Summer's End...School is Coming

Today was the meet and greet for the kids at school. Destina loves her teacher and most of her friends are in her class, she is very excited for school to start. Avrie has another week and has been counting down the Friday's until school starts for her. She has another assessment next week, hopefully she will do as good as she did in the spring because I have not really been working with her too much this summer. She met both kindergarten teachers and either one will be great.
We decided last week to put Jayden back in regular school, right now there is just too much going on around here, with me working and Scott not able to help out as much at home, so he is going back to school. Hopefully he will do what he needs to do to be successful. Ryan starts high school, he is really excited, he has been working and staying busy with friends all summer. Kelsie is going to be doing running start, going to the community college instead of high school, she hopefully gets her drivers license in 12 days and that will be a great help to me, can't wait!
Katie is just finishing up her Summer Semester at BYU-Hawaii, she has had a lot of fun, has met some great friends and has had to say goodbye to some of those great friends as well. She took a pretty hard fall on her long board a week or so ago and the picture of her elbow was pretty bad and she said her hand was worse. She left her bedroom window open the other day and it started raining really hard and when she came home soaking wet she found her computer charger sitting in a puddle fried, and had no way to charge her computer during finals week. So we sent a new one with her friend that flew out today to visit her for the next 10 days. I think they will be having some fun.

 She has been taking gymnastics and loving it! Maybe there is an inner cheerleader in there as well, we will see! And of course we had to have a"hair" day! I decided to do box braids in Destina's hair it turned out really cute but I remember why I haven't done them in a while it took forever!  Almost 6 hours. Destina sat and braided Avrie's hair for me while I was doing her hair and then helped me put in about half of her hair as well so that was helpful but that was a long painful day! Hopefully they will stay in good for a long time.

Loving the Sun!

We have had some pretty great sunny days, except last Thursday when I was working and we were at the park and it started to rain, so we went under the covered shelter hoping it would stop. This was a small neighborhood park, so the covered area was not that big just 2 tables long. We were doing ok until a couple of really sketchy people came under the cover as well. I along with the parent that I was with tried our best to keep the child distracted hoping these people would just move along. Apparently they did not care that there was a small child around while they started shooting up and drinking, (I was not looking at them trying to distract small child) when the switch blade came out a few minutes later it was time to end the visit. All this took place in about 10 minutes. It was sad that people will be so blatant to do that in front of people let alone a small child. I would have called the police right there but my job was to make sure the child I was watching was safe and I just got her out of there.  I have been to this park every week all summer and this was the first time something like that happened.
Anyway, the rest of the week was sunny and nice and today we decided to head to the farmer's market for shaved ice and just to be out enjoying the sun. Then we headed over to a different park and took some pictures! For me there is almost nothing better than to sit outside on the deck soaking up the sun and reading a book! Only one more week of summer and the kids will be back to school not sure if the sun will hold out but we are enjoying it while it lasts!

 

I love how the green shirt brings out the green in her hazel eyes!

I love this picture Kelsie has always wanted to have a little sister and now she has 2 of  them. She has been my number one babysitter this summer and I am so thankful that she does a great job with them every day. The little girls love all of their big sisters but they will have spent the most time with Kelsie and they both really love spending time with her.

Someone was being a stinker and would not cooperate so she was not in very many pictures. It was a perfect day to be out at the park.

Sad to See You Go...

Scott's brother and family moved Saturday.  It was sad to see them go, It has been fun having family close by. They are off to Annapolis, Maryland, where they will spend the next couple of years and hopefully be back. The girls are going to miss their cousin they have had a lot of fun together.

Before they left we took Jennifer up to the mountain last Thursday to  have some fun in the snow, yep we went sledding!

 It is breathtaking at the top of the mountain, we were really excited to make this day trip it has been a long time since we have been up here in the summer and the girls have never been up here so they were pretty awed to be at the top of the world.

We came somewhat prepared we had gloves and sleds, Ryan was smart and wore his swim trunks the rest of the kids just got wet. It was almost 80 degrees outside and I came home with a sunburn. It was actually hot standing in the snow. Ryan was the first to go...

Then Destina wanted to go next, she couldn't wait to get on the sled.

They got going pretty fast the snow was really wet and slippery.

Then Jennifer wanted to go. She was a little afraid the first run and a little disgusted that she got wet and fell off the sled but she went back for more and they could not get enough.
I love her facial expressions, she really did have fun but you wouldn't know it by how she looked.

 

Jayden even had a great time, he is usually the one to want to stay home and then when he does come he usually mopes around like he is being tortured, but this time he was having a blast.  Come it think of it he was getting tortured he was the target practice for the snowball fights he would use the sled as a shield, Ryan was torturing everyone I took a snowball to the arm and Kelsie took one on cheek it was Ryan against the rest of us.

Avrie wanted to go but she is not quite as brave as everyone else and so she went down with Ryan the first time and then she too could not get enough and wanted to keep going down by herself.

She was screaming the whole way down every time.

Here is a couple more of Jennifer and her awesome facial expressions!

Avris is so proud that she made it down all by herself!

It was such a fun day they spent at least 2 hours sledding and I had to drag them back to the car they were all soaked but they didn't care. 

That night McKenzie wanted us to bring dinner to the Marina she and Tim were working on painting a boat and were hungry so we loaded up our gang and got some pizza and ate dinner on the bay. Avrie wanted to go swimming so for the second time in one day she was soaking wet. It was fun to be sledding in the afternoon and swimming in the bay in the evening. One more reason I love Bellingham!

Our Summer Daycations!

A couple of weeks ago the weather was hot and everyone had a day off so we loaded up the canoe and headed to our favorite summer spot Cranberry Lake. When we arrived the lake was closed probably some nasty bacteria or something so we spend the day on the ocean side. It was a little crowded but we had plenty of room. I packed an icky picnic, the hoagie buns I pulled out of my freezer tasted like freezer burn but we had some grapes and other goodies and we managed not to starve.

Everyone had a turn in the canoe the water was calm and we were able to paddle right up to some sea otters that were hanging out.

Yep that is me and McKenzie out on the canoe, I asked Kelsie to take a picture and she waited a little too long. It was really fun out there exploring and chasing the sea otters.

Destina and Avire had fun making sand castles and looking for shells.

I love the islands on a beautiful clear day there is not a better place to be!

Even Avrie was able to go out on the canoe with Ryan and Tim.

McKenzie and I both came home with sunburns but it was so nice to be outside enjoying the great weather!

Our Last Hurrah

Saturday afternoon we met up with our Haitian adoption friends, it was fun to get the kids together although it was funny to see the boys stay away from the girls, maybe in a few years things will change but for now they wanted to hang out with their buddies.

JT was happy to see his old buddy Fabrice, and his little brother Yonalson, they look so cute and so grown up and handsome.

If these two lived next door to each other there would be double trouble. They are so cute together it always takes them a few minutes to warm up but they are best buddies in not time. They are only 5 months apart. They both will be starting kindergarten in the Fall and they are both as smart as can be.  

 Here is everyone that could make it. It was getting time to go and we wanted to get the group together for a group shot, you can see how excited they are about that!  We could not find Destina and Delanie anywhere, I mean they are not that hard to spot, although there was another big group of African American's not too far from us at the park but we checked their group and they were not hiding out with them, we checked the spray park and the playground no sign of the girls. So Scott went off walking out towards the car and about halfway between us and the car there was Destina sitting with a totally random family holding their week old baby and feeding her a bottle. When Scott came back with her she said, "Oh mom they had a cute new baby and I wanted to hold it so bad so I asked them and they let me hold her." I started to get after her about how we just don't walk up to complete strangers and ask to hold their new baby and she blurted out, "but then after I held her daddy wanted to hold her too!" 

It was fun I love hanging out with my Haiti friends and it is nice not to have to go to Haiti to do it! (Although I love Haiti too!)

After the party in the park...we headed off to our dear old friends house for dessert. She is the same sweet person that ironed a million table cloths with me for the wedding. She made us homemade hot fudge over ice cream. We had a great visit with them and got home late of course. The next morning bright and early we headed home. The trip home was uneventful, we just wanted to get home. All 3 of the little kids slept for at least 5 hours in the car they were so worn out by the busy week but they had so much fun!  Thank you for letting us stay at your beautiful house once again Julie, and laya thanks for giving up your comfy bed!  Thank you Sheree for taking the week off to hang out with us, and for the whole car thing way above and beyond! Lisa I love your kids you need to come up here more often!! It really was just what I needed to spend a week with my family...love you guys!! 

And...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LISA!!!!

Road Trip #5

This is getting long but lucky I am on the last day of our road trip, but I think this will be done in 2 different posts.
On Saturday morning our last day of vacation we loaded up and decided to spend the morning at the Farmer's Market. On the way I decided to stop by my mom's grave site, it has been awhile and Destina wanted to see where her other grandma was buried. They are still trying to figure out that whole concept Destina's got it but Avrie always asks questions about dead people and dying every time we drive by our local cemetery. My mom is buried in a beautiful spot about a half mile (as the crow flies) from our old house.

 My dad is buried right next to my mom as well. Next month it will be 9 years since she passed away, that seems like a long time, but in a way feels like yesterday.  We only stayed for a few minutes cleaned away some weeds and then we were off to the Farmer's Market.

It was hot that day and the lemonade stand was pretty popular. It was crowded and there were a lot of things to see the big buy of the day was headbands for the girls.

And finding the human society kittens that were up for adoption fun to hold but they did not go home with any of us.

The girls had fun walking around and "shopping" we also hit a couple of fun shops along 25th St.

These two were not very noticeable walking down the street...they were quite the pair with the wild hair and horrible sun glasses, we never lost them in the crowd.

 Avrie and Nalaya hung out every day they got along great!

Both girls love their cousins it is fun to have a group of girls to have fun with and hang out with, we almost took this cousin home with us...next time BreeAnn pack your bags!