Open wide!

I love this series of pictures taken at NWSS! I don't remember what Spring was feeding me. I love that G caputured these expressions because they're pretty typical for her.

What's that? You say you're hungry? Let me get you something!

Here you go!!

Open wide!

Good huh?

Northwest String Summit

Still playing catch up with pictures. :) In early July, we made our annual trek to Northwest String Summit!

We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves!

We were able to camp with our long time friends Dave and Sarah and their beautiful kids,

and another wonderful family (Courtney and Rebecca and their daughter SJ) that we met a few summers ago at NWSS and have camped with ever since!

We got to see some amazing creatures while we were there! A golden bubble-blowing dragon...

A spotted frog (the cow that Spring is holding became her new favorite toy while we were there!)

And even a lion!

Having a snack, listening to the music!

The kids loved the music and especially playing with their glow sticks at night.

I wasn't sure how Spring was going to do with the earplugs, but once she saw everybody else in the family wore them too, she was happy to wear them!

And we would leave our earplugs in all night which helped the kids (and adults) sleep through the noise of the night. People tend to stay up and chat or play music.

Spring makes herself at home on a neighbor's chair.

Spring and our neighbor SJ play in the wagon as we pack up to leave.

Beautiful

I have the most beautiful children in the world!!!

Back to the lake

More catch up, this time from July! Eventually I'll get the blog caught up again, but we've been busy busy busy! :)

We headed over the Lake Chelan over the 4th of July weekend to avoid the fireworks and move a bouy that had drifted down lake. My folks came too which was great because it meant that there were extra eyes to watch Reed and Spring while Gerry worked on the bouy, and also meant that Mocha got to get away from the fireworks that so terrify her. Spring liked trying to take Mocha for a walk.

The highlight of the trip may have been when R and S when fishing with Grandma and Grandpa.

Reed caught his first ever wild trout! He's been fishing before at commercial trout ponds where you can hardly keep the fish off your hook long enough to put bait on, but this took a bit more patience.

It wasn't the biggest of fish, so it's a good thing that Grandpa is good with a fillet knife!! I LOVE how proud Reed looks here. I'd like to be able to say he ate every last bit of the fish, but unfortunately, while he was carrying it to the table, the plate slipped and some of it fell on the floor and Mocha beat us to one of the fillets... sigh... Reed did eat the rest of it though.

Spring wanted to pose after she saw brother posing for a picture with his fish.

June catch up

Thought I'd post a few more pictures from June before I start posting our July pictures!

Just a cute picture of Gerry and Spring dancing together! :)

Before Father's Day came, I started asking Reed what he wanted to get for Daddy. He told me he wanted a to get him a train. As Father's Day approached, Reed told me more and more about the train we were going to get for Daddy. Finally, Father's Day came, and Reed insisted that we get the train out of the garage. Now, we have a model train that we keep in the garage, but neither G or I knew that Reed knew it was there and we'd never gotten it out to play with it before so we were little surprised when we learned that the train Reed was talking about was not an imaginary train we were going to give Daddy! So we got the train out and Reed LOVED it! It actually wound up being a pretty good Father's Day present too because it kept Reed so distracted that G and I actually had some time to talk (Spring was playing indepently the way she often does).

We went to our town's annual Fa.thoms of F.un festival and there were pony rides there! On Friday evening we went to hear Dea.dwood Re.vival and on Saturday we went to farmer's market, both of which were adjacent to the festival. Friday night, Reed got a pony ride and Spring seemed to want one too, right up until the moment I was about to put her on the pony. So Reed got a ride and Spring and I walked beside the pony. She got pretty sad when we left and I told her that she could have a ride the next day. That whole evening, she kept talking about "horse". I told her more about the pony ride the next day, and every time I asked her if she wanted to ride, she vigorously nodded "yes" so I thought she just might do it. We got there and once again, she really wanted a ride right up until the point that I was about to put her on the pony! I had to smile because I distinctly remember being a kid and loving horses, but being a little afraid too.