The Life and Times of the Watters Family

our anniversary weekend

A beautiful drive down Chuckanut, dinner at The Rhododendron Cafe, Cat Stevens on the ipod, a scenic drive, LaConner, The Wild Iris, yummy cookies, chocolates and champagne, watched Goodwill Hunting, delicious breakfast, antique stores and boutiques, lunch at the Calico Cupboard, more antique stores and boutiques, reading, dinner at El Gitano, watched Pride and Prejudice, another delicious breakfast, fresh fruit from the market, take out lunch from Calico Cupboard, scenic drive, Jars of Clay on the ipod, Deception Pass, Rosario Beach, reading, sunburn, and then home.  Here are some of our self-portraits from the weekend…

We had a fantastic time! I can hardly imagine how much the next decade will hold for us. We talked a lot about the challenges and joys the next 10 years could possibly bring. We are excited and also feel the need to prepare– especially for those teenage years. 

Thank you so much Cam for planning this weekend away for us!

counting down

5 more days ’til takeoff and 8 more ’til Disneyland!

The boys worked way ahead of their school schedule and are almost entirely done for the year! They have a few more history lessons and a couple spelling tests but after that, they are done. Our vacation to California will officially kick off our summer break.

Last year when we took our vacation we put a couple Harry Potter audio books on the ipods so the boys could listen on the plane and in the airports. It turned out to be a great idea for keeping them occupied. This year I am loading the ipods with Tom Sawyer. The story is a classic, full of adventure, pirates, and carefree boyish schemes. I am hoping for another memorable summer full of excitement, creativity and exploration for the boys. Sean and Caleb are incredibly blessed with a wonderful beach that their Grandparents put much time and thought into so that they can have the kind of summers most little boys only get to dream of.

ready, set, fly…

We bought our plane tickets for our D’land trip in May! We are very excited!

going back!

Looking through our Disneyland pictures the other night (trying to find a picture of Kelly and the boys) reminded me of how much fun we had! It was such a great trip, full of so many wonderful memories! And we get to go do it all again this May (our Christmas gift from Mike and Terri– Thank you!). We will be going with Cam’s parents, Kelly, Cory and cousin Katie. Cam’s grandparents will also be in California while we are there.

We will be leaving May 24th and returning May 31st. This time we have City Passes so we will spend 3 days in Disneyland, go to the San Diego Zoo, Universal Studios, and Sea World. Cam will celebrate his 30th birthday while we are in California.

We are all very excited. 95 days to go!

Seattle

We’re off to Seattle to see a play at the Seattle Children’s Theatre — the BFG, one of our FAVORITE Roald Dahl books! We’ll also be visiting the Woodland Park Zoo, spending the day with the Rollos, having dinner and watching the Office with Holly and Shane and visiting/having a sleep-over at Seth and Beth’s.

Hopefully I’ll get some good pictures at the zoo!

UPDATE:  No zoo trip this time. It was pouring rain so we went to the Seattle Science Center instead. We had a great trip although no good pictures to share.

Disneyland Vacation Update

Hello. Cameron here posting on Betsy’s behalf since it wasn’t practical for both of us to head out in search of decent wifi.

As the previous sentence might suggest, we’ve had a bit of a headache finding a decent wifi connection from the hotel room. Fortunately, my trek didn’t require me to go any further than the hotel lobby, for now. I’m still only getting pretty weak signal here, but at least it’s stable enough.

Once we find a better connection (which we will, I promise), we’ll post more (including pictures). In the mean time, if you want to follow us using an abbreviated all-text version of our progress, you can check out http://www.twitter.com/watters. I’ve been posting activity updates via SMS during our entire trip.

We’ve been having a great time so far and look forward to sharing stories and photos with everyone just as soon as we’ve got a better Internet connection. It’s 2007. What kind of hotel doesn’t have decent connectivity for customers?

We’re on our way!

Yipee!! I can’t believe we leave in the morning! This is our very first family vacation (that isn’t camping or with other people) and we’re all really excited. Gotta get back to packing but I wanted to say, we are hoping to update our blog daily with pictures, stories and videos so check in and see what we’re up to.

California here we come!

10 days!

This is my collection of Disneyland scrapbook materials. I think I will wait until after our trip to put the book together. I like the vintage Disney ephemera- I’d like to find more stuff like that. I am getting more excited with each passing day! It occurred to me the other day that I will be flying home alone with the boys!! That kinda freaks me out. I have never flown by myself, much less had to be responsible for other people. I am sure it will be fine and the boys will be awesome.

Cam is getting excited for his road trip with Kelly. I think he’s putting together a soundtrack. I am hoping that Cam has remembered where he grew up in California more fondly than he ought to have and he’ll get over his pining- or the reverse could happen and it will increase his desire to want to live there again someday. I bet they will have a lot of stories when they get home.

It will be so nice for us to get away and get a chance to focus on having fun with our little family. We (Cam and I) sometimes struggle with the playing/having fun part of parenting. We are both oldest kids and play doesn’t come really naturally to either of us. The climate of our house is a bit too serious at times. I’m so glad that the boys (Caleb in particular) continue to teach us how to be silly. It seems that sometimes it takes removing all the everyday distractions to recognize where your true priorities are. I feel like our kids are growing up so fast and we sometimes take for granted how much time we have with them. They love us now and think we are great (especially when we make fools of ourselves for the sake of having fun). They actually want to hang out with us- in a few short years they likely will be embarrassed by everything about us (just like our poor parents had to endure). So, my hope and prayer is that this trip would be #1 a blast, #2 an opportunity to examine our priorities and #3 create wonderful memories– something we can praise and thank God for.

17 days–tickets in hand!

We picked up our tickets at AAA today- it’s so exciting! We are looking forward to the sunshine and warm weather, and well, DISNEYLAND. Sean and Caleb both insist that we are going to go on California Screamin’ for our very first ride. I guess it will be good to get the scariest one out of the way first- or it could backfire and they will be so traumatized by it that they won’t want to go on another thing! We really don’t have much of an agenda for our time in the park. We would like to see and do pretty much everything but I think with 5 days that won’t be a problem.

We are kind of worried about leaving Sam (the dog). He typically doesn’t handle us being gone very well. He’s a little neurotic. Last time we left for an extended period of time he chewed a few things up- including the tip of his tail. Fortunately, Heather is going to be staying here with him and I know he’ll love that– she’ll spoil him!

20 days to go!

We are counting down the days now til’ we leave for Disneyland!

Mickey Mouse is literally all over our house right now!

We are all getting really excited!

Art = serious stuff for Caleb and Sean

Great teamwork boys!

We’re going to the Mouse’s house!

We are so excited to go to Disneyland this May! This will be Sean and Caleb’s first trip to the “Magic Kingdom”. I have only been once before (I was 11 and Disneyland was celebrating it’s 35th anniversary), Cam has been twice (when he was 6 & 8). We are looking forward to experiencing everything at both Disneyland and California Adventure. We are excited about hanging out with Kelly and to see where she has been living for this last year.

Camping In Winthrop — 2005

I’ll post other photos in this set if people with cameras get them to me. These are photos from Sara’s camera and our camera.

Love Is All Around

One of the other items I stumbled across as I was sifting through my old floppies was this scan of a postcard that I picked up during a trip to Turkey in April of 1994. I share it here without further comment.