Early August Days

In August we finally stayed home!  :)

We had Janie Lou Who over for an sleepover and took her to the YMCA.

I love this picture of the boys.

Micah's getting so big and playful!

Cornhole Tourney and Crazy Summer Storms

Neighbors Hank and Stella invited us to their annual Cornhole Tournament in early August.  It was a fun, HOTTTTT day filled with food, bean bags, and one large tournament bracket.

Here I am playing against a serious competitor who had her own bags.  Not kidding.  This is serious, people.

Hank and Stella!  Such a fun time.

The kids got introduced to Mario Kart, much to their father's delight.

And then, the second of TWO huge windstorms, went through Spokane.  This one really hit Whitworth hard.  Lots of downed trees.  We didn't suffer loss, but in the first storm (which hit right as we were leaving for vacation with Julie) our new neighbors lost the top of a pine tree, and several more in our neighborhood fell.  We were without power for a few hours the first storm and then this storm had us without electricity for 12 hours.

A crazy summer for weather in Spokane!

Back to Washington

We ferried out of Victoria the next morning…leaving the car in line quite early and then traipsing around downtown before sitting in our car in line for the ferry…that would take us to Discovery Bay (Port Townsend) to spend one last night before heading home.

On the drive home we found out that it was the 25th Anniversary of "The Dance" by Garth Brooks hitting number one.  So we preceded to have a few hours of Garth sing-a-long in his honor.

Julie had us stop in Tacoma for Shake-Shake-Shake!  A deeeeeee-licious 50's diner with a.maz.ing. shakes.

And we finally made it back to Kennewick.  We didn't want our time with Julz to end.  A nice swim in Trina's pool was a great capstone to the trip.  We love you, Auntie Julie!  Thanks for vacationing with us so well!

Day 2, Part 2: The Butchart Gardens

 The Butchart Gardens were my highlight of the trip.  So many gorgeous flowers!!!!

 The kids LOVED the map of the gardens.  They anxiously awaited getting to the carousel…

 The Sunken Garden…where Mrs. Butchart started this whole thing.

 Jeff holding two of the worst coffees on the face of the planet.  Urgh.  Julie had the 3rd worst...

The kids were on flower picture duty for a while…I'm pretty sure we had over 100 pictures of flowers!

 Auntie had the touch with Micah!

 Josh was EC.STA.TIC about riding the camel!

And Grace picked the leopard.  Cheetah?

 All sorts of blues…

 The Sturgeon Fountain

 The cove that Jeff's parents entered through when they brought their boat years ago…

 The kids loved these stepping stones in the water.

 The star/frog pond

 GELATO!!!!

Such a fun--and beautiful--afternoon!