Cousins come to WA!

On the last night of Bethany & Becca’s Summer Stock performance, the DeJong cousins arrived from CA! They made it in time to watch the performance and it was great fun to watch the boys watch the girls on stage. It was the beginning of a great few days! I apologize in advance for the sheer quantity of pictures here…it was all just such a riot, I couldn’t resist sharing lots of pictures.

Hey! That looks familiar! These two were matchy-matchy again just like a few weeks earlier when we went to their church in CA for niece K’s baptism!

Sunday afternoon fun on the slip & slide!

We spent a morning playing at the bay…and my bro and I had fun reminiscing our times there as children.

Boys are happiest when they are dirty.

My niece & I (with a little help from my dad) had a little photo shoot. She is so beautiful!

There’s a kids’ game called Fastrack which I had seen at a local toy store – it seemed pretty fun, but it was pretty expensive. Early this summer I found the game (brand new!) at the local thrift store for $1.99! I knew the boy cousins would think it was super fun. They did and my dad had the brilliant idea to build one with my oldest nephew. He was pretty proud of their final product and excited to take it home with him!

Being a kindergarten aide (& missing my job during the summer) gave me this crazy idea to paint a flag on the fourth of July. We wanted to do something fun together, but we didn’t want to drive to a parade or anything major – just good quality fun! I think this activity was a memorable winner!!

And there are way too many pictures of this activity, but it really was fun!

One of the things I do approximately 240 times every year in Kindergarten is paint handprints. Because of this expertise (& the fact that it was my idea) I was elected hand-painter.

Babies are harder, but we worked as a team and had great success. We elected for stripping the baby to her diaper over using a paint shirt…most anyone would.

We also went to the city party and played and waded in the creek. For a while, we were the only ones in the park and we played hide & seek in the huge play structures. It was such a riot – even the adults played and I would have been the last one found had my brother not betrayed me and given up my location to my dad…

Later we used the handprint flag (with pipe cleaner painted fireworks) as a backdrop for pictures, which worked great for one or two people…not so great for a larger group, as you will see. We didn’t care. It was a great memory!

That is the only picture in the history of our lives where my mom is the tallest one…

Cousin Dog Pile!

Niece K does not yet understand the joy of a cousin dog pile…we’ll give her a couple years.

Mostly because she’s so sweet!

Thanks for coming to visit! We love & miss you tons!