Hello Summer

 

We are three days into summer vacation and I feel like I'm going to have a nervous break down.  We've had a half week of summer camps, dentist appointments for every member of the family,  eye doctor appointments, regular doctor appointments, fencing, physical therapy and I don't even remember what else.  Plus my computer was being repaired this week (now its back and all fixed) so I didn't have that to help me keep things straight.  My mac had a known keyboard problem that apple would fix for free and I finally took it in to be repaired.  Several of the common use keys (R,T,A,O and U were the worst offenders) would double or triple type when I pressed them and it was suuuuper annoying.  Glad it's fixed.

So summer is here...this is a picture of the kids on the last day of school - only a few days ago.  Matthew graduated from middle school.  I guess they never have a graduation so nothing was missed this year.  He is excited to head to high school but Anna is sorry to have him headed to a different school than her.

John walking home from the bus on the last day of school.

Last day Emma!

Emma graduated from kindergarten.  Woohoo!!

A last week of school camping picture she made - with lots of teacher help

Grant got the "mathematician" award in his class.  He loves math and was proud of his award.

We got to get together with Scott's side of the family a few times this past week.  Here are all the grandkids with Ma2 and Pa2.

Cousin buddies!  I liked that they were all wearing white.

Celebrating Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day Scott!

And let the summer crafting begin!

Anna made this pillow case - she has a thing for bees these days

She's pretty good at using the machine

Emma told me a few weeks ago that she wants to learn to sew "like Anna."  So we got a few projects to work on.  She was eager to use the sewing machine but she didn't like pressing the pedal with her foot, so she would use one of her hands instead.  Here she is working on a quilt.

Her completed quilt top.  We got this precut unicorn fabric at Michael's and just made a basic square quilt.  Emma did lots of the sewing (with supervision and help from mom).  She needs help getting started but liked guiding the pieces through and pressing the pedal.  More sewing to come.

John likes to do what Emma does, so also wanted to sew a quilt.   He picked some jungle fabric.  Here we are thinking about how the squares should be arranged.

I think we ended up with this.  Again, we are going real simple with this to start.

Emma made a pom pom owl, with Anna's help.  This was from a kit.

And since we are in a quilting mood here, I got around to finishing the top of a quilt for Emma. I have a few things to trim here and then we will sandwich it.  The girls have many crafting ambitions - honestly their ambitions are stressing me out and go far beyond my abilities, but I think we will have lots to keep us busy.  More summer adventures to come...

Our New Playground

Scott built this playground almost entirely on his own over Memorial Day weekend.  It was a big undertaking!  Here it is after completion.

In progress on day one - we had to move it into place about at this point.

End of day one - the structure was sort of in its final spot

Anna helped him a lot

Day two - we didn't get as much done on day two 'cause we had some other things going on that day.

So much work!

And the end of day three.

It looks great and the kids have had so much fun playing on it.

Here are a few other pictures...

The school year is wrapping up as well - here is a project John worked on at school for several weeks.

He was proud of it.

In a surprise rain/hail storm

All the kids still love the rain - no one is tired of it yet...except Emma.  She is a little tired of it.

A biology project Anna worked on - she was very proud of it

And here is our baby pumpkin patch

And baby strawberry patch

Just down the hill from our house is the Washougal River - lots of people go down there to swim, fish and kayak.  We crossed it on the bridge on this day.  I'm looking forward to swimming here over the summer.

Spring Blooms

I am loving the Pacific Northwest.  I have never seen a spring bloom quite like this.  Scott seems only mildly impressed by the overflowing beauty.  He is used to it.  Anna is right on board with me though.  So many flowers and blossoms everywhere - maybe its all the blooming trees and rhododendrons.  So here are some of our spring adventures.  

First of all, my sister had her baby.  Here is Anna holding baby Enoch.  This is her 4th child and 4th boy.  The three big brothers are really excited about their new baby.  He is really cute.

He stayed asleep while we passed him around for all the cousins to hold.

My parents were in town helping with the baby and one morning we went on a little hike with the cousins, grandma and grandpa and my brother in law.  We went to see the Camas Lillies which are in bloom right now.

We hiked a bit and played in the creek

Fun cousin time!

I hike near our house maybe 2-3 times a week.  I have been checking on the Camas lilies quite often.  They are a small blue/purple flower - these pictures don't really show them that well.  They seem to like rocky soil.

Camas lilies

One day I had gone in search of the chocolate lilies growing nearby, but only found one that was looking quite sad.  Maybe I missed them.

Another day we drove down to see the tulips in bloom in Woodburn, Oregon

We just happened to run into Scott's parents (who live near), his sister and some of her family (who were visiting from Idaho, unbeknownst to us).  It was a happy and very surprising coincidence!

Here are a bunch of pics of our tulip adventures.

It was fun to see them and have some surprise family time.

Anna got heart attacked by some girls from church.  It was very sweet.

Emma and her school friends decided they wanted to wear dresses to school one day.  She wore leggings underneath, but it might mean spring is coming.

Scott has been working on the yard a lot.  It looks good!!

We took out a juniper/arbor vitae type tree and put a little apple tree in its place.

John got some glasses for close up - reading etc.  He uses them at school in class, but leaves them behind for recess.  He looks cute!

One day the older kids and I walked around downtown.  We ran some errands, went to the library, post office, got bagels and smoothies etc.  I made the kids pose by this mural and they were semi-mortified and afraid some friends would see them taking a touristy picture when we're "locals."