Lovin' the Sunshine!

Up until recently, Seattle has had approximately 78 minutes of summer weather. Typically Summertime in Washington is perfect! The not too cool, not too hot, beautiful summers make the grey skies and rainy weather over the winter months all worth it.

We've tried to stay positive, but it's been wet and rainy and we have sorta felt like we weren't really getting much of a summer at all. Finally, the sun came out, and not just for an hour, or a day.... but ALL WEEK!

We took advantage of every moment. We hit 4 different beaches, some fun parks, went camping, swimming, and lots more! One day on our way home from a fun day of playing at the beach my kids were talking about how they were going to finish up their chores as fast as they could so they could play outside with the neighbor kids. I think their jaws about hit the floor when I said, "Let's forget about chores this week. It's finally nice, let's just go home and eat ice cream, play outside, and soak in every moment of the sunshine!"

Emma and cousin Kate at Ward Lake in Olympia.

Austin and cousin Hudson.

Aunt Emma and Jack.

The warm weather came just in time for an 8k I ran last Saturday. While I love the sunshine, I do prefer to run in the cool crisp morning hours. This was an evening race and it was HOT, and there were hills! I thought it was really hard, but I was hoping to run it in under 40 minutes, which I did, barely!

Here are my stats:
time: 39:15
pace : 7:54
I placed 12th in my division too!

It was fun to meet up with my two sisters-in-law and Jared's brothers.

I traveled to Seattle with some friends from Auburn. This race fell right in the middle of an long week where Jared was out of town. A girls night out was just what I needed. We had so much fun taking the light rail to Seattle, running this race, getting dinner, and just hanging out.

Sunday we left right from church and headed up to Mike and Emma's cozy home (at least for the summer) up in Redmond. They have a fire pit in their backyard which makes for fun dinners and my kids favorite summer treat - smores!

Mike just finished his internship with Microsoft and they are getting ready to head back to Utah where he will finish up his MBA at BYU. We are all excited that he got a great offer from Microsoft and we're hoping they end up moving back to Washington in the Spring! No pressure, but the entire McInelly family all lives here.....we just need them!

Emma, Luke, Mike, baby Kate, and Jack. Cute, cute family!

We discovered a really fun park at Lake Meridian.

They had lots of cool, different toys.

I haven't seen a merry go round in years. This was so neat, and safe. My kids played on it til they felt sick. That brings back memories.

Emma liked this little elevator. It slowly lowered you down and then as soon as you hopped off, it slowly raised back up and waited for the next person to step on.


Some of the other kids were calling Hunter Spider-man. He raced up this thing in seconds and ended up at the top. He's my tree climber, I need something like this in my backyard.

The lake is a lot of fun too. My kids never tire of water and sand. We spent a lot of time this week doing just that! Here Emma is... fishing.

Believe it or not, she actually caught something!

You always have to dig a big hole when you are at the beach, and then you must fill it with water. I think it's some kind of rule.
We played this day til Austin nearly dropped. He's got a cookie in each hand and he's trying real hard to keep his head from falling down. He was so tired. I took this picture and then packed up and got the poor child to his bed. Of course he fell asleep before I even hit the freeway.

After a good nights sleep, we went to Coulon beach the next day. We met up with our cousins again... just soaking up that sunshine!

Emma and Olivia

Another big hole!

Friday we went on a McInelly camping trirp right here in Auburn. It was perfect. Some camped at the campsite, some stayed up at our house. We all had a great time!

Zack and Carrie

Grandma Jeanne with Ella and Kate

Mike and Emma (& sleeping Kate)

Camille and Jared

Bri and Mat

We even celebrated two birthdays.

Happy Birthday Aunt Bri and Grandma Jeanne!

Once we got all packed up on Saturday, everyone came to our house to pick blueberries and raspberries, and play with Linsey's bunny.

Then, we raced out the door and headed to Coleman Park where we played in more water and sand while we waited for the Blue Angels air show.

It was pretty amazing!

All of my kids were impressed, but Austin expecially loves airplanes right now. He is very animated when he sees a airplane and with wide eyes excitedly hollers out "AIRPLANE, did you see that?!" He got so excited watching the blue angels that AIRPLANE! turned into AIR-PLALALA-LANE!

It was a little loud, especially when they flew right over us.

And that is a little of what we've been up to this last week!
Lovin' the Sunshine!