Nothing Much to Report

We always keep on trucking. School ends in a couple weeks, so I'm looking forward to the slightly slower pace of summer (although this summer is a busy one!), but for now we have another copy weeks of busy-ness. Mike has also been really busy at work because he's had auditors checking up on things this past week. Jack is getting used to his new pre-school and seems to like it okay. I'm not sure if we are going to keep him there next fall because it's not very convenient and I don't think they are pushing his learning enough, but it's okay for now. He's been very in to imaginative play lately, which is good. Here's the "traffic jam" he created on his track, filling it up with cars, trucks, and busses. 

 He's also discovered driving his RC truck off ramps on the back porch...

 He's a super cool kid, who needs to wear sunglasses when he goes outside now.

 Is he driving?

 Aspen and Wall Street are both shedding like crazy and need to be brushed constantly or we have balls of cat and dog hair floating around the wood floors.

 It's been very nice weather the last two weeks. My peonies and roses started blooming about 2 weeks ago, which is much earlier than usual.

 Other than that, nothing much to report.

We

Catch Up and Cousin Weekend

 Whew! What a crazy couple of weeks. Floors are finally done downstairs, and they look great!

Jack had a fun 4th birthday party. It was kinda overshadowed by everything that happened right around then, but the kids loved playing on all the toys at the YMCA!

After that, we headed to Nevada to see baby Haydn and to Utah for grandma's funeral. 

It was nice to see my folks and catch up with a bunch of my cousins, but I wish it could have been for a different reason. Here are some of my cousins and brothers with our children. 

Then, we had a little bit of time to get the house put back together, catch up at work, and I had homework to do for my grad program, which started the same weekend everything else occurred. 

We had another busy weekend this past weekend, keeping Tommy and Sam while Lesa and Colin went on a little trip. We tried to keep the boys busy....Friday night, they destroyed the house and climbed all over Mike. 

 Saturday, we decided on the game plan of lots of activities outside to keep the house intact. Luckily, the weather was gorgeous. We started with a visit to see the farm animals.

 Then, we drove up Hwy 2 to "the beach," which was really a bank along the Skagit river at Rasar State Park, a great little park that never seems to be crowded. The boys started with playing in the sand.

 However, then they realized there was this awesome, really big mud puddle left over from a storm, and in they went, pants, jackets and all. We did get shoes and socks off at least. It was about 65 degrees, and I'm sure the water was cold, but they didn't care.

 We had a picnic lunch and played at the playground, right there at the park as well (after we got into dry, clean clothes anyway).

 Here's the only quiet time of the whole weekend on the drive.

 We stopped at the mall on the way home. Then, at home we cooked hotdogs and marshmallows on the fire for dinner and played outside until bedtime!

 On Sunday, we continued the out-of-the-house plan with a trip up to Skykomish to ride the mini-trains.

 After that, we had a picnic lunch around the Skykomish River, and then the boys threw rocks into the water forever. Then, we drove home, where we immediately went to the park for a little more playtime before coming home for pizza and an after dinner movie! The weekend was full and exhausting, but the boys had fun!

Whew!