Yakima

A couple weekends ago, we loaded up the kids, and Levi's bear, and headed over the river to Yakima to visit my grandparents!

The kids love going to Great-Grandpa and Great-Grandma's house.  There are new toys to play with, a huge yard to run around in, and new people to love on!  Levi loves reading and was constantly bringing books to Grandpa and Grandma!

It was super hot when we were there.  Perfect weather for Popsicles and running through the sprinklers.

And practicing our pole dancing.

The girls would have spent the whole weekend in the water if we had let them.  Levi didn't really get into the sprinklers this year.  He didn't like it spraying him in the face.

We also took a trip to the park that I would go to when I would visit Grandpa and Grandma growing up.

Fun new toys to play on.

And ducks to feed!

Levi didn't quite get the whole idea of feeding the ducks.  He would throw his bread pieces just beside him on the ground.

Or just throw the whole thing in at once!

Or maybe sample some himself.

It was a hot, fun, exhausting weekend!  This picture melts my heart as these two best friends/sisters fall asleep holding each others hands!

What A Team

Following is a somewhat sappy post about just how much I love my husband. We have been saying good-bye to our neighbors since we are moving across town. We have pretty good relationships with the neighbors and a lot of them have said that they will be sorry to see us leave because we have been good neighbors. It made me realize how truly blessed I am to be married to my husband. Because we wouldn't be the kind of people we are without each other. He makes me better and I make him better! We encourage each other to be kind, Godly people and, because God is infinitely wise, we complement each other and can make up for the other's flaws. The neighbors wouldn't think we were good neighbors if Matt didn't keep the lawn up, which is not something that I like to do. Or maybe they think we are good neighbors because I make them baked goods for Christmas, which is not Matt's forte. But together we are so good! I love Matt for helping me be a better person than I would be by myself.

Independence Day

We had a great Fourth of July this year!  We started the celebration by visiting our friends in Portland.  Our kids loved playing with their 6-month-old daughter....especially Laurel.  Laurel loves babies!  We had a delicious dinner with them and did a lot of running around, blowing bubbles, and Levi may or may not have eaten questionable berries in the backyard.  He never got sick or poisoned, so I think he did not eat them!

By the time we got home, it was past Levi's bedtime and he went right to sleep.  The girls, however, went outside to join the other neighborhood kids in celebrating our freedom with some Pop-Its, sparklers, and other little fireworks.  It was the first time the kids stayed awake long enough to actually enjoy the festivities, and our neighborhood didn't disappoint!  Between the 4 families that celebrated in our street, we had well over 100 sparklers that the kids spent 30 minutes playing with.  With 8 kids, no one got burned or lit on fire so it was very successful!  Erika loved everything about the night.....fireworks, staying up late.  Laurel, however, has trouble with loud noises and light can bother her eyes sometimes so she didn't care for the bigger, fountain-like fireworks.  She tired out before Erika did, but still had a really fun holiday!

Great Wolf Lodge

A couple of weekends ago, Sarah took Erika, Laurel, and me to Great Wolf Lodge.  It was one of the very best vacations I have been on and I'm sure the girls think it was the best they have had as well!

After a quick look at the lobby, which is really cool and has a bunch of stuff for kids to do....huge coloring sheets set up, an arcade, and a bunch of stuffed wolves and bears and other animals to look at......we went to our super fun themed room to change and jump in the water!

My kids adore the water, which is really great for their water-loving parents, so they were looking forward to getting in the pool as soon as possible.  Laurel showed us her very special supermodel pose.

It was tricky taking pictures while in the water, so they are blurry, but this is Erika coming down the water slide.  I think she rode it repeatedly 5 or 6 times.  Aunt Sarah also got to ride the slide the same number of times as she would take Erika up to the top, then have to come down herself!  Laurel was too short to enjoy the water slides, but that was okay because she loved hanging out in the kiddie pool section and "swimming".  Swimming for her meant bending over and putting her hands in the water and walking back and forth across the pool.  She doesn't like getting water in her eyes.  The kiddie section had a bunch of jet ski things that shot water out of them so she liked sitting on those and squirting me. 

Erika was also brave enough to perform this maneuver where she grabbed onto the rope bridge then walked across the pool on floating lily pads.  It looked really hard since the lily pads would move once you stepped on them, but she made it all the way across the pool! 

The girls and Sarah in the kid section.

We would come back to our "Kid Kamp" room to have snacks and rest between hours of enjoying the pool.

After a busy day of swimming, the girls were pretty wiped out and went right to sleep in their bunk beds.

Donuts for breakfast the next morning before swimming again.

At night, they had story time and a song session in the main lobby.  The girls really liked it! 

Enjoying the show, "There's Nothing to be Scared of in the Forest".  To which Sarah and I then came up with a list of multiple things to be afraid of if ever lost in the forest.

Erika in the lobby, looking in the water park at the giant, 1000-gallon bucket of water dumping.  I stood under it at one point while it was dumping.  Bad idea.  It really hurt my head!

And, a hula hoop contest in the lobby!

I loved the Great Wolf Lodge not only for the water park, which was amazing, but because they had a bunch of other fun things for kids to do while staying there.  We were never bored.  It was a really really great vacation.  I am super thankful that Matt stayed home with Levi, as he would have been a little difficult to handle in the water park, but I am looking forward to going back with him when he is older!

VBS

We spent the past week in Babylon learning about Daniel at our church's VBS.  It was so much fun!  Erika and Laurel spent the week there and Levi came to VBS on the last day and they all had a really good time!  Our church does a really good job with VBS and I am very thankful to be a part of it.

Laurel in the marketplace making a mosaic box.

More marketplace activities....making scrolls.

This brave sould, Danya, took care of the toddlers during VBS and let them do all the crafts.  Danya is Levi's normal Sunday school teacher and he loves her very much!  We are lucky to have her in our lives!

I was the leader of the tribe of Levi.  Go Levi!