Jackson-No

Sticks and stones can break your bones but words will stress you the heck out.

You can’t avoid it. Words impact your brain. Your brain impacts your stress levels, and your stress levels again effect your brain.

The cycle continues.

Particularly, the word “no” has been shown to have very real impacts on your brain. Specifically in the Orbitofrontal cortex (the OFC).

Both hearing and saying words has an impact on your brain, and body.

In addition, seeing negative emotions on other’s faces has an effect on its own and can amplify the power of the words that are being said or heard. Specifically the word “no”.

So, a simple “no” would have an effect on you.

A “NO!” shouted, would have a stronger effect.

And a “NO!” shouted, with the addition of a frown and negative body language would be very strong.

Continue reading Why Words Can Cause Parents to be “Out of Shape”.

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As of this post, we’re back. Back home, back on land. But not back to “reality” yet.

I feel like I learned a lot on this trip. About myself, about life, and about family. I’ll save that for another post.

But for now, let’s get up to speed on the last part of our trip.

I stopped taking as many pictures and videos (with the exception of the prolonged whale encounter we came across). So I’ll just be brief, and post the stuff I have with not a ton of context. Because, for the most part, what happened at the end of the trip, stays at the end of the trip… or something.

So here’s a map of our last official stop (not counting Seattle where we ended), Port Townsend.

Rocky Bay to Port Townsend

When we last left off we were eating “Shrimp on the Barbie”.

After that we went to bed, and woke up.

In the morning we hung out, and decided to go check out “Seal Rock” in Rocky Bay on San Juan Island.

All the seals were gone when we got there, but I decided to check out the rock anyhow, cause I normally don’t go close to it. Once we were super close to the rock, I noticed a baby seal almost camouflaged on the rock.

SONY DSC

I was trying not to disturb it, but once Jackson noticed, he started (understandably) yelling, “Baby seal! Seal, seal, seal!” That startled the little seal and it rolled off the rock into the water.

Baby Seal

I felt a little bad, and at the same time, it was a fun experience, and it seems imprinted on Jackson’s memory days later, as evidenced by his “Baby, seal!” outbursts.

Continue reading San Juan Adventure Post 7

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Once dark, we went to Matt’s boat, they had a better view, and Matt, Robyn and their daughter are cool.

We watched the explosions and hung out there.

Fireworks

The next morning, we made blueberry pancakes.

Blueberry Pancakes 

And then walked into town. Jackson wanted to walk the dock like a balance beam.

Balance Baby

Then we went to West Marine, and Jackson wanted to take a nap in a deflated fender.

Nap in Fender

Then we said our teary good-byes to Matt, Robyn, and their daughter, and we left. We rode off into the proverbial sunset and went our separate ways.

Matt Leaving Friday Harbor

Speaking of sunsets… There were about 70 wildfires in British Columbia causing a constant weird orange haze around everything. The sun looked sort of like an eerie sunset all the time. It was blobbing around in the sky very strangely.

Sun orange blob

Once in Rocky Bay we met up with my cousin and his wife. And my cousin immediately took Jackson and I out shrimping.

Pulling up Shrimp Buoy

 

Shrimp in Trap

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Jackson thought the shrimp were like bugs and therefore loved them.

Shrimp Grab

Shrimp bucket

Then my cousin gave some shrimp to some kids who were rowing around in the bay. (He’s a nice dude.)

Brent Giving Shrimp

Then we barbecued the shrimp.

Brent Cooking

Shrimp on Fire

Jackson was a huge fan of them. He seems to like food better when he is part of the entire preparation process, and if he knows where is food came from. (He got to see pretty much the entire sourcing to killing to cooking cycle here.

And then we went to bed.

The next morning we planned to stay in Rocky Bay and just hang out.

We’ll see what happens next.

Until next time!

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