This weekend Trubacca's paternal grandmother came for a visit from California- so we ditched her and caught a bus into Seattle for some kind of sandcastle competition at Westlake Center. Apparently, Renae had a great picture of Felix and I sitting in our seats, looking like a couple of Monday morning commuters on our way to another day at the office in the big city. But she couldn't get the camera to snap the picture in time and we were at our stop, so what you get is Trumie and I hurrying out of our seats so we don't miss our stop.
There weren't as many sandcastles as I would have thought, about ten, but Felix enjoyed himself nonetheless. There was little bird on top of Toasty the Snowman's hat that Felix took a shine to, unfortunately it's not in the picture. But it's gone now, the sand sculpture is destroyed, and that little bird that so captured the fancy of a little boy is nothing but a memory.








Here are a few more sand sculptures that no longer exist.

Felix Truman at the Beach

Way back on August 10th, we took a little camping trip out to Lake Sylvia on Washington States Olympic Peninsula. Though it is August, is was kind of cold and it poured Saturday night. On top of that, I awoke with a cold. We still had fun though. It was a trip arranged by Deanna, Felix's grandmother, and was attended by most of Renae's maternal extended family.

Here you can see Natalie helping Felix ride his cousins bike, and to the right, Felix with his cousin Joie. Felix Truman loves playing with his cousins, especially those that are only a few years older.
And we know how much Felix loves backhoes- here he is burying his cousin Kennedy while his cousin Brian looks on.
Now it is time for my amusing story that is completely unrelated to anything else in this post and for which I have no picture- Often when I cook I will need to use an oven mit, the one I use is red. When I don mine, Felix will insist on wearing a green one that he calls his. The other day was Renae's turn to cook and she had the audacity to use "my" oven mit. Felix wasn't havin' it, "that's daddy's glove", he forcefully declared. Renae tried to tell him that it was okay, and that I said that she could use it. "No, that's daddy's!", he said angrily and tried to snatch it off her hand. Yep, that's my boy.
Back to the post- After our camping trip, Renae, Felix, and I went out to Ocean Shores, a little town on the Washington coast, for a few days. The first two days were also a little cold, but the third day was beautiful. And rather than tell you about what a good time Felix had, I'll show you-

He was tentative about the water at first, but once he got in he loved it.

Felix the Rascal (or The TruMonster)

You might be asking yourself "What is Felix doing?", or "What is in Trumie's hands?", perhaps "Why can't Dana take a picture that's in focus?". Well, I can answer the first two. But before I do, I want you to look in the background of this picture out the window. Do you see those two bikes? They were stolen right off my porch. What our little Truman is doing is getting Karma wet. What is in his hands is a rubber ducky. How did we get to a wet dog from a child with a toy in his hand? Here is how, though with a different target for the demonstration:


































And now our victim-


I'm not sure where he got the idea for this. When I give him a bath we will sometimes fill the ducky with the bath water and squirt each other, but outside the bath was all him. I was lying on the couch when I saw him run into the family room, giggling, on his way to assaulting Karma with water. I then followed him with the camera and only interfered when he was on his way to Sosa. I thought the dogs had been tortured enough and suggested to Felix that Natalie might find it fun.

Otto Felixthal

About a week ago, I took Felix to the Museum of Flight. Felix loves machines; he loves earth movers, planes, trains, motorcycles, helicopters, jackhammers, cranes, all kinds of large machines (though his first and truest love is still the backhoe)- so the Museum of Flight was hog's heaven to Felix. He spent quite a bit of time on the second floor landing, staring out over the atrium at the many suspended planes and helicopters.










The latter part of our visit was spent at the kids play area. As you can see, there is a at one time fully functional helicopter that was originally promoted and sold as a commuter vehicle. He waited for as long as he could before he gently tried to push that other boy out of the pilots seat.
Renae bought Felix Truman some plastic hockey sticks and set up a little net (thank you Susan) for him in the street a couple of days ago. Felix had a lot of fun, but what I find really interesting about what happened is- see the shirt Felix is wearing? You may remember that shirt from several posts ago. That was the shirt he wore when he went with his cousin Rooney to the soccer camp. This is the first time he has worn that shirt since that day. When we put it on him earlier in the day, he said, "We go to soccer now". I don't know if he was asking or remarking, I just thought it was funny that he remembered that that was the shirt he wore to soccer.