Misc June/July Happenings

Well here's post #3 of 3. It has a little of the other things that we've been up to in June and July.
Matthew's Nana came to visit in June. We had a great time and went to Seattle and just did the typical things that we do in a week- swimming lessons, the park, etc... Enough to wear her out though, I'm sure. Matthew loved having her visit.



We found a great playground and spray park in Bellevue that we went to one of our three days of summer here in the NW so far (I'm not bitter, really).

One of Matthew's favorite things that we've done recently is to drive his remote control boat in the boat pond at Lake Union. He loved it!! He would drive the boat around for a couple of minutes, then insist on taking it out of the water so he could check to props and then would put it back and drive some more.

We also went and saw Thomas the Train a few weeks ago. I thought that Matthew might be over the whole Thomas thing, but he has a renewed interest in his trains and train tracks since we've gone. So that should keep him busy for a while.

The view from the train, down river from the Snoqualmie Falls

We also went to Matthew's friend, David's, birthday party in early July. His parents had it at the Tacoma Nature Center. The had a naturalist talk to the kids about different wildlife in the woods and ponds there and also brought out a turtle to show them. It was a really great party. Love this pic of Matthew, David and his brother Drew. They look either shocked, amazed or scared of what the naturalist is telling them ; )

Matthew reached a milestone in his boyhood this month and attended his first Home Depot Kids Clinic. He made a toolbox and now wants to help daddy with every project that we need done (or don't need done) around the house.

And a small victory for me, but I finally (after months) have the hummingbirds visiting our feeder. The problem is that now they're fighting over it and practically dive bomb me when I try to hang fresh nectar. I think we may have too much of a good thing now.

Well that's all of our happenings for now. Hope everyone is enjoying the summer. For those out east, please, please send us some of that heatwave. I've been tempted to let the car idle in the driveway for a while. More global warming for the Washingtonians ; )

Lake Chelan

Love, love, love this pic of Matthew. A rare moment when he's takin' in easy. This was at Lake Chelan where we spent five days with Matthew's friends Tia and Michael and their mom and dad. It's about four hours from our house, but is over the mountains so they have summery weather (which we were craving). I consider it a personal victory that Matthew did not get sunburned (wish I could say that about myself) since the kids hung out in bathing suits, playing in the lake and sand from early morning until late evening.

Good times!!

Play, play and more play

Trying to make their own Lake Chelan

Michael and his momma

Future football star??

Fun in the Sun

The phrase "two peas in a pod" comes to mind

The daddies took Matthew and Tia kayaking. Evidently Matthew found it quite relaxing and was doing the head bob about half way through the trip.

Beautiful Lake Chelan Sunset

Our last night of vacation they had fireworks for Fourth of July and we spent the evening blowing bubbles, rolling down the hill and just playing around waiting for it to get dark outside. All three kids made it to the end of the show. It was quite humorous to listen to them say "I like that one best, no that one, no that one". Very cute!

On your mark, get set, GO!!

On the way home, someone at the resort suggested that we go north through the North Cascades Park. We were told it would only add an hour or two to our ride home. We left Lake Chelan at 2pm and got home at midnight. It was worth it though. Beautiful scenery and saw some places that we're definately going to go back and visit. And we got to see some snow in July! Great vacation!

Hey! Long Time, No See (or Hear)

I have our blog as our homepage on one of our computers, but I guess that I really never paid much attention to it until I looked at the date of our last post the other day. Yikes! May 28th! I guess it's been a while. I looked at all of the pics I have and I actually have to do 3 separate posts because it won't all fit on one. So you'll see why it's been a while, we've been a bit busy.

Arrrggghhh Matey! It was that time of year again in June. This was our 4th time to the Maritime Pirate Parade and Blessing of the Fleet. We had a great time at the parade with our friends The Sobba's and The Guy's. It seems to me that the parade gets bigger and bigger each year. But we still manage to stake out the same spot to see all of the action (we just have to get there a little earlier each year).

Campsite Guy/Sobba/Taylor

Arrrrgghhh!!

My camera lens got a little smudgy before this shot, but I thought it looked kind of neat.

The next day was the Blesssing of the Fleet and it was a little drier than last year when it poured. There were many more boats than I think were expected. I always find it amazing that there aren't any collisions on the water with that many vessels out there.

Waiting for the procession (or parade as Matthew called it) to start



Leaving the church

Heading down Rosedale

For any of you Deadliest Catch fans, the Lisa Marie was in one of the earlier seasons of the show

Just hanging out in the straw

In Skanskie Park, there were large bales of straw for people to sit on and after a while the kids stacked them all up and made a fort to play in. It was quite a hit. Afterwards, when the clean up crew started arriving, Matthew had a ball helping roll the bales to the trucks to be loaded up and hauled away.