A new nephew!

Elias John was born on August 28 to my brother Randy and his wife, Jen! He was born on his grandpa's (my dad) 60th birthday! How cool is that?! He looks so sweet and wonderful. We got to see him (oh, and his parents too) today on the webcam, which was awesome. It'll be a long four months until we see them all at Christmas, but we are looking forward to that time together SO much! Congratulations Randy & Jen on your wonderful blessing from God. You'll be awesome parents and we can't wait to get to know little Elias.

The First Day of School!

This morning we began another year of learning and homework and schedules and making lunches and spelling tests and memory verses and show & tell and wonderful SCHOOL! The girls all love school and we are so thankful for their great attitudes and love of learning. We feel sorry for Elise who seems a little lost without her sisters. Hopefully she'll begin to appreciate her time alone with mommy eventually. View pictures of the students here.

Have a great year of learning to all of you who live according to the school-calendar like we do!

It's that time again!

Time to make another stepping stone! We make a stepping stone for each girl's birthday, with the last stone being made on their 5th birthday. Yes, we know, by the time Elise is 5, we'll have 20 stepping stones...we can multiply. Blame Papa. He started it. Anyhoo, we finally got around to making Elise's two-year-old stepping stone today and she was very cooperative! Here's hoping it dries well and doesn't crack so that we don't have to do it over!

Just in case you've never seen two dragonflies mating.....

...now you have...

Fun with far away friends!

Today we had fun with some friends who now live in Minnesota. Julie's friend Tami and her two kids, Levi & Tori, were home visiting Tami's family in Mount Vernon, so we made a trip down there for coffee and a playdate! It was so nice to chat with her for a while and the kids had a great time playing in Tami's sister's house and backyard.

After our playdate, we picked up Sarah who had spent the night at another friend's house in Mount Vernon, had lunch and drove a bit farther south to go to the outlet mall in Marysville. Unfortunately we didn't have much luck school shopping there and it was REALLY crowded, so we didn't stay long either. That was fine with the girls since they got to play outside with their neighbor friends after we got home. Thanks, Tami, Levi, & Tori for a great morning!

August Rain

We're having a wet week here in Western Washington. Today was pretty drizzly to start, but then it was dry for a while and the girls got to play outside with their friends. In the late afternoon a dark cloud moved over us and suddenly the skies opened up and we got dumped on! Click here to see more pictures of our August rains.

The Northwest Washington Fair!

Yesterday was the BIG DAY! We went to the fair, which is really a great fair, but SO DIFFERENT than the last time I went, which was probably at least 20 years ago. Vendors and more vendors and a separate kiddie carnival and more animal barns and more food and on and on...more, more, more!

We left right after lunch because Sarah & Bethany were singing their CMT songs on the KidZone stage at the fair. They did a super job! Then we spent the early afternoon viewing the animal barns with our friends, the Kooiman's. After that we headed to the exhibit buildings to see collections, photographs, booths, etc. Oh, and we had yummy milkshakes too.

We bought a few ride tickets (seems like we'll have to do the wristband thing in future years - they all wanted to ride the rides all day!) and then had a funnel cake while waiting for Ed to get there from work. He rode the bus to work yesterday and then to the fair. It's "Free Fare Week" for the transit in Whatcom County. He's actually considering riding the bus on a more regular basis, with gas prices and everything, but i t makes his day longer, so we'll have to see how that pans out once school starts.

After Ed arrived we saw the free horse show in the grandstands with friends from church. We then ate dinner together and did some more rides before heading for the van around 9:30 or so. It was a great day and we're all tired today. Thankfully we have nothing going on today, so we're just recovering and hanging out (& doing a few chores).

And because a post without pictures is boring, here's Ed & I at the fair:

If you want to see more pictures of our day at the fair, follow this link.

Happy Birthday, Bethany!

Monday was Bethany's 8th birthday! She already had her friends' party, as you know, so we celebrated on the actual day by doing some back-to-school shopping, hanging out, and having cake & presents after a dinner, which she chose. She wanted the famous yummy hashbrowns and ham, so everyone enjoyed that and her cake from Haggen was pretty good, too.

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Wow! She can't believe it! A microscope! Our Bethany loves to look at all things small and interesting, touching everything, wanting to know its name and how it works and anything else there is to know. We thought this microscope would be the perfect gift for her this year, and so far she loves it.

Here Ed is helping her learn how to use it and she is using the prepared slides. Soon she'll be making her own slides!

Camping 2008

We just returned yesterday from a great camping trip with our friends Greg & Beth and their daughters Kylie & Kera. We left Wednesday evening after swimming lessons and drove to a campground near Quincy, WA, arriving shortly before 11:00 p.m. It was hard to get to sleep that night as everyone was so excited, and everyone woke up early to start the fun day! We began with breakfast and swimming (in the campground's warm pool). After lunch and rest time we went to Wenatchee to a swimming hole on the Wenatchee river and spent the afternoon goofing around in the water there. We swam again after dinner at the campground. We also played some games during the day and evening hours and generally just relaxed. The second full day was also consumed with swimming, though the temperatures were not nearly as hot as the day before (it was 103 on Thursday!) We swam, played games, swam, ate, went to a waterslide park and swam, ate, played games, and swam some more. We swam again on Saturday morning before packing up to head for home! It was a great and relaxing vacation for all of us...except for me almost having a heart attack everytime Elise decided to cannonball into the pool, which she loves to do! I've created a web album of pictures, so enjoy those using this link!

Bethany's birthday party!

For Bethany's 8th birthday (which is coming up on August 11), I took her and 3 friends to see the American Girl movie "Kit Kittredge". It was a big surprise to all the girls, but a couple weeks before the date, our local theater stopped showing it! I was so bummed because I had been so excited about the surprise! Fortunately we found out that the movie was still going to be playing in Lynnwood (about 1.75 hours from our house) and so I took the girls on a big day out! Sarah came along as well and Elise & Becca stayed with my mom. It turned out to be a super-fun day! We had lunch on the way and then ice cream afterwards while Bethany opened her presents. The theater at the Alderwood Mall was HUGE, with escalators and stadium seating...it was worth the drive just to see the look on the girls' faces when they saw the beautiful theater. The drive home was rough because we had a fair amount of traffic and it was pouring down rain, but all I could think was that I was glad I hadn't gone with plan B, which was to take the girls to the waterslides!

Here are the girls in the theater.

Coming down the escalator after the movie.

They had no idea I was taking this picture. It was just so sweet to see them walking hand in hand through the parking garage!

We found a cute ice cream shop in Marysville to have ice cream and presents. They even let us go in their little party room!

2008 Logos Company Picnic

Today was the annual Logos picnic. We ended up with pretty nice weather, though with the rain this morning we were a bit worried. It was a really fun day. The lunch was catered by Dutch Mothers, and wasn't quite up to how I remembered the quality of Dutch Mothers food from when I worked there, but there was plenty of other good food around. We had umlimited free kettle corn, elephant ears, ice cream, espresso floats, snow cones, pop, etc. What a dream for the kids! They had typical picnic games like tug-of-war, frisbee, volleyball, and softball, and games for the kids. A bouncy house was there for the little ones and the biggest attraction was the rock climbing wall! You can view pictures of the day at http://picasaweb.google.com/ejball/LogosPicnic2008
Also, here are a couple of videos of the rock climbing races that our family members participated in today! Enjoy!