Our neighborhood has an annual Independence Day parade in which kids get dressed up and ride their bikes down the street. I told Sam about it a few weeks ago. The part that got his attention was the chance to dress up. Here’s how the conversation went down:

Emily: there is a parade and bouncy houses and a costume contest.

Sam: I want to be in the costume contest!

Emily: ok. I was thinking that you could go as Uncle Sam. We can get you a beard and a tall hat.

Sam: no, I want to be a beetle!

Emily: oh. Well, it needs to be something more patriotic. Something related to our country.

Sam: Well, does our country have beetles?

He had a good point! I convinced him to make it a ladybug costume so that it could have some red and blue on it. Im really happy with what we came up with:

The parade was fun. We hung out with some neighbors, played in an awesome bouncy house, and got some cotton candy.

Sam is enrolled in a sports sampler class this summer. Today the class was all about soccer, so I dressed Sam in his Morocco soccer jersey and headed to downtown issaquah. We took a moment to pose in front of the Moroccan door from issaquah’s sister city.

Sam’s shirt attracted the attention of the mayor, who told us that he has been to morocco many times. He also told us all about one of the statues downtown. Nice guy!

Sam and I are finishing up his Independence Day costume (more on that later) and found ourselves in need if some sewing supplies. The nearest fabric store is at crossroads mall in Bellevue, so we made a day of it. First up, the crossroads park splash pad:

Next, pierogies and an elephant ride at the mall:

After picking up our craft supplies, we picked up some produce for the week at the farmers market in the mall parking lot.

Sam and I have decided to have a summer full of adventures. First up was a bus ride downtown:

This is Sam in the bus tunnel, which he says is “so cool”!

Next, we checked out some of the waterfront:

We had a blast at the aquarium!  It looks like we just did an art project, but we saw all kinds of fish, otters and seals.  We also went to a fun story time.

For lunch, we had fish & chips on the waterfront. There were some tears when the “chips” turned out to be big wedges of potato.

All in all, we had a great first summer adventure! We’ll definitely be repeating this one, but we will probably choose a different spot for lunch.

Lots of excitement today! We took the bus to the international district to meet up with some of my students for lunch and a tour at the wing like museum.
Sam had some octopus and seemed to really enjoy it!
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