FHE Bowling

A couple weeks ago we decided to do some bowling for Family Home Evening. The kids loved going with Grandpa Fred and Tanner, so we decided to take them back. Of course, we did the bumper bowling, which made my score look awesome! The kids did a really good job. Parker only got the ball stuck in the middle of the lane once. Samantha had a little more strength and was able to get more pins down. It was a great family night! Poor Collin was locked up most of the time, but that was better than him running down the lanes of everyone, or getting his fingers squished between the bowling balls, which he was trying to do before he got locked in his stroller. We hadn't gone bowling where we actually paid for a long time. Boy, times have changed! I didn't realize it would cost over $40 for one game! Now we know. It was still fun. :)

Backyard Fun!

I have to say, I love our backyard. It may not have the trampoline we've been wanting to get or a fancy swing set, but it's got LOTS of nature and a ton of room for imagination. Our kids are happy playing in the dirt, finding bugs and picking berries and flowers from our yard. We live on .98 acre and we love the space and freedoms it gives us. Yes, someday we will have that trampoline (I look on craigs list all the time!) and maybe a fun swing set, but for now the sandbox and nature do. Here's a few fun things we've got going on on the outside... First, the tree house, or "fort". Jeremy has been working hard on getting this done for the kids this summer. For the past month or so he's been building a tree house in the woods on the side of our house. I'm a nervous mom about it, but so far they've been fine and they love it. Almost every time we get out of the car, instead of going into the house they run to the tree house. They've been bringing their snacks up there and making a stick collection (that's mainly Parker). They both have binoculars, so they "spy" on our neighbors and cars that go by.

Here's the trail to get to it. This trail runs next to the garden and off of our driveway.

Here's a view of it from the street. It's hidden in the trees, so it's perfect for their "spying" idea, which Jeremy gave them!

View from the bottom.

Here's the kids at the bottom of the stairs.

View from the top. Pretty high up!

Made it up the stairs!

Say "cheese"!

While building the tree house, Jeremy came across this little guy. A salamander. The kids had fun holding it and kept it for a while. They wanted to keep it, but we have enough critters around here! Here it is, in the house and on the table....Nice.

The other day Samantha and Parker were out in the sprinkler while Collin was asleep. Around the time Collin woke up, the kids decided they were done in the sprinkler, but it was still on so Collin took a try at it. He got to it before I could get his clothes off and this is what happened! He was having fun, so I just let him be.

And last, but not least we have our garden. We were skeptical that it would grow due to lack of sunshine at the beginning of the summer, but it's doing quite well now. We've got a pumpkin patch going in hopes to have a Harvest Festival within our neighborhood. We'd love to get to know them better and have a party! A free pumpkin would be the added touch to the event. It may not work out, but it looks neat at least. We've also got some corn that's growing. I have a feeling we won't get any corn, but there's hope. We already harvested our red potatoes, which were delicious! They were getting eaten by slugs, so we dug them up a little early. They were kind of small, but still tasty.

HOT!

It's HOT here in Seattle! Too hot for my liking. It's been around 95 degrees for the past couple of days. Tomorrow is supposed to be nearly 100! Too bad our house gets to be the same temperature as outside. I don't like it. So, what do you do when it's hot? You make ice cream cookie sandwhiches! SOOO yummy and cold! We've also been eating way too many Otter Pops! They're so good! Stay cool fellow Seattlites!

Seafair

Seafair was last weekend here in Seattle. For those of you who don't know, Seafair is basically a summer celebration that Seattle puts on with hydroplane races and an awesome show from the Blue Angels. The problem is that the big show and races are always on Sunday. So, for my whole life, living in Seattle, I've never been to it. Crazy, huh? We do get to enjoy the Blue Angels for a couple days before that though, when they are practicing. So, on Thursday I took our kiddos out to the beach where I knew we would be able to watch them put on a little show for us. It was so cool to have them so close. They flew low and right over the beach. Very fun!

We also did some swimming, of course. The goal for Parker, the whole time, was to make a big hole in the sand and put water in it. Don't know why, but he worked so hard to make it. He half way did it. It turned out ok. Some little girl next to us made a huge one and Collin took a swim in hers more than once. She was nice enough to let him. Maybe next time, now that Parker has had some practice, he'll be able to reach his goal a little better...

I now realize that most of these pictures are of the boys! Didn't mean to. Sorry, Sam!

Weekend With The Family!

A couple weekends ago, we got to spend a lot of time with our wonderful family. My sister-in-law and I took our kids to Kelsey Creek Farm on Friday. The kids had fun playing on the toys and seeing the animals. Our kids love to be together and I have such a good time spending time with my good friend and sil, Emily.

Collin loves to "drive".

The kids by the horses.

Taking a rest in the shade, on the pig bench.

Our cute girls!

The babies in the sandbox.

The Gang!

Then, on Saturday we all went to a fun little medieval village not too far from where we live. They were having their Summer Festival that day, which meant lots to do and see. Everyone in the village roleplays and is anything from a cobbler to a fortune teller. It's entertaining and kind of funny at times. You have to get used to the way they talk and some of the things they do. We ended the afternoon with some yummy Small Fries dinner. Thanks for a fun weekend Kleins!

Tough guys.

Sword fight, anyone?!

The kids loved petting the sheep. They were pretty stinky and gross to me!

The horse was also very liked.

The boys being silly. Parker had this thing will finding sticks that day. This pile of wood was heaven for him!

My little girl being cute.

GRRR....

So, I don't know that anyone really looks at this blog anymore. I've been pretty bad at keeping it updated, but to those of you who do here's my latest car issue I've had (minus the flat tire that happened just days before this)...So, I was driving home after being at the gym. It was around 10:00 p.m. on a dark, little two laned road that leads to my house (sounds like some scary ghost story or something!). All of the sudden I heard a loud noise like I hit something, or rather, something hit me. I did see something come towards me in my front window, but it happened so fast I had no idea what it was or that it was going to have any effect on me. After I heard this noise the first thing I thought was that I hit a bird. Since I had seen something out of the corner of my eye out my window I thought that was it, for sure. I was almost home, so I just kept on driving and when I got home I found this-

My camera's flash is tempermental and only works when it wants to, so you can't see it too well, but this is a chocolate milk carton hanging out of the side of my headlight. Yes, somebody threw a milk carton at me! Who does that? It's so random and made me so mad! I assume whoever it was was hiding in the bushes that are right along the street and right where it happened. Little twirps! So, now I have a hole in my light and get to pay to have a new one put in. I've had the worst luck with this van. This isn't the first "incident" with it. Unfortunately, the other ones were my fault, but whatever!

Larrabee State Park

WARNING: LOTS OF PICTURES!

We have a tradition of going camping with our good friends, the Pynns, every summer. This summer we ventured out to Bellingham, WA to Larrabee State Park. We had never been there, but our friends had. They hadn't actually camped there before, so we thought we'd give it a try. It turned out be awesome! We really did love it. Minus the fact that there was an active, working train track that ran right on the edge of the campground! Yes, in the dead of the night, and wee hours of the morning, we would hear the loud roaring and honking of a train. This went on both nights we were there. Luckily, our kids slept right through it. Jeremy and I didn't, but as long as the kids did we were ok. Besides that, it was a great campground. It was just a short walk from the water and close to town. It had toilets and showers, which are always nice. Although, I never did make it to the shower!!!

Anyways, our trip went something like this...Friday night we drove the almost 2 hour drive to Bellingham. We (and when I say "we" I mean the MEN) set up camp in the dark. Not recommend when you have 5 children ages 5 and under! And, not to mention neither of us (again, I mean our husbands) had ever set up our tents before. Both were brand new, out of the box. :) We finally got the kids to bed around 12:30 a.m. and we followed shortly after, only to be awakened again by that dang train!!! The kids slept through it though and all was well.

Morning came all too soon and Collin was wide awake at 6:30 a.m. I took a walk with him while everyone slept. Jeremy got up about an hour later and took over and I went back to sleep. Finally we were all awake, ready to make some yummy breakfast and get ready for our only full day to enjoy. Our day consisted of a trip to the beach, Collin sleeping wherever he could, a trip into town, a picnic and some soccer at a park in town, a small festival at the park with crafts, music, face painting, ect..., a stop for ice cream, a car tour of Western Washington University (where our friends attended), a hot dog dinner over the fire, smores, a hike out to watch the sunset, chit chat around the fire, games, and lots of snacks! What a day! We ended the night a little earlier, but not much earlier than the previous night. We still got woken up by the train, but the kids did well again and slept through it. And, Collin slept in until 7 this time, which was kind of nice.

Sunday, we made another tasty breakfast and started to pack up. We had a goal of getting to church at a local ward that started at 1:00. To my surprise, it took us all morning, with no time to spare to get ready and make it to church. By the time we got everything packed up in cars, our lunch premade and handy to eat later, get ourselves looking somewhat presentable for church it was 12:45. Who knew?! After an hour of church, we headed out to a park on the marina to eat our lunch and watch the kites that were being flown. It was a nice and relaxing way to end our weekend. Unfortunately, I didn't take pictures of that park, but it was really pretty. We then headed back to the real world of smelly clothes to wash and lots of camping gear to unload. Thanks Jason and Wendy for a fun weekend!!!

Wiped out!