Designed and created by herself as a special gift for her cousin, Amber:

I posted earlier that not only do I have few pictures of myself, I have very few pics of my friends.  Over the next few months, my goal is to change that. Kristin is one of my oldest friends—maybe 20 years now. She actually just gets more beautiful over time, but her face is what I admire least about my intelligent, intuitive, sassy, highly effective drug-and-alcohol-and middle school counselor friend.  She also has a cute niece who my kids are gaga over.

Love, you, Keeks!

We were just a month away from the grand opening of the new aquarium, but we braved the old stuff to hang out with Friend Kristin, and her wonderful niece.

I can’t foresee a day I will outgrow Sheruff Bones and his Wild West show.

From Bones to budgies, we couldn’t wait to feed the birds.

 

Regular readers of this blog will not spend much time wondering why Piper is scowling as she shares a statures with 3 others.

 

It’s become a tradition (meaning this is our second time) to head to the gentrified Ruston Way waterfront for ice cream and splash time.

   

I spend a lot of time being amused by Wesley while pretending I don’t know him.

 

Why is Piper turning her back on all her loved ones to sit in the rain, scowling, for an hour? 

While Kyla and I spend the day painting Kyla’s room, Piper had the kids’ computer for about 3 hours to listen to her Spotify playlist.  When Wesley wanted it to play Minecraft, we set the timer for 30 minutes and Piper spitefully pouted for more than twice that. 

Oh, well, I had plenty of painting to do, and happily left her out there.

Four years ago, we completely redid Kyla’s bedroom.  I loved the calming lavender and white color scheme but Kyla has outgrown it.

I woke up Saturday morning to Kyla moving everything (“but the bed, Mom!”) out of her room.  She’s my SuperMinimalist, which I love, and even when I thought she had nothing left to get rid of, she dug as deep as she could.  And when the room was cleared of everything, it seemed like an opportune time to repaint to a color she wanted.

It took her about 30 seconds to choose Retro Mint at the paint store, and approximately 2 minutes to confirm her choice.

She picked out the gold and white floor-length curtains and bought herself a new, more minimalist side table.

While I’ll admit that this isn’t my style, I can’t help but celebrate her as she finds her own groove.

Teenage years, here she comes!

Parker and Cecily had (or about to have) birthdays in August, so the kids and I drove home from Hood Canal via their house to have an afternoon of fun and food.

This is the fun…

(pretty cool, huh?)

…and here is the food!

Julie made their birthday cake on American Ninja Warrior [insert rumbling announcer voice] Mega-Wall.  Isn’t this awesome?  I love her thoughtful creativity!

The 5 cousins made good use of the fort and of each other.

Thanks for the fun Friday, Keith & Julie, Mom & Dad!

Happy Kyla, cheerful Wesley, contrary Piper.

Later that night, her siblings are in another room and Piper has Timmy.  Now she can be happy.

I’m taking the 4 kids on a sunset adventure to chase its setting and paddle out further than we had before.

I love it when my kids’ friendships line up with my own. Wesley and Westin were in pre-K together 4 years ago, and even though they go to schools on the opposite sides of the district, their friendship has remained strong.  I give all credit to Westin’s grandma, Karla, who comes over from Hood Canal once a week as needed to take care of him.  This week, we decided to go her way.

And wow, what a treat for us!  They live right on the water’s edge, and we had immediate water access for the kayaks and standup paddle boards (SUP). And I am obsessed with SUPS. I have three natural talents: roller blading, breastfeeding, and SUP-ing.  Not surprising, I am way underemployed. 

But first, let me show you some of our highlights.

The house was bright and open, the better to take pictures of cherry-vampire Piper. (I am relieved she shows up in photographs.)

There’s a driving range, which Karla and I agree seems the stupidest thing.  However, the number of great conversations and quality time spent (particularly by the males in her fam) proves us wrong.  Wes² hit balls any time they weren’t playing Legos or in the water. It was really cool.

 

(Isn’t it lovely?)

During low tide the next morning, the kids hunted the golf balls, as well as shells, crabs, and all the other marine treasures they could collect.

They snuggled up with Inspector Gadget in the evening.

But of all the wonders, my highlight was our sunset adventure.  Before I went out, I took this shot of the boys in the foreground, Piper on the paddleboard, and that distant speck?  Kyla kayaking out on her own.

Never before have I actually wanted to live on the water, but this trip had me looking longingly at waterfront. Thanks, Karla and Westin for an amazing overnight adventure!

“Welcome to Concrete: Center of the Known Universe”

I love the sheer audacious irony.

I took the kids camping Monday, for probably the last time this summer.  KOA is not the beautiful state park down the road a few miles, but it has a pool, mini-golf, the jumping pillow, and lots of other kid-friendly options, including a store where Wesley can buy himself. Another. Stuffed. Animal.

Fortunately, Paws likes the playground as much as Wesley does.

The pool is fine, but the kids enjoy the creek more.  Kyla can build dams while Piper and Wesley “catch” (read: chase) fish.

We ended up staying two nights, after I got a text saying I didn’t need to watch a friend’s kids Wednesday morning.  But here’s why I’m done with camping. When I rolled in Monday afternoon, there was ample opportunity, between taking my money and charging an extra $5 per kid, to let me know that tree work was scheduled near our site all day Tuesday, blocking the egress most of the time.  You know a good reason to go camping, besides making kids happy?  For peace and quiet in the great outdoors.  KOA fail.  And then it was carefully explained to me that it was really important for everyone’s safety to take care of the trees.  I don’t think I once said that I preferred dead people, but I do prefer making decisions based on full disclosure.  They offered me a different campsite, but the entire purpose of camping for 2 nights is not to set up camp twice.  Our compromise?  They didn’t charge me $15 for my kids the second night.  Any other KOAs to try beside Leavenworth and Concrete?  

We took a day to play at PSC, one of my favorite places.  In a nod to current reality, we spent a good deal of time in front of different screens.

We started with the Panda IMAX movie.  No cute shot was left out!

Kyla’s big enough to do the lever bike now, but my roof-dwelling girl is a tiny bit concerned about heights.

We took in our first laser show—Michael Jackson!  I think I last saw a laser show in my HS church youth group. I’m not a MJ fan, but it was fun and I was surprised how much each kid really enjoyed the experience.  The theme this summer is how rare it is for 3/3rds kids to be happy simultaneously.  This was one of those times.

My favorite of the day was the Virtual Reality.  We did two, but the Tree experience was remarkable!  It was immersive, using fans and blown-out matches to tease all the senses.

This is how crazy-amazing Kyla is: each of us did the Tree VR, and you actually feel like you are the tiniest seed in the ground, and you watch your body grow into one of the tallest trees in the rain forest.  But when you look down, your legs are actually the tree’s trunk, and you are 30 feet (and growing) above ground!  I am not scared of heights, but I felt myself completely teetering, using my whole body not to “fall off the tree”.  Piper did the same.  Kyla, when she felt that way, deliberately took a side step off the tree to prove to herself it wasn’t real…and to get a closer look at her neighboring flora.  I really admire that—it was like the ADHD paleontologist who was the first to find an intact nest and deliberately smashed one of the eggs to discover more about it, something none of his colleagues could have brought themselves to do.  Cool Kyla!