I Love A Parade!

Well, here is a quick look at the kids' walk down the Lakefair Parade route. The girls rode on our church's Monster Bus, which drove in front of our amazing float! So many people worked so hard...and it really turned out beautifully. And Alex was a volunteer banner holder...this year holding the banner in front of the float that won the Community Service Award. Fun, hot, sweaty, and deserving of an ice cream treat!

Other than the fact that Brenna "lost" all that ice cream late that night, it was a fabulous day!

Whatcha Been Up To??

I have heard some disgruntled remarks about my abandonment of my "Monday Menu" and "Flashback Friday". Well, some seasons just better lend themselves to consistency, and this has not been one of those seasons. I have promised a friend I will do a Monday Menu this coming Monday, and dedicate it to her. I'm brainstorming what it should be. Dessert? Dinner? Any thoughts out there? So here is just a bunch of randomness regarding what I've been up to instead of blogging...

Uniforms, uniforms, uniforms. I am doing the uniform fittings for a whole bunch of cheerleaders. It is a strange thing. I have had such a crazy amount of the cutest little people fluttering through here, and yet they just keep coming. Eleven more girls coming today, but I think we are nearing the end. If they weren't so stinkin' cute I might be really tired of this, but their cuteness keeps me going. About 14 of them are mine for the next 3 months, and I'm thinking they are the cutest of all.




Today I got myself this when I went to the grocery store. I thought I "earned" it. I don't know really what that means other than I had a craving and feeling like I "earned" it helped justify it in my odd mind. Call it sustenance for the next few hours of uniform stuff.





And since my front door will be more like a revolving door from 12:30 until about 8:00 tonight, and since my family is pretty much tired of left-overs and Top Ramen, I am making about the best combination of easy and yummy I know. A nice sized pork roast, some salt, pepper and garlic powder, a rough cut sweet onion all tossed into the crock pot. A few hours, lots of great smells later...take that roast out and shred it with 2 forks. Put it back into the drained crock pot, pour in some Sweet Baby Rays Honey BBQ Sauce and heat through. Then serve it up on some hamburger buns with some potato chips and pickle spears and coleslaw that I'll have Brenna make from a kit...ta-da! A really yummy hot weather dinner that makes great left-overs! And no heating up my kitchen. I also am going to make some homemade ice cream tonight...if I can squish it in. Brenda has me obsessed with it since our vacation. Reminds me so much of being at my grandparents farm as a kid. Plain 'ole homemade vanilla ice cream with raspberries right out of our garden. Yum, yum. Come on over for some tonight...though I may make you try on a cheer uniform...

And I forgot to take a picture...but use your imagination. The kids have been having lots of friend time this week. It's so fun to watch the friends Alex has known since kindergarten turning into young men. The one that was here yesterday and last night...he is now 6'3" and maybe not even done growing. I didn't even ask what size his shoes were. Last I asked his mom they were 13. Sweet kid. Lots of health issues this past year...still a bit of an uncertain future, so a true pleasure to have him hanging out and doing so well.

Beth is enjoying a summer nap right now, recuperating from a "sleep" over with a friend. I'm going to live vicariously through her right now. Oh...I'd love a nap.

And this is just a cute (though poor quality) picture of a frequently entertaining sight...


This is our cat, Edgar, and our neighbors dog, Finnegan. The kids are Finn's companion while his mom and dad are at work. Edgar loves to antagonize Finn. He'll just stand around and watch Finn go crazy barking and kicking up the grass, content to have the safety of a fence separating them. At this moment, Edgar decided to torment him even more by hanging out on the fence. I would love to read Finn's thoughts as this was happening!


I feel another give-away creeping closer, too. I'm thinking in the next couple weeks I may have to come up with something clever...I've got a couple "prizes" all ready and waiting for a new home. Molly will be happy. And, no, it has nothing to do with uniforms.

So, that's it for today. Back to my "sustenance".

A Moose, A Dog, and A Snail...Oh, My!

Thursday night I had the great pleasure of spending the evening with my dear friend. She calls me her "old friend." I prefer to be called a "childhood friend" or something more flattering to both of us. After all, my dear Deb, you are older than me. We met in Mrs. Glenn's class in third grade. Many years ago. She scored some Mariner tickets from work, so she treated me to great field level seats just above the Mariner's dugout. Such fun! Great game, but most of all just the great company of a great friend. We were oh-so-lucky to get our picture taken with this very happy Moose:

Then on Friday night, Alex came home from camp. He went straight there from our vacation, so had not been home for quite some time. Who was the happiest to see him?? His dog, Archie. This dog had not quite been himself since we came home. We thought he was just exhausted from his time away or the heat or something. But as soon as he came in the house and heard Alex's voice? Our 'ole Archie was back. He went skidding on the wood floor into the dining room and over by Alex's chair. And could not get close enough to him. A very sweet scene of a boy and his dog:

And today was a day for fulfilling a little girl's deep desire. Beth has been talking about moon snails for about a month now. She has been very fixated on seeing one up close. A curiosity that had to be satisfied. So today we headed down to the beach, and her sweet daddy went down under water until he came up with a moon snail for her to inspect up close. Actually, she ended up inspecting 3 moon snails and a star fish and a clam and a huge crab...lots of great things. Her curiosity for life has always been one of Beth's most endearing traits, so it was fun to have yet another opportunity to watch her explore a creature new to her...

A Vacation of Thrills ~ The Final Chapter

Can you possibly take any more ramblings about our thrilling vacation?? Well, I can't leave anything undone, so I give you the final installment of this gripping photo journal of our trip.

Some of the most thrilling moments were spent at the beach. Great sand for building things, like this drip castle:





Great sand for burying yourself:

Great sand for just sitting and packing some sand baseballs:

And some of the most thrilling moments at the beach happened with the rental of this wave runner:

Fun, fun, fun. Six hours of fun. Brad is hoping to figure out a way to be an owner of one of these big boys. They are fun. Have I mentioned that they are fun? And here are my two favorite guys, both feeling like little boys with a new favorite toy:

Jack's ready to take on the river...

And now I give you some final random vacation memories...

Thanks for the memories, Lake Entiat...see ya next year!!

A Vacation of Thrills ~ Part 3

So here I go again, trying to wrap up the highlights of our great vacation. Not going to happen in this post. Too many cute shots to capture here. It will take at least one more installment, so if you've had enough already, no problem. Just don't check back in until tomorrow and you should be fine! And if you are still reading, you are among my most favorites.

We had several days of enjoying the pool that was a short walk from our house. A very warm pool. I didn't keep track of how many hours were spent here, but here are some of the pool highlights in pictures:

Brad and Beth ~ water buddies:

Emily and Brenna ~ synchronized divers??

Beth diving in like (how else?) a frog!

Brenna trying out a star jump into the pool.

Can you say "big splash"?

Can you say "big ouch"?

Thomas, the great swimming dude!

This look says, "Well, of course I can do it!"

Beth, walking on water?? No, standing on daddy's back:

What better way to dry off than lay on hot cement!

This is the view the parents had walking back from the pool. They made quite a troop!

And what a dining view, huh? Always hungry after swimming...

A Vacation of Thrills ~ Part 2

Here we go with part 2 of the thrilling vacation report!

I thought I should back up and start with some of the basics. Like the thrilling house we stayed in! Beautiful home and a great view of the lake, which is actually the Columbia River, but called Lake Entiat...I don't care to know the details of why. Either way, a beautiful body of water to stare at from this house:

(I have to tattle on my hubby. First a disclaimer...he is a great driver. I most always feel very safe when I am in a car with him. Even though I close my eyes whenever he backs into a parking space, it's because I'm a nervous ninny, not because he's a bad parker. It's not him, it's me, and I fully admit that. He's great at backing in and out of things. I'm not. But he must have contracted a serious case of vacation brain, because moments after this picture was taken he was backing up around the corner to leave for home when I heard the crunch of gravel beneath our tires. I looked in my side mirror, and said, "Brad!!!" He calmly said, "It's fine." I said, "It's NOT fine!!" When we straightened out on the straight stretch, we saw a very clear tire mark going around the corner in the gravel and the bottom brick thingy was all the way down by the next wall of bricks. My oh-so-humble husband didn't say anything. Just calmly walked back up the driveway and replaced the brick and re-leveled the gravel. We never mentioned it again. Until now. In case you are reading this, my humble hubby... mmwwaaa.)

Anywho...how about some more pictures of some amazing houses? I got a little more than a little thrill when some locals told us who had homes close to where we were staying. One you can see from the highway, but one only from the water. So, knowing what a kick I get out of being the family paparazzi, Brad gave me another thrill, by taking me down the lake/river on a wave runner (more on that later) to get some shots of these homes. I'll be just a bit cryptic, because I'm not that type of paparazzi, but you'll get the gist..

This is a very cool house. I may have even caught a glimpse of the owner, though I couldn't be sure. I wanted to shout out to him, "Hey, Matt! Rest up that back...pre-season starts next month and we need you!", but I didn't want to freak him out or anything. And in what may be related news, every evening I watched a couple hawks circling in the sky. Hawks seem drawn to this area. And more rumors from the locals say that a certain man who needs a strong leg for his job may be building soon on a lot near this one. Hawks. Hmm. Do you know how exciting this all was for me??!

And just a short jaunt further down the lake/river is this house, under construction, being built by a very beautiful gal, married to a cowboy hat-wearing man...

I don't know if she'll see any "fireflies" from this home, but she's sure to be able to slow down and "breathe" while she's vacationing here. Next year when we go back, we'll surely feel the Faith in the air. And maybe some Tim, too.

So, due to technical difficulties with either my computer or blogger, pictures are loading painfully slowly. That's it for now. I'll try again tomorrow with the next exciting installment of our thrilling vacation report!

A Vacation of Thrills

Our thrilling vacation contained too many thrills to capture in one post, so I give you Part One:

Before continuing to read this, please see the warning at the beginning of the post a couple down. Then, continue with enthusiasm. But please pause now and again to allow your eyes to avert and rest. Onto the fun!

We spent 7 fabulous nights and 8 gigantically fabulous days on Lake Entiat, just outside of Chelan. Fun, fun times. Beautiful home, beautiful weather, beautiful friendships. We were totally unplugged. No phone. No radio. No news. No tv. The kids did watch Gilligan's Island and some Get Smart for some wind down time out of the sun. We read through most of a Sunday paper, which just made me realize how blissful ignorance truly is. We missed some "big" news items while we were unplugged, but I wasn't any worse for it. Of all the great fun we had, having Brad be totally away from work and us all totally away from routine life was one of the best parts. Here are some of the other highlights:

On the first full day there, we went to my favorite breakfast spot EVER! These are the best waffles I have ever tasted. Danish yeast waffles. So very yummy. I have been talking and talking about this place, so we went on the first day to spare everyone the pain of listening to me any longer. The place? Blueberry Hills. And, yes, it is a thrill. I had my favorite...the coconut creme waffles with a topping of peach pie filling. They even asked me again if I was sure I wanted peach pie filling on top. Yes! And everyone else should try it, too. My, my. Just look at this...

And then this, taken just before I licked my plate...

Here are all the kids, bursting with excitement for the meal they were about to experience. Or maybe just posing for a picture because I told them to. Ask them.

The next day we spent at the Lake Chelan water park. I think it's called Slidewater. And, to my great surprise, I found another thrill here! It was H.O.T. while we were there. I eventually grew tired of playing paparazzi in that heat, and decided to get in the water. I had been challenged back at home to just try one ride. That, combined with the heat, drove me to it. And it was mostly great! I went down one tube ride with Alex that I was assured I would love, and I screamed all the way down. Didn't love. But then I found some gentler ones, and figured out how to drag my feet along the walls to slow down and control it, and it was great. I'm all about control when I am barreling down a tube of water and shooting into a deep pool of water. Okay, I'm also excruciatingly honest. I was gently slipping down a tube with enough water in it to keep it wet and then plopping onto my feet in a pool of 3 feet of water. But it was still a thrill. And the kids only stopped long enough to eat lunch. And Brad was one of those kids. (For ease of future sentences, whenever I refer to "the kids" in the rest of this post and subsequent vacation posts, I'm including Brad.)

Here is proof I rode a ride...just look at those churning rapids I'm about to throw myself into!

Here's Alex & Thomas on one of their many rides together...

Just a pic of two cuties hanging out in the hot tub...

And two other cuties after a wild ride on the tubes...





And here comes Jack & Brenda...

And, again, the combination of heat and challenge drove me to this. This trip down was Beth, me, and Brad. The day we were doing this was Beth's "other birthday." So, with that in mind, I have one word for this picture: VICTORY!!!

This is a good place to end for now. So much more to come. So many more thrills to document. Stay tuned!