Monday, June 23, 2008

Busy Days of Summer!


The boys were so excited to do Fishing Kids this year. Every year on the day before Father's Day, the city takes thousands of fish from the hatcheries and dumps them into a netted-off area out at Cascade Park. They give each of the kids a brand new fishing pole and t-shirt and allow them to catch 2 fish a piece. They have such a good time! The weather was beautiful. (of course I had to work...) They had a great pre-father's day with Mike and his dad.

This past Friday we had a brief moment of weakness and told the kids we could go to the circus. Please make a note: Try to avoid coming in contact with any circus advertisements when your school-aged children who know how to read are within an eyeshot. This is not a fun place for grown-ups to go. You know all of the little "free coupons" that you see all over the town, at grocery stores, restaurants, etc.? If you plan to go to see Circus Gatti, make sure you grab enough of those free tickets for you and each of your kids. If not, you will be spending a small fortune just to walk through the gates. $22.00 for each adult, $17 for each child between 5-12, and $12 for children under 5. If you have any money left after you walk through the gate, a bottled water will cost $3, popcorn $4, snocone $4, and cotton candy $8. I am not kidding. For a very mediocre performance, a family can easily spend over $100 for 2 hours in the 90 degree heat on metal bleachers. What fun.

Saturday, Mike and I drove to Puyallup for Jason Green's wedding. Yes, you are reading this correctly. Jason Green. Married. That just leaves Caleb -- all of the other soccer boys have crossed the threshold. Anyways, it was a nice ceremony at a beautiful golf course in Orting. The weather was perfect, and they both looked great. It was fun to see all the high school soccer buddies and their wives and kids. Sam and Hilary Lester have a couple of girls and another girl on the way, Tony & Nicole Preston just had their 2nd girl, and Jason's little brother Tyler and his wife Jamie have one little girl. See a pattern here? Maybe someday I'll know what that's like... For now my three men keep me plenty busy.

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

What a Slacker...






Good Grief! I have more days off and less free time? How does that work? I was enjoying all of my friends' blog entries and happened to notice that my last post was almost two months ago! We've been so busy!

School is finally out. Most moms love the fact that their kids aren't home all day every day. I am a rare exception -- I don't mind my kids being around, and I LOVE to sleep in. I don't know if I'll ever outgrow that - Go to bed early, wake up late, any chance for a mid-day nap, I take it. It drives Mike absolutely crazy. He's like the energizer bunny. There's always something to do and sleeping isn't the priority. He always has a project planned or an early morning tee-time --He can function on a ridiculously small amount of sleep. No such luck for me.

The boys finished baseball about a week and a half ago. Again, such a relief. There is nothing more fun than watching them play, but the weather was horrible this season! We spent most of our games with winter clothes and hats and blankets on just to survive the 1 1/2 hour games. Not so much fun.

We've spent the last few weekends watching Mike's softball team play in tournaments. His team is so much fun to hang out with. It is mostly his cousins and a couple of really long-time family friends. They've played together for years, and have finally come into their own. We've played in five tournaments this season, we've won two of them, taken 2nd in two, and placed 5th in one. We're ranked 2nd in the state and 1st in the East. We were in Wenatchee last weekend and they ended up winning that one in a couple of nail-biters! It was so fun to see! Very close games in the 2nd day's games, but after 6 games (and a 4-bench clearing brawl...) they won the championship by one run. Doesn't get much better than that!

We camped at Lincoln Rock last weekend while we were in the area for the tourney. (Yes, you read that correctly -- I camped...) I haven't been camping since the week I found out I was pregnant with Austin. Me and camping aren't the best of friends, but I did it anyway. Funny thing -- I actually thoroughly enjoyed myself. Granted, this was a campground that had running water, flush toilets, hot showers, and plug-ins, but we slept in a tent, therefore it qualifies. What a fun place -- there is so much to do there!

My kids are growing up so fast, it amazes me. Kaiden's mouth goes a mile a minute -- he will talk to anyone who will respond. And not just "hi", he usually starts out with "I got bit by a dog on my cheek and I had a broken leg and another broken leg and I cut my finger and..." I'm sure these strangers think we should be reported. Zach has gone from monster child to the most enjoyable, sweet little boy in the last year. He still gets that little sparkle of mischief in his eyes once in awhile, but for the most part, he's a pretty great little guy. Austin continues to set the bar pretty high for his brothers. He's so easy to parent! He is my baller, for sure. Life revolves around sports, and not just playing, but winning every time. He takes everything so seriously and is the most competitive 8-year-old I've ever met. I guess that drive can be a good thing, but we're definitely going to have to try to moderate it a little bit before fall sports start.

Anyway, enough about us -- here are some random pictures for your viewing pleasure.