Kites and School

We had a really great time at the kite festival last weekend, in spite of the horrendous traffic getting there. We got on the freeway going south past Seattle at about 3 on a Friday afternoon which you just don't do if you are sane. I really don't do well in heavy traffic. Even though I wasn't driving, had interesting people to talk to, good books to read and two antsy kids to help distract me, I was still ready to tear my hair out after three hours of inching along. We finally made it to our campground around 11 that night and still had to set up camp. I'll admit that I was ready to chuck in the towel on this vacation, especially after I received 5 bug bites on my forehead alone... I didn't count the rest. However, the forehead bites were in the shape of the constellation Cassiopeia, so that's kind of cool, I guess. Anyway, Saturday morning dawned sunny and cool and just all around beautiful. There was the perfect amount of wind for all the kites at the beach. The picture above doesn't really do justice to how big and amazing these kits were. And that's just one little shot of the sky. Imagine the same view (different kites) everywhere you look! The day was warm enough to play in the water, which Sam and Grace loved. I had quite a time keeping Sam within a safe depth. He just doesn't understand rip tides, no matter how often I explain. "But I know I'm stronger then the water Mom!"
The beach was gorgeous... over 2 miles of just sand, not a rock or pebble in site. We made some fun sand castles, but didn't get pictures. We had our beach towels just in front of this man:

He's without a doubt the most amazing kite flyer I've ever seen. He had three stunt kites that he could do just about anything with. You can see him holding two of them in the picture. The strings for the third are connected to his belt and that band around his leg. It was simply stunning to watch him. I heard one of the event officials telling someone that he is completely deaf and just flies kites every day, all day. What a life!

Here are some more pictures of the day. We had just a great time, but by the end of the day we were all pretty tired. I think we were all in bed by 9. The next day was rainy and cool so it was easy to not linger. We really had such a great time. Rob's mom enjoyed herself so much she has already reserved a place for us to stay next year! I sense a family tradition in the making. 

Ok, so blogger seems to be having trouble uploading the rest of my picture. Which is a shame because they were really good ones. One of them was of Sam waiting for the bus on his first day of school! He and I went to school together last Wednesday for an orientation type thing, and the Friday was is first official day. He really had a great time, though I think it was a bit overwhelming. There are a lot more kids in elementary school then at preschool. He rides a great big huge school bus in the morning, and it is hard for me to imagine my little boy on that great big bus with all those giant kids surrounding him, none of which he knows. He gets mad though we I refer to him as a little boy. His teacher seems really nice and he has 5 friends from church in his class. He's excited about music class and art class and P.E. Also soccer starts next week and he can't wait for that. Grace will start going to preschool next week in the mornings so I'm going to be on my own for about 3 hours a day. I haven't really even started to think about what I'll do. It almost seems too wonderful to be true!