warning, here come a lot of pictures of a very fun stay-cation!

We had such a blast with Crystal, Jaide and Tage this past week and a half. It was too fun, too fast, and we wish we could do it all again! These visitors are so good to us, so helpful, and love to do all the things that we do, which makes it easy! Here are some of the highlights of our trip:

We had a fun picnic at a river-front park. The kids had fun playing in the water and watching the boats. This was part of Jaide's birthday extravaganza.

Molly roped Jaidie into some good-ole dress-up! Jaide was such a good sport when Molly brought her a dress that Molly promised was just her size!

Thank you, Jaide, for turning 17 at my house and choosing to go here for dinner:

Jaide under the banner, she is even cuter at 17, if that is possible!

Oh, I love this picture. These three have always been so close even with so much distance (because their moms do such a good job keeping in touch!) and pictures like this just warm my heart! We have so many of the three of them through the years, and I just want to take time by the shoulders and shake it and say stop, don't let these guys get a minute older.

We love you guys and will miss you dearly, dearly, dearly!

berries!

Berry picking is an integral part of summer in the Northwest. We have been doing our fair share. We like to freeze them, and love to jam them! This summer, before our visitors arrived, we made 20 pints of strawberry jam, 20 pints of sylvan berry jam, 15 containers of sylvan berry freezer jam. Probably sufficient for a nice long winter, but we couldn't resist one more opportunity to go picking with our favorite berry team! Here are some cute pictures Crystal took of our adventure!

Max with his goods!

Molly getting to work. We told them if they didn't pick, they didn't eat lunch. It was very motivating.

And, we decided to feed them, because we ended up with 67 pounds of boysenberries and raspberries. Yum!

It wore this guy out!

And, after this, Crystal and I were also very worn out! The end result? 72 pints of jam!

Crystal, I think we should go for double or nothin' next summer!

more, more, more!

We took a trip to the Farmer's Market on Saturday. We all walked and pushed two strollers two miles each way, with the promise that after the market we would hit the fountains and cool off! It was so fun. We have loved this attraction for years! The kids had a blast splashing each other, spitting water at each other, and eating lots of kettle corn!

I just love this sculpture!

ooh, the water feels good!

At home, we stayed cool on the Slip-n-Slide. Aunt Crystal bought us a new Diego slide, and everyone had fun sliding (except Max, who had fun observing). Here is Molly reassuring him that it is "super fun" to slide!

Jaide is showing everyone how it's done!

And then she gave Molly lessons (and lots of support!)

Could these cousins be any more fun???

life's a beach...

Our trip to the coast was awesome! It was 90+ degrees when we packed up and left, but the weird Northwest Coast Phenomenon kicked in when we hit the coast, and it was windy and freezing on the beach! Never fear, we had fun nonetheless. We flew kites, dug in the sand with sticks (someone forgot the beach toys...), searched the tide pools, and watched the sunset over the Pacific Ocean from the warmth of our hotel room. Does it get any better than that?

The view from our patio

Tage looks like he's thinking...hey, look at my two cute babes!

silly cousins

here's to fifteen bliss-filled years...

Yesterday, Jonny and I celebrated our fifteenth wedding anniversary. He was on a plane all day and I was 67 pounds deep in boysenberries, but sometime in the very near future we plan on going out and painting the town to celebrate the best fifteen years EVER! I just love this guy!

...and this is how I picture us 15 years from now (and 15 years after that, and so on).

summer fun