Seattle Week

August 20-24th

Elissa & Darin had such a fun adventure this week.

I signed Elissa up for a day camp at the Seattle Aquarium called "Aquatic Artist".  Elissa loves animals and she loves creating art, so I thought this would be a cool camp for her. And what made it doable, was that Darin works in Seattle.

 

So Monday morning (and every other morning that week), Elissa got up at 5:30am with Darin and they headed to the Auburn Sounder train station. They would ride the train into Seattle and then find a Starbucks to get some breakfast. Darin would drop Elissa off at 8am for the day. He would then pick her up at 4pm. Of course they would head again to Starbucks for an afternoon treat before getting on the train. :-)

Here are a few of the Instagrams my awesome husband took during the week:

    

    

   

   

     

I'll be making this an Instagram book. He did so good in taking pics. :-)

While Darin & Elissa were going to Seattle, Zach & I were having fun too.

I signed Zachary up for gymnastics day camp at Roach Gymnastics. Both he and Elissa had gone to it last year and had fun. And then they had done gymnastics for the last 2 months of the school year. Zach really enjoys it. So I would drop him off at 9am and pick him up at 3pm. The first day I picked him up I couldn't get him to come off the mats. He & I would also get a treat after I picked him up.

Yes, that means that I kind of got a sample of what school was going to be like with two kids gone during the day. :-)

Here are a few of our Instagrams:

    

     

    

On Friday, Zach had a wart removed off his leg in the morning. Then we headed to Seattle to meet Darin & Elissa at the aquarium. When we picked up Elissa, she got to show us around the aquarium and tell us all the she experienced and learned during her week. It was really a special experience.

Here are some pictures of the afternoon:

Our favorite place. :-)

It was a great wrap up to a very fun week.

I just have to finish with this text I got from Darin mid-week.

It made me tear up a little.

It is a reminder how we need individual time with our kids to see them in a different light. Our Summer was packed with lots of family time, which also brings lots of sibling fighting and frustrated parents. It was nice that Darin got to spend time with Elissa without Zach around and he got to see another side of her. Priceless.

Sounders Game

Saturday, August 18th

The Maxfield's invited us to go to the Sounders game. What a fun adventure it turned out to be! Darin suggested that we ride the Sounder train to/from the game. The kids were so excited to do this.

 

We were all decked out.

A walk to Occidental Park

Spirit hair!!

Too cool for words. :-)

A beautiful view.

GOAL! Sounders win!

Thanks Maxfield's!

Newman Turns One!

August 2, 2012

I had to make sure his birthday got onto our family blog. :-)

This was the day we got him, 11.19.11.

What a sweet little pup.

Here is our big boy now.

We celebrated by giving him some new toys and treats.

I got him some cookie treats.

Elissa got him the squirrel (to remind him of our camping trip) and Zach got him the green snake.

The snake is definitely his favorite. It makes a lot of squeaky noises that he likes.

You are a happy addition to our family!

We really, really wish you would stop shedding, but we all have our quirks. :-)

You make us smile. I swear if I spent the time, we could teach you to talk. You are really vocal. When you get up in the morning you stretch and moan and whine. It is such a crack up! Then you'll whine at us when you want something. You also have a crazy bark. Well really it is yelling. If we drive away in the golf cart without you, you have this very high pitched yelling you do at us. Soon after we got you, our neighbor came running from his house because you thought the eagles were trying to fly off with you. The sound was that hideous. LOL! We got you a bark collar and an invisible fence which took care of our major complaints. Now we are all trained to keep the kids toys up and their doors shut so that you won't chew them up. Darin puts poop in the areas that you like to dig. It stops you for a few days. And I'm learning to roller the couch every day so we are not consumed in dog hair. It seems like you have been training us instead of us training you. Why do we want you??? Oh yeah, you are really cute and the kids love you. I have to admit that I love you too. And Darin will reluctantly agree.

Happy Birthday Newman!