June 2014 Update

NATHAN'S PRESCHOOL GRADUATION

In addition to finishing preschool, Nathan also finished his 100 Easy Lessons book.  We are really proud of him.  He chose to take our whole family out to Chico's Tacos as a reward for finishing the whole book.

Swimming at Nathan's friends' house.

MADDY FINISHES KINDERGARTEN

Maddy with her teacher Mrs. Beach.

Good-bye on the last day of school.

Maddy with her friend Kaya.

FATHER'S DAY

Jared told us he wanted waffles for his father's day breakfast.  The kids went out and picked delicious blueberries and raspberries to go with the waffles.  We are grateful for Jared and what a good father he is.

PAINT ME POTTERY

I promised the girls I'd take them to Paint me Pottery after they read all their Magic Tree House books.

Maddy chose a kitty that she painted purple.  Abby painted a plate pink with flowers.

SWIM LESSONS

The kids were excited to start swim lessons.  Here is Maddy going off the diving board on her last day.

Abby jumping off the low-dive.

Nathan was even brave enough to do it with a little help from his teacher.

Nathan had fun wearing a life jacket and playing with his class on the last day.

May 2014 Update

One day I noticed Nathan running around the backyard with 3 soccer balls set up in a row and he was running around with his bat between his legs.  When I asked him what he was doing he informed me he was playing quidditch.

When the girls heard, they had to join in as well.

Maddy had a nice Mother's Tea and program at her school for mother's day.

Jared with his cute kids on his birthday.

The kids gave him The Hobbit and I gave him a book with a collection of stories by Mark Twain.

While Jared was in Boston, the kids and I had a fun Memorial Day picnic.

I had the white board set up for teaching Preschool at our house. Maddy decided to draw pictures and write about Kittys.

At the end of the month Jared and I dropped the kids off with their cousins in Boise while we flew down to Texas to check things out there.    They had a blast and we had a nice Sunday dinner with everyone before we headed back up to Washington.

Olympic National Park

Since we are moving soon, we decided to check out some of the beautiful places in Washington before we have to leave it.  Here we are at Lake Crescent at Olympic National Park with my parents.

The girls!

On the road we received the results of my pregnancy testing--including the fact that I am expecting a girl.  Nathan took the news really hard.  He was really hoping for another brother to share his room with.

We spent some time at beautiful Rialto Beach near LaPush.  The kids loved the gorgeous driftwood with all its fun shapes.

We had a gorgeous view!

The kids had fun building sand castles.

The sunset was quite amazing too.

We had a fabulous time exploring the Hoh Rainforest.

Look at all that moss!  Jared thought is looked a lot like the fire swamp in The Princess Bride.

The kids had fun exploring.

 Jared saw an otter here, but is swam away before he could get a good picture.

We spent our first night in Forks.  Luckily no vampires got us!  When the kids asked why it was called Forks I explained that forks grew out of the ground there.  They totally believed me.  It was hilarious.  (If you cannot tell in the picture, I'm holding plastic forks.)

The kids were excited to see some deer up close.

We spent one morning at an animal park in Sequim.  It was fun to drive around and see the animals and the kids enjoyed feeding them.

Bald Eagles even swooped down right in front of our car.

The peacocks were fun to watch strutting about.

The bears were by far the kids' favorite.  There were some swimming, sleeping, and rolling around in the grass.

This one got up on his hind legs and seemed to be signing "Please" to ask us for more bread.

The life of a bear.

The bison and yaks were fun except them they tried to stick their heads in our van windows to get more bread.

We took a beautiful hike out to Cape Flattery--the northwestern most part of the conterminous U.S.

Beautiful views!

Jared with the kids.

There were a lot of cool sea caves.

There was an island not too far out with a lighthouse and rock filled with sea lions.

Another pretty view.

We had fun hiking to the 90 foot high Marymere Falls.

It was fun to check out Port Townsend, Fort Worden, and the Point Wilson lighthouse.