First Day(s) of School 2015!

We are now: Edison - grade 1, Charlotte - kindergarten, Reed - toddler 2 room. Mom - year 11 of teaching. Big week! This is Wednesday - Reed's second day, Edison's first day. Why don't more first day of school pictures look like this?

 Edison was excited to begin first grade, however.

 Getting off the bus on the first day. Charlotte had a "slow start" kindergarten day, meaning she went for the second half of the day.

 

 Charlotte getting off the bus on day #2. She is loving kindergarten and comes home every day telling us more about how awesome it is and what a great time she is having.

 Day #3 - Friday. Finally in a rhythm. Reed was a holdout, though. Not sure when I'll get the three scholars in a picture together. Hopefully soon! (note - The vest and shirt Charlotte are wearing were mine as a little girl. My mom found them cleaning out her condo which she has now sold! So happy to have my mom up close to us!)

SEPTEMBER - Reed's Second Birthday!

Reed is two! We had a crazy weekend - I'm back at work full time, Nana and Eben took turns watching the kids all day. There was a huge storm that knocked out our power for four days and we just got it on the afternoon of Reed's birthday. So, things were a little crazy around here. But, we did manage to celebrate well! Eben took Reed to the store and Reed picked out his cake - a Seahawks football inspired "Beast Mode" cake - totally appropriate for how Reed approaches daily life. We just had Nana and Gran Dada over, but Reed clearly figured out that this party was all about him. He got the hang of opening presents and eating cake. Big thanks to Nana and Grand Dada.

 

  

Floyd and Kathie mailed Reed his presents and wow - did Reed have a blast opening them and playing with them! Thank you!

Moonlight Music Festival in Plain, Blake Island with the Cross Family, Jetty!

This is the best sibling shot I have mustered all summer. Sigh. At least they are having fun.

 We had 12 yards of gravel delivered to the cabin and used it to build a patio on the south side and to touch up our driveway. Reed was hypnotized by the dump truck.

 

The kids did a tremendous job helping (even Reed who would fill up his Tonka dump truck). We spread all 23,000 pounds of gravel that day.

 The next day we got to celebrate by having Matt and Lisa to the cabin and then going to the Moonlight Music Festival at Plain Hardware that night. Super fun band, fun crowd, Charlotte was dancing, we could walk from our house, what a treat!

 I left the camera at the cabin after that weekend, so don't have many photos from the past few weeks. I have just enough to sketch out our trip to Blake Island with Mike, Jen, and Zach. We had great weather and obviously a lot of fun on the boat.

 

We set up the perfect camp spot looking south towards Mount Rainier and Vashon Island.

 Zach played really well with both Edison and Charlotte. I especially liked the team work I saw!

 

Jen took some nice pictures on our hike around the island and our time at the beach.

 It was a great mini-vacation and it was sad to leave - just look at Edison's face.

 

We tried to cheer everyone up by running over to Port Orchard for ice cream cones. We also got to get a look at the ships and aircraft carriers in the Bremerton Navy Base across the way.

 Back in town the next weekend, we met up with Matt and Lisa, Meg and Chris at Jetty Island.

 This is Reed's best Gene Simmons (Kiss) interpretation. Little sand monster - argh!

 Sunset reflecting over the mountains and a perfect time on the beach with friends.

 On a gray Friday with nothing else planned, the kids and I popped over to the Evergreen State Fair in Monroe. I had nothing but fond memories of the Ellensburg Fair and Rodeo that we went to annually when I was growing up and I wanted to share those same type of memories with our kids. They did enjoy seeing the animals - especially the mama pigs with their piglets and the dog show. We also got to see a lumberjack competition and funny animal races. The biggest hits for the kids were the rides and the dog show - also Edison was inspired by an aluminum boat one of the 4h students had made.

White River and Coast Guard Picnic

We spent a lot of time at the cabin this month. We tried to go hiking and explore the area more while we were here. On this day, we drove up the White River Road, all the way to the end and came to this bridge and overlook of the White River. It is a jumping off point for many hikes heading west into the Glacier Peak Wilderness. The river was magnificent. The kids had fun playing "Pooh Sticks" on the bridge.

 

From there we drove back about two miles to the White River Falls campground. It has a nice area to play on a shallow side stream. The river was so low we pulled our chairs out to the middle of it and the kids ran around and raced tin foil boats.

There isn't a great spot to view the falls from this side of the river, but you can kind of see it behind and below us in this picture. Some day we'll do the hike on the other side from the bridge at the end of the road and heading south to here.

 

 Friday was the Coast Guard Day Picnic at Lord's Hill Farm. It was very hot. They had a lot of fun activities set up for people to do, but Charlotte definitely got the most out of the day. She tried the giant slip and slide (displaying perfect form) and also tried the rock climbing wall. We are so proud of our adventurous daughter!