summer round-up: july

More on our awesome summer. July was a busy, exciting month. These events are in no particular order, because I loaded all the photos and don't want to rearrange them :-)

Friends Camping!

I have an awesome group of mommy friends. We have so much in common and click so well. I love that last year we planned a family camping trip and it was survivable (the company was great, but camping itself wasn't as exciting), but we wanted to try again. I will say this year's adventure was a bazillion times more enjoyable than last year's cold-weather-Pacific-Ocean adventure. This time we went to Lincoln Rock State Park in East Wenatchee (Eastern Washington), and it was hot and wonderful.

We went the week after there was a HUGE fire in Eastern Washington, and in fact the road we took to get there was closed for a section. Luckily, we could still get there and it wasn't too much of a detour, and there was no smoke or ashes or anything. It was perfect weather, clear air, sunshine and warmth. Golly, I loved it.

Cute Laurel watching Dad Tim make a fire...

Some of the beach access. This was just a little sand pocket for play...

We did most of our swimming at this water inlet. My only complaint is that there was no SAND. It was a cement step amphitheater, and then rocks and water.

Shane is really good at building fires, too. My friend Vicki considers herself a fire snob and she was impressed.

I have no idea what this game is called. But the kids like throwing things at each other.

 

Here's our awesome group. Six families of 12 adults, 11 children, and countless laughs. Some great memories include:

• stopping in Leavenworth on the way for this HUGE wonderful German pretzels
• listening to my kids giggle as the jumped from air mattress to air mattres
• helping the kids play a thrilling game of Uno, with more than one deck (we came home with cards that weren't ours... we did return them eventually ;-)
• gathering by lantern-light to play games after the kids went to bed (I brought Boggle and had LOTS of fun)
• star gazing in the amphitheater
• playing several wonderful games of tennis (YAY!!)
• having a glo-stick explode on Wesley in our tent
• reading a magazine while the kids played in the water for hours.... it was hard to tear Wesley away
• enjoying not only s'mores but also the roasted Starbursts delicacy... I was the hero because I happened to have a bag of Starbursts in my diaper bag
• having endless wonderful conversations with these great people
• stuffing our car full afterwards and making it home in one piece!

I had a great time. I'm already excited for next year, although we haven't selected a place yet. Since the kids don't nap and we don't really sleep all that well, it's a debate if we should do it for more days or just let the weekend be the main event. Camping is a lot of prep work but lots of fun. 

Imagine Children's Museum

We've been to the museum before but since we're not members now we don't go very often. Wesley's favorite part was the TRAFFIC LIGHT in the entryway. He went back to it a dozen times while we were there.

Of course there were some other fun things, like the play airplane, the outdoor area, the black-lit room, the camping exhibit (really fun since we were headed out camping!), etc. It's always a good trip.

Cub Scouts Pack Meeting at Mukilteo Beach

Something I look forward to every summer is the Cub Scout pack's annual summer party at Mukilteo Beach, where we get a firepit and have dinner. You might be thinking, Cub Scouts? But yes, for my calling I am a commissioner for two packs in our stake, and they happen to be the packs for my ward and our neighboring ward :-) So my kids and I know most of the families and people, so it's just a fun summer party.

Since I'm at home with my kids, I can go to the beach early and stake out a firepit for the pack. I got there this year at 2:30! The pack meeting wasn't until 6! We had LOTS of time to play. My kids had a blast.

When the party finally started we already had hours of summer sun under our belt, complete with water wading and little crab catching. We had hot dogs and s'mores, plus a small Cub Scout meeting. There was just lots of running around and laughing and playing. We stayed out late and we were SUCH a mess.

If how messy you are is directly proportional to how much fun you are having... well, I'll just let you be the judge of how fun it was...

Actually, the fun doesn't stop there. This happened on July 1, and I mentioned in my June recap that we had camped the last weekend in June and our tent was all wet. We had set it up in the backyard to air out, and I thought it would be fun to blow up the air mattresses and sleep in the backyard. The kids got their baths, then we got on comfy pajamas and went outside with our air mattresses, sleeping bags, and pillows. Laurel and I slept on the queen air mattress and Wesley had his twin. Shane actually thought I was crazy; he said something like "good luck! I give you an hour!" on my way out the back door.

Yes, the kids were wound up; yes, we stayed up until 11:30. Laurel and I had a blast; we got into a tickle fight and Wesley had to tell us to be quiet. When we settled down, she was being sweet and cuddly, and I got my smartphone out and we were watching famous movie proposal scenes and she was stroking my forehead as we both fell asleep. It was absolutely perfect.

As I lay there, listening to my kids breathe, seeing their happy faces, and feeling the marvelous summer weather, and I was just overwhelmed with emotion. I thought to myself, "this is one of the best days of my life." I just loved our perfect summer day.

Independence Day

We have a good time on July 4 around here.

It started with us doing our United States puzzle... which we LOVE... the kids do all the time ;-)

Then of course we had a BBQ, with pasta salad, hot dogs, chips... etc....

S'mores over the "fire"...

THEN in Gottula tradition (two years running), we booked a hotel somewhere close but not at home to escape the onslaught of fireworks. My kids don't like fireworks. Wesley cries, then Laurel cries. Our house shakes on July 4. It kinda sucks when you just want everyone to get some sleep.

So. This year's hotel was near the Alderwood Mall. It was a SUITE, which was super cool.... A front room with a sitting area, big TV, and kitchen...

And the back room with the two queen beds.

Of course there was also an indoor pool, which we swam in on July 4th and again on the 5th before we checked out. It had a WATERSLIDE which was cool. Shane and I went down a couple times; it was much too fast and big for the kids. But they loved swimming around. Laurel has a puddle jumper life preserver and she can book it in that thing, and Wesley has an inflatable ring and he can be pretty independent, too.

For dinner we went to Red Robin, which was AWESOME since NO ONE was there. Who would have guessed you'd have no wait and stellar service on a Friday night? Not busy at all. Haha.

When we tried to go to bed we could hear the fireworks. They were much closer than last year when we stayed in Mukilteo near Paine Field. The kids wouldn't settle down, so we ended up watching them from out of our window. It was pretty perfect since we were three stories up! We saw quite the show. I tried to drive home to the kids that fireworks weren't "scary," they're just loud. We'll see if it worked. They were pretty wound up, and Shane wasn't as thrilled at their level of excitement. He has roundabout said we won't be doing this next year... hmm.

Happy 4th :-)

Forest Park Play Area

Swim lessons was at Forest Park, so here are just some great pictures of them playing after lessons one day. They're cute little people.

Instrument Petting Zoo

The Mukilteo Community Center hosted an "instrument petting zoo" this year which was really cool. Wesley was into it more than Laurel was; she was afraid to do everything and acted pretty shy, but Wesley jumped right in. They cleaned all the instruments in between the kids trying them out, and the volunteers were so good with the kids.

Wesley loved the trumpet.

And the violin! Look at his concentration!

The recorder...

The piano. That was just a mess but whatever :-)

It was a cool little free activity. I was super impressed. I'm grateful our community does cool things like this. It's just important to put them on the calendar so you go!

Picnic at the Temple

Another summer tradition I really love is our annual picnic at the temple, followed by a nice walk around the grounds. This year we went with two friends and their brood of kids... they had 11 between the two of them so it was a busy group :-)

These pictures are all just so fantastic. I love them all.

Here's a lot of the group... 7 pictured! There were 6 more!

I love doing this with my kids. I hope we can keep it up.

Jetty Island

Of course the last summer staple is Jetty Island. It's a man-made island that you take a little foot ferry over to. We LOVE it. The water is warm and shallow. You can almost always see your kids. You bring food and sand toys and stay all day. This year I went with a different group of friends, celebrating one of their son's birthdays, and it was just a blast to catch up with these girls I knew when I lived in Seattle. It was a perfect day! We had a terrific time, as always.

Afterwards I was feeling happy and took the kids out to frozen yogurt. Wesley got ahold of my phone and took his first selfie!! (There's a shadow on his face, not sure how that happened. My dad was worried, haha.)

As you can see, July did not disappoint!!! On to August...

the bathing suit

In my house growing up, when we were done with clothes, or anything for that matter, they went in the attic -- not to Goodwill or a swap meet or DI. The attic was out of sight, out of mind. I suppose in reality that's a bad thing (as in Mom is making a goal to clean out the attic in the next year -- very daunting!), but in some respects it's a good thing. Lots of my childhood has been preserved. Every once in awhile when I'm home I'll go through boxes of baby clothes to find things that might be usable. I've taken plenty of shirts and pants for Wesley, and sometimes I stumble upon cute things for Laurel. Plus, I've brought home lots of my toys and things from my kid years, which I'm thrilled to have. (An electronic keyboard! A globe -- which survived the cross-country trip in the suitcase! Legos! Barbies! My Little Ponies! And MORE!)

Today's case study is this adorable swim suit. These pictures are from LAST year, Summer 2013. I suppose I should be all shy about bathing suit photos of myself, but whatever, I don't care. For your enjoyment...

 

  

And then, when I was home in Maryland, I found and scanned this. Circa 1981?

How amazing. Mom, I'm glad you kept some stuff. I'm rethinking my urgency to get rid of everything kid-related. My friend Janet says she bought a big bin, and each kid gets exactly one bin full of stuff (clothes, toys), etc., to take when they get older -- mementos of childhood. I like that idea. I mourn all the baby clothes that have already been given away.

My Laurel looks like me! So bald!

too cute for words

Since I'm evidently in the mood to blog, here are some uhhh-dorable pictures for your Sunday.

My frog and my bumblebee.

The kids are excited it's starting to rain again after having a summer umbrella hiatus.

summer roundup: june

I've had a lot going on. This summer was insane, in good and bad ways. You'll see. Let's start this catch-up blog run with several editions of summer fun, starting with JUNE.

On May 27, Shane left for a business trip to California, he was gone for 16 days!! CRAZY! We've never been away from each other that long, and he'd never been away from the kids that long. We did all survive :-)

Mom & Dad Visit!

My folks had been toying with the idea of coming to visit since November... my dad is an electrician and my brother has put him to work in all of his places of residence, so frankly it was my turn to get good use out of my dad's mad skills. Ceiling fans, new porchlights, etc. I was itching for them to visit. I hadn't seen my parents since February 2013 when I went out to Maryland and Ohio and visited Grandpa Twining on his 86th birthday. So, longer story shorter, with Shane being gone they made plans to come visit, both to help me out with the kids and to help out around the house :-)

My folks and my teen-age cousin Rhys (who was staying with them for part of the summer) got here June 11. Funny enough, not planned but alas it happened this way, Shane came home on June 12. The last day of school was June 13. 

Prep work for the folks coming was me going to Home Depot and Lowe's, taking pictures of stuff I liked and asking Dad what to get. I made a spreadsheet of projects and emailed it to him, we talked back and forth. When he got here, we all went to Home Depot the first night and spent waaaay too much money on all sorts of stuff. His credit card got us a nice discount :-) 

Over the next couple days he really worked his tail off! Here's a short list...

• Ceiling fans for all four bedrooms
• New ground fault plugs -- with nightlights -- in both upstairs bathrooms
• Created actual lights in my bedroom (not a switch to a plug -- bleh!), including dimmable recessed lights
• Added a dimmer to my bathroom
• New light in my pantry
• New light in my laundry room (awesome!
• New light in my garage
• Replaced the outdoor light fixtures, adding motion sensors
• Added a plug on our kitchen island
• Added this cool plug on the kitchen counter that has USB slots for cell phones!
• NEW (dimmable) LIGHTS in the family room!!! (not a switch to plug -- bleh!)

Basically, he did a ton of stuff and it's AWESOME. Thanks, Dad. Of course, I made sure everyone was well fed :-) We had an afternoon out at Z's Burger in Mukilteo, which we love, and I made lots of home cooked meals. 

Laurel's half birthday was June 12 and we got to celebrate with Grandma and Grandpa :-)

We also got to spend Father's Day with both Shane and my dad which was so special. I made them both candy grams! Plus we gave them gifts. I gave Dad a Seattle pocket calendar, which now is a little sad, sigh.

When all the hard work was done, on Monday the 16th, we took our big touristy trip to Seattle.

We did the Great Wheel... which was so fun...

Laurel likes to say "selfie!"

We did Pike Place Market and got some treats there, big cookies and such :-) To save for later.

We had lunch at the Space Needle... we're lucky we got in because we neglected to make a reservation but I had the hunch to call that morning. Whew. They got us in right before they transitioned to dinner, a 3:45 PM lunch.

One waitress accidentally spilled a glass of water down Mom's back. She was surprised and probably cold but it wasn't that huge of a deal... they gave us a free dessert though :-) It was just vanilla ice cream with some caramel sauce and wafers, but the dry ice effect was the main attraction. A lucky ending to an unlucky incident!

Of course with the SkyCity reservations you can go up top and hang out for as long as you'd like. We went around a couple times. Wesley was in heaven. We LOVE the Space Needle in our house.

We let the kids run off even more steam on the ground.

Laurel was happy to show Grandma her awesome Space Needle lollipop.

I caved and let them open their lollipops, but someone fell asleep in the car, practically mid lick. Her carseat was pretty sticky for awhile.

I said goodbye to them the next day, Tuesday morning. It would be the last time I'd get to hug my dad. I guess I'll talk more about that when we get to our August installment. I'm really glad they came to visit. I love my parents. I loved staying up way late talking to my dad about life. He is such a night owl and a chatterbox. 

Strawberries! and Cherries!

Ahh summer, the time for fresh produce. I got my garden going back in April or March, and things were going OK. I will admit I was very discouraged at first.... let's see, the first strike were the moles. My planter box that Shane made me last year had cardboard underneath it, but this year the cardboard has disintegrated so it's open to the elements. We've had some moles in our yard, and one of them went through my garden and ate all the radishes I planted. I was mad. Shane loved radishes, and they're so easy to plant in mild, early summer weather. Alas, we had none. Even after replanting, none. The second strike was cutworm, which cut down my replanted radishes and something like two zucchini plants from seed. I was in a bad mood that day. The third strike were slugs, which murdered one of my pumpkin plants. Sooo we had a mole stick (which has only somewhat worked), diatomaceous earth, and Sluggo to the rescue. I wasn't even bothered at all by the tent caterpillars. At one point I went around the neighborhood cutting them off trees and bagging them for trash, but I kinda lost my gusto when I read an article saying your trees will most likely survive the season. I guess it's all part of Mother Nature doing her thing. 

Well...

Our cherry tree had MASSIVE amounts of cherries. I hung old CDs from yarn to scare away the crows (strike four?). I picked a bunch, washed them, pitted them, and made cherry pie filling. It was lovely. 

Unfortunately, my cherry tale has a sad ending, because at one point as I was pitting a whole bunch at once to freeze or something, I noticed some tiny white worms :-(  I was just crestfallen. I took a sample to the Washington State University extension, which is an AWESOME place that has helped me a zillion times in the past, and they identified the bugger as a spotted wing drosphilia larvae. It's basically a fly, some type of fly that lays its eggs in soft-skinned fruits, like cherries, plums, strawberries, raspberries. The only way to fix it is to spray :-(  I don't know what to do, and I don't know if it's worth it to spray or what. I was just so sad. I went on a ladder and picked the rest of the cherries and threw them away. 

Fortunately, the ladies at WSU told me that the little worms aren't BAD for you, like if you eat maggots or something you'll get sick, but these things are no big deal. If I managed to cook any with my filling it's not a huge problem so I shouldn't be worried about health issues. A friend of mine even picked a bunch of my cherries and said she didn't care and she froze the cherries anyway. What a good friend. I'm just kinda mad at Mother Earth and her pests this season. It's been tough. 

I DID get to take the kids strawberry picking. One Monday in June after swim lessons we drove all the way up to Monroe to go to this organic place, but when I got there it was closed. I was so upset. I think I cried. We drove all the way up there, I'd have no other chance because of our schedule, etc., bleh. I was sad. I sat on my phone and called a couple other places with no luck. I was on my way home when BOOM, there were signs, "U-Pick Strawberries, next right," or whatever. I followed the signs and found this fantastic little off-the-beaten-path place with strawberries and ripe raspberries. It was wonderful!!!!  We were the only ones there for some time! I turned music on my phone and the kids ate berries as I picked. I had enough to make several pints of strawberry jam (which is FANTASTIC!!) and some freezer raspberry-mango jam. Plus, I pureed most of the strawberries and put them into ice cube trays so I can put them in smoothies and recipes later. It was great. I had wanted to go so I was pretty happy about it. 

Activity Day Girls Camp!

Once again this year I helped at Activity Day Girls Camp. This year I was in charge of random things... like the icebreaker games and the flag ceremony. The theme was "Be Loyal to the Royal Within," and all the groups of girls were names of gems, like white diamonds, red rubies, green emeralds, etc. It was set up so well; my friend Traci basically planned it all and she's a rockstar. 

I didn't help in the nursery this year like I did last year... that was a relief for me, but I also saw how the nursery folks struggled. It's a tough job. I helped in the sewing room which was SO FUN. There were something like 20 sewing machines and a woman and girl at each machine. The girls are just so sweet and good natured. One girl, for example, her kit for her bag was missing a piece of fabric so she needed to find another piece to match the handbag she was making. The fabric left was slim pickings... if it was me, I would have probably cried and been really upset. But she found something she liked and she sewed it up, and she never complained or even looked upset, even though her bag wasn't as uniform as it could have been. She rolled with the punches and it was no big deal. What a sweet thing! She was a good example to me. Other girls were just so excited when their pillowcases came together or their pocket sewed on right. Their eyes and smiles lit the room. I hope they had fun, because I certainly did. After swim lessons one day a week or so later we were at the park and a girl came up to me who remembered me from camp! She gave me a big hug! How adorable is that? She didn't know my name, I'm not sure I knew hers, but she recognized me and knew we shared this super fun summer experience.

Stake Campout

Our first family camping experience of the summer was at Cascade Park with the Stake. The kids had fun. They LOVE camping. There was a river we could walk to and throw rocks in. There was a play area with huge swings and a seesaw. They loved running around with their flashlights, and of course, roasting marshmallows. I stayed up after they went to bed and played Boggle and Set with some people -- my go-to camping games at the moment. 

The tent was soaked after the night-time rain. We ended up setting it up in the backyard to air out when we got home. Then we could camp in it again :-) More on that in my July installment, hehe. 

Fun Outside!

And lastly, stuff like this happened in June. Summer was off to a good start.

annual birthday quiz

I've neglected the blog, which is a bummer since I've got plenty of time since I'm trying to take a Facebook "break." I say "break" because it's easier said than done, although I am working really hard cleaning my house and playing with my kids and FINISHING projects. I need to do my annual Wesley status report, which I'll add to the list of things to do. For now, please enjoy our annual child interview... this was awesome fun. I love this kid.

1. What is your favorite color? My favorite color is green and blue and purple.

2. What is your favorite toy? Big Airplane and Dusty Crophopper and the pedometers.
3. What is your favorite fruit? Blueberries that are not frozen.

4. What is your favorite tv show? Frozen movie
5. What is your favorite thing to eat for lunch? nachos
6. What is your favorite outfit? Mike Wozaski shirt

7. What is your favorite game? Uno because it has numbers on it.
8. What is your favorite snack? Granola bars
9. What is your favorite animal? Cat because it says MEOW!

10. What is your favorite song?  Bon Jovi, I have more than one.

11. What is your favorite book? Cat in the Hat
12. Who is your best friend? Big Airplane. Or Brenna.
13. What is your favorite cereal? Lucky Charms.
14. What is your favorite thing to do outside? Swing.
15. What is your favorite drink? Chocolate milk.
16. What is your favorite holiday? Days off from school.
17. What do you like to take to bed with you at night? Big Airplane and Dusty Crophopper and I wish I could make a Skipper.
18. What is your favorite thing to eat for breakfast? Chocolate oatmeal from the oven.

19. What do you want for dinner on your birthday? Pizza and breadsticks.
20. What do you want to be when you grow up? a daddy

Mom, next I want you to ask me what my favorite puzzle is:

21. What is your favorite puzzle? The United States puzzle.

little spiritual journeys

Two cute anecdotes....

Wesley and Laurel got umbrellas in their Easter baskets. They're crazy cute, Laurel's has eyes that pop up on the top and it's a frog, and Wesley's has antenna and it's a bumblebee. Anyway, it's been a gorgeous week, like in the 80s even, just INSANE for Seattle. Anyway it was maybe Thursday and Wesley wanted to play with his umbrella, but I'm kinda against them just playing with them because they're pretty rough with their things... I suppose I should lighten up. Anyway, I told him it would need to rain and maybe he needed to ask Heavenly Father to make it rain. In our family prayer that night he asked Heavenly Father for rain. I thought he was crazy, and there would be no way it would rain. The next morning and all day was sunny sunny sunny, but at one point Friday afternoon, maybe 5 PM or so, there was a FREAK sprinkling. I looked up and couldn't even tell where the rain came from -- I barely saw any clouds up there. But it was totally raining. I said, "Wesley! Heavenly Father answered your prayer!!" It was so sweet. 

It was a short little rain, so he prayed again Friday night for more rain. And Saturday and Sunday, all day, it's been raining raining raining. Maybe if I had read the weather report I'd have known it was going to rain, but I didn't. It was pretty amazing, to me. 

At Church today I encouraged him to tell his primary teacher that Heavenly Father answered his prayer, and of course since we've been saying it around Laurel she told like everyone she saw today that Heavenly Father answered Wesley's prayer because it rained. 

Of course, have they gone out with their umbrellas to play? No... but I suppose that's beside the point. I will get a picture soon enough of those adorable umbrellas!

And then the second story, since Laurel is just ah-mazing, one of the nursery workers stopped me in the hallway at Church today and said when she was starting her lesson in nursery, she held up a picture of the First Vision, and Laurel jumps out of her chair and walks right up to her and said, "Joseph Smith saw Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ!" 

I'm like, whaaaaat? She said WHAT? And the nursery worker was like, YES. SHE SAID THAT.

I can't even believe it. We haven't even talked about the First Vision recently. Like how amazing that she would know! Laurel is a sponge. 

I've decided I need a Pinterest board or something of faith-based parenting quotes or something to keep me going when things get tough. And boy they can get tough. I do love them though. They'll only be this small for such a small stretch of time. 

I'll cherish these little memories.