Summer (and a reality check)

I decided I have to do the "slingshot approach" (which you molecular biology fans might remember from the human genome project) to blogging. That's where the reality check comes in. There have been a lot of things I haven't been fitting in the last couple of years, with Carson's new practice, another baby, demanding church callings, etc., and blogging is something that's so low on the list that I never get to it. Then I realized that on scrapbooker Heidi Swapp's blog she has tons of type/spelling errors. You mean she doesn't proofread it twice before she posts it? She seems to get a TON of things done with 5 kids and her own business, so I thought I would take a page from her book and just DO IT, with no picture editing or perfectionism, so here is a quick summary of our summer:

Aspen can go up the ladder and down the slide on our playset so she's enjoyed that a lot lately
We hiked part of Mt. Si
We picked strawberries
And Trey made us some strawberry sorbet
Aspen let the chickens out and got in the coop (yuck!)
We got a patio table
And Flash the chicken grew up and looks like a falcon

Caeden & Aspen ran through the sprinklers in their clothes

This is the only decent picture I have from the 4th of July, it was a nice day and we had friends over for a BBQ, then partied at the Pace's again and went back to our house for the view of fireworks off our deck
Aspen can get on the table and get into things like strawberry jam

Carson and I ran the Ragnar Relay with some friends

On my first run I forgot to pin the number on my shirt before starting so Carson had to help me do it in the middle of my run
It was hot during MaryKai's run
And she ran it really fast and wore herself out!
Carson handing off the slap bracelet (which was really sweaty and gross, BTW)
These are the kinds of views we had on Whidbey Island
We drove our van for the 6 of us in our half of the team and decorated it with vinyl and our team name/logo (thanks Vicki!)
Carson's team shirt somehow came in WAY too small
I took the kids to the Woodland Park Zoo with the Watkins
as we were getting in the car in the morning, Beckham threw his booster seat and hit Aspen in the head
Here he is posing
Trey turned 10!!! How did he get so old? He celebrated with a waterslide party again and a Pokemon theme
We had a pikachu balloon and also a pinata that I can't find any pictures of
Happy boy
I just love this picture
We went to Mud Mtn. Dam in Enumclaw, here's the "before" picture of Beckham's back
Aspen thinks she's such a big girl
The kids are in there somewhere (but not Aspen, the water was freezing)
Bex fell on his bike and got road rash on his cheek, shoulder, arm & leg. We were on the way to a neighborhood party and once there, he kept asking how he got there and why he was holding a popsicle. I guess even with a helmet you can get a concussion!
Here's the sunburn. I kept chasing him at the park trying to get sunscreen on him and he ran away saying "I don't need it, remember, I don't burn!"
He took swimming lessons and is now taking a second session and loving it
Aspen eating lip gloss
Aunt Hillary came home from school and our frequent Skype sessions worked because after 8 months Aspen was comfortable with her... until she said "no no"
Aspen wanted me to put a whole bunch of hairclips in her hair
Caeden made a guy out of french toast, bacon and blueberries
we went to Seafair and saw the blue angels
It looks like we had a lot of nice days this Summer but I think I just didn't pull out the camera on the cloudy or rainy days because this has been the worse Seattle summer anyone can remember. It seems like all our friends are talking about moving away from this terrible weather, especially after the wettest Spring on record and a very disappointing Summer last year! It's nice now and today might be the first day we've had over 80 degrees. We have tried to do a lot of fun things anyway but we haven't taken any big trips. So that didn't take me too long to post, now if I can just catch up on my scrapbooking?? :)

Summer Officially Started

 Now that seminary is over I've had a ton more time to do STUFF.  Here are some pix showing what we've been up to over the past few months.  The last few are from the last few days where we've had some awesome weather for the official start of summer!

 Bex playing Bball and his parents aren't capable of figuring out which of all his sport shirts is the one he is supposed to be currently wearing.

 Caeden went through all our dress up clothes to do his version of Indian Jones.  I was impressed.

 We got two chicks and the kids have loved them.

Yep Marisa, I posted this one :-)

Yard

We've spent the past few weeks doing a ton of work in our yard.  We really like the Japanese Garden style, especially since there are a lot of climate and plant similarities between Japan and the PNW.  We feel like we have finally gotten the skeleton of the yard in place so that we can add things on here and there to complete it over the next couple of years.  My mother wanted to see some pictures so here is part of her Mother's Day present...

Starting with the worst first...here is the side of the house behind the playset that we need to build a retaining wall, level and eventually build a shed.  You can see the french drain that we just did in the corner which was the low spot and a lot of water sat there.

Moving around counter clock wise from there is the next weakest part of our yard.  We made the edge of the grass stick our more with its curves than it did before.  

On the other side of the fence we would always get a ton of weeds growing through.  We dug a 10 inch trench and put a weed barrier in it that also went up 6 inches onto the fence and was stapled down.  Hopefully that will keep the weeds back.

We also put in a trim around the grass to keep it from growing into the flower beds.  We moved a couple of the large rocks around, stood some up and laid others down.  We put in cobblestone in various locations. 

I'm currently working on a drip line to get all the pots on the deck and the hanging baskets.

This is the dry stream bed that is coming out of a future water feature.

 The little circle flower bed here is the herb garden.  One benefit to PNW weather is that some herbs become perennials as they don't completely die out during the mild winter.

Plans for the future:

• get some 1 and 2 man rocks to compliment the 3-4 man rocks
• put bark over topsoil
• get more plants
• build arbor next to concrete patio
• build firepit, arbor and bench in corner of yard that has view of mount rainier
• paint the concrete bench and bird bath
• get a circular table and chairs for concrete patio
• get sand for low spots in grass
• finish the water feature
• build bridge for the cut out (but not removed) section of the pathway
• wrap the bottoms of the deck columns and future fire pit with rock veneer
• build the retaining wall
• level the area by the retaining wall with the concrete walkway
• build other french drains in more swampy areas
• Learn how to be patient when it comes to yards so that we can have some zen before we finish our Japanese garden