Backyard fun

At my parents' house we took the girls in the backyard to play in the water. Kaylin wanted NOTHING to do with the sprinkler, but she loved the hose.

Take that, Macey!

Macey was thirsty.

Very thirsty.



Apparently so was Kaylin.

Oh no she didn't...

Oh yes, I did.

I cut off the straps of all of my old bras before throwing them in the garbage. I did think about donating the bras to charity, but really, who wants to wear a nasty old used bra?? Please don't tell me if you do. Before I could throw the bras out, I realized that in the past I have purchased the plastic/metal adjuster pieces. I knew I had to keep at least that part. But then I thought, what about all of that elastic? So I just cut off the whole strap. The straps are now sitting proudly in an Ikea spice jar in my craft room. Mark my words, at least part of these will show up in a headband or something someday. Keep an eye on my new baby's head.

Now you know how OLD I am

We have been BUSY. After our trip to Oakland/Sacramento for my brother's wedding, we were home for 5 days (one of those days was when we went to the Seahawks' Training Camp) and then we were off again.

Here's the quick overview of the past almost 2 weeks:
1. My 10 year high school reunion
2. A week in Bellingham with the fam
3. THE FLU

We'll start with my 10 year reunion. Yes, I am OLD. Don't rub it in.

Friday night people met at a bar to hang out. We didn't go to that part. We didn't think Eric needed to get off work early so we could drive up there for that. Plus, Eric had a golf tournament for work on Saturday morning that he really wanted to play in.

Saturday night we had dinner at Chuckanut Manor. The view of the bay and islands was amazing, but I didn't take any pictures. It was fun to see people that I hadn't seen since graduation.

Sunday afternoon there was a BBQ at Cornwall Park. Kaylin had a great time eating watermelon and playing on the swings and slide. I actually took a few pictures at this one just to prove that I was there :-).

The cake.

For those of you not from Bellingham, I will explain the odd cake. Our class went to Bellingham High School for three years. Our senior year, BHS closed for remodeling and Squalicum High School opened. All of BHS went to SqHS (yes, there's a "q" in there because there's another SHS in town. I will not name that school :-)). We were the first graduating class of Squalicum. But a lot of people had MAJOR issues with that. Kinda funny, really. We ended up with 2 diplomas, one from each school. As you can see, people STILL had issues with the fact that we technically graduated from Squalicum.

Me with Schurie Moreau Harrison. I still remember singing an oldies song with her on the volleyball bus, the lyrics escape me right now.

Ah yes, it went something like this, "Sugar... do do do do do do... ohhhhh, honey, honey... do do do do do do... you are my candy girl, and you got me wanting you..."

Tyler Stevens, Lis Mortimer Stevens, me, Amber Mathies, Billy Clem.

Lis is holding Billy's one week old baby and another one of his kids (they have 3) is in front of Kaylin. For those of you who want to know, Billy only went to BHS for 2 years but married Jenna Green from our class.

Overall it was a fun weekend. It was great to catch up with so many fabulous people. There were a lot more people I wished could have made it, but hopefully they'll be there at the 20 year reunion!

T.J. Who's Your Mama

Here is the Fantasy Football draft commercial I mentioned in my last post. We're excited to have T.J. Who's Your Mama as part of the Seahawks!



On a semi-related note, I have a funny story about Kaylin. Eric wore his Hasselbeck jersey to the Seahawks training camp yesterday. When Kaylin saw the jersey she said, "What's that?" while pointing at the Seahawk logo. Eric said, "A Seahawk." Then Kaylin yelled, "Go Cougars!" That's my girl.

Seahawks Training Camp

The Seattle Seahawks' practice facility is right here in Renton. It opened last year, but this is the first year they held open practices there. You had to get tickets online last month and they let about 1500 people into each session. We had to check in at The Landing (shopping center) and then take a bus to the facility because they don't have onsite parking. After standing in a crazy long line to check in and get our bracelets, and then in another line to get on a bus, we made it on the bus.

We got 4 tickets for the practice and invited Eric's dad and our friend Brandon.

The facility is right on Lake Washington and there was a great hill next to the outdoor practice field where we watched practice from.

Now for some players:
QB Matt Hasselbeck, #8, and #75, Sean Locklear

#59 is Aaron Curry, our newest recruit. #11, Deon Butler, and #18, Mike Hass are also rookies.

#81 is Nate Burleson. He went to Lindbergh High School in Renton while Eric was there. He also went to O'Dea High School in Seattle.

#84 is T.J. Houshmandzadeh, or "Who's Your Mama" as we like to call him (do you remember the Fantasy Football draft commercial??? "T.J. Who's Your Mama... Championship!")

We have a lot more pictures of players, but I don't want to bore you too much.

We had a great time and the 2 hours flew by.

Go Seahawks!

California, Part 2- the Wedding

As soon as we got to the temple it was time to take pictures. Kaylin was being shy and we had a hard time getting her to be in any pictures. We were able to get her to look at the flowers with Macey.

Our family in front of the Oakland Temple

Christopher and Shaunna coming out of the temple after their sealing

After the sealing we drove to Shaunna's house in Elk Grove (Sacramento) for the reception.

Christopher and Shaunna's first dance

Kaylin and Eric watching the dancing

We left around 9:30 pm for our hotel in Redding, CA. 9 hours after that we finished our trip home. We were home at 8:30 pm on Sunday. It was a fast trip, but we had a great time. We were so glad we were able to go!

California, Part 1

My brother got married in Oakland last weekend. We made a quick trip down and back and we're still exhausted. To try to break things up a little bit for Kaylin, we drove to Eugene, OR on Thursday and stayed with Eric's cousin. She has two little boys and they live on an amazing piece of property there. We had a lot of fun catching up with them. Unfortunately, Kaylin threw up during the night so we didn't sleep all that well. Thankfully she was fine in the morning.

We stopped for gas in southern Oregon and Eric was threatened with a $10,000 fine for trying to pump his own gas. I'm not sure if he forgot we were in Oregon or if he was tired of waiting for the gas pumper guy to come over. The gas pumper also reprimanded Eric for calling him "sir". Eric said, "Thank you, sir." The guy turned around from 15 feet away to say, "Hey man, don't call me that. Call me "bro"." Uh, okay. For future reference, apparently white guys in southern Oregon prefer to be called "bro".

Did you know that California has its own border crossing with customs? Okay, so it's not actually the border patrol, but we had to stop and tell them that we didn't have any fruit or plants in our car. No stamps from California in our passports, oh well. Our next stop was lunch in Redding, CA. Thanks to the GPS we found a great park.

Eric wanted to stop at the water park in the background on our way home. We didn't. This park was next to the Sacramento River.

We arrived at our hotel in Emeryville (Oakland) around 6:30. Then we headed over to San Francisco for a couple of hours. Thanks to the GPS we were able to find 2 parks with great views of the Golden Gate Bridge. And thanks to Eric's inability to follow the GPS we even drove over the bridge. Luckily the GPS was able to get us back to the hotel alright without making us drive back over the bridge which would have cost us $4, which we didn't have.

Alcatraz!

This is my favorite shot.

The next morning (after a phone call from the front desk of the hotel letting me know that we'd recieved "multiple" complaints about running in our room) , we drove around UC Berkeley. It's a beautiful campus and we were actually able to see a lot of it in the short amount of time we had. I only took one picture and it looks much cooler in person.

This building was flying a Cal flag and it looked like a castle. We were too close to get a picture when we were on the other side of the fence.

After that we drove 10 minutes to the Oakland Temple for my brother's wedding!

Camera Case

I decided that my new camera needed a new home. I scoured the internet and found this camera case tutorial.

My first attempt FAILED. Sorry, I didn't take a picture. I used pre-quilted fabric and binding to try to save time. This method needed my serger, which I thought was fixed, but was not. So it turned out pretty terribly. I'm hoping Kaylin can use it for a wallet or something.

For my second attempt I used fabric, interfacing, and batting and quilted it myself. It was more work, but it turned out great. There is a button hole at the top for the camera strap.

Now my camera is nice and snug in my purse. And cute too.

Trying to beat the heat

As most of you probably know (since most of you live here :-)), the NW has been unusually HOT this summer. We even broke the record for the all-time high temperature last week. We were in the 100s for a few days straight. And most of us do not have air conditioning. Even with multiple fans blowing on her, Kaylin would wake up dripping with sweat after her nap. Some days she wouldn't even nap at all. We went to bed late and got up early because the house was so hot. It made for one tired week. We're finally down into the 80s. It's still hot, but it's a lot more manageable.

One of the things we did to beat the heat was go to the Cedar River. After spending an afternoon at my friend Mandy's house, enjoying her air conditioning, we took the kids to the river. This was the third night in a row that we took Kaylin to the river. But this is the first time I had my NEW CAMERA.

Here is my first picture ever with my new camera:

Kaylin and Kimball in the Cedar River