A Lost Art?

The other night I was helping out at Young Women's and they were making secret sister gifts. (Don't know what secret sister gifts are - well, you are assigned another camper to give stuff to. This stuff can either be funny, practical, or - sadly what I normally get - junk. I don't have a good attitude about secret sister stuff. But this year I got a blow up flamingo for my secret sister. Why? Because it made me laugh. Anyway, back to the story.)

One of the gifts they were making was flavored water. Well, actually, a bottle of water with a stir-in thing attached to it with curly ribbon. You know, curly ribbon. The ribbon you curl using scissors.Yeah, I got that blank stare from the girls and a couple of the leaders too. I mean, seriously, you don't know how to curl ribbon?

So, I thought I would teach them this apparently lost art. I showed them how. And they tried and cut the ribbon. So I showed them how again and they tried and it didn't work. So I showed them how again and they just asked me to do it.

Why is curly ribbon a thing of the past? Is it because you can buy a giant bag of already made bows for mere dollars? Is it a product of our gift bag and tissue paper generation? Is it one of those things that skips a generation - these girls kids will be asking their grandma's how to curl ribbon?

I don't know, but I'm going to single handedly (is that how you spell that?) keep it alive. So, the next time you need to wrap a present, throw some curly ribbon on there. No, not the kind you buy already curled, but the kind you curl yourself. It's easy! I promise.

Ok, just send it to me and I'll curl it and send it back.

Rain, Rain, I Don't Know How Long You'll Be Here, But You're Making Yard Improving Difficult

While the rest of the country has been experiencing a SUPER hot summer, we here in the Pacific Northwest have yet to really experience summer. Yesterday it rained almost an inch and was about 60 degrees or so at our house. Not that I'm complaining, really. It's just that we have a big old project going on outside our front door and I would like it to be done this year. You know, before the BIG rains come.

For those of you who have never been to our house, we have a weird front yard. It is surrounded by steep planting beds. What is that? You don't quite understand, well, as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words....
That is what we look at out our front window. When we moved in, there was ground cover on the slope but it wasn't strong enough to fight off the weeds so we had ground cover with weeds coming through it. So we took out the ground cover and tried to plant some plants. Nothing has ever done well there. It's just too steep. A couple of years ago I said that we might need to terrace it, but neither of us really wanted to, so we conveniently forgot about it. This year though, we both had had enough so we dug up the plants that were eeking out their living on the hill and Brent started to dig...and dig...and dig. Really, here is the HUGE pile of soil to prove it!

That pile is probably 4 feet tall by 6 feet wide. And most of it is going it the backyard to make a slope, but that's a different post.

But, this weekend, amid Ashley making Brent take her to see the new Harry Potter - I cried - he moved around a thousand pounds of rock to begin the first retaining wall. It looks so good! See...

He still has three more rows to put up then it will be a three foot tall retaining wall.

So, once he's done, then I get to plant some stuff that should live. I'm so excited!

If the rain ever calms down for a few days, he might be able to get more done. But, next week is Girl's Camp - yep, still going this year - so he should get sufficiently bored to work some more on the great wall that is going up in our front yard, provided it stops raining for a few days!

Sitting By the Dock of the Bay...

I was trying to think of a catchy title besides "Baby, You're a Firework" because I don't like Katy Perry, so this is what I came up with. You'll understand.

The Fourth of July was a GLORIOUS day here in the Northwest. MUCH better than last year when it rained so much before the fireworks that we left. I mean, we're Northwesterners, we're use to the rain and it still chased us home to watch the fireworks on tv.

We had a great barbecue at Court and Brad's, then we were off to the fireworks. I love the fireworks here in town. They set them off over Sinclair Inlet, so that's cool. (See, that's kind of like a bay.) Plus, you can buy some pretty amazing fireworks around town so other people put on a firework show over the water before the "big" fireworks start. Which means we had about 2-1/2 hours of some pretty good, and LOUD, fireworks.

Here we all are ready for the sun to go down. It doesn't really get dark around here until about 10 pm this time of year, so the fireworks start late. Notice the sweatshirts. Yep, it's July 4th and still kind of chilly. I love it!

See, there goes the sun behind the Olympics.

Court, Emma, and Brad

Got to love Sarah and Chloe's glow-in-the-dark masks!



Kyle and Aaron enjoying their free pop. The place where we watch the fireworks - no, I'm not going to tell you where because it's a secret - was giving away free pop this year. I thought that was really nice. It kind of made me mad as we left when I saw all the empty cans people just left for them to clean up. Some people, I swear!

See, I was there too!

I have a function on my camera that is for fireworks. I have ALWAYS wanted to try this function out, but I've never had a tripod with me. Until this time. I took a TON of firework pictures. Some worked, others didn't. But here are the best ones. And, yes, there are a lot, but I'm super excited that they worked.














Seriously, that's a pretty cool function!

Hope your Fourth of July was as fun as ours! My ears are still ringing!

WE SAW A WHALE

I know we did a lot of others things this past week, but the most exciting part for me was when we saw a humpback whale breaching. We were on a ferry. Yeah, a ferry. Take THAT expensive whale watching boats who chase the whales and I probably won't go on them anymore anyway. Wait, where was I?

Oh, yeah...a visit from Brent's mom, sisters - Julie and Jess - and our niece Tayler. And a running of the Rock and Roll Marathon in Seattle. Well, not me. I was a cheerer. But others ran it.

Last Monday, Brent's mom flew in for a week long visit. We were happy to see her and happy to see the beautiful weather that coincided with her visit. Well, at least part of her visit.

We played with Reyes and Camilla.
This is just Reyes here. Cami was asleep. But she was fun when she woke up!

We went on a walk in Manchester State Park on the first day of summer. Which was GLORIOUS here in Western Washington!
This isn't a great scrunch picture, sorry. I was trying to get The Mountain (aka Mt Rainier) in the background but I failed miserably.
A ferry AND The Mountain in one picture - how much more Northwest-y can you get?

And we ate good food and sat on the deck in the beautiful weather.

Then Julie, Jessica and Tayler got here and even more fun started!

Four of the contingent - Brent, me, Julie, Mom - drove up to Vancouver, Canada to get a little wicked. Or to see Wicked, I forget which. The drive was WROUGHT with traffic, but we had a good time at Wicked.
But, did I mention that we saw a whale while we were on the ferry. I didn't? WE SAW A WHALE! We were sitting there in the ferry watching the water because, really, what else do you do on a ferry? And Julie said she saw a splash. Then all of a sudden, Mom screams - quite literally, it was kind of funny - and I look out in time to see some sort of marine going animal splashing back down in the water. Then it breaches again and I see that it's a young humpback whale. It breached about 4 or 5 times in total. None of them when I had my camera out, but we did see it. So cool. Although, I'm a little bit worried about it. We were on the Kingston ferry which is still in Puget Sound - no where near the ocean where the humpback should be making it's way to Alaska. I hope it finds it's way out.

Since I couldn't get a picture of the whale, I took a picture of us instead.

The really sad part was that Tayler REALLY wanted to see a whale - or a shark - from the ferry. And we saw it without her. Sorry Tay!

Then the real craziness started.

We met Jess, Tayler, Ryan, Marcela and the girls at their hotel in Seattle to "exchange prisoners." They were getting Julie and we were getting Tayler. Why? So that Julie, Jess and Marcela could run the Rock and Roll Marathon in Seattle. Jess and Marcela ran the half marathon and Julie ran the full.


The next morning we had to get up at zero-dark-thirty to catch the 7:20 am ferry to Seattle. Yep, I said 7:20 am. It was an early morning.
This picture was taken when I dropped my camera at the ferry terminal at 7 am. I think the early morning had something to do with my clumsiness. It's not like I'm clumsy all the the time.

See, it still works. Phew!

When we got to Seattle, we found the perfect place to watch the runners go by. It was right when the marathoners and half marathoners split so we knew we would see everyone if we just stayed in this one spot.

First to pass us was Marcela. There was a tall person in between her and us, so we didn't see her soon enough to get a really good picture, but...

Then Julie ran by.

We were on the right side to get a good picture of Julie. And her bright yellow shirt helped quite a bit too.

Then Jess came by. Sorry about the bad picture, Jess. I'm blaming it on the fact that I had dropped it not long before.


After that, we headed to the finish line. Marcela finished in 1 hour and 59 minutes. Jess finished in 2 hours and 31 minutes (that while she was really sick, on antibiotics and hadn't trained in two weeks). Then Julie came in...
at 3 hours and 52 minutes - we're guessing. Unfortunately Julie had a run in with a know-it-all runner who broke her transmitter so we don't know for sure. But it was under 4 hours. And that was her goal.

And this is what she looked like a few minutes after finding us:

She wasn't dead though...

Just VERY tired and sore.

Here a few other pictures I took as we were waiting...


After some time, they all rallied for a picture with their medals.

We are SUPER proud of them. They all did great!

After that, we all relaxed for a couple of days, had dinner at Uncle Gary's and enjoyed each other's company, but then Monday came around and it was time for everyone to go home. After I dropped Mom and Julie off at the shuttle, I met Jess, Tay, Ryan, Marcela and the girls for lunch at Red Robin in Seattle and a quick trip to the Market.


It was sad to see them all go, but it was great to get a chance to spend some time together. There is a crazy rumor that I'm going to walk the half marathon next year. (This rumor was not started by me.) I have to say, that is a crazy rumor and I do like cheering much better. I guess we'll see. That's all I'm going to say.

Did you see this???

We saw this video on the news tonight and it just made us laugh. Good thing the glass is thick!

Wild Kingdom!

Have I ever mentioned that I love where I live? Well, I do. I love living in the trees. Except for the spiders. I don't like spiders. But I like that Daisy eats spiders.

Anyway, I have seen a bunch of animals in and around my yard. LOTS of hummingbirds, racoons, coyotes, snakes, voles, mole holes, but never a mole, I've heard an owl, but never seen it, other types of birds, slugs, Brent, etc, etc. But today I saw something that I had never seen in my yard before.

I saw a hawk swoop down and grab a snake and fly off. It was kind of cool to watch.

Next think I know, Wild Kingdom will be filming in my backyard!

Look...

Brent blogged.

Having Fun With the Family

Ok, I'm back to the world of the almost living. I hurt my back - I have no idea how - and I've been down for a few days. But I'm back to being semi vertical.

But the sad part was that I had to miss the U2 concert over the weekend. I surprised Brent with tickets to the concert for his birthday (well, it was suppose to be a surprise at least, I spilled the beans because I was so excited that I had gotten tickets). But, Brent took another date - ok, Brad - and met Ryan and his date - ok a guy named Leo. It was a boys night out. But they had a blast! So that's good.

The date thing reminds me of a story. One time Court and I went to the Flower and Garden show over in Seattle. So Brent went over to their house to have dinner. Kyle prayed. He said, "Please bless Mommy and Ashley on their date..." Hee hee.

Do you think the boys will be mad I said date? Oh well.

Now onto what I was really going to talk about...the rest of our weekend in Denver.

We played a lot of games and played outside and ate some good bbq and bbq'd some good burgers. And now onto the pictures.

We went to a fun park and had a picnic and played and played and played.

See, I really was there! And so was Katie.

What is Cayden looking at, you ask...

His silly Daddy, of course.

Then we spent time in Jared and Katie's newly grassed backyard. Unfortunately, I think Cayden may have inherited Brent's aversion to cameras, so it was mostly just silly.

Ok, so these aren't in their backyard...but near their house. On Monday, it was suppose to be really windy so we tried to fly a kite...it wasn't that windy but windy enough to be kind of annoying.

Houdini

And so ends our fun trip to Denver. Thank, guys, for making our stay so much fun! Even if getting there was annoying!

Oh, and, we went and saw Brent's Aunt Annie and Uncle Steve too plus some of their kids but I didn't take any pictures. Sorry. It was fun though!

Now I'm just looking forward to my back feeling better so I can get back out and weed. Not that I like weeding, but I REALLY don't like all the weeds.