miles that day and done a lot of great playing and swimming.
Esther, not so much. I think it was about 10 when she finally fell asleep.

Dog for sale, cheap

Do you want a dog?
This one is awesome. He loves to bite kids. Not all the time, only when they play. He can't handle you making forward locomotion on anything other than legs. Bikes, skis and God forbid, sleds make him freak out. Oh also, he will poop whenever he is not in the room with you.

Last night at bedtime it was a long series of me laying down with Van until he fell asleep, and then me laying down with Esther until she fell asleep, and then finally laying down by myself until I fell asleep.
As I fell asleep I thought, 'Where's Alamo?' and I naively missed him. We learned long ago that although he has explosive gas, he has to sleep in the same room with you, or he will poop all over the floor downstairs.

So I am used to my nighttime companion. But I realized he must have fallen asleep and gotten shut into Van's room while I was putting him to sleep.
'That's cute' I thought (again naively) 'maybe they will bond'

At 4AM Van came into my room. This not uncommon, most nights he ends up in my bed and I usually wait until he falls asleep and then I go sleep in his bed because he is hot and he kicks.

Van: says something unintelligible
Me: "What?"
Van: says something unintelligible
Me: "What?"
Finally on the third time I get it, he says

Van: "Mom, there's poop in my room"
Me: "Oh no, Mo man! ...  But Van, it smells like poop in here, did you step in it?"

long pause.

Van: "Yes, but I cleaned it off with toilet paper"

Van doesn't really know what dirty/clean is. I'm sure he tried to clean it off, but as I feared it was still all over his feet and dog poop toilet paper was all over the doorway to the bathroom. Not to mention dog poop was all over Van's room.
I sent Van to the shower to stand while I did damage control on the poop. A whole roll of toilet paper was so smeared with poop that I had to throw it all away.
The combination of smooshy dog poop, 5 year old boy and carpet was terrible.

I put Mo man outside. He cried to get in and I cursed him under my breath. If barked too loud, he would wake Esther. I wanted nothing to do with him, but I knew the safest thing to do was not let him out of my sight.

Me: "Van, go let Mo man in. Be sure to tell him I hate him."
Luckily he didn't.

Next we had to change the sheets on my bed since Van had gotten in and rolled around with poop feet.

After that Mo man cried at me because, as I was cleaning more of his squishy poop out of the carpet, I shut the door to the bedroom while he was inside it and I was outside of it. I may have called him a little piece of shit. Van, sensing the importance of the moment, repeated the phrase under his breath. Great. I can't wait until that comes out at school.

Van finally fell asleep again around 5, to the smell of Mo man gas, who was undoubtedly smugly sitting in the corner smirking.

$5?
I'll give you $5 and a bag of dogfood. And a bottle of pet stain remover. You'll need that.

Teaching math, I think

I like that as Van gets older I am able to teach him things. I am impatient to share more interesting ideas with him, so I when I have his attention, I try to help him grasp the basics.
While we were hiking the other day he asked me what two different numbers added up where and I decided to try and give him some math related patterns to learn.

Me: "Van, did you know that 10x10 is 100, and 10x100 is 1000 and 10x 1000 is 10,000!"

I have to admit, I don't remember this part of the conversation exactly. But I said something along those lines. I do remember his response though, which was,

Van: "I think all the number with ones in them would be friends. Like 1. and 10. and that one that you are."
Me: "31"
Van: "yeah. and that one with 1 and 2, what's that?"
Me: "12"
etc.

So we're not quite to patterns yet. But I like where his head is at.

Still, later in the walk I had to try again.

Van: "what's 2 times 100?"
Me: "200.
and 3 times 100 is 300.
and 4 times 100 is 400.
and 5 times 100 is 500.
and 6 times 100 is?"
Van: "I don't know"
Me: "nevermind"

I should have asked who the number 6 is most likely to be friends with.

Bikers

It's biking season already in Alaska and I have two pretty serious bikers.