Our Annual Summer Trip to WA: 2015 Edition

I took the kids by myself to Washington this summer.  The flying was tiring, but it went smoothly.  Ingrid for the most part was good, busy, but atleast she didn't scream.  Our time there was packed full of events.  One of Reese's cousins got married in Seattle, my Grandma's 80th birthday party, and we headed over to Moses Lake for 3 nights too.

Girls picking blackberries at Grandpa Jim's

Before we went to the wedding we met Kelly and family at Chuck E. Cheese.  Good times!  Those two boys have been friends since preschool and I'm so thankful that I got a great friend in his mama out of that deal!  Kelly loves my girls and my girls love her too!

 Ingrid is the selfie queen, we totally practice at home.

 Later on that day we headed to the wedding.  I am so happy that my kids have so many cousins on both sides!  Grandma and Grandma (aka Mop and Poopa, aka Papa and Mimi) loved having those kid there I'm sure!

 Abby, Estelle, and Raylan

 My Grandma's 80th birthday!  She is amazing!  What a wonderful example she has been to us all.  So thankful for her!

 Those boys... 12, 11 and 10 what in the world?  And where did that 9 year old Will run off to?  They have so much fun together!

 I got a good one of these two!

 Daniel, Lane, Merit and Will (there he is)!  Kelly's family also met us in Moses Lake!  Hanging out at the arcade and in Vance and Michele's yard was a fun time!

 The water park the next day!

 The cousins!!  Kinda hard to get all 10 of them to cooperate.  But a great picture none the less!

 My three munchkins!

 During our down time, which wasn't much, we enjoyed hanging out in Grandpa's yard.  After Ingrid would go to bed we would sometimes take an evening golf cart ride around the 40 acres I grew up on.  Good times.

One of the last days we met Mop and Amanda and kids out at Beachwood to swim.  I wish I would have gotten a picture of Ingrid in the water.  She loves it!  I also wish I would've taken more picture of my girlfriends and their kids!!!  Anya, Lindsey, Kyrsten and Joelle.... we didn't take any "usies"!!!!  What in the world were we thinking!  I think every year this trip gets a little harder to accomplish, especially when Reese doesn't come.  But the memories we make are worth it!  Someday we will look back and think we were crazy for taking a million kids to an arcade or waterpark, etc.  But it was some good times anyway!

Summer is Here!

 We've had some really nice weather here the last couple weeks, mixed in with some nasty rainy days like today.  There are some really fun places to hike around and beautiful beaches here.  So I'm trying to take advantage while we are here.  Copper loves to come along and swim whenever he gets the opportunity, he's swimming in the above picture.  This park is really close to our house.  A lake and also an ocean with some great trails and WWII history in there too.

Tide pools!  I love seeing what kinda creatures we can find.  An anemone and a large star fish!  Estelle got totally freaked out by them though.  Of course...

 Ingrid and I do exist, I hardly have any pictures of us though.  She fell asleep in the ergo that day.  She is a go with the flow baby, yay!!

 This trail is in the woods next to our house.  Lane explores out there but I had never gone out there before.  This net is cool to climb on and the forest is amazing!

Check out the moss covering the ground!  There were places where it was totally carpeted with moss!

 And these cliffs!  Lane climbed up them of course.  If you click on the picture you can see him up there :)

 Last weekend it was super hot and Reese was working so I took all the kids and Copper to the beach.  Estelle found a ton of beach glass and Lane explored.  Copper found a couple other labs to play with, which left me in charge of Ingrid and keeping the rocks out of her mouth.

 My fear of bears has gotten less and less.  I think having a dog with me on these trails helps.  Not to mention I've lived here 2 1/2 years and I haven't run into one.  So although I was uber cautious while I was walking the 1/2 mile long trail down to the beach alone with my kids... I did it.  And it was well worth it!  Looking forward to being able to go on some more adventures this summer!

Silver Lake

 While we were in Washington we rented a house for a month of that time.  Some friends of ours own a house up in the hills of Whatcom County and let us use it... and their boat :)  It was a really nice, peaceful place for us to stay and wait for Ingrid to be born.

Lots of time spent on the lake, kayaking, boating, fishing, swimming.  Lane had a blast!

Lane caught a crawdad in the lake, cooked it up and ate it :)  If you click on this picture of Lane you can see some pretty gnarly stitches in his finger.  The second night we were there he mangled up his finger on a dirt bike chain.  He broke it and got 8 stitches in it.

 This log provided a lot of entertainment!

 Gorgeous views!

 Lane and Will had lots of fun jumping off the dock.

So thankful we had a place like this to stay and take Ingrid back to!  I wasn't able to keep up much on facebook, instagram or blogging while I was there because there was no cell service or internet, but that was actually pretty nice! Minus some people not knowing for a few weeks that I actually had Ingrid :)

The Fourth

We went to my aunt and uncles for the fourth. They live on the beach and all the neighbors put on big firework displays. Estelle loved the fireworks and spent a lot of the night freezing things like Elsa. She has such an imagination. Lane found some new friends to hang out with around his age and I hardly saw him all night :) The lanterns were a big hit. The neighbors just a few doors down had a ton of lanterns let go all at the same time. So beautiful! 

My aunt Barb does such a great job putting a big party together! She has such energy and enthusiasm! This picture  captures just a bit of that!

Veggies and Flowers

I had so much fun this year planting my garden and flowers and having success!  For whatever reason I had a hard time growing stuff in San Diego.  I have come to figure out that I am a northern type of gardener!  I wanted to take some pictures of all my flowers and garden and I am so glad I did it when I did because now we've had a lot of rain and they aren't looking so hot!

 We added this flower bed when we moved in.  I had fun just planting some easy growing flowers in there.

 This is one of my favorite parts of the yard, these English garden steps carved into the hillside.  They lead down into the woods.

 I picked lots of salmonberries in our yard.  They are yummy!  I have a bunch frozen and am hoping to make jam.

 This was the first time I grew carrots, the family is enjoying them!

 Green onions

 Zucchini!

 Little broccoli florets

 And another favorite part of my house is the front porch.  And can't forget a picture of Lane on the first day of school!