Tie Dye

 We tie-dyed shirts for the 4th of July.  We were trying to do a shirt like the Firecracker Popsicles, and I let each kid do their own. Surprisingly, Clara's shirt turned out the best.

 Our good friends came over to make shirts with us.  Here they are cooling off under the trampoline with popsicles.

Our Puppy

Nephi watching his kids at a park. Whenever his kids are playing, Nephi MUST be right there with them, and if it's a no-dog play area then he watches vigilantly until they come back.

This is at Marymoor Park, which has an enormous off-leash dog area, where we took Nephi next. (so he didn't have to suffer from exclusion for long!)

Pepper

 I bought a netherland dwarf bunny.  We named her Pepper, and she is ADORABLE!

 She's not a bit scared of my loud and crazy children, and loves to hop on people's laps.

She's tiny, she has to jump up into her food dish to eat.

Children's Museum

 Some quick shots from our children's museum.  Clara the Vet.

 Dancing on the stage.

 Playing trains.

 Balls and ramps

 Water Tables

Father's Day

 For Father's day my committee put together these cute gift bags (filled with homemade cookies) to pass out to the dads after Sacrament meeting.

 Russell's gifts: ladderball, handmade coaster from Brielle, jar of Reeses Pieces, and some shirts.

Holding up his giant chocolate chip cookie, fresh from the oven, with vanilla ice cream.

Wetlands

 Another flashback: this is towards the end of May, and we went for a walk at North Creek park.  I love this park, there is a floating wooden walkway through the marsh.

 Looking for frogs.  (Brielle found plastic gloves in the van, they were not waterproof.)

We often see all sorts of birds, bats, and water creatures.  We're still looking for the beavers and shrews.  This time we saw a baby marten that was injured, we've never seen one that close before.  I don't have a picture, but this is a marten:

Silver Lake

 We live across the street from a lake, and one day back before school was out for summer, we decided to go swimming.

 We met up with friends, and the kids had a great time in the water.

 Hyrum and Elena are chasing the geese away.  Look at how pretty it is here!

 Clara and Sebastian prefer the muddy water hole....  ; )

 Drying off.

Soccer Star!

I signed Hyrum up for a 5 week soccer workshop to see if it would be worthwhile to sign him up for a team in the fall.  The first week he was amazing!  I thought to myself:  "this kid has an inherent soccer-awesomeness!"  However the next week it became apparent that I had congratulated myself on a naturally athletic kid too soon.  He spent one game somersaulting the entire length of the field.  Then he was made the goalie, and it was fortunate the ball  never made it down to his side because Hyrum was busy sticking his arms and legs through the goal net and pretending to be a crab stuck in a net.  However, he was very good at the sport, when he was trying, and he loves it, so both he and Brielle will be playing with the Youth League in the fall.  They're very excited!  Mostly about owning shin guards, cleats and their own soccer balls, but still.  ; )

Memorial Weekend

We started our Memorial weekend by getting a babysitter and going downtown Seattle to ride Segway Scooters for a couple hours.  It was so much fun!!  I recommend trying a Segway to everyone.  It didn't take too long to learn, we practiced a few times in the shop.  The first time I tried it I almost ran into the wall, which made Russell laugh at me, until HE tried it the first time and ran into our tour guide.  ; )  Then we took to the streets and we saw all the fun Seattle sights, the fisherman wharf, the Space Needle, Pike Place, the artsy district, we went all over, and riding on the segway never got old.

The next morning we loaded up the kids and drove to Lake Cushman to stay in Uncle Dave and Aunt Carol's cabin.  The cabin is in a gorgeous place, right in the middle of the Olympic Forest, unfortunately because of that prime location in the temperate rain forest, we had a gray and rainy weekend.  We played a lot of games, walked down to the lake in the drizzle to throw rocks in the water, and then we got tired of the rain and drove around the forest to Port Townsend, where it was nice and sunny, and we stayed and played on the beach all day, catching star fish and splashing in the water.

 We had one dry evening at the cabin, and we rushed out to light a fire and cook s'mores.

It was a fun weekend!