Sun Lakes

If you know us, you know that we're an outdoorsy family. Despite that, we had never taken the kids camping unless there was a music festival involved. All that changed last weekend when we went camping at S.un Lak.es reso.rt. :) We camped here almost every summer when I was a kid and this is definitely one of my favorite places in the world!

The trip was short (two nights), but we did our best to make the most of it. We spent a good amount of time at the beach!

I'd forgotten how full of snails this lake always is until the kids started finding lots of snail shells.

Gerry got to go out for a paddle with my cousin in his kayak.

Grandma and Grandpa brought their new (to them) tent trailer. The kids had lots of fun playing inside and I think Reed especially enjoyed the refuge from wasps. He's been really scared of them ever since he got stung at the Kit.sap Coun.ty fai.r. :(

Hanging out at camp.

Perhaps the coolest part about this trip is that it became a somewhat spontaneous family reunion. My aunt made reservations at the resort a while ago and started inviting family. As more family said they would come, other family members started finding ways to come so that we could all see each other. I was so worried that we weren't going to be able to make it because a stomach bug and been plaguing us for two weeks, but Spring, who was the last to have it, got better just in time to go. Thank goodness!!

Hats

Sometimes, you need a good hat picture. I happened to capture these two great hat pictures a few days ago. :)

We haven't been up to much exciting lately as we've all been sick. Hopefully we'll all be better soon and can go on more adventures and take more pictures!

AUGUST

In this post, I've posted all our August pictures so that the blog can finally be up to date! It was a busy month.

It started out a bit rainy, but that didn't keep us inside!

Spring LOVES picking tomatoes. After she picks one, she goes to a specials spot on the lawn and does her "tomato dance".

Reed approves of the tomato dance. :)

Then it got really hot so of course we played outside some more.

R and S were transferring water and sand from the sand box to the tubs in their play house. A favorite game.

I love the look of sheer joy on Reed's face here.

The sunflowers that we planted in preschool last spring bloomed spectacularly!

We took advantage of one of the warm days to go to the splashy park in Brem.erton. It makes for a fun day since we take the foot ferry over.

Reed's shadow (Spring) followed him everywhere there!

We went to the Oll.ala Blu.egrass festival. We got to spend some time with some friends that we don't see nearly enough which was wonderful.

Reed using the big bubble wand.

Reed and I spent a special "Mommy and Reed" day to celebrate him growing up enough to decide that he was ready to be done nursing. He hasn't nursed in a really long time, but everytime I asked him if he was ready to be done, he'd say, "I'm just thinking about it". It was nice to get to spend some time just the two of us since we haven't gotten much of that since Spring was born!

Reed didn't want his pictures taken with the animals, but I like this one of him in the stroller.

When we got to the sharks, Reed finally, happily consented to having his picture taken with an animal... too bad I did a lousy job of getting a picture of the shark, but it's still a good picture of Reed!

We went to the Ki.tsap C.ounty fair too. Our first stop was the produce displays where we learned that Gerry's cayenne's had taken first place in the hot pepper division!

We ran into our neighbor in the llama barn and she let us pose with her llama.

Mommy and Spring wait for Daddy and Reed to be done with their ride.

Daddy and Reed enjoying the ride.

And we went hiking in Ban.ner forest. Spring LOVED munching on all the berries along the way. She ate red huckleberries, evergreen huckleberries and blackberries!

For most of the trip, Gerry carried Reed in the backpack and I carried Spring in the er.go, but part way through, we switched and Spring thought that was great!

Reed on what he calls, "the climbing hill".

And Spring on the same hill.

SCI

At the end of July, we got to head back down to Oregon for a three day St.ring Ch.eese Incid.ent Festival. We hadn't seen Cheese since '07 when they retired so we were excited to see our favorite jam band again. But we were also a bit nervous. It's not as family friendly as North.west Stri.ng Su.mmit, the music goes later, and there would be no designated family camp. Fortunately, we were able to camp near several other families with children. And once the music started, all our doubts about whether it was a good idea to come dissolved.

The kids had fun playing with these big mushrooms.

One of our neighbors let R and S play with this drum, they loved it!

This is Reed's singing face. :)

Our camera went on the fritz part way through our trip so we didn't wind up with a lot of photos to share. The camera will be going back to So.ny for some repairs. :/