Family Fun

This last week has been pretty eventful around our house. We've had my 2nd cousin Damien stay with us. This is the first time I've ever met Damien, so it was nice to get to know him. Damien is 13 years old and such a funny kid. I haven't seen his father (my cousin) since I was about 5 or 6 years old, but he reminds me so much of his dad! Damien had come up from Vancouver, WA with his grandma to visit my grandparents. He didn't want to go home after his week here, so we decided to have him stay with us for an extra week. (My grandparents aren't used to having kids around their house). We tried to fit in as many activities as we could with him. We went to Riverfront Park, Splashdown Water Park and Ron was able to take Damien to the gym with him several times. Thanks to Grammy Chunk (my mom) for the fun time at Riverfront!!

Look Who's 3!

Soooooo I'm a terrible mom. Tanner's birthday was July 29th and I am just now getting around to posting his birthday pictures. I just had them done, so I guess I really couldn't have posted anything before today, even if I had wanted to. :) The pictures turned out surprisingly well. I can't believe he is 3 already! Where does the time go?? I can't believe what a big boy he is. He has been potty trained for a couple of months now and it is so wonderful having only one baby in diapers! Yay! I just enrolled Tanner in preschool today...it kind of makes me sad! :) He is definitely my little man and I love him to pieces. Here are some of his birthday pictures...







On July 29th we had a birthday party for Tanner. It was great having his great-grandparents, his grandparents, uncles and aunt here for the festivities. He got a new bike that he absolutely loves. Thanks to our family for spoiling him rotten!

Just say no....to speedos.

On Tuesday night Ron and I decided to take the kids to a local water slide park. It was a ton of fun and the kids always love going there. I find the park very entertaining because you just never know what you're going to see there. Of course there are the women that you love to hate because no one should look that good in a swimsuit. There are the men that really could care less about the slides, but are there to look at those women. On this particular day there seemed to be an overabundance of mid-life crisis or perhaps completely clueless customers. There were the women in bikinis who obviously didn't own a full-length mirror, and were perhaps trying to take 20 years off their actual age. Now don't get me wrong...props to them for having the self-confidence to wear such attire, but still. (I really have no room to be saying any of this...I am the frumpy mom with the t-shirt over her swimsuit, but at least I have the decency to cover up what shouldn't be exposed!) Anyway, there seemed to be a crazy amount of men in speedos that day. Now speedos are never ok, but they were just flat out wrong as these older men were trying to strut their stuff. It was especially entertaining watching these men check out the younger women and those women getting creeped out. I had to chuckle inside. You know, sometimes it's okay to NOT feel desired! There was one man in particular I noticed, mostly because he looked like a walking bear skin rug. He had hair EVERYWHERE!! And to make it worse, he was wearing....you guessed it, a speedo. There's probably a good chance he could have gotten away with wearing nothing due to his nice fur coat. So as my son Tanner and I are waiting in line to go down the slide, this hairy man stands behind us. It's now our turn to go, so Tanner and I head on down. We reached the bottom and decided to sit on the steps where you exit the pool to wait for Ron and Julia to come down. We're watching the slides and here comes the hairy guy in his blue speedo. He was really moving and hit the water so hard he nearly flipped over. All I can say is that the speedo didn't hold its place after such an impact. He stood up, apparently not knowing he was exposed and I immediately gagged. Unfortunately Tanner spotted the shifted speedo also and in his loud 3 year old voice said "Oh Mom! That's a hairy wiener!" I about died and I prayed that no one heard it over the sound of the water crashing into the pool off the slides. Thankfully hairy speedo guy realized his exposure before completely exiting the pool. Perhaps next time he will consider swim trunks.

"Oh, nevermind..."

Recently I've had to start locking our garage door during the day so the kids can't get into it. In the past I've allowed them to play in there...riding their bikes, making forts, etc. I've never really had a problem with it, we'd clean up before Dad got home and all was good. It was all fine and dandy until they got a little more inquisitive. Tools started missing, things were being taken off shelves, and the messiest discovery was a big bag of grass seed. In the time it took me to come inside and make lunch, they had about half the bag of grass seed all over the garage and proceeded to spread it around with a push broom. Needless to say I wasn't happy, so I decided it was time to start locking up the garage.

The kids hadn't noticed the locked door...until today. They went outside in hopes of playing in the garage. To their surprise they couldn't get in. Of course they come running inside acting like it's the end of the world. It was hard to contain my laughter. I told them that the door was locked because they got into stuff they aren't supposed to play with. Apparently that didn't matter to them, they were determined to find the key to the garage. Julia ran up to my room to look while Tanner started searching in the kitchen. I was sitting here watching Tanner when he looked up at the corkboard and saw a key hanging there. He quickly pulled over a barstool and climbed up onto the desk. He grabbed the key, looked at me and said "Ha ha Mom...I got the key!!" My response: "Tanner, that isn't the key to the garage, that is the key to the neighbor's house" (we keep a spare over here for them in case they get locked out). His devilish smile faded from his face and he said "Oooooh, nevermind". I laughed so hard. Here this little guy thought he had out-smarted mom. Think again Tanner! :)

Bison, moose and deer....oh my!

On July 17th we took a trip back over to the Seattle area to visit with Ron's mom. It was only fair now that Matt was here on vacation to take him over there with us to have some fun!! Ron had planned the trip a few months in advance and was planning on spending most of the weekend out at Pacific Raceways for the NHRA races. So the kids and I were at Grandma's disposal for the weekend. :) Once again we were all spoiled rotten and had a great time! What a fun weekend!!

On Friday we started off at Northwest Trek. This is a wildlife park where animals are free to roam about in their natural habitat. It was gorgeous!! I have to admit that I was skeptical about this place, but it turned out to be amazing. We took an hour long tram ride where you tour the park and see all the wildlife. The kids LOVED riding on the tram! It was pretty amazing to see the animals up close.

Julia, Tanner & Grandma on the tram


Olivia, Auntie Reva & Matt


Juju & Tanner loving the tram!



Tanner, Juju and Matt enjoying the greenery


Random animals...




Saturday we went to Point Defiance Zoo. It was a lot of fun. Unfortunately I didn't take too many pictures because I was dealing with a cranky baby most of the time. :) The zoo puts on a wildlife show using trained animals. It was a lot of fun and the kids really enjoyed it!




Sunday was our final day to spend with Grandma. We debated on going to an amusement park, but decided instead to go to the beach. It was a heck of a lot cheaper and we got to spend some quality time together.

Juju looking for seashells


Can you tell we're related? ha ha


The whole gang...


Thanks again Grandma for a wonderful weekend!! We had a great time!!