Zachary goes to the beach

Yesterday turned out to be a beautiful day, and luckily we got to spend the morning at a local beach. ("Beach" in Seattle is a bit of a misleading term, as sandy beaches are pretty rare. Rocky ones on the other hand...) Zachary loved walking on the bumpy rocks in his Thomas boots, while Owen mostly slept, covered by both the ergo and his cute sunhat.

The Seattle Aquarium has generously had naturalists coming out to the local beaches at low tide, so we wandered over to see what they'd found, and got to check out a jellyfish, a purple starfish, some crabs, and these almost litter-looking moon snail "sand collars" (egg casings). Zachary was most excited by the Sound itself ("wah wah!"), looking up at passing sea planes ("bye bye ah-pah!"), and just stomping around on the squishy beach. A passing horn-blaring train certainly didn't hurt either.

Today mommy's choir had a performance at the local library. She had to go an hour early for warmups, so the boys and I headed over a little while later, picking up mima on the way. Determined to avoid a repeat of the boys' opening act for the last performance (and to make sure mima at least got to hear it this time!), I wore a sleeping Owen and strolled Zachary strategically near the door. The ladies did a fabulous job, and Zachary enjoyed looking on and munching on fish crackers like he was at a movie. We only had to stroll out of the room once or twice (due to insistent but appropriately volumed "push!" requests from Zachary). And Owen slept right through the applause that had startled him awake back at the last concert. Meh and my favorite part was when Zachary pointed directly at her during a song, smiled, and said "want mommy!"

Afterwards, another first - Owen's been doing such a great job of holding up his head that when he woke up, I turned him around in the bjorn so he could face out. He proceeded to give everyone giant smiles and even a few laughs; mommy then took him around for show and tell while Zachary and I headed home for well-deserved nap time.