Note from the Teacher

I love that Elissa received this in the mail yesterday!

It looks like it is going to be a great year!!

We have what the school calls "Eagle Day" on the 31st where you come and meet your teacher and see your classroom and all of that. We start school on Tuesday, Sept. 6th.

Happy 60th Mom!!

Saturday, August 20th

Mom's birthday was July 30th, but we were not able to celebrate as a family until today.

In the mean time we gave Mom a little make-over.

What girl doesn't want to be styled and personally shopped for and given a new hair & make-up look?!

During the month of July Mom met with a stylist from Styled Seattle and she came and went through Mom's closet and showed her what to keep and what to throw away and made a list of which items she should add to her wardrobe. Then they met at Bellevue Square to shop together for several hours (a little grueling) for new pieces to add to her wardrobe. After that she went to a hairstylist "for the stars" and had a make-up/skin consultation as well as a cut & color. It was quite the whirlwind!

The stylist didn't quite meet all of Mom's needs, so then we had to go on another shopping trip. :-)

Mom, we hope you enjoyed your pampering!

Mom, you are a gift from God. You made (and still make) us feel like there is nothing more important in this world then Chad and I (well maybe now your grandbabies!). You support and love us unconditionally and I know now, that you put your heart and soul into raising us. As much as I would roll my eyes and think you were crazy, I looked forward to you recounting my birth every year. Calling and telling me how you felt when I was overdue and the false labors and Dad fishing when you actually did go into labor. All the little things you do to make us feel special and immensely loved. Thank you!

I'm so very thankful that my children get to have you as one of their grandmothers. As Lissy says, "Grandma loves us too much." She knows you would do anything for her. It's special. Unfortunately, it's rare. You are a treasure!

We had a great day celebrating you and enjoying being a family - dysfunctional, but so blessed!

Golden Gardens Park, Ballard

It has to be said that Mom and Dad got to the park at 6AM to get just the perfect spot!

We arrived at 11am.

Dad BBQ'd enough food to feed an army.

At 3pm we were kicked out of our spot because it apparently was reserved.

We still got the great fire pit area on the beach.

Several little crabs died in order to keep the kiddos entertained.

The water was way too cold to get in.

The line to the bathroom was 20+ minutes long.

I don't think the kids have been any dirtier. They HAD to take showers before going to bed.

In the late afternoon when we were packing up some things we were approached by 5-10 people to see if they could take over our fire pit area. We could have sold it to the highest bidder.

We did have a fire on the beach.

A gal came over and wanted to video tape our fire because we had the best one on the beach.

Two girls were very excited that they did get our fire pit when we decided to leave at 8:30pm.

It was a wonderfully long day.

The kids didn't want to leave the house the next day. They were exhausted.

Everyone was covered with soot that is mixed into the sand. The kids were a dirt pile!

But the view was spectacular!

We love you Mom & Grandma!!

Ocean Scenes

There are so many amazing views at the ocean.

It is hard not to continually click away.

I had a bit of an obsession trying to get some pictures of the pelicans that live around this beach. I don't remember seeing them last time. I could never get a really good close up.

Fast Facts

Type: Bird  Diet:  Carnivore

Average life span in the wild:  10 to 25 years or more

Size:  Body, 5.8 ft (1.8 m); wingspan, 10 ft (3 m)

Weight:  30 lbs (13 kg)

Size relative to a 6-ft (2-m) man:

Dory boat returning to shore - full speed onto the beach.

My favorite scene.

A beautiful ending.

Oregon Coast

Sunday, August 7th - Thursday, August 11th

 Cape Kiwanda, Pacific City, OR

For our 3rd week of vacation we rented a house on the beach of the Oregon coast.

We came here two years ago and really, really enjoyed it. The only downfall was the travel time (6hrs). It is a small town, not crowded and lots of time to just relax and enjoy each other.

I have just shy of 1000 photos of this trip, so it has taken me a while to get some time to go through them and narrow it down to just a few for this blog post. Myrna asked me yesterday if I ever actually print out all these pictures I have and honestly, no. I really need to get back to at least getting some of them put into an album or rather Project Life.

There was ALOT of kite flying!

This is the sand mountain that the Family climbed once and Elissa & I climbed twice.

Elissa was the bravest and spent the most time in the water.

Zach got in the water a little too, but he was more interested in using his kite stick as a sword. You can see that he is tucking it into his shirt so that he can pull it out at any moment. You never know when a bad guy is going to walk by. :-)

And did I mention that we did a lot of kite flying??

Darin reading his Kindle while Zach is flying his kite.

Then Darin was trying to figure out how to make a trick kite work. He did pretty good.

 This is the house we rented (the bottom portion only). You can see that Elissa's princess kite got wrapped around a pole on the roof. She was very sad. Here she is trying to fly her new kite.

We also flew airplanes.

And skim boarding......for about a second.

And sand dune jumping.

And some sand boarding (after they tried to do it w/their skim boards & it just wouldn't work).

Elissa is waxing the board getting it ready for another run down the hill.

There were great short bike riding trails that we had fun on.

And this wooden, twisting, pretty steep ramp to ride up. I couldn't find a place or angle to get the whole look.

Of course lots time digging and building in the sand.

There was a little inlet where the water got a little warmer, so the kids liked hanging out here. Zach said they were his little "hot" tubs.

And hunting for treasures!

This looked much cooler in the my head, but here is my attempt.

Our last night at the ocean we had a fire on the beach. It was super cold and the kids were dead tired, but we stayed out long enough to have a s'more.

It was a prefect ending to our 3 weeks with Daddy!