Saturday Activities

The day started off by some of the family going to finish cleaning up wedding stuff... and the rest of us met up with them at the city park in Lynden.

Swings and slides were enjoyed as well as the little creek that runs thru the park.

Here's TJ & Marco posing. Check out the muscles!



Then we got some lunch and headed over to Edaleen for ice cream! Yum!!



Naps were enjoyed by many and then the slip and slide came out...
and we're not talking about some store-bought slip n' slide...
this was a mondo- even the adults can enjoy themselves- slide











Maria only went down a couple of times.... the rest of the time she looked at us like this...



Chad and Rachel really got things going...







... and you had to be careful...



... 'cause sometimes if you really got going....



... you could end up in the ditch like Rach did...



Baby Eden spent part of the time in the bouncy chair, much to her dismay.



and I'm pretty sure we all ate from the garden...



Hayden & Kayla sure had a fun time....



Oh, and by the way bubbles are a MUST with slip n' slides!!

Later we had a BBQ & fire...

TJ chopped the wood



Maria had a dinner of chips...



& the rest of us had hot dogs & hamburgers....

I love family visits.

I sure am going to miss them when I'm worlds away.

The Wedding

My lil' sis is now Mrs. Brooks.

Her wedding was beautiful. I only have pictures from when we first got there... then life with 2 kids set in and Cooper was hungry while Maria wanted to be held or run around like a 2 year old... I'm just glad that I was actually there, in the audience, for the actual wedding.

Here are some pictures of the decorations...





A friend of ours did a bunch of vinyl "stencils" for us and we etched about a bazillion glass jars.

I think they turned out GREAT!!











Here's Kayla as the flower girl...



and her big brother Hayden...



Here are my two men...



and here's Ria teaching Eden how to pole dance...



Here's cousin Dawn (who was one of the Bridesmaids) with Eden.... I swear, that girl had babies attached to her hip... none of which were her's.

Kayla's owies

This is Kayla.



She is an ultimate sweetheart!
She was feeling bad because she burnt her hand. She touched the exhaust on the 4-wheeler.
I took a picture. She wanted me too. It distracted her from the pain for about 5 seconds.

What is this??

Need a close up??



Mayonnaise.

My mom comes down stairs and says come and check this out...

A HUGE jar that they got at Cash & Carry for the wedding went splat.
Luckily it didn't get my Mom's dress for the wedding which was hanging on the armoire just to the right.

Let the festivities begin!

These two were So excited to see each other.

I don't know what ria's going to do when she's in Honduras and her beloved Ninny is in North Carolina!!

Things are happening...

... all over the place there is change...

...my lil' sister gets married this week...

...my younger brother and his family are moving across country...
(they're heading to NC... so for those of you there give them a shout out! They're amazing you'll love them!!)


AND things are falling into place for us. Marco, I, and our two lovely children will be packing our bags too....
Heading south.

The end of August we'll all hop on a plane bound for Honduras!!

Here's to big adventures!!

Upcycling

Lately I've been doing a little upcycling.

I took an old t-shirt of mine and turned it into this dress for Maria.
(gotta love that nanna-do!!)

the button IS supposed to be off-centered.

I took some old jeans and an old sheet and made this diaper bag.

Some of the jeans had holes ... I was inspired by THIS post on mending.

I used an existing pocket for things like my keys, and then made some extra pockets (pleated ones on the sides and front, and a straight one on the back) I'm really enjoying this right now... it fits my purse stuff and diaper bag stuff.

Here is another t-shirt upcycle. It's got a pleat in the skirt area, and also in the sleeves.

Over 90...

that's how hot it was today.
In contrast to how COLD it was (57*) on the 4th.
(I just checked my zip code's daily average at the weather channel's website and they said for July 8th the average is 62*.... how depressing is that!!)

Yesterday was pretty warm too...


We've been playing in the mini-pool & trying to get tans before the sun disappears.

Maria was "supposed" to be getting ready to play in the pool, but it seems as if she thought sun tanning was a better idea...



Cooper's new favorite spot is in the walker.



I think it's pretty funny how his feet dangle there... sometimes he can really get them going.

Today we went and got ice cream from Edaleen Dairy... it's SO good. Maria got a baby cone for 40 cents, & my medium (which is like a large any other place) was less than a dollar. Their sizes go all the way up to super which I would say is ice cream 8 inches above the cone. Now that's some serious ice cream.

After the dairy we headed over to this park in Lynden where we saw an old friend that I haven't seen in years. Totally cool.



As soon as Maria saw it she started yelling "swings" and couldn't get out of the car fast enough.

We had a picnic dinner.

Maria found a little pile of dirt



and ended up looking like this



She came home all worn out... thank goodness.
Her sleeping schedule has been all out of whack the past couple days... I'm looking forward to some regularity.

PS.. it's Thursday... I totally missed a day this week, which is throwing my whole week off!!

Happy Independance Day

Our festivities are over.
(although our neighbors with the HUGE show are still going)
It was ridiculously cold & windy.
57 degrees on July 4th is just not right.

We had a nice BBQ... followed by smores.



One of the younger girls came around the fire trying to get people to tell scary stories... A man that works at the border patrol took the flashlight....

"once upon a time there was a family crossing the border who forgot about the orange that had rolled under one of their seats... muah haha!!"

Played some volleyball & other games. (the sun came out just in time for us to see it set.)



Played on the ropes holding the volleyball net up.



Made futile attempts to stay warm by the fire.



Others chose to wear ear-muffs to stay warm instead.



This precious little one was mesmerized by the flames.



And then the sparklers came out...



Followed by the big sparklies. (which scared Maria, so her Daddy took her inside)



We had a great time... tons of people showed up despite the not so fun weather. The wind was constantly blowing, it sprinkled on us a little, and it was cold. Thanks to my parents for throwing the shin-dig & for the fireworks show.