10, 8, 4, 2

Those are the grades the girls are in this year…And the first month at school has been great! The night before school started we went out for DQ for Bethany’s birthday dessert and just for a last hurrah of summer!

Cute pictures

Found some cute pictures on my camera towards the end of the summer. Sisters and friends are so cute!

Grandpa Freeman Visits!

In the middle of August Grandpa Freeman came for a visit! We were so excited to have him see our new home and spend a couple days with us. The day he arrived began with lunch with Ed and a tour of Logos. We headed out to the Northwest Washington Fair in the afternoon together and had a great time. It’s truly amazing how much money you can spend at the fair, even when you only go for 6 hours and have 4 free admission passes…

We did buy tickets for a few rides and all four of the girls rode the swings together. The little two were giggling hysterically the entire time, so I think they liked it! They rode a few other rides also. Sarah & Bethany had each already spent a day at the fair with a friend, so they kind of showed us around.

My favorite part of the fair is eating an elephant ear. Ed & I have a pact. If we come across elephant ears for sale, we buy. It’s a most delicious arrangement.

The next day began a little cloudy & dreary, but we headed to the west anyway, stopping first here at Rosario Beach just before Deception Pass. It ended up being a beautiful & sunny day and spending the day walking around the beach in the warm sunshine with my family is just about my favorite way to spend a day.

Grandpa spent a lot of time teaching the art of rock-skipping to all of us, these two young ones in particular.

No one was safe from the practically-professional-photographer-in-training.

More rock-skipping demos and contests were held on both sides of the “spit.”

Then we headed over Deception Pass and down to the state park for more walking, rock climbing, picture-taking, sun gazing, rock skipping, and general people-enjoying time.

After I took this, I said, “Okay, NOW your goofy face!”

We also played LOTS of corn-hole both evenings he was here on the corn-hole game boards that Grandpa Freeman sent to us for our new house. He gave us lots of advice on how to play since he is practically a professional corn-hole-thrower.

Isn’t she a cute scorekeeper?

Even Becca & Elise played some!

I do. not. know. what Elise was so excited about…but this picture made me laugh and laugh, so I had to put it in here!

And no out-of-town-visitor trip is complete without a trip to Edaleen!

Even on Sunday after church, Grandpa was busy teaching the girls stuff…or telling them crazy stories…Grandpa’s are good for that sort of thing.

A day of nostalgia & fun

When I heard that Jana Alayra was coming to our county for a Christian Kids Festival, I literally screamed with excitement! We first heard of Jana Alayra about 13 years ago when a friend gave Sarah a VHS tape of one of Jana’s live concerts. Jana is a Christian Children’s Worship Leader/Singer/Songwriter. Sarah probably watched that video at least once a day for a year. The songs are wonderful and so fun and Sarah & I have many fond memories of listening to and singing and dancing with that video. In the years that followed, I used some of the songs with the Sunday School children when I was the Sunday School Superintendent at our previous church. As the years passed, we watched the video less & less…especially once the VCR wasn’t so functional anymore, but always it has been a dream to see her live. Our chance finally arrived, and it was a great day.

Bethany won a basket of goodies in a raffle and later Becca won one of Jana Alayra’s CD’s in another raffle! We loved hearing some of the old songs we knew and learning new ones. At every concert, Jana calls kids up to sing and do the motions with her, and each of us had a chance. I lost a few pictures on my phone in a freak deleting accident, but I have a few.

I even got to go when the moms were asked to come up and Jana chose (on a whim, on the spur of the moment, I found out later) one of my FAVORITE songs.

I’m pretty sure that if I have ever been giddy, I was giddy that day.