The Last 3 Weeks

Sometimes I wish someone would do this to me.

Man, it's been harder than I thought it would be to update this blog on a regular basis. People are growing restless and I've been getting some complaint letters so I guess it's time to give you the goods. This will be a picture post since most of what's happened over the past few weeks has been captured in 1's and 0's. I love digital cameras. Just like smart phones, I don't know how we ever lived without them.
Here we go...

The other night Matt, my brother, called me up and said he had free tickets to a Seattle Mariners game that night. So on a whim we packed up the kids and headed off for Safeco Field on a school night. I'm not much of a baseball fan but they have these garlic fries that are unbelievable. We actually had a really good time. The game wasn't crowded and the kids had fun roaming the seats around us. At one point I bought them a bucket of cotton candy. Hunter and Linsey ate the whole thing in about ten minutes. I've never seen a sugar rush quite like the one that hit them. I watched Linsey red faced from laughing so hard, fall over the seats onto the row below and lay on the ground laughing some more. Such an event would have normally been followed by screaming, crying and demands for a band aid. However, with a blood sugar level twice the legal limit, she wasn't even phased.
We did have a quite car ride home though. What goes up, must come down.

We had the missionaries over for dinner on Monday. We had soup bowls with chili inside. At one point the elders pointed out that we might want to talk to Hunter about his eating style. Instead we took a picture.

We spend the last weekend soaking up some serious sun at the Camille's parents house in Kennewick. It was truly energizing to play outside in 75 degree weather with no clouds in site.
We went there to celebrate Emma's 2nd Birthday and to meet Doug's soon to be wife, Desiree.
The kids played non stop with their cousins for 2 days. It was great.

Emma likes her present.

Wheelbarrow rides. Better than Disney Land and free!

Hunter collected Rolly Pollies for hours. He really wanted to bring them home but I convinced him to let them go and make more Rolly Pollies for next time we visit.

Doug and Desiree. They are getting married in San Diego on August 10th. She is a really neat girl and great for Doug.

I'm not sure where the fascination with Dandelions comes from. Perhaps it's because it's the only flower that kids can pick without someone getting mad at them. We are still finding dandelions in various pockets of things we took on this trip.

Side walk chalk art. I couldn't resist drawing a fish.

Emma and Gavin. They were born about a month apart. I've decided that they must have done rock, paper, scissors to see who got to come down to which family. They look more like twins than Gavins older brother and sister who actually are twins.

On Saturday at the Butlers we went to a park and Chris set off a whole bunch of cool rockets. They fly up hundreds of feet, let out a parachute and then float down slowly. The kids had fun watching them go up and then chasing them as they came down. It was great entertainment on a beautiful day.

Lift off.

Hunter got to launch one but he would only do it if I would cover his ears. The rockets were very noisy and he is sensitive to loud noises.

He wasn't the only one scared of all the noise.

The boys reaction to a failed parachute.

When we got home Hunter showed me what Braydon taught him. Pretty cool talent for a 4 year old!