august catch-up

I visited with Corinne, Nathan and Kylee a few weeks ago. Corinne is a softball superstar. She had a double-header the night I got down there. They won the second one, which was good, since it was the one I saw. Nathan and I enjoyed watching the game for most of it. Until at the end, there was a little tiff with a couple of the players and the ref left the game because everyone cleared the dug-outs and came out on the field for a fight. Luckily, there wasn't any actual fighting, but it was lame they even did anything. Poor Corinne, has to play with these other players.

The next morning, we went to breakfast and to keep Kylee entertained, I took a bunch of pictures while we were waiting to leave. She is so cute.

As you can see in this photo, she only has a few teeth, she has been a little slow in that development. She was teething a little over the weekend and was so sad a few times, like when she was in her car seat. Poor girl. Plus, it was a 100 degrees this day. We went to a couple of lakes to keep cool and of course had slurpees. We found out how much Kylee likes them, I was barely able to drink any of mine.

The following weekend, a bunch of the family gathered together because Benjamin had a birthday and because Leslie, Bart, Corinne and Nathan were dropping their kids off at grandma and grandpa's while they went to Vegas. My mom volunteered to watch Sean's kids, too, but they (the kids) decided they were not up for it at the last minute. I talked to my mom during that week to see how she was holding up, since she's not used to having so many little ones around anymore. The boys did pretty well, but it was Kylee and Indiana who ended up fighting the most. Kylee isn't used to having to share anything and both of them were pretty possessive of everything, from the potty to grandpa.

I took a bunch of photos of the nieces and nephews. Sean and Jenifer's baby, Natalie is such a cute little chunk. She's just as big as Indiana and Kylee, but she is a year younger. I used to have fat rolls like her when I was her age. I couldn't stop laughing at her rolls on her arms and legs, though. Indiana

SamanthaCorinne and Kylee look so nice in this one!
All the grandkids were gathered this day. Wyatt, Beren, Kylee, Asher, Samantha, Indiana, Jackson and Benjamin Yes, Natalie's head is as large as her big sister's. :)

mosquito heaven

Another weekend-car-camping get-away! This one was with Rose Marie and Mark and we headed over to Potholes State Park, south of Moses Lake. We had originally wanted to go to Lake Kachess, just past Snoqualmie Pass, but needed to go further east due to the forecasted rain. We weren't sure we would have nice weather as we were driving up towards the campgrounds since there were dark, large clouds and lots of wind, which was making nice little dust storms over the road. It looked quite ominous as we drove in. We quickly put up our tents hoping the rain would come down somewhere else. We weren't entirely lucky, but it only rained for 10 minutes while we were setting up the tents. The rest of the weather for the weekend was lovely, not too hot, either. We even saw some lightening off in the distance that night and since it was far away, it was fun to watch.
After we set up our tents, I had to eat right away because I was STARVING. I noticed some mosquitoes (since it was getting near dusk) and thought about putting on repellent, but I didn't want my food tasting like repellent and I didn't want to have to go wash my hands after I put it on, so I waited to put on the repellent. I did have pants and a sweatshirt on, so my legs and arms were covered, so I thought I'd be ok. I really should have taken a couple of minutes to protect my feet because look at what those mosquitoes did to me....

I have about 15 bites on this one foot and probably another 10 all together. I haven't been eaten like that in forever. The bites luckily don't look this bad anymore, but they still itch. Just so you don't think all bugs are evil in eastern Washington, we saw this pretty, yellow butterfly. It didn't even try to bite me....nice butterfly. I just wish it would have held still for 2 more seconds for me.We spent the day at the lake on Saturday, which is a nice, clean lake. We came prepared with floaties, but it was on the windy-side, so we kept having to paddle back towards the shore. The park surrounding it is very nice and has lots of green grass. You can see in the picture of Mark blowing up the air mattress that we didn't have any grass, just dirt and dust at our campsites, which wasn't the nicest, but there were trees lining each site which gave some privacy. The fancy rv campsites near the park were right on the green grass, so we kind of felt jipped. We did use the nice grass to play a fun game of croquet.

We ate pretty well. I even attempted to recreate my dad's mountain-man breakfast, which is eggs, potatoes, cheese, sausage, bacon....mmmmm. Mark and Rose making their chicken kabobs.

My favorite part of the weekend was making fires and watching them. Fire good. This is the one I started, all by myself. One of our camping neighbors left us a bunch of wood, so we were able to make a really big fire. We brought stuff to make 'smores and I actually ate a whole 'smore, which I haven't done in years. I'll explain. When I was 5 or 6 we went "camping" on our property on the dairy we lived on at the time. I think it was just on the back of one of my dad's big flat bed trucks. I didn't know the difference, we were outside and in sleeping bags, so it was camping to me. Anyway, the sugar-addict that I am, I ate probably 1/2 a bag of marshmellows that night. Now that I think of it, I don't know how I was able to eat so many, mom must have brought a couple of bags because I'm sure my brothers and sisters ate some too, or maybe they were smart enough not to eat 1/2 a bag. So we all go to bed and I wake up in the middle of the night, sick, and throw up all my marshmellow goodness inside my sleeping bag. Since that day, I have never liked eating marshmellows and always would make my 'smore with just chocolate and graham crackers (by warming it up over the fire to melt the chocolate, still good). I decided to try out a whole 'smore this camping trip and I am so happy that I did. It was so yummy! I ate 2 the first night and 3 the second. Who wants to have a bonfire? So we can roast marshmellows, now I want more! (I'll try not to eat a whole bag at a time, I do think I have learned my lesson about quantity.)

seafair

I decided this year that I would finally go to Seafair. The only parts I've seen in the past are the Torchlight parade and the Blue Angels flying over my work or my house. I wanted to see the full show this year, plus fairs are the best place for people watching. And Rose Marie and Mark were going, so we all went together. Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera, but I have a few pics to share that other people have taken. Watching the hydroplanes was neat. They go super fast and spray so much water. Except when they break down, then they get pulled by another boat, poor guy.It was like we were on the water in the hydroplane, with this awesome red hydroplane blow-up hat.
The Blue Angels were of course spectacular, they go so fast and fly so close to each other and are so LOUD!But I think our favorite air performer was the guy flying the little trick plane. We thought he was going to crash a few times and he even cut his engine in a free fall. Yikes. We saw him signing autographs at the Geico booth later on and we were surprised at how normal he looked. He was a crazy pilot.

This father and son team was pretty good, too.

And we especially liked the Harrier Jet. This is the only jet that can hover in place and fly backwards and up and down, just like a helicopter, but much, much, much louder.

As far as people watching went, I saw a few classic tattoos, one girl sitting near us had FAITH tattooed on her inside wrist. Another guy I saw, had GROW UP on the backside of his forearm. Classic. We saw a few good mullets, a few big bellies on shirt-less guys, a lot of good mustaches and some hoochie girls trying to meet the hydroplane drivers. Those are the things I needed my camera for. I'll just have to go to a different fair so I can people watch some more.

i heart batman

Just saw Dark Night and it was awesome! I highly recommend watching it at a large-screen, loud-speakers theater. I clinched my hands, jaw and toes throughout the entire thing and loved it. Sorry Michael Keaton, Kim Basinger and Jack Nicholson, they out-did you on this one.

the mariners and the bite

I didn't realize there were so many things I could learn in just two days. First, when you go to mariner's games, you must wear a crazy hat: Second, I now know why all the Japanese girls go crazy over Ichiro. Third, Leah is fun to hang out with at baseball games, even if we had a guy sitting behind us that kept coughing A LOT.

Fourth, the mariners really can win games. AND even get grand slam home runs (that was fun)!

Fifth, Jesus saves from hell. I guess I kind of already knew that one, but never really thought of it in this way before, especially by advertising it at the Bite.Sixth, they actually do have good entertainment at the Bite. This group was pretty funny, I liked that they referred to the only white guy as their token white guy for the band, he of course was the soprano voice.

Seventh, the best dessert offered at the Bite this year was the peach cobbler at the Southern Kitchen. My friend, Karra and I have been attending the Bite together for I think almost 8 years now (Karra's husband, Brian has been coming with us for probably half that time) and each year we mostly look forward to our desserts. We started out with mud pie and those were so good, but then the restaurant that supplied the mud pies stopped coming to the Bite, so then we really liked the apple dumplings and then that booth stopped coming. Last year, we had the crepe dessert and even though we shared one of those this year, it did not come close to how good the peach cobbler was. I just hope Southern Kitchen is at the Bite next year.

los angeles

It was a slumber party weekend at Christina's! Anneka, Christina and I spent the entire weekend together since Blake is out of town. We had so much fun!

We stayed up way too late each night talking and watching the Starter Wife (it's with Debra Messing). I didn't even really like the show, but it sucked us in and we couldn't stop watching it. We went to the beach and Anneka and I even ventured out on the boogie boards. There weren't really any waves where we were, but we were glad to get into the water (even though there was slimy seaweed on the way in). Next time I'm down, we're going to tackle some real waves, right Anneka?We squeezed in some shopping and ate at a great restaurant, Toast near Christina's. It was so fresh and yummy. And for dessert, we headed over to Westwood (near UCLA) and waited in this line.So we could get into this place:

And eat one of these:

It was worth the wait, especially since they each only cost $1.50! I definitely want to go here again the next time I'm in LA. Thanks Anneka and Christina for hanging out all weekend!

summer time

I went camping with my family over the 4th at Indian Creek on Rimrock Lake (it's off hwy 12 between white pass and Yakima). It was a nice campground, we had 3 sites and the lake was beautiful, although too cold to swim in for me. I didn't end up taking any pictures of it, though. I was in lazy camping mode. My dad brought canoes and we went out to this island in the lake each day to be in the sun. I didn't think of taking any pictures until after Leslie's family had left (sorry Les). We don't look too shabby, considering no one had showered in these pictures for a couple of days. Ah camping.

I'm so glad I've already gotten two camping trips in this summer. I'm hoping to do a couple of more and hike in on some of those. I'm not letting this summer go to waste.