Random Summer Happenings!

I have been so bad about taking pictures lately. I used to take hundreds and hundreds of pictures every month, but now some months I barely take close to hundred. I think it has something to do with the kids getting older. They aren't constantly changing as much nor are they learned new skills at the rate they used. 

I had a bunch of pictures of different things that we did this summer, but they weren't enough for an entire blog post by themselves so I thought I would put them all into a random summer post. 

Even though we didn't official end school until June 16th, we weren't slaving away until late in the afternoon either. On Wednesday, June 7th, we meet up with Kim and her kids at Seahurst beach for a fun kick off to the summer weather. It was a gorgeous day to be at the beach. 

Zeke is always on the look out for drift wood that is in the shape of weapons. He's found quite a few and we have a collection of them on our mantle at home! 

While Daddy and the older boys were off on the rafting trip I took these cuties out to dinner at Red Robin! 

I like to live on the wild side! 

For Christmas Ga-Ga got the boys all these miniature games. Owen hadn't ever opened his up yet. So one morning he wanted me to play the world's small game of Monopoly with him. It was so hilarious! 

Look at those little cards and the figurines were so small, but they still took up the whole space on the board. 

The week before the 4th of July the kids and I needed to be in Burien for Jack's orthodontist appt. We had to pick him up from his Fire & Safety training at PSSC and then we had about an hour before his appt. We went to the Dollar Tree to buy the Bingo prizes for the 4th of July BBQ and then I remembered it was Thursday and the Farmers Market was going on. I had no idea where Michael's Water District booth was, but I figured we could have a quick look. Thankfully we found it right away. The booth was so nice! That's when I got to see the water fan in action and I was sure he needed to borrow it for the BBQ!

Our cat likes nachos! And no Michael isn't still eating them right along with Charlie. These are the chips that he broke up so Charlie could eat them. This cat will eat just about anything...except shrimp, imitation crab and chicken apple sausage. He doesn't like those. 

Since Ella and I were headed to Eastern Washington in the middle of July that meant we were going to be gone for Michael's birthday on July 14th. Michael and I went out to celebrate at Daniel's Broiler on Wednesday the 12th. We also had him open his presents that night. Owen found a funny birthday card that said something like being the greatest person to ever walk the earth and then you open it and it says "Not you that was Jesus!" I know I'm not quite remembering it right, but it was funny! We got Michael a few new t-shirts and then a bag full of his favorite caramels from the Winco bulk section. 

With us being gone on all these camping trips we did not want our yard to die so I finally broke down and bought a couple of these timer things for the hoses. They are about $50 a piece, but it was so nice to not have to rely on the neighbors or friends to come water our garden/yard. 

Zeke had a fun time building a fort upstairs in the hallway. 

Charlie thought it was a fun to hang out too! 

One day while I was cooking dinner with my Mom I reached into the bag of carrots and pulled out this one. I had to take a picture of it and sent it to Michael. It's a boy! 

This whole year we have been keeping track of the different animals Charlie brings in and kills. It's his kill list and yes I know that sounds creepy. On this particular day I was not happy with him. He got a hummingbird! Even though I wasn't happy with our beast I was impressed...those things are fast! 

Our VBS theme this year was a space theme called Steller. My Dad had been tasked with the job of building a lunar lander. He spent weeks and weeks creating this. It was huge! You can see it's about double his height. It came apart in two pieces and barely fit through the church doors. It was up on the stage for a couple weeks prior to VBS...it was good advertisement. He did such a great job! 

One day Zeke asked if he could make a smorgasbord for lunch. I told him he could. I love that he took the time to make it all pretty! 

The 2nd week of August was when the kids went to Summer Camp. The older boys left on Sunday. Michel was the one to drop them off and he didn't even stay until they drove away let alone take pictures. He's such a dad! Ella and Zeke headed out for kids camp on Wednesday afternoon. We had a lot more kids going this year which was nice. Especially for Zeke...last year he was the only boy from our church. This year there were 3 boys that went. 

The youth camp is from Sunday - Friday, while the kids camp is from Wednesday - Saturday. It's honestly the perfect amount of time for that age! 

Loaded up and ready to go! 

Mr Ernie and Miss Katie taking good care of our kiddos. We appreciate them so much! 

I got about 48 hours with no kiddos which is so nice. My plan was to do nothing except read! One thing I did really well with this summer was not sleeping in. Most days I was up at 7:30 and it really helped with taking advantage of the day and not having to break the habit once school was back in session. One of the mornings I came down to fill up my water before sitting on the couch to read my book. I opened my tumbler, got out my electrolytes and was getting ready to open the packet when I looked over and saw this....

Oh my word!!! He was huge. That's the back of my stove and with his legs he's about 3 - 4 inches. I about stopped breathing! I'm not joking! I walked right out of there, got the vacuum hose and sucked him right up. We actually ended up find 3 of these big bad boys over the course of the summer. Ewwwww!!! No thank you! 

I've talked about Richie before and how he loved my long hair. He passed away on October 28th, 2021, from Covid. It was such a huge loss for his family and friends and our church community. The family had a small gathering last year, but they were waiting to have the celebration of life that everyone could attend later. 

His service was on August 19th at our church. Richie built the cross that is on the wall in the sanctuary. He also built that gate for one of our pastor's sermon series' he did. Mary his wife asked my Dad if he could build these platforms for Richie's boots. She wanted the platforms to get taller going up and up to the foot of the cross. Richie loved his boots and he loved Jesus. He also love Coke & Skittles so the edge of the stage was lined with cans of Coke and the tables outside had bags of Skittles on them. It was a fabulous service honoring a wonderful man. I can't wait to get to heaven and see Richie again. I can just hear him giving me a hard time and saying something like, "Well...what took you so long?" 

On a last minute whim we decided to spend the Saturday prior to school starting at the beach. The same beach we went to at the beginning of summer. I thought how cool would that be if the Storer family could come with us. Even though it was last minute they didn't have plans so they joined us. We went back to Seahurst...it's Ella favorite because she loves to look for sea glass. She has hundreds of pieces now...it's a fun hobby! 

The weather was a little bit on the cooler side when we first got there. 

Once the sun was fully on us it was so nice! Of course this guy was ready to go at exactly the time I said we might leave. We ended up staying until 2:30 though and then it was actually getting really warm and I was ready to go. All the Storer kids wanted to come over to play, but we couldn't fit them all in our van. We ended up taking Andrew and Caitlynn with us and then Micah and Kim brought Josiah over after they ran a couple errands. They also brought over some food to share for dinner so we ended up making it a whole day of fun with friends. It was a nice bookend to all our summer fun!