Both my brothers came for Sarah's graduation, which was awesome! My brother from CA was able to take his wife and his kids as well, and while my SIL had to fly home and work for two weeks and then fly back before they took their driving/camping vacation back to CA, we had two weeks to spend with my niece and nephews! Nothing better than some cousin time!!!
One of our first free mornings was a little drizzly and cold (which it ended up being much of the time they were here) and I took the kids to Woods for some hot cocoa!
Then we hit the dollar store for some "cheap plastic stuff", according to nephew #1. He chose wisely and chose candy. Elise picked a puzzle, Becca picked some scented body spray, nephew #2 also chose candy, and my niece picked a cheap plastic doll. ;) But she loved it and we had such fun!
After the dollar store we took a little trip to the grocery story, which, unbeknownst to me, is my niece's favorite place! Who knew? Those grocery store carts? She's happy in them FOR.EVER.
The rest of the days were filled with parks, Kick the Can, cuddles, stories, games, donuts, kayaking, the beach, computer programming, and more!
One rainy day we decided to go see Finding Dory. We were too early to get in line after we bought our tickets, so we took the kids to KMart to kill some time. As we drove in, I said, "Hey, let's have a scavenger hunt inside KMart!" My brother, being the awesome PE teacher that he is, and me, being the creative Kindergarten teacher in the group, together came up with a list, teams, and rules in approximately 2.67 minutes and we were off! Fortunately for my team, I have shopped at KMart before, and I knew where everything on the list would be located. So, my team won.
My brother's team? Well, they lost. By quite a bit. But everyone was smiling and laughing through most of the hunt. Especially when we were running through the store while nephew #1 carried girls' underwear...
We saw the movie, had lunch at McDonald's and managed to have a very fun and memorable rainy day!
On Father's Day we ended up with a pretty day, so we went down to Larrabee to walk on the rocks, climb some cliffs, throw rocks into the bay, and other such fun kid stuff...
As per usual, the kids got wet. Nephew #2 got especially wet...good thing he was wearing quick-dry clothes and it was quite warm out by the time we were done!
We also walked part of the Interurban Trail before heading home to watch the end of the NBA finals!
When my SIL came back, we headed up to Artist Point, even though the weather wasn't awesome. The kids had a BLAST sliding down the hills of snow on their bottoms, climbing back up, and doing it again! I don't think I have ever been up there when there has been so much snow!
Somehow I don't have any pictures from Heather Meadows and Picture Lake...if any of my family has any on their phones, could you send them to me, please?
We had some wild & crazy game nights after Aunt Susanne came home...played Bunko, the Name Game, Fish Bowl, and the Name Game some more! Good-bye cousins! We will miss you all the way until Christmas!
Bethany left on her mission trip before Aunt Susanne came back and Aunt Jen was able to see her at church in Michigan and sent us the picture below. Thanks!!
She had an awesome trip - it was such a great opportunity and blessing for her!!
Below: this came up on my TimeHop app a couple weeks ago - something I posted 5 years ago on Facebook. It kind of made me stop in my tracks when I read it...
The diploma came in the mail!!! HOORAY! She's officially an LC Alum!
I caught Sarah eating ice cream directly from the carton...she's excused since there was only about a spoonful in there... ;)
Sarah ran her first road race as part of her college training and she won and set a course record!
This cutie helped me pick some yummy blueberries just down the road from our house. ALL the berries were early this year!
I have lots of beautiful hydrangeas!
And I successfully made raspberry jam AND blackberry jam this year!
