Grandpa visit, Camping

We have had a busy couple of weeks. First I headed to girls camp for a couple of days with my beehives. It was great! I had forgotten how much I really enjoy a bed, and a good nights sleep. Those couple days at camp quickly reminded me :) Then Aaron's dad came to visit. We had a great time with him. We went hiking to ponytail falls (sorry no pics), went to the zoo and the river. We ran Grandpa around. It was a lot of fun.

The day after Grandpa left we loaded up the car ( and I do mean loaded, it was packed!) and headed to Sacremento, California. We were meeting Aaron's 3 sisters and their families for a camping trip. We went to this great site on the American River called Coloma Resorts. We stayed in bunk houses that had A/C (thank goodness since it was around 95 degrees each day) and they had full bathrooms. We had to cook all our meals outside on camp stoves, but each family took a night so we just had to cook one big meal. I was worried about keeping my kids entertained for 5 days while camping, but they didn't get bored once. There was 10 cousins to play with, a swimming pool, playground, big open spaces to run in and of course the river. We tubed down the river everyday. There was a short run without too many rapids that the kids did. Then we traded off guys and girls going on a long 1 hour 45 minute float down. I never tipped, but Aaron got dumped a couple of times in the rapids. We also got to pan for gold, and even found some! All in all, a great vacation. We are planning on going again for a family vacation and I definatly recommend the spot.

My Baby is 4!

Matt turned 4 today. It's so crazy to think my little baby is 4. I'm quite sad about it. I wish I could freeze him, so he doesn't grow anymore. He still loves to come and snuggle with me and gives me big hugs. He is such a boy. He loves to play transformers, dinosaurs and cars. He loves to run around outside and pick on his big sister. He is starting to write some letters, but is not really interested in sitting down and doing school work. He has a great imagination and I love to just sit and listen to him play with his toys. He makes up the best stories for them. I just love this kid sooo much!

Here he is on his b-day with his new Woody doll and his cowboy costume. He also got some Transformers, which he loves.

For his b-day party he wanted to go to Chuck E. Cheese. So we invited 4 friends and headed to Chuck. E. Cheese. After they played for a while we came back and had lunch, and cake and ice cream.

He wanted a SpiderMan party, and SpiderMan cake. So I had Aaron draw a picture for me and then I attempted to put the picture on a cake. So here is the picture Aaron drew.


And here is the cake. It turned out ok. Not the best but it was the first time I had worked with fondant. I made some marshmallow fondant (and broke my Bosch in the process). It was pretty easy to work with, but took me forever. At least Matt loved it!

Soccer

Summer finally decided to come to Vancouver, so this week we've been hovering between 95-100 degrees. It's been great! We headed to the river on Wed. with a big group of friends. I forgot my camera, but the kids had a blast. We were there for 4 hours and I did well with the sunscreen. Aside from numerous mosquito bites, my kids came away fine. I however have some advice, when applying your sunscreen, don't forget the back of your legs. Suffice it to say that I've had to take a couple days off of running, and I've been wearing skirts that fall just to the knee.
On friday we went with some friends to Portland to a place called Peninsula Park. It's a pretty nice park with two big playgrounds that are completely shaded. They also have a little spray park and rose garden with a big fountain in the middle. The kids had a blast at the spray park and playing in the fountain.

On Thursday night Matt had his first soccer game. He was so excited. We got to the park and it was 98 degrees. It was sooo hot! They made all the kids get sprayed off from a hose before the game started, then they shortened each quarter to only 5 minutes. Then at half-time the kids had to get sprayed off again. It was so much fun seeing him play. All of the kids but 2 on our team are from our ward, so he has a lot of friends. Unfortunatly only about 4 of the kids would play, so Matt had to play a lot of the game. By the end he was so hot and tired but he did great. We lost by about 15-3. Our team was so funny, everytime one of the red team would come to get the ball, our players would pretty much just stand back and let them have it! I've included some great video so you can see Matt playing. He runs pretty well, now if he could just run while he has the ball, we'll be good! I was so proud of him though. Isn't he the cutest soccer player ever!?!

4th( or rather 3rd) of July, Vancouver Style

We failed once again to convince anyone how truly spectacular 4th of July in Vancouver is, so no one came to visit this year. Hopefully this post will convince you to come see us next year. We headed to our friends that Jackson's again this year. They outdid themselves with the party this year. I think the people totaled around 150 this year. They provided all the meat, and everyone else brought sides and desserts. It was great. Here is a pic of everyone eating. They had lost of activities around their yard to keep everyone entertained before the show, including a D.J. to keep the party going. There was volleyball, badmitten, and ping pong. We got a big round of around-the-world ping pong going with a bunch of the adults. It was a blast, but I'm sad to say that I was out almost first everytime. Not quick enough. . . They had plenty for the kids to do too. I don't think I saw Kaitlyn the whole night until the fireworks stared. They had a "fishing" pond with candy, face paiting, the bounce house (below), tree house(also below), a trampoline and of course the puppies (their dog Sadie had puppies 3 weeks ago).

A few of the men got together and bought all the fireworks for the show and then we all just contributed to the cost. I won't tell you how much they spent, but it was a ridiculous amount, which means it was a GREAT show. Here is the mortar table where they lit them off from.

And last but not least, the show. It was great again this year. I love that nothing is illegal in Washington. There are a couple of pics, and some video, although the video of the finale didn't come through. Too bad, but the rest will show you how great it is and hopefully intice someone to come spend it with us next year. . .
Amazing that we get to shoot those off in the backyard! (ignore my commentary in the background, I wish you could turn the sound off on the video)

Juneuary

The Pacific Northwest has not been kind to us this June. We've had something like 40 straight days of rain (starting to feel like Noah), then we were teased with like a week of warmer weather. And by warmer I mean we reached 80 like 2 days. But this week has been weak, with high 60's, low 70's. So when we hit 80 my kids begged to get wet, so we bought a new slip-n-slide and a new pool. They played in them for two days, and they have since sat on our patio. Hopefully summer will make it's appearance soon. We're getting anxious to go to the beach, but the river is so high there is no more beach!
Here's the pool:

Kaitlyn told me that she was cute this day and I just HAD to take a picture. . .

And here is what happens when all you play with is girls. He did tell me that it was a boy's color, so it's ok. His dad does NOT agree however!

Graduation!!!

Kaitlyn graduated from Kindergarten on Thurs. We are so proud of her! Despite their crazy schedule, she advanced a lot this year. She is reading way above grade level, and is getting better and math and writing. She loves to read, and sits in bed reading for 20-30 minutes each night before bed. She loves to write and make up stories too, but is still working on penmanship and spelling. Math is definatly not her favorite (guess she takes after her mom), but she is working hard. She had a great time in school, and made lots of friends. She's still pretty shy, and still spends a lot of time alone, but is getting better. She can almost look her teacher in the eye now! We love you Kaitlyn!
Here is Kaitlyn with her teacher, Ms. Holmberg.
Here is Kaitlyn with her student teacher, Ms. Graham.

Here is a short video of Kaitlyn getting her certificate. (blame the horrible quality of the video on Aaron!)

Milestones

So we've had a couple of big milestones in the family. Matt got his first bike a couple of weeks ago. He wanted a Spider Man one and refused to get on until he had all of his pads and helmet on. Good boy! He was pretty slow at first, but can almost keep up with his sister now. We tried to take off Kaitlyn's training wheels, but that was a monumental disaster, so alas, that milestone will take place on a later post.

But Kaitlyn did have something exciting happen. She lost her first tooth!! She was so excited and can't wait for the tooth fairy to come tonight. She ever wrote the tooth fairy a note explaining what she would do with the money earned for losing teeth (Buy her Nintendo DSI). I'm pretty sure that she is soon going to be trying to pull out her own teeth to earn money for that thing.