Camping with Papa

The boys and I had so much fun camping by ourselves and with my sister and fam, that we wanted to take Jacob along on a trip! We camped on Wind River, near Mt. St. Helens a couple of weekends ago. It was over 100 degrees in The Dalles, so it felt good to cool off a bit under the big trees.


We arrived late (with a brand new tire!), but still found a great campsite and the boys were happy...


...and tired!


After a good night's sleep, we played around near the river the next morning...



...enjoyed some beautiful sights...


...and found a little lake to try out our new raft.


The drive home took us by some ice caves. We didn't explore too much since we weren't very prepared in the way of lights and footwear, but it was pretty amazing to drop 60 degrees or so just by walking down a few steps. I'm sure we'll return...maybe when the boys are a bit older and able to control their own footing a bit better!:)

Blueberry Festival

Several weeks ago, we spent the day in Grandview (near Sunnyside) at a Blueberry Festival. We were so excited to fill our freezer with blueberries for the winter. It was a great time...but they ran out of blueberries!:) We hunted for enough to have fresh blueberries on our cereal for awhile and spent the rest of the time enjoying the "family fun".


The boys LOVED this little animal train. At first they thought it quite odd that they were riding behind the honda, rather than on it, like in Savoonga, but they thought it was great.


Me, picking with the boys.


Logan and Owen have picked up photography as a new hobby:) Owen took this photo of one of the few blueberries left on the bushes.


Logan managed to get me and my bucket in this shot!


This face tells how good the icecream tasted on that hot day:)


In the end, we filled our freezer with cherries! Logan, Jacob, and Owen

A Visit with My Parents

From my sister's, we took the ferry down to my parent's house in Sequim. The first day, we went out near the Casino to a Native American Cultural Center where we watched a man carve a totem pole...pretty amazing!


Grandpa, Logan, Gram, and Owen in front of a newly finished killer whale totem.


Then we hiked down to the water where the boys saw all different kinds of sealife (some living, some not so much) and they went "fishing".


Logan caught some seaweed with sea foam.


Owen caught straight seaweed.


Logan and Owen roasting marshmallows with Grandpa...it seems that we've roasted a lot of marshmallows this summer...one bag goes a long way...until you take them camping in Central Washington w/o putting them in a cooler...we ended up with one very large marshmallow on that 100+degree day!


We spent one day with Ginny. We took her out to a bakery and then across the street to a yarn shop. It was good to spend time with her again.

Camping and More with My Sister

After hanging out with Sherilyn and her family, we continued onto my sister's house in Oak Harbor. We went camping at Deception Pass. It brought back good memories of roasting marshmallows with Michelle and seeing that some things never change:)



Owen came down with some nasty sickness the afternoon that we left to go camping, so he hung out on my lap by the fire until about 9:00 that night when he had a sudden recovery (until a few days later when it got him...and Logan...and then me...again!) He felt really yucky just long enough for Michelle and Todd to set up our tent, build the fire, cook dinner, and clean up! Thanks guys!


This is how I found the boys in the tent. Owen said he was keeping Logan warm! Oops, I discovered that one sleeping bag wasn't sufficient to keep 3 warm in June in the Pacific NW! Later that week, we passed a camper and I asked Owen if he'd rather camp in a camper or tent. He said, "A camper because it be warmer!" (He's okay with a tent now...it's much warmer in these parts!)


Logan, Michelle, Owen, Caleb, and Todd around the campfire.


Our last day together, we went to a huge park. The boys had fun together.


One last picture of the cousins (Logan, Owen, Caleb) camping.

Camping near the Hood Canal

Several weeks ago, the boys and I (Jacob had to work) headed over towards Seattle to visit with a friend and my family. I thought it would be fun to camp with the boys our first night. We arrived late, but it was a beautiful night on the Hood Canal. Logan and Owen LOVED camping (more pictures to come from our camping trips since then) and they were big helpers to me. (Owen is in the white and Logan in the red)






The next day we reunited with their first friends:) Sherilyn and I went through our pregnancies together while our husbands were in seminary in Michigan. Asher is 4 weeks older than the boys and Chancery is almost 2 (I think that's right?) Anyway, it was so good to see them again, even though it was a little odd to be in a new stage of having to discipline our children, not just change their diapers, feed, and rock them! I miss you guys and the feelings of normalcy that you "regave" my life:)

Backyard Toys

After much debate, several weekends back, Jacob and I decided to build the boys a playset for the backyard. After several hours in Home Depot, we returned home with this free slide that we found on the side of the road and nothing else! Those of you who know us well, know that this is a very likely story for us. So that evening, the boys enjoyed their new slide while Jacob and Jaycee(our neighbor) held them up. It was beautiful...very interactive...and cheap!:)



The very next day, we were blessed with this "log cabin". We are the fourth family for this to be passed along to. (and the people that brought it to us didn't even know about our long hours in the lumber section of Home Depot!) Logan and Owen love it and aren't shy to climb out the windows and onto the roof...getting their climbing fix!

Manners

We had a funeral this past week and during the luncheon, the man across the table watched Logan and said, "Eating his cookie with a fork...what good manners." I said, "Yes, my children have very good manners. Just a few days ago, Owen was chewing up some food when he abruptly spit it out onto his plate to inform me that he wanted to tell me a story and he couldn't talk with his mouth full!" ha, ha...I love my children and how they think!:)

Yesterday, I overheard Owen from the other room, "He, He...me going to be a naughty little boy." He wasn't really doing anything worth writing about...but that's not the point...what was going through his mind?:)