Bama and Papa visit Vashon!!!

We started out the weekend by going to the Strawberry Festival.  It was record highs this weekend with temperatures pushing close to 90 which is so rare here, but we enjoyed the time at the festival.  

 We watched the parade on Saturday morning despite the heat.

 

 On Sunday we went to a car show.  There were some really cool foreign cars.  My favorite was the Citron but the kids loved this Lotus.  

 

 All ready to take off!

 We stopped by the O Space for a crazy game of mini golf.  The holes were cleverly crafted with everyday items but in the style of Vashon which means artsy and quirky.  The most impressive hole was the one that had 6 golf clubs spinning.  It was a game of timing on that hole.  

 The Thriftway was sponsoring free train rides around town.  The driver ended up being from Appleton Wisconsin.  He travels around the country in the summer driving the train at festivals.

 We had an amazing game of soccer with the boys against girls.  The boys won 8 to 6.  

 During the soccer game, Venus went wild!  We thought she was cheering for us until we noticed a raccoon enjoying the compost pile in the woods.  He climbed the tree and watched for a while!

 

 We are on our way to hide Avery's first geocache.  

 It's hidden and ready to be found!

 Papa was putting transmission fluid in the van and Avery was very interested in learning about how a car works.  Papa took the time to explain and point things out. 

 It was great to see Papa relaxing and enjoying a book!

 On the bus and on our way to the Space Needle and Pike's Place Market.

We ate lunch in Sky City which is the restaurant in the Space Needle.  The food was fantastic and the view was amazing!  The inner part of the restaurant revolves once every 40 minutes so we were able to view all of Seattle without getting out of our seats.  We learned the Space Needle was built for the 1962 World's Fair and it's 605 feet tall.

 Enjoying street art in Seattle.

 It's always fun playing with Bama.

 We played lots of fun games when they were here, the kids didn't want them to leave.

Thanks for all of the memories!  We love you to the moon and back!

Happy 9th Birthday Avery!

 Avery and Banana 9 years!  He is still a good sport with Banana.

 He asked for a homemade ice cream cake this year.  

 And homemade pizza for dinner.  He wanted to make his own and he ate the whole thing!

 He and Alia were practicing their soccer skills with the new goals Grandma and Grandpa Davis gave him for his birthday.  These goals are great because they fold down and fit in a bag.  

 

 For his birthday we bought a geocache box and filled it with his gifts and then hid it.  He had to use the gps to find his gift.  

 We filled the box with Ex Pokemon cards, a trackable geocache whale to hide later, treats, coins and Alia's gift.  We are going to fill the box and hide our very own geocache with a trackable in it.  

Avery's Questions:  

1.  Favorite color:  blue, red, yellow

2.  Favorite toy:  plastic knife, race car and zoomer

3.  Favorite food:  watermelon, cherries, and cantaloupe

4.  Favorite animal:  furry creatures- Fluffy, Venus, and Maia

5.  Favorite book:  Eragon and Goblin Wars

6.  Best friend:  my family

7.  Favorite thing to do outside:  run around and play with insects and spiders

8.  Favorite Holiday:  Christmas because you have 2 weeks off

9.  When I grow up I want to be a scientist because I learn new things and build stuff.

10.  Favorite subject:  Science

11.  Least favorite subject:  Handwriting (the agony of being a lefty!)

12.  What do you like most about yourself?  I am a nice boy

13.  Biggest accomplishment this year:  Learning subtraction facts

14.  Favorite thing to do:  Play nook, play outside, play with my family

15.  I like to collect:  Pokemon cards and magic tricks

16.  Favorite family tradition:  Having church at home on Sundays

17.  Favorite memory:  Camping, climbing Mt Elinor, and going to California

Rules for the day:

1.  His first rule for the day was to snuggle with me and give me a back scratch. When I said, "No way, I get to give you one."  He said, "It's my rule and I get to be sweet to you today."

2.  Stay in my pajamas all day

3.   Watch movies- he said he wanted to have a really lazy day.  He wasn't kidding because he watched cartoons and movies ALL day.  

4.  Have homemade mac and cheese with a cherry smoothie for lunch and homemade pizza for dinner.

5.  Play soccer

6.  Go for a trail run with the family.  We have been going for trail runs every Tuesday and we are really enjoying it.  The kids can really run and are up to 2.3 miles.

The Wangs visit Vashon!!!

 We spent last week spending time with one of my very best friends and her awesome family.  Sarah was one of my first friends.  We met in first grade and she stuck with me through the last 30 years.  We've made some amazing memories and this week was no different.  Thank you for coming for a visit and for all those laughs!  Quiz anyone?!

 Avery loved that Isaac could teach him a few things on Minecraft.  

  Alia had a blast with Layna this week!  She enjoyed spending time with her on art projects and playing hide n seek. 

When they left she said, "I really miss them, can they come live by us?"

 We went for a hike at Dockton Park.  The blackberries were finally in season so we enjoyed eating on the way down to the beach.

 I love this picture of Layna and Joe.

 Taking a ride on the rope swing.

 This was a pretty funny moment.  Let me explain what you see in this picture.  Venus was laying on the ground and Isaac was mimicking the way she was laying.  Avery and Alia were helping him out.

 This was a great moment for Alia.  The boys were excluding her from one of their games and she ran over to Layna and climbed up on the  hammock, she was so excited!

 We shared one of our favorite traditions with the Wangs and walked to the end of our neighborhood to feed the sheep.  The sheep in the picture were the babies born in the spring of this year.  They are very tame and know us well.  Whenever they see us walking up to their pen they all start bleating and running toward us.  We spoiled them with carrots on this day.

 This is Prince, the big daddy.  He has some impressive horns and a pretty stubborn personality but we love him!

Issac feeding the runt and one of two sets of triplets.

End of school begining of Summer

We have been having a blast lately exploring the area. Here are some of the recent highlights

 

 We visited the Seattle Center to watch a Battle Bots competition.  Avery absolutely loved watching the bots fight.  One of the best battles was when one of the bots flipped the other in the air and caused it to break into pieces and fall into a pit.

 Climbing at the new park at the Seattle Center.  

 

 Venus went missing one day and I found her in the basement with the dog food bag on her head.  She wouldn't move until I took it off her head.

 I love that Maia loves to cuddle.

 Alia and Scott went to their first Daddy/Daughter dance.  Alia had so much fun dancing and spending time with just Scott.  She said it was the best first date ever.

 

 Avery and his class put on a fantastic end of the year show with lots of dancing.  The school has a great relationship with many artists in our community that give their time to teaching the kids their skills.  The second grade class was able to learn from a local dancer who helped put on a great show.  

 Avery has loved the laid back days of summer.  Most days you can find him in the yard observing spiders and feeding them or playing with any number of bugs.  On this day I found him having Roly Poly races.

He managed to find over 20 of them and would put them in the middle square and race them until one made it to the outside lip.

 We went to music in the park and saw many kids sledding down the hills with boxes.  I guess this is a tradition.  Notice how dry the grass is!  This is our dry season, which is so hard to imagine after going through a very wet, rainy season.  After 7 months of rain, we have had 2 months without a cloud in the sky or a drop of rain. We have a burn ban in effect and they have declared drought for our area.  

4th of July was great this year. We watched the fireworks with some of our first friends on the island.  It was an enjoyable evening watching the fireworks over the water with Mt Rainer in the background.

Outdoor Adventures on Father's Day

 For Father's Day weekend we decided to go camping at The Dungeness Recreation Area.  It has the longest sand spit in the country.  It was a great campground with trails along the coast.  The temperatures were in 60's during the day but the campground was in the shade and we were cold! 

 Avery was really interested in learning how to build a fire this time.  He helped keep the fire tended.

 We took a day trip and visited Lake Crescent to bask in the warm sun.  

From there we hiked to Marymere Falls. 

 The trees on the hike were really big.

 The next day we headed to Mt Ellinor which is in the Olympic National Forest.  The peak is at 6,000 feet.  We started at the upper trail head at 3,500.  The drive up to the trail head was pretty scary with drop offs on either side of the van.  We ended up hiking 2,500 feet up to the 6,000 foot peak.  It was a pretty intense hike up the mountain.  The kids were amazing and were hard to keep up with.  

 The trail is described as "heading upward at a character building grade through the trees into rock strewn meadows".

 There were mountain goats all over the mountain.  The one Avery was looking at was not really afraid of people.  

 The views were amazing!  Lake Cushman is in the background.

 She made it to the top!