Spontaneous Boat Ride

Mom called tonight and asked if Michael and I wanted to join her and Dave on the boat. Heck yes!! We scarfed the rest of our dinner, jumped in the mustang, and drove as fast as possible to the marina.

Obviously not really driving the boat here. We were just waiting for something.

Me and mom.

We sat up in the front of the boat for most of the ride.

Dave and mom.

Sunset heading back to the marina.

Hiking near Mt. St. Helens

On Sunday, Erika and Eric and Michael and I (and Coby!) went looking for trails around St. Helens. We headed out to Lava Canyon but it was closed. We found another trail and walked around the lava rock dried up river bed and them up to a tree stomp perched on a hill.

Thanks Erik and Erika! It was so much fun - great idea to check out some trails.

Mom's Cabin at Northwoods

Nate, Melissa and Max

Erika, Erik and Coby

All of us hanging out on the front porch.

Grilling steak for dinner.

Playing battle of the sexes downtstairs.

We had such a great time with everyone! Thanks for coming.

Lake Cougar

We went up to mom's cabin last weekend with friends. We had such a blast! We just spent 1 night and played around the lake and played board games and went hiking the next day, but it was so good and so much fun.

Erika and I on the dock. You can see Mt. St. Helen's in the background.

Michael, Erika, Erik, Max & Coby (dogs), Melissa and Nate swam out to the logs.

Me, Shelly, Erika and Melissa rafting away. Who knew? It actually holds 4 adults.

Melissa and her baby Max. The dogs that were there totally stole my heart.

Michael on the tube.

garden fun

The killer tomato bush (it tried to take down our house).

The third watermelon. I think they are so cute when they are that small.

I have a pumpkin plant that I accidently planted with my watermelon. It is really aggressive and so I keep cutting off arms of it and replanting them along our fence. I don't plant the root, just a long arm that I hacked off the original plant. Each arm replants with ease and starts growing new leaves. Pumpkins are really amazing plants.

My tomato picker with Jaguar. He's really good at picking them on the right day.

Our peppers. When do I pick them? They are beautiful but not very big. I don't want them to rot but I also want them to get a little bigger.

Summer Book Club

A couple friends and I just ended our summer book club. A few months ago we decided that since we all loved to read, that we should start a summer book club. We found The Potluck Club and read 50 pages every week for the last 7 weeks (350 pages total). We’re all readers and thought that it would be fun to do. We downloaded some book club questions for the book and each girl hosted dinner every week and then we met at a restaurant the last time.

It was really fun to get to know everyone a little better. Our husband also started a film club (because guys don’t read books) and got together each week to watch a guy movie. (I have no idea about the spacing on this blog entry. I couldn't get it to be normal.)

Tomato's

I'm really glad that I love tomato's. We've got a ton of them. They taste so good, I eat them by the handful. These are just today's pick.

Family Reunion Part 1

Every year my mom's side of the family has a reunion and this year we went to Ike Kwinsa State Park in Washington. Here is Michael and I after swimming on Lake Mayfield.

Michael on the boat before the tubing started.

Cameron and Kyle.

Roxy, Carol and my mom.

Cooking hot dogs in the fire. Brian, Kyle, Cameron, Michael, Roxy and mom.

Family Reunion Part 2

There was a Blueberry Festival going on in Mossyrock and we went to check it out. Michael and Cameron raced up a Rock Climbing Wall that they had.

There was going to be a piano smashing contest at the Festival and we found this funny piano that they were going to use to smash. Here is Jenny pretending to play at it.

Group Shot at the Lake: (left to right)

Heather, Michael, Ann (mom), Alexis, Jenny (sister), and Stephanie.

Michael and I. My mom snapped this quickly and I love the photo.

Kyle, Jenny, Dave and mom in front of the boat. Kyle, Michael, and I are now all trained to drive it. We had a great time learning over the weekend.

Thanks to everyone for a fantastic weekend!!!!