dad's birthday

Last weekend, we celebrated Dad's not-fortieth birthday by taking a day trip to Bainbridge Island. It was a pretty big adventure for M and involved a long string of her favorite things.  Like walking to the bus stop and riding the bus.

And visiting the market for the second time in a week. This time, we didn't spend ten minutes staring at the live crabs and lobsters, but she seemed to enjoy the whirlwind tour.

 Also, there was a water fountain. We had a long conversation about this, mostly consisting of her repeating the word "water" over and over and over. If you're wondering, "water" sounds an awful like "wah," but we tend to go along with it, just to make her feel good about herself.

We rode the ferry. Mostly, we sat inside and looked out the windows at the water and boats and seagulls, because it was incredibly windy on the deck, but incredibly windy can be fun for brief periods of time. Also, it's hard to try to jump overboard when you're riding inside.

 M sampled her first pastrami and her first horseradish here-- not on the same sandwich, although they probably ended up in her mouth at the same time at some point or another...

The toy store across the street from the delicatessen was celebrating its 30th birthday, so we stopped by for a look around, a free balloon, and a photo op with some poor sucker wearing a giant Calico Critter costume. For some reason, we thought M would be delighted to meet an over-sized stuffed cat. We were wrong. On the plus side, she didn't cry. She also did not smile. At all.

Fortunately, she had a few bicycle racks to cheer her up afterwards.

And lots of leaves.

And creepy pumpkin-headed scarecrow photo props.

After our walk back to the ferry terminal, we made the return trip to Seattle and bussed it home to Ballard for burgers here and dessert here. There aren't any photos of M putting away a greasy mess of meat and cheese and pickle or discreetly spooning ice cream off of Mama's plate while nobody was looking, but those things happened, too.

It might not have been the healthiest day of eating we've undertaken lately--a good birthday celebration shouldn't be--but Dad and Mama agreed at the end of the evening that it was, in fact, A Good Day. We're pretty sure M thought so, too.