More pictures

Baby Brooklyn!

We are so happy we have a new little girl in our home!  She came a week after her due date, which was fine with me since I needed that time to recover from pneumonia!
My parents were here to help and just left this morning, so today is the first day on my own.  It was so great to have them here, they were awesome!  John was sick and so he wasn't able to help out much for the first few days.  Thankfully he's doing much better now.
Anyway, Brooklyn was born a week and a half ago and weighed in at 8 lbs 6oz and 19 1/2 inches long.  She's healthy and doing well and I'm recovering well too.  Enjoy some pictures of the little angel!

Backyard progress

I was going through some old pictures and came across some of our backyard.  It made me realize how all of our hard work has made a big difference in making our home more family friendly.

When we bought the house the backyard looked like this.  Brush and weeds everywhere and uneven random-sized rocks everywhere that made it feel like if you weren't careful you'd twist your ankle.

 After many days of gathering, breaking down, and burning, we cleared away the debris.

 Our first spring we ordered D-1 (dirt and rocks less than an inch in diameter) and spread it out with 2 shovels across the whole area. (Fun! Not.) It stayed like this for a while since we've been doing improvements inside the house the last few years.

 This summer we planted grass!! It's a rare thing up here and we're really going to enjoy it!

School and grass!

 Lexi and Kaytlin started school last week.  Lexi's in 2nd grade now and Kaytlin is a Kindergartener.  They had matching outfits (they picked out online) and wore them on their first days of school (Kaytlin started 2 days after Lexi).  Lexi insisted on wearing high heels, which she wore to school and then went most of the day bare foot because her feet hurt... Silly girl!

 Kaytlin was SO excited to start all day school (8:45-3:15) and wished she could go to school 6 days a week.  She and Lexi sit with Kaytlin's good friend on the bus.

We planted grass this summer and it's coming up beautifully!!  Few people grow grass here (rocks are easier to maintain I guess??).  John is so funny about it - his lines are perfectly straight, he mows it twice a week, and has already fertilized it once.  He takes the time to clean out the mower after mowing it too.  I wish I had a picture of our back yard from when we bought the house - it was terrible!

Life will be busy until the baby comes.  I teach piano 3 days a week and then Lexi and Kaytlin are in gymnastics, but on the other 2 days a week after school.  Come November we'll take a break from both and just enjoy baby girl!

End of summer happenings

It's crazy to think that school will be starting back up again soon!  Since I've been back from camp we've been taking things pretty easy. 

I've (mostly) potty trained Addison.  I love how baggy her underwear is on her!  She just needs to be reminded every so often.

The kids love the game "Spot it" and Addie loves to run around in just underwear.

 A friend of mine arranged for a bunch of us to go on a duck tour.  A car/boat that tours around town and then rides into the water.  The kids loved it!

 Addie's had some killer bedhead lately.

 Hanging out with John's siblings (we're just missing Dustin and Cortney!)

 Last week Mike took us on his boat to go salmon fishing.  It was a gorgeous day, humpback whales showed up nearby and the kids got to help with reeling the fish in. 

 I wish I would have taken a video of them when the fish came on board!  Their squeals were awesome!

 

Girls Camp

(Written a day or two after I got back.)
I just got back from a wonderful week at Girls Camp.  Travel to get there and back is pretty intense - we hopped on a ferry (Alaska Marine Highway) Saturday afternoon, slept on the floor that night, arrived in Juneau Sunday afternoon.  A friend of mine from church came and we only had 6 younger girls to chaperone on the way up.  On the way back we had 35 girls (but 4 more adults too) everyone getting off in different towns.  We got on the ferry Friday afternoon and didn't get home until SUNDAY morning.  It was a very long journey home but we saw so much wildlife and I had a great time getting to know the girls better.  We saw several humpback whales jumping out of the water, seals, bald eagles, deer, and at a stop we walked and saw 6 black bears catching salmon in a river!
One of the highlights  this trip was seeing my friend Rachel again.  We had gone to camp together as youth and are now both serving in Young Womens. I stayed at their house the night before camp and then we were able to hike in together and spend some free time together while there.
My friend from Ketchikan worked together to certify knots, knives, emergency shelters, constellations and clouds.  It was fun to get to work with her and get to know each of the girls at camp.  With our extra time with them we taught them Spazz Uno and did some "hair fighting" with a few of them too.  I met so many wonderful people and was impressed with the spiritual strength of so many of the girls.
The setting was beautiful, the girls were awesome and I had a great time!  This week I'm grateful to be in my own bed, with my family, and flushing toilets!

 Teaching the girls Spazz Uno after certification.  We also played the "hair fighting game" with the older girls

 Rachel and I at the Mendenhall Glacier

Heather and I

 All the girls with the temple they made

 Our cabin and girls

 See how many bears you can spot.  This was on a stop in Kake, AK

This is one of my Ketchikan girls, we watched the humpbacks breeching from here and enjoyed the fresh air

The mother of all road trips

So I had 3 nieces born all this year that I wanted to see (and other family too) and got to thinking maybe we should save a ton of money and drive down there for a long vacation? (Flying is super spendy.) I have a friend from my hometown living in Juneau that was game for coming along with her two kids and so we made plans for this epic road trip. Five kids 7 and under and us moms.

What did we have to do before we even left town?

-Make sure we all had passports or passport cards

-Have our husbands get a note signed and notarized stating they are okay with us traveling outside of the country without them

-Book tickets ahead of time on the Ferry to get us to Canada (Rachel needed a cabin to sleep in, I needed to also book our van)

-Pray for safety and sanity :)

Once we met up on the ferry and landed in Prince Rupert, Canada we had 1,200 miles to drive before we made it to our parents' house in Washington.  From there we split up and had vacations with our families.  Both of our husbands came down for a time and then we were back in Prince Rupert 3 weeks later.  There's not many people I would consider doing a trip like this and I'm grateful we were able to do it together!  What an adventure!

So after spending some fun time with my parents (and John joining us) we drove to ID for a baby blessing, then to UT the next day.  Spent time at my TC's new house (John flew home from here), then spent time at Marisha's, then at April's, then headed back to WA (James was able to visit us at Marisha's and April's).  It was so much fun to spend time individually with each family and we were really spoiled in every place we visited. 

So here's pictures of from my phone, then another post is pics from my camera.

 The kids started a tradition of screaming at the top of their lungs thru every tunnel.

 Kaytlin hurt her ear in WA and I couldn't believe how purple it got. It bled for the longest time (cut on the back side of her ear). The picture doesn't even do it justice.

 Dad took us to a Japanese restaurant that serves food on conveyer belts, you grab what you want as it goes by.

 Chillin' in UT.  My girls LOVED playing with Savanna, especially in the unfinished basement.

 Addie was so thrilled to hold her 5 month old cousin Linnea.

 Isn't this the best thing ever?! Addie could have ridden all day on that miniature pony! Kaytlin also had a blast, and Lexi did for a time and then was happy to walk alongside with the grownups. Thanks again for arranging this Marisha!

 My cousin Kayla came to visit us and was an instant favorite of the girls'

James was super cute with the kids, Addie especially liked to hang out with him.  He brought some specially Idaho icecream to share with everyone - chocolate with oreos and caramel!  And, being Idaho, it had potato flakes in it as well.

 Lexi's a very cautious girl.  I was proud of her for getting the courage up to light some colorful smoking bombs.

 Snow mobile races on water.  Random right?  Marisha and Forrest took us to a "pride" day in their town with all kinds of fun events.

 Me and Sariah

 Lexi really loved holding the babies.

 The 5 kids, last night traveling together.

 John surprised the girls with a trampoline when we got home.  We're planting grass which means our whole yard is off limits until school starts.  Thank goodness this has been such a hit!

 Out of order pictures from WA - we loved the warm weather!

Any guess on how many miles my girls and I drove?  Over 4400!