It was Cassie, Vivian, and Colin’s last full day in Centralia as they fly out early tomorrow morning. We made the most of it by going to a park together and then going to the usual Tuesday dinner at Steve and Claremay’s.
In the morning, after I helped Cherie transfer a DVD to her computer, we watched some of her old home movies from the 50s. August watched a little, but wanted to go out and play with bubbles. We started on the deck, but ended up downstairs, where we made a game of pouring bubble mix from one container into another. His new word is now ‘pour’, which he can say very well. We ended up back in the house where Carly fed him some oatmeal. I gave him an empty tea tin, which he liked smelling, and then played with. He played with Vivi for awhile and Carly made him french toast. Vivian was then walking around, eating a carrot, so he wanted one as well. I gave him a baby carrot which he ate a little of before losing interest.
August took an early nap, waking up a little after noon. Carly, Cassie, and I then took the kids to Anderson Park, just south of Centralia. We pretty much had the playground to ourselves until one couple with two kids showed up. That was nice as it gave Vivian someone else to play with, and the dad pushed them on the merry go round. When August saw Vivian on the merry go round, he started calling ‘Vivi, Vivi, Vivi!’
Cassie, Carly, and I competed to balance on the border around the playground, which Cassie predictably won. Both August and Vivian spent some time on the slide: Vivian going down it, and August throwing wood chips on it and pounding on it, and getting excited when Carly went down it. August also loved the drinking fountains, as there was a really low one that he could reach and push the button for. Before we left, Carly and I took the two oldest kids on a walk around the perimeter of the park on an unsuccessful attempt to find an easy way down to the water.
From the park we went straight to Steve and Claremay’s. We were a little early, so we were first downstairs with Steve, where he told us about his collection of old duck hunting decoys and let me borrow the John McPhee book Annals of the Former World. There was plenty of food, as always (tacos, this time) and after dinner the kids were mainly playing with balloons (but no water this time). August got in the game and I blew up a few for him and Vivian. Someone called for a family photo, and after that Carly ended up on balloon duty, blowing up balloons for August, Hattie, and Vivian.
Back at the house, Cassie and Vivian finished packing and headed to bed. August had been up since just after noon, so was heading for an early bed time, but he had one last burst of energy, being silly with Cherie down by the kitchen. It was clear that he can say ‘Gwi’ for ear, making that his third clearly Korean word (along with ‘gaeguli’ for frog and ‘sagwa’ for apple – I am also pretty sure he can say ‘ahge’ for baby). He was also attempting to jump (he’d seen Vivian doing it a lot on the bed) but his feet wouldn’t come off the ground.
Cherie headed to bed and Carly gave him a quick bath, after which he went quickly to sleep.
Morning:
Getting coffee at Market Street in Chehalis:
Anderson Park:
You can hear August saying ‘Vivi, Vivi…’:
What Colin was doing through much of this:
Tuesday dinner:
Evening silliness: