Max Entertains One of the gifts Max got for the holidays was a $10 bill. Well, Max had never really shopped for anything before -- all coins are still "pennies" and he's pretty sure we have an inexhaustible supply of money somewhere -- so we trundled out to Ross and he wandered the toy aisles for a good half hour or more. He looked at this and that -- "Oh, that's perfect. But I don't really need it right now." -- over and over again, until he settled on a "paint-your-own tea set." Max loves painting, and he's been itching for a tea set for some time now thanks to some of his stories. It was perfect.

We got it home, and started painting. He let Daddy to the complicated bits -- the mermaids and family on the bridge -- but under very careful artistic direction. After a few days, we'd painted and baked the whole set. Then it was time for tea!

	Max was a most gracious and attentive host, pouring tea, serving sugar cubes and milk. And he had a lot of work to do, as those cups aren't good for more than a sip or two. Peppermint seems to be his tea party flavor of choice at the moment; we've done it both times.
	The creamer holds enough milk to flavor the tea; the sugar bowl is purely ornamental, though, unless we can find some really small spoons.
	And Max loves inviting his friends over, of course. This is Max with Caden and Woody, reading How Fletcher Was Hatched one night. In fact, we have to be careful that he doesn't invite them over without telling us!

  ¶ Thursday, January 26, 2006 0 comments

  Dressing Up Max Max loves clothes. Always has, really. And he has Gram, his maternal grandmother, who's a wonderful (and accomodating) clothier for him....

	This was his Halloween costume -- courtesy of Gram -- but Max is not one to limit his costumery to a single day. Almost every house he visited on Halloween, the people at the door immediately guessed what he was trying to be. He's mostly given up on flamingos, though: now he's a penguin chick most of the time.
	Last time his grandparents were here, Max got to pick out the fabric for his next two aloha outfits, so we spent quite a while in the fabric store looking over blues and greens and reds and yellows and pinks and purples....
	He picked out a yellow and a pink, which just happened to be the same pattern over different backgrounds. Now he loves to mix and match: he wore the yellow top and pink shorts yesterday; the pink top and yellow shorts today.

  ¶ Thursday, January 26, 2006 0 comments

  Last (Fun) Day in Seattle We're still in Seattle: mechanical problems cancelled our flight, and the line for rebooking didn't move fast enough for us to get on the flight they'd automatically rebooked us on. So we're going out tomorrow morning, but we had a day to chill out a bit before plunging back into the hurly-burly of Big Island life....

Anyway, yesterday we went to the Pacific Science Center, then dashed over to the pier for a Harbor/Lake/Lock cruise.

	One of the highlights of the Center is their music exhibit, though all those musical exhibits together were a bit overwhelming: spreading them out might have been better. Still, we got to play a Theremin (twice, because they had one at the music store we wandered by later, too!) and experience plucking from within.
	I'm not sure if this exhibit is more for the children or the parents, but it's quite disconcerting....
	Max was just a little excited about our boat trip. We got to see houseboats (and floating homes, which are different) and working ships, and go through the locks and under drawbridges and around buoys and wander the harbor. Cold and wet, yes, but the cabin was warm and...
	...so was the hot chocolate. Max has definitely picked up a taste for the stuff out here.
	After the cruise we wandered the shopping areas a bit and found a Fish-and-Chips place, where Max declared that he liked fishsticks and McNuggets, but not fried fish nuggets or real chicken strips. But he'll eat French Fries from anywhere.

That's it for Seattle. (Airlines willing, of course...) Nice town; great wedding.  ¶ Tuesday, January 03, 2006 0 comments

  They're Married! Michelle and David's wedding went off beautifully. It's hard to capture (at least for me) the beauty and subtle grandeur of their thousand-crane Chuppah, but trust me, it's there. The ceremony was lovely.

	Here we are on our way out the door. Running late, of course, but Max did get a good nap in, and we were actually there in plenty of time. Max's ensemble, plus his inherent cuteness, got quite a few compliments (Not bad for Wal-Mart!)
	Since we were signing the Ketubah, we got front-row seats! The groomsman in the corner is Sascha, I think, one of the two best men (as he said in his toast, later, David couldn't find one guy to fit the description, so he cobbled a best man together out of two...).
	Max actually took this one! The table designation was a running joke: David and Michelle grew up on the same street! Yeah, I-90, which runs from Bellevue, WA to Boston, MA. Every table had a designation somewhere along that road, and the DJ announced midnight in each time zone to the cheers of the designated tables.
	Max loved the wedding! Since they moved the Chuppah over the cake after the ceremony, he was standing under it, admiring the bride's and bridesmaids' flowers, and wanting to "play wedding."
	The great thing about a New Year's wedding: you always get fireworks for your anniversary! Max did, in fact, stay up all the way to midnight, though we spent quite a bit of time walking the quieter halls of the hotel to keep him settled, and feeding him various sweets and starches to keep him going....

  ¶ Sunday, January 01, 2006 0 comments