Tonight Gabe went to the Daddy Barber Shop (inspired by Grandpa Sullivan) and got all his beautiful blonde locks buzzed off. His hair has been hanging in his eyes for weeks, so we decided to take a chance and give him a buzz cut. He was mad as heck and I almost cried. He looks like a different kid! At least he hasn't lost his 2 year old attitude. Before:

Aftermath

After 1

After 2

Emma as Mulan at Grandma's, originally uploaded by Rachel Bancroft.

Here's Emma's latest architectural masterpiece: the Fairy Castle. Inspiration: "Fairy Things to Make and Do" book Architect: Mom Assistant architect: Emma Decorator: Emma Assistant decorator: Mom Materials handler: Mom Imaginator: Emma Finisher of Project when Decorator is tired of it: Mom

After afternoon tickle time, Emma decided it was time for dress up. She is dressed up as a fairy princess, of course. There was a grand fight in the kingdom of Bancroft when Gabe was bound and determined to tear the princess shoes off the fairy princess' dainty feet. Not even Daddy's orange crocs could distract him. Finally Emma ran off to a magical Pegasus land and I got a cowboy hat on Gabe's head.

Josh presented at a conference (WordCamp) today in Portland, so the kids and I ventured off to the Children's Museum...along with every other family in the Portland metro area. The parking for the museum and the zoo was crazy. We drove there, and ended up driving back to the Sunset Transit Center to ride the train in. I'm glad we did that, and the kids love the train anyway. We had a great time, particularly at the new Bob the Builder exhibit area. Gabe was in heaven and Emma was busy building all kinds of things.

Emma and I worked on this pretty little fairy house this afternoon. Now we're waiting for fairies to come live in it.

Josh had a conference, Gnomedex, to attend in Seattle the weekend of August 21-24, so I tagged along and left the kids with my wonderful sister Rebecca. Thanks, sis!!! It was a great weekend for both Josh and I. He got to hang out with his cool geeky crowd and I got to relax! Thursday the 21st: We left for Seattle on Thursday afternoon. On the way up we stopped at the Tacoma Art Museum so I could look at the Illuminating the Word exhibit. It was incredible. Illuminating the Word: The Saint John’s Bible presents the only handwritten and illuminated Bible commissioned since the advent of the printing press more than 500 years ago. I've been working on my own calligraphy skills, so this was a great artistic inspiration for me. I might have drooled a bit. After the exhibit, we drove to our hotel on the Seattle waterfront, checked in, then went to the conference opening reception. Josh was on a high. His face just lights up when he's among his geeks. Friday the 22nd: Josh left the hotel early and I slept in. Aaaaaahhh. I ate a yummy room service breakfast, read the paper, watched a little TLC, took a long shower and a short nap. It was divine. Around noon I decided to venture out and headed to the Seattle Art Museum. I spent most of my time there at the Inspiring Impressionism exhibit and loved it. That evening I met up with Josh at the Ignite Seattle segment of Gnomedex. Dancing at Gnomedex We skipped out on the party that night and went out on a date instead. After a yummy dinner at a restaurant in the Queen Anne neighborhood, we spent some time at a cool used bookstore and headed back to the hotel. Saturday the 23rd: I attended the first couple of Gnomedex sessions in the morning with Josh. He introduced the Ignite Portland speakers, which were just awesome. I particularly loved the talk about David Hasselhoff. After the following session, I took a nap at the hotel and then headed out for shopping at Pike Place Market. I ended up with a few gifts and of course, some beautiful flowers for myself. View to Harbor Pike Place sign Chinese Calligrapher at Pike's Flowers for me Saturday night we attended the speakers' dinner at the Edgewater Restaurant. There were some really cool speakers at this year's conference. Talk about smart people. Although some of the geeky tech stuff just goes over my head, I try to look like I know what's going on. =)

Here are a few photos from our Labor Day trip to the state fair and Wednesday's zoo outing. We had a great time at each place. At the state fair the kids went on a few rides, but Gabe couldn't go on most because he's not yet tall enough. We ate yummy greasy fair food, played a few games, looked at some animals and watched the giant slingshot ride over and over again. I also got to take a look at the calligraphy exhibit while Josh walked around the exhibition hall with the kids and Gabe almost choked a little baby chick to death.

My baby girl started kindergarten today. Sniff sniff yee haw! Emma is so excited about school. She's been asking me how many more days and nights til kindergarten for about a week now. She has a few preschool and church friends in her class and it was nice to see them this morning. Now if our family could just get used to getting up at the crack of dawn.

We took a walk this morning to Emma's school (she is starting kindergarten in September) for play time. I also wanted to see how long it will take to walk there, especially with Gabe in tow. So a walk that should take 10 minutes is pretty much going to take 20. Every rock known to mankind must be picked up, every puddle jumped in, every car pointed at, all while playing princess butterfly fairy Pegasus.