We had a busy June. We had visits from Grandma and Grammy, we headed to the zoo a few times, Edward got his own library card, we spent a lot of time reading, lots of time at parks, and we had a lot of just family time. Oh yeah, and Morgan started swim lessons! They are just parent and me, but he has been super excited and was always trying to get in the water when it was brother’s turn. He won’t be able to do on his own lessons until he is about 3.
In the middle of January, Sharyn took a trip down to southern California. It was suppose to be for her sister’s bridal shower, but they decided to just make it a full sister day instead. We got our bridesmaid dresses fitted, did a bunch of shopping and went out to lunch. She took Morgan with her while Daddy and Edward stayed home. Edward loved it because he got to spend most of the weekend playing Magic or going places that Morgan can’t quite do yet. Morgan had a blast as he got to hang out with the cousins most of the weekend. It was a lot of fun even though it was short.
We weren’t super busy this September. Just a lot of relaxing at home recovering from a really long and busy summer. We finished out the summer (and the first weekend of September) with a trip out to Idaho. We took Lorna out to Idaho since she was going to visit and we hadn’t been out there in over a year. We try to see all the family once a year. So we headed out on Labor Day weekend. It was a lot of fun. Uncle Adam taught Edward how to chase the wild turkeys, we spent a full day down at the river with a whole bunch of family and Edward even jumped off of the dock into the water. He was really nervous and doesn’t usually do this, so this was a HUGE step for him. He loved being able to play with two other cousins who are close in age to him. Morgan got to eat his first whole peach. We fed him some lunch, but he obviously didn’t like the sandwich we gave him as he dug into the bag and got out a peach on his own. It was a nice relaxing trip which is one of our favorite kinds of trips. 🙂
The only other thing we really did was head out to The Farm at Swan’s Trail. They had a pumpkin patch, a corn maze, a bunch of kid play areas, a corn box (sandbox with corn basically), a barn maze, a bunch of food, duck racing, and so much more. It rained a bit while we were there, so we didn’t get a chance to do everything, but it was a ton of fun and I think we found the pumpkin patch we will go to a lot. 🙂
Also, at The Farm, there was a professional photographer (Jon Kaplan Photography) set up and since we hadn’t had photos done in a very long time, he had good prices and we went for it. I love the photos that we got! Morgan wasn’t super sure of it, so we didn’t get many with him actually smiling though.
August was full of traveling. First up, we headed down to Eureka for a former roommates wedding. I lived with her for 4 years, so we were pretty close. Her and her husband were both MLJ’s as well. We stayed at a hotel and Edward loved the fact that he got to go swimming a whole bunch. Unfortunately, it was a quick trip, so we didn’t get to do everything we wanted to do, but still fun. Lorna met us in Eureka just before we headed out and we gave her a ride up to Seattle to visit. We of course stopped at Uncle Kenny’s before heading up through Bend and seeing a different part of the states we hadn’t seen before.
The weekend right after we got back from California, we left Lorna at the house watching the cats while we headed up into Canada to go visit Darrell’s family on Sechelt. We got up there Friday night and left on Sunday morning. We spent time walking along the beach, playing with the dogs, and I even went with some of his Aunts to a local artisan fair. It was nice and relaxing.
On our way home after Sechelt, we stopped in Stanley Park at the Vancouver Aquarium. It was Morgan’s first Aquarium visit and boy was he enthralled. He loved seeing all the fish, otters and whales. We even stopped by Stingray cove and the kiddos got to touch the stingrays.
After getting back from Canada, we spent some time around Seattle with Lorna. Mountainview Blueberry Farms, where we pick our blueberries, has a larger size blueberry that became ripe while she was here, so we went out to see how picking those were. We had only got the smaller ones last month. It was so much easier and nicer (especially as the weather was a bit cooler). We ended up picking another 20lbs or so. Morgan really got into picking the blueberries this time and was just trying to eat as many as he could. He was in the pack on my back and everytime I leaned over to get some blueberries, he grabbed the closest branch with some on it and shoved it in his mouth. We also checked out a little playground in Renton.
After picking blueberries, we headed out to Monroe and went to the Evergreen State Fair. We love going to fairs and last year was our first year taking Edward, so we were excited to take him again. He remembered a few things like the petting zoo and the rollercoasters. He got to do some new stuff this year too. The first was he got to go on one of those trampoline jumps. He was nervous at first, but he slowly warmed up. He wasn’t quite comfortable doing any flips, but he at least was jumping a bit higher and smiling through it all by the end of the second time. The last newish thing he got to do was we let him go on all the rides by himself. He wasn’t quite tall enough for a single rider on the rollercoaster, so he chose Grammy to go with him, but we told him how much he had and let him choose which rides he wanted to do. He chose a couple fun houses, the burlap sack slide, and a couple other ones. He was really bummed to be leaving, but we promised him we would take him again next year.
Summers are always super busy for us as the weather is nice and we can see all sorts of different things. It also helps when we have an exchange student. So, we were super busy this month. First up we had a great 4th of July party with all of our neighbors. It was a lot of fun and I made some yummy pulled pork fries and we played in the pool outside.
We also did the Skagit Valley Highland Games. The boys decided they wanted airbrush tattoos and Edward wanted the exact same one as Fernando. Then we jumped in the car and continued up to the border to check out the Peace Arch. Check out those photos here.
The next weekend, we went up to Mt. Vernon again to check out the Clayslist sale. Then we found a nearby farm where we could pick some raspberries. That was pretty cool as we spent about an hour and we ended up with almost 40 lbs of raspberries (whoops!).
Throughout the weeks, we did our normal splash parks, fun around town, and some parties for EF. We also had Darrell’s work picnic and Darrell and Fernando went out with our neighbor on his boat to do some crabbing and visiting Jetty Island.
After we dropped Fernando off at the bus, we were asked if we would be a gap host family for some 9-year old twin boys from China. It was rough with communication issues and that we had another friend in town we hadn’t seen in awhile, but we made it work. We took the boys out and did blueberry picking with them. It was super hot so we didn’t last very long, but we still got almost 15 lbs of blueberries.
