The Wild Boys

I just have to add this series of pictures because they all make me laugh every time I look at them!

Silas & Jack
Still mostly dressed at this point but pretty dirty!

This series shows what happens every time we tried to get a picture
of the boys together...  Lost the clothes somewhere too!

And he's down!

Notice how dirty they are...

Another classic picture of Silas!
At least they all still have their
crocs and socks on...

I don't even know what to say!

But, this is what Mayme and Boppa's fence looked like when the kids got
done playing in the dirt out there.  The bathtub was a whole other
mess, there was a serious pile of dirt and a major ring when they got out!

p.s.  I totally forgot my camera that weekend so HUGE thank you to Mayme for sending all these my way!!!

Bend Visit

I am trying to do a bit of catching up on here and am having a hard time believing that September starts a week from tomorrow and that Noah's birthday, my brother's wedding and school are just days away!  Crazy!!!
Anyway, I want to get all the latest summer pics caught up on here before all of those events take place because you know there is going to be large amount of pictures involved in each one of those...
A few weeks ago we all headed over to Bend for a long weekend to enjoy the nice weather, play some golf and let the kids be crazy together!  The guys golfed every day while the rest of us had a few lazy days hanging out at the park and pool, gotta love nice warm days in Bend!  The boys had a blast and absolutely loved hanging with Ariel and Jack for three whole days!  Noah and Ariel got the bonus room all to themselves which Noah thought was super cool.  I came up to check on them one night and found them in the pitch dark room each playing their video games in bed, Noah on his Leapster and Ariel on her iPad...
Silas and Jack are a whole other story, they are absolutely crazy together.  Throw Noah in the mix and it is a recipe for a lot of running, jumping, screaming and craziness!  Love it :)

One of my favorites!  Ready to hit the pool!!!

Gotta love the goggles...

Silas was not a big fan of the pool, he never
actually got in.  There was just a lot of kicking!

Noah trying to talk Silas into taking a dip!

Noah on the other hand did not want to get out of the pool!

Calming Noah down after the
"I DON'T WANT TO GET OUT OF THE POOL"
meltdown...

We also celebrated Uncle Jerromy's birthday
while we were there, this is Noah's
I'm ready for cake face!

Such a cutie pie!

The rare family picture...

Ryan and I escaped Saturday morning to
have coffee and hike up Pilot Butte!

What I learned from Uncle Mason last weekend...

Ice Cream Party

We had some good friends over to BBQ on Saturday night, gotta love these nice summer evenings!  The kids activities included mud flinging, painting our trees with mud (using brooms & golf clubs of course), climbing the trees, eating very little dinner and then having an ice cream party on the rock!

Noah, Grace & Kevin (the big kids)!

Love this one!

Silas and Jordan at the kiddie table!  It was next to impossible
to get them both looking at the same time...

Such a cutie!

Cooking Camp

Noah finally had cooking camp this last week!  He has been talking about this one all summer (along with bubble camp which is next week)!  He came home with a handcrafted chef hat & apron and a serious chocolate mustache from the dirt pudding he had made!

Noah's apron he painted all by himself, very
impressed with his N!!!!

Instagram = LOVE

For months now I have been noticing people posting cool Instagram pictures on Facebook and had been pretty curious about how it works...  Basically you can change up any picture you take to make it look like you did some serious photo editing on it and it only take a few seconds!  Once you are done you can email, Facebook or Tweet the picture or just save it on your phone!  While I seriously love my iPhone and use it a lot I am pretty sure I do not utilize or even realize all of the cool options and apps that are available but this app is just too much fun not to share!!  I have even got Ryan started on it and he is totally hooked!  Here are a few of my favorites so far!

I added the star in picnik, trying to keep things G around here :)
(picnik is another really fun photo editing site)

Our Sweet Boys

Girl Weekend

My friend Rita and her family moved up to San Juan Island several years ago and we have been wanting to take a trip up there to visit ever since, however with the two little guys that is easier said than done...  My friend Tasha and I decided to plan a girls trip and have a relaxing, kid free weekend in Friday Harbor with Rita and her family!!!  YES PLEASE!
My parents picked up the boys on Thursday afternoon and Tasha & I hit the highway (thank you Nonnie & Papa)!!!  Friday Harbor is not a quick trip, it is about 2 1/2 hours North of Seattle and has the added bonus of an hour long ferry ride to get to the island.  So, we decided to have a night out in Seattle and then finish the drive on Friday morning.  We found a fun/interesting restaurant called Poquitos downtown, had some awesome Mexican food and possibly the strongest margarita I have ever had in my life (strong but delicious :)!  After dinner I decided  I needed to have some kind of yummy dessert so we headed over to a less interesting part of town to have some AMAZING desserts and maybe another drink!

A little silly but of all the places we checked out in Seattle this is the
only picture I took from the evening...
I heart Tiramisu!!!

After our long night of possibly a little too much to drink and definitely way too much to eat we hit the highway at 7:30 a.m. (had to leave enough time for Starbucks stops) and headed for the ferry!

Ferry self portrait!

Pulling into Friday Harbor on the Ferry, seriously beautiful!

We had a whirlwind weekend with lots of catching up and trying to see as much of the island as we could in the short time we were there.  It is so funny how the three of us can somehow revert back to our 13 year old selves after all these years, needless to say there was a lot of gabbing, laughter and goofiness...  I can't wait to go back with the whole family, the boys are seriously going to love it there!

The Girls

Checking out English Camp

They were having a special reenactment of what
life was like at English Camp in the mid 1800's complete
with a cook out, soldiers, music and lots of folks
dressed up in Little House on the Prairie garb!

The beautiful English Gardens

These nice young soldiers spent quite a while telling us
how their giant guns work so of course I had
to ask for a picture!

View of the Olympic Mountains from our spot on the beach!

The beaches are slightly different than ours...
Madison had a blast playing in the tide pools and
climbing all the rocks, I know the boys would
absolutely love it here!

Looks like a good picnic to me :)

Rita and sweet Natalie!

Apparently it is whale time around San Juan Island right now.  They swim up
 and down the coastline feeding on the salmon near the shore.  We had a
 last minute change of plans and ended up at the beach for a
 picnic instead of hiking one of the mountains and I am so glad we did.
As we were enjoying our lunch and the beautiful view a huge
pod of whales swam by.  It was one of the most amazing things I have ever seen.
They were so close we could actually hear them breathing or snorting or
whatever it is  they do out there when they come out of the water!
I have it on video and will try to upload that one of these days!
I know I keep saying this but AMAZING!!!

Beautiful sunset at Rita's!
LOVE the island!
Thanks for such a fun trip ladies (& Justin for putting up with us :)