Fun At The Capitol Building

A couple of weekends ago, my mother-in-law was kind enough to take all of the kids that are currently residing at my house for two whole nights! That's also 2 1/2 days, mind you...though I'm not counting. Before we dropped the munchkins off, we decided to go and "play" at the Capitol Building and grab a few shots. When we were younger, this was one of Mike's and my favorite places to hang out. I think though that way back then, all of the big fans worked and we could float many things across them and ooh and ahh at how they skimmed the air. Now, however, only one or two actually blow air and it's only during work hours (which as we all know, are few and far between for those darn state workers :-) Luckily, this was one of the very rare occasions that we were all together, off both work and school, during the day on a week day. The girls thought this was awesome! Of course, since we didn't really have anything to float over the top of these ginormous fans, spit was the only option. GROSS!!! I almost got hit a few times and finally had to put my foot down when the name of the game was "Try and catch it back in your mouth." Who are these people???

Though the only pictures I could find of the girls' hair flying in the air were on my phone, we got several other cute ones. Here are a few of our goofy afternoon at the capitol...though I did not include the collection of Rylee's head bouncing off the ground, as Mike watched her jump from a ledge. I thought that might be a little over the top.

After we dropped the girls off, we almost didn't know what to do with ourselves.....almost. Anyway, the rest of the weekend was pretty restful and quiet....until we decided to pretend that we weren't adults but silly, young, underage drinkers. I'll save those pictures for another time...

Back to School All Ready

Yesterday was the first day of school....again. I can't believe how quickly the summer flew by. It seems like just yesterday was the last day of school, thoughts of bbq's and swimming right in our faces. Now, our schedule begins again. Yay!!!

The morning dawned bright and early...4 girls so ready for school! Kenzie was a little nervous about having more than one class to keep track of, as she was starting middle school! Alyssa and Brosia were excited to be in the same 4th grade class, and Bella was secretly ecstatic to be heading back to M.V. Since I had to be at work way before school starts, Kelly graciously did the honors of shuttling excited, nervous, chatty kids. Though I didn't actually drive Kenzie, I had my own little teary session in my car all by myself. Kelly told me later though, she shed a few too.. My baby is no longer in elementary school. I only had to go to one classroom for open house the evening before, and only got to help unpack one bag of school supplies :( Such a milestone... Still tough not to start blubbering so I'll post a few pictures instead! Even though the girls weren't totally ready to go when I had to leave, they humored me and grabbed their backpacks to "pretend" they were headed out the door; all though I hope Alyssa and Brosia's hair was dry by the time they left :)

It seems that every year, I impatiently wait all day long to find out how their day went and when I ask, I am rewarded with "Mmmm...good." That's it...that's all I get! This year however, all faces were plastered with smiles. Kenzie said that it wasn't nearly as bad as she thought it was going to be and the other girls all had fun too. All in all, they had a great day! A very good start to another year. Next year, Rylee will be joining them...I can certainly wait for that!

Summer Is Speeding By

Can't you just feel the peacefulness of this picture? This was taken in Vantage on our way home from eastern WA. I can picture gliding down the river on an innertube with some beer diet pepsi in a cooler next to me....

We have been decently busy this summer but in return, it has sped by so quickly! We have all ready gotten all of the girls school supplies and clothes. Rylee is soooo disappointed that she doesn't get to start school yet but she's been partially mollified by new shoes, new pants, and lots of school supplies. She is recognizing several letters all ready and almost all of her numbers. She was so proud of herself the other night when she read the word "so" all by herself. I'm very excited by how quickly she picks things up. She just can't understand why her friend McKenzie is 4 also but she gets to go to preschool this year. She says "It's just NOT fair!!!" Poor little thing, we'll just have to make sure to take lots of field trips. I'm in the mode of homeschooling but unfortunately have to continue working right now to afford our house payment, so we'll just stick to learning in the evenings. Hopefully one day soon it will happen!

We went to Walker Park a couple weeks ago and got a few cute pics:





Maybe she was too scared of a real one so she was pretending it was a starfish??


I also have a bunch of random pictures from places we went on day trips or just ones from prior times. I want to post them, but I don't have enough for individual posts....besides I'm just too darn lazy to do them all separately! So, I will just put them here.

A couple of Kenzie and I at the lake...



In Tacoma down by the water








Rylee and I looking at the fish in Capital Lake


And one of my favorites...

Just when they thought we weren't looking!!!

Loaded Weekend Part 2...

The second day of our mini-vacation was much more fun than the first. We woke up early, grabbed a bite to eat at the local Fred Meyer (everyone was pretty much sick of fast food all ready) and headed to Silverwood. The girls, of course, had no idea where we were going to spend the day because....I love surprises! Of all times to be doing road construction, Idaho picked the Saturday we were visiting. We sat in a long line of traffic for a good 40 minutes in the heat. When we finally arrived, we could hardly keep everyone buckled until we got into the parking lot. We unpacked our gear and began the long trek to the park. We had purchased our tickets at Costco the week before and saved ourselves almost $50, as opposed to buying them at the gate.

We arrived around 11:00 am and it was all ready well into the 80's so we slathered sunscreen on and decided to go to the water park first. We thought maybe we'd beat some of the crowd that waited until it was a little warmer. We did, but there were still plenty of people that obviously had the same idea as we did. The kids didn't seem to mind though and we spent a few hours playing in the water. There was even a bar with bar stools in the water serving fresh margaritas....wish I would have taken advantage of that! Oh well, my water tasted just fine...

Alyssa helping Colton...

Connor looking so cute...

Rylee went on the water slide all by herself...




Notice there are no pictures of McKenzie and Maddi....they were way too cool to hang out with the parents! Wherever we were, they were around the corner acting like they didn't know us..lol. Ahhhh...to be young and popular again.

We soon felt the beginnings of hunger pains and found a quaint little eatery called Cowboy BBQ to rest our all ready weary bones (well the parents anyway). Everyone was mostly thirsty but of course refills were NOT free. They even had a guy sitting right next to the soda fountain watching everyone and charging. Geez!! Toward the end of the day, we finally got smart and got a refillable sports bottle. Talk about getting it's use!

Since it was such a nice warm day, the water rides and roller coasters had the longest lines. When we asked Rylee which ride she HAD to go on, she said the ferris wheel. Oh my gosh....I don't think I've ever waited so long for a ride! We stood in line for almost an hour with only 10 people in front of us! I would have walked away but she was so excited that I just couldn't break her heart. When we finally got our turn, she had her hands in the air and giggled uncontrollably...priceless!






And then, at the most in-opportune time, stuck at the very top....she had to pee. And it wasn't just a little bit...she had to go right now!! She started bouncing and whimpering...what do you do?? My first thought was to let her just pee her pants because she had waited so long for this ride and now it was being ruined..and then I came to my mommy senses and looked below us. That would not work. There were many people underneath us..can you imagine getting peed on from 100 feet up in the air?? LOL!! I did consider it though.. Anyway, she somehow managed to hold it until we reached the ground thank goodness. After a very fast run to the bathroom, we were off to the other rides.

Mike looks a little apprehensive!





Yeah, that's Alyssa, McKenzie, and Maddie in the hot pink, white, and purple shirts...SICK!!!



Kenzie & Maddi are directly in the center section, front seat...We were laying underneath them in the grass and they came swooping by upside down and Mike was able to snap it right at the perfect time!

Alyssa riding the bumper cars (it's a little dark in there)

Here are a few of our relaxing times between the rides:

Rylee didn't want to let Garfield go! She said his belly was buzzing...lol

We didn't end up leaving until almost 10:00 that night and boy were we pooped! I think two out of the three kids were asleep before we even left the parking lot. So much fun, but so much packed into 11 hours! Well worth it though....