The end of the school year! Patrick got permission to have Eleanor come in as his show and share in the last week of school and his teacher sent us this sweet pic of the two of them. I had emailed her a funny sibling picture and apparently everyone thought it was really cute.
Speaking of cute - Juliet likes having her siblings read to her.
We had a last day of school party over at a friend's house up the street and Juliet enjoyed cruising in a toy car with their little boy. She got her hands on a candy pacifier and I don't know that she knew such joy could exist. Pacifier plus candy! The best!
There was an ice cream bar at the party. We have fancy friends.
Patrick went down to the lake with Nathan that night so he could be awake in time in the morning to participate in a kids' fishing derby. He caught one small fish. I'm told it was worth it.
Getting Juliet to nap at the lake has proved to be a bit of an ordeal so far this summer. Whenever we have success getting her to sleep there is great excitement.
The golf cart has been so cool for going cruising and visiting friends.
My golf cart buddy!
Juliet calls the RV the "Tar Vee" and we all love it so much. Now even the big kids call it that.
Getting fancy ice cream cones at the Lake Shop.
I didn't get my own cone so I depended on a sweet child's generosity to get some ice cream.
Paddling around. Such a pretty day. Although it was surprisingly chilly for Memorial Day weekend.
The boys begged Nathan to push them on the merry-go-round. My favorite bit of the video is towards the end when Patrick's shoes fly off.
Fun story - it turned out Patrick had poison ivy and needed a lot of oatmeal baths and calamine lotion so I took him and Juliet home with me for the night and Nathan kept the older two with him. They went out for fancy brunch at the golf course the next morning.
I brought the younger kids back with me the next day (perks of it being such a short drive!) and we had a lovely time lounging by the lake.
Nathan and Patrick tried out fishing in the double kayak and apparently it's the coolest thing ever.
Then we all went back home and Grandma joined us for a fun outing to Deanna Rose!
Mustache buddies
Feeding baby goats
Juliet demanded that Grandma carry her around most of the petting zoo and even yelled at Bradley and said, "No, MY gamma!" and shoved him away when he tried to walk next to them. Did we punish her? No, she is the youngest child. I held Bradley's hand instead to try to make her jealous. It did not work.
Everyone perked up when Grandma got them ice cream. We told them that the ice cream shop magically closes if Grandma doesn't come with us. Tt was clearly a joke, but the kids understood that ice cream only happened if Grandma was around. There was much joy with all aspects of her time with us at Deanna Rose.
Group shot of the Grandma fan club.
We also had time for a nice family bike ride to the school playground this week. It was really nice, Nathan had taken the time off work so we got to have a lot of family days. This video is great because you can hear some of Patrick's Bruce Lee sounds and at the 23 second mark Eleanor falls over on her stationary bike.
Eleanor and I were reading buddies one afternoon. My Aunt Diana sent me a good book and I've been checking out loads and loads of books from the library for the kids. One of my favorite things about having good readers is cuddling up on the couch and silently reading books by each other.
Juliet kept on putting a small toy in her mouth and I told her I would take it away forever if it went in her mouth again so she did this instead. Sighhh.
She's pretty impressive this day. I went through a hard-boiled egg kick and she would peel them for me every day at lunch time. She could crack the egg and peel the entire thing by herself, I don't think the big kids even do that.
Then we went to attack bad guys outside.
Juliet has gotten more comfortable climbing things on the playground which is both fun and terrifying. She tried to go upside like her sister shortly after this but I didn't take any pictures because I was hovering around her trying to make sure she didn't fall. Like her siblings before her she is heavy on daring and light on self-preservation.
I don't remember what was going on with the boys but I just had the girls for this particular park outing. I don't know what on earth this is and how it became a thing but crawling underneath each other in the wagon was the game of choice for the walk home.
They took turns. I don't know who loved the game more.
Literally every time I sit down anywhere this is what happens. I'm never too upset about it! I just feel bad when Meg walks up to me yowling for loves but I'm running around and can't give her the snuggles she needs.
I left a chatty Patrick in bed with Nathan when I got up to take my shower one morning and when I walked back out of the bathroom I saw that Nathan still has his sleepy magic powers.
More Juliet playground hijinks. There was a construction crew replacing some of the equipment in the top area of this playground when we got there and Juliet scurried up the central ladder in order to go up and say hi to them. I didn't know she could do ladders like that so I went over and hollered at her that it was dangerous and I was scandalized by her behavior. The construction crew was instantly team Juliet and she got a lot of attention.
Loving on her buddy Caroline at the same park. This was also the place where Patrick was doing loud Bruce Lee noises and kicks in my direction as we were leaving and I told him to stop doing Bruce Lee on me and he was welcome to kick any tree he liked, go nuts on martial arts on trees. A man started laughing and telling me that he enjoyed my parenting style ... which is probably a bad sign for all involved. Some people hug trees, we're the type that kick them it seems.
I'm not alone in my parenting prowess. Patrick was pretty goofy by Nathan at lunch one day.
At the Stanley playground. I frequently ask my children if the things they do while we're there are allowed during the school year when teachers are around.
Cozy reading and board game time when we get home. This is actually my idea of a perfect summer day - run around outside as much as you can before it gets too hot so you can come home and relax with books and games.
We took slo-mo videos of the boys jumping off swings at the park.
This one was a favorite. Patrick continued to jump off swings even after landing on his face.
Nathan got out the new Minnie Mouse bubble machine for the kids.
Bruce Lee and bubbles.
It's amazing how it doesn't really ever get better than bubbles!
We went out for brunch at the Cardboard Cafe and tried out Dinosaur Tea Party, a new favorite game.
Eleanor is very into the Unicorn Glitterluck games and the girls found one of those there too.
Nathan and I took turns catching what I'm fondly referring to as a "death cold" over his week of vacation. His turn fell earlier in the week, while he was at the lake with the older kids and my turn was later in the week. He was amazing, I sat in bet and read all day and he took the kids out on a number of fun outings, including a picnic lunch after shopping at Costco one day.
Meg wishes I was sick every day, she was beyond delighted with all the cuddles she got.
Sometimes she brought in reinforcements.
Nathan took the kids shopping for art supplies and then built model clay dinosaurs with him. Maybe he should be the stay-at-home parent from now on. I loath extra art activities. Outside of the house is fine. Inside of my house is mess.
Patrick has been taking great delight in making up fake numbers and running them by his siblings in order to get their outraged reactions.
Bradley cuddling Patrick during one of his baseball games. They are currently talking about living together when they grow up in a treehouse house. They are confident their future wives will be enthusiastic about this plan. Bradley says he wants 10 children but then adjusted that number to 2 when we reminded him about the one time he changed one of Juliet's wet diapers.
Cute baseball kid.
I love this video, kindergarten baseball is the best. He had to yell at his friend Cael to remind him to run.
It's handy that Cael's big sister is Bradley's friend Lorelei!
We discovered that there's a specific little string the kitties love to attack and the kids have been loving seeing the kitties in attack mode.
Sookie has been extra tired lately with all the fun and games.
Grandma and Grandpa's pool has been so fun to go to, as always.
Juliet was over the moon about getting to go down the slide this year.
Grandma and Grandpa enjoyed playing with the excited toddler on the slide.
I mean, there was a lot of joy to be observing. Going down the slide is SO exciting.
She screamed when we dragged her away from Grandma because she was yelling at her about wanting to put her feet down while sliding down the big slide (a hazard to be sure). But she perked up after some fun times with fun Daddy.
Nathan is ridiculous at the pool with these kids. They love it so much.
Juliet gets so excited whenever we paint her toenails. It's really fun to do.
Our Unmatched obsession has only increased in the last month. Nathan and I each got another set for Father's Day and for my birthday. But it was perhaps mostly a present for Bradley. He has most of the cards memorized.
Juliet likes games too and likes cleaning them up, which is both a blessing and a curse because once she decides a thing it's difficult to change her mind.
Eleanor and Naomi have had quite the summer of togetherness. They did a week of VBS together and got extra playdates in addition to this.
Playing on the swing on the back before VBS one morning.
Juliet climbing things at the playground, big surprise.
Favorite digging spot.
My new favorite pic of my dad and Bradley.
Juliet has discovered how fun it is to be read to by Eleanor and it's great except when I let it get too cozy right before bedtime and then she cries a bunch when Eleanor is taken away from her.
Nathan had his final day working from home and this picture accurately shows what working from home was like for him.
Cuddles with her Bradley. Juliet has gotten a bit more cuddly lately and we all enjoy it tremendously.
Uncle Daniel and Aunt Stephanie visited again. It's so fun that Juliet has gotten comfortable around them and will plop herself down on Stephanie's lap during game time.
Unmatched! We don't get to play a lot of 4 player games of this, it's always very exciting when we get to do so.
More baseball. There have been so many baseball games this summer. It's hot and I want them to play tennis or an inside sport instead.
Speaking of tennis, after Eleanor's tennis practice one morning we dropped off a friend at her house and then I spied a weird hippo thing and a sign that said "Free Candy" so I yelled out "We're stopping for this!" and pulled over immediately. Perhaps this was questionable parenting but we got some tootsie rolls and I got to see a rather impressive home art studio by a former Hallmark employee.
My family came down and joined us at the lake. The Odegaards came down that afternoon too. We had our whole armada of little boats out on the lake for a bit, it was a pretty fantastic time.
Burying Juliet in the sand.
Eleanor's turn!
Group shot!
It was such a pretty day, we were able to spend Sunday night at the lake and there aren't many people around on a Monday morning.
Patrick doing his favorite thing.
They finally finished fixing up the mini golf course so we got to go check it out!
And then art camp started. I got to send all three big kids to Wolf Creek and they sat at a table together.
Juliet didn't mind not getting to go to the camp if she still got to play with the animals there.
I furminated the cats and oh my, can you tell we had been going through a heat wave? Juliet loved playing with all the cat hair.
Patrick playing with the kitty who supplied about half of that hair.
Juliet and I went to a free concert one morning with the Rutherfords while the big kids were at art camp. She was unsure but friends kept shoving gold fish into her mouth so she did okay.
Joyfully reunited with her Eleanor later that day.
I went outside in the evening to drop off banana bread at a neighbor's house and discovered there were a bunch of fireflies so I sent Eleanor and Nathan out to catch them together. They were both very enthusiastic about this idea.
More time with art camp animals.
Juliet and Eleanor discovered that the alpaca liked to eat dandelions so they picked every one they could find for him.
Fancy butterfly pics at camp.
Bradley assured me this was a butterfly facial expression.
Juliet scampered over to join in when it was Eleanor's turn.
Juliet enjoys blowing on her food at home in order to cool it off, and it is quite a sight.
But I didn't realize how little she was actually doing until I took a video of her trying to blow away dandelion seeds. I could watch this video on repeat, I laugh every time.
More alpaca time.
The kids were in camp and I spent a serious chunk of time trying to talk Juliet into leaving her favorite goat so we could run errands.
We went to the library. Juliet "I have a idea!"
Then we went back to the house and she disappeared into my closet while I was doing pilates. When she came out she was holding a box and she hollered, "Don't say no to me!" So I didn't.
Nathan and I got to have a fancy night out at a Cornerstone of Care trivia night.
The ladies in our cool shades!
They had a photo booth and Nathan and I were excited to have a chance to show off our matching outfits from our honeymoon.
Smoochies!
And then - back to this. Spectators at Patrick's baseball game. Juliet is certainly spunky enough.
She also likes to lick Eleanor, which is super weird. Eleanor reacts by shrieking with laughter so perhaps there is some positive reinforcement going on.
It was a HOT baseball game so we had a dinner of smoothies and French fries. Best dinner ever.
We ran over to Grandma and Grandpa's after this to have a family birthday celebration for Eleanor. Grandma made her ice cream cake!
Unicorn kitty!
Happy birthday to our 8 year old!
She had a lot of help opening presents.
A kitty walking toy that Juliet and Katie were ready to have death fights over. Eleanor barely got to touch it after opening it.
And by death fights, I guess I mean tickle fights. Juliet was very pleased to get to tickle Katie into giving her what she wanted.
My birthday happened and sort of mattered even though it coincided with Father's Day this year. I got a new coffee mug! And a fancy milk steamer!
Nathan got a Yoda themed Father's Day mug.
Juliet was very interested in his gift.
Kids helping me open the rest of my gifts. Spoiler, they were all board games!
Then we went down to the lake for some Father's Day / birthday ice cream.
Bradley and I got to check out a new version of Unmatched.
And Juliet helped Patrick fish!
It's so fun to see her get into all the things. She's so excited to get to be in on big kid fun.
So proud!
Patrick has already had a pretty good fishing season.
Meanwhile, the non fishing gang found some sort of mutant dandelion.
Checking out the playground on our way out.
And then more baseball. It was a gorgeous evening so I brought the full fan club with me.
Juliet adopted new grandparents and even pulled her chair over to sit with them, ditching me in the process, until she decided her real place was in the dugout. Good thing we aren't planning on going as a family to many more of Bradley games, some bad habits have been established.
For Eleanor's birthday morning we went to another concert at Ironwoods Park.
Nathan had the day off so he got to go too.
It turns out Bradley really loves live music and bought the cds of the DooDads. He's been listening to them on repeat, it's very cute.
Nathan with the birthday girl.
We ran into one of Bradley's classmates at the playground after the show and stayed for an extra hour or two, it was quite the lovely morning.
Patrick climbed trees.
As did the birthday girl.
And then our next big activity was her birthday party at my parents' pool that evening!
Nathan blew up a giant unicorn floatie, which was quite the hit.
We ordered pizza and Eleanor is now ruined for Papa Murphy's for forever because she's had Papa John's now.
Eleanor insisted that her party guests would enjoy having full cans of Pringles as part of their dinner and no one was more pleased by this than her cousin Katie.
Eleanor with her fancy cupcake pull apart cake. Unicorn kitty mermaid!
Universal approval for the cake choice.
Then we went out to the park the next day to get a romp in before it got too warm, but the boys assured me it was too warm already and took their shirts off.
Juliet back at her dirt spot.
Shirtless boys using duct tape to improve sticks.
This was the best smile I got out of Patrick after he completed the fancy duct tape stick.
And then super early the next morning, Patrick and I left to go fly to Washington with my folks in order to visit my grandma.
We were very happy he fell asleep on the car ride from the airport up to Camano Island.
Big hugs when he saw his great-grandma!
He was a little hyped up for the first part of the trip so I had to keep dragging him outside. Usually not a big deal, but Seattle was going through a record-breaking heatwave. It was 100 degrees a couple of the days we were there and we left a day before it was supposed to hit 115.
Patrick wanted to know how it was possible that he was almost as tall as Great-Grandma and she was so very much older than him.
I brought a few games along with us and Dragonwood got a lot of play time.
Meanwhile, Nathan managed to work from home while watching three kids. Eleanor and Bradley were pretty easy, but the 2 year old ... Luckily Eleanor got to officially babysit a bunch and our friend Olivia got to come over and babysit a little the two mornings Nathan was trying to juggle work and childcare.
He even took Eleanor over for a playdate with her bestie Evie Isham.
Everyone seemed super happy with extra Daddy time and I can't believe he managed it all, I was very impressed with toddler time plus working from home. Not an easy task.
Meanwhile, Patrick and I quickly realized that beach outings were going to be a big focus of our trip.
Here we are at Madrona beach, the place just down the street from where we lived in high school and where I rarely visited because I took it all for granted as normal and boring.
Fortunately, Patrick knows a good thing when he sees it and took nothing for granted.
We went out for fancy ice cream at Elger's Bay and I had about the best cone of my life. Huckleberry ice cream!
Patrick realized two bites into his bubble gum cone that it was far from the best thing he had ever tasted and handed it over to Grandpa and we went and got him a new chocolate chip cookie dough cone, which the very nice people there gave to him for free. My dad's face in the background makes this photo perfect.
Our sleeping arrangements. We got to use the sewing room and I had a blow up mattress while Patrick slept on a sleeping bag on the floor. It was HOT. My grandma has a little AC unit but it was really up against it during the heatwave. We also discovered that Patrick gets a little frantic about itchy legs when they get too hot so I figured out that wash cloth soaked in cold water was the answer. He woke me up at 1:00 am two nights in a row demanding new cold wash cloths but besides that he slept like a champ and I am very grateful.
Playing Roll for it! with Grandma. He had a great time with so many grown-ups all to himself.
Nathan started commenting on all the food pictures I was sending to him. Lemon poppyseed scones for breakfast on our first full day there! I also ran into my 4th grade teacher, Mr. Crouch, and his wife who has an art studio upstairs at the bakery and gift store we went to for breakfast. So fun! They gave Patrick a small piece of art which was so sweet, but then he started asking for more free things and I had to get him out of there.
We went to the fancy playground at Terry's Corner and had a blast.
We called this the Sonic the Hedgehog portal.
I was very proud of this photo. At first Patrick wasn't sure why I was asking him to pose like this but as soon as I explained he was all in.
We discovered that Patrick is kind of amazing at puzzles. Like - really really good! Grandma likes to do big puzzles and he helped work on a couple 500 piece ones. He would call out whenever he found a piece that fit, which was often.
Nathan's Aunt Tina came up to visit us, which was so nice.
We had a very fun couple of hours together. Aided by Patrick watching The Floor is Lava with his great-grandma for part of the time so we could chat a bit.
Patrick kept falling asleep on this trip.
And then I would wake him up and give him a treat. Vacation! He begged for this lollipop for 24 hours straight after seeing it at the Elger Bay store the day before and being told he was having ice cream instead. So we went back the next day and got him his lollipop.
I got ice cream again because I know how to do vacation.
Swiftly, things changed on me. I think I offered him a taste and that was a foolish, foolish error on my part. I ended up eating maybe half that ice cream cone.
Then we went back to Terry's Corner where we visited an art show and managed to not buy anything.
I can't believe I grew up at a vacation destination and didn't care. Camano is so fun.
Back to the beach again! Patrick demanded that we go every day and I was fully on board with that game plan.
We collected a bunch of shells.
My cousin Annalise visited one evening and we had a delightful time playing games together! Patrick was very impressed that she won at Roll for it! three times and spoke of her with great respect after this night.
Meanwhile, on the home front - cute lunches for the kids!
Unmatched game time with Bradley.
Cuddles with sweet Eleanor.
And then - Patrick and I went to the Iverson Spit Preserve. I had never been here before, despite it being about 10 minutes from where I lived in high school.
We explored a little trail.
Patrick wanted to take a picture of me with a flower.
And we made it out to the beach to discover that we had stumbled onto the best beach ever and we had it all to ourselves.
There were super low tides and the water was crystal clear - we hadn't expected to be able to go in. The other beaches we had been at had been a bit murky.
We found a dead jellyfish.
And then we made the biggest discovery of the day - tiny crabs running around in the sand!
Patrick bravely caught one.
And then he caught maybe 50 more. No exaggeration. He was obsessed and I was obsessed.
He caught some big ones that filled up most of his hand! He named this one Pat-Pat.
Pat-Pat. Later he caught one that he named Pat-Pat #2. I guess if you have a good name you stick with it.
Here's a larger crag with its little claws up in defense because it saw Patrick coming. He sweet-talked it and then carefully caught it and was extra careful to be gentle when he lowered it back in the water.
I had to keep hiking up his shorts because they were so long and were getting wet. I would have had him wear his swim suit if I had any idea it was going to be so nice here.
It was an absolutely amazing time. So perfect for Patrick, so fun for me. And I didn't realize how special it was. We went back the next day and the low tide was gone and the magical playground of tiny crabs to catch in the sand was gone, replaced with deeper water moving along with a strong current. He still had fun, but it was nothing like this first day.
Another trip highlight was watching Wheel of Fortune with Great-Grandma. They were great buddies.
And we got to see Jack Dorsey, who was sort of the reason Patrick got to go on this trip. His son Jason had written a book called Fishing With Dad and Patrick, our little fisherman, LOVED the book and was desperate to go to the place it was written about. We got to get Jason Dorsey's second book while we were there and have him and his dad autograph it. Very neat.
And then more treats. This time at the Cookie Mill.
And smoothies. While we played more Dragonwood.
We had such a fun evening visiting family friends, the Petersons. Ann read Patrick a book about volcanoes which was key for our flight home when we passed Mt. Rainier and Mt. St. Helens.
A smoochie trip photo of me and my little guy.
Nathan kept sending me great pictures from home of happy kids.
Juliet is so blonde now that it's summer!
And Bradley had the time of his life when he got to join in on a guys' game night and play Unmatched with some of Daddy's friends!
The next morning Nathan took the crew to the Louisburg Cider Mill on their way to go to the lake for the day.
Not a bad breakfast.
This was Patrick's and my return to Iverson Spit Preserve. Low tide gone! Still fun though, especially since we got to go with my friend Amelia and her adorable dog.
Patrick and the puppy got to chase each other around while Amelia and I had a good chat. It was lovely for all involved.
We drove to the state park after this and Patrick enjoyed his lap buddy.
Patrick took this picture of us. I think he took about 50, at least half had us in the shot so we're calling it a solid success.
Amelia showed him how to flip over rocks to find crabs and we had brought a bucket along to collect them so he was a happy kid. Although it took some convincing that we shouldn't bring them home to become Great-Grandma's new pets.
More puzzle time.
He was so sweet, he kept giving other people certain amounts of credit whenever they found a piece that would fit. He was always very generous with what he believed they deserved.
Official trip picture time!
Patrick took this picture too.
Meanwhile, it seems I had sent Nathan too many pics of us eating out and having treats, because he took the kids to Jersey Boyz. Delicious!
One last treat from Dilettante's chocolate at the airport before flying home.
I was going to get myself a new Seahawks hat to replace the one Patrick had claimed from me at home but he convinced me it made more sense to buy HIM the new hat and he would give me the old one back. Difficult to argue with that logic, especially when he looked so cute in the new hat.
Amazing view on the way home. Mt. Rainier in the foreground, Mt. St. Helens in the back to the left. Patrick had a lot of commentary about volcanoes after reading a book with Ann Peterson.
And then exactly 8 hours after I had been home (we got back to our house at 2 in the morning) we were at a 2 year old birthday party for Juliet's good friend Caroline! The kids did really well at the party and Caroline was adorable.
I was so happy to be back with everyone after being away for four whole days. Meg kept following me around for loves but then Juliet decided to start catching her and the darn cat kept letting herself get caught by a 2 year old.
I decided we were due for a new Pinterest level picture of the four kids so I stacked them for a photo opp.
Patrick is actually laughing in this video.
We decided that two separate stacks may be the better choice.
And then boy cuddles when getting ready for bed. These sweet kids. We really are having a fantastic summer.
