Seeking Ye Treasure, Me Hearty!!

Last weekend, my brilliant husband saw an article in the Everett Herald about Letterboxing. Letterboxing is like a treasure hunt. You can go to AtlasQuest to find clues of how to get to the treasure. So, we found a letterbox near us and headed out for a family adventure. In our haste to pack a picnic lunch and leave, I forgot to bring my camera to commemorate the event. It was so much fun!! Our first letterboxing experience was a pretty easy one in Forest Park called Mayan Rainforest Temple.

Since we had so much fun last weekend, we decided to try it again this weekend. Today we set out on a letterbox adventure in Howarth Park (another park near us) called The Curious Bobcat. After easily finding The Curious Bobcat, we added our stamps to their book and added their stamp to ours and returned the box to its hiding place.

Next, we headed down the hill to Howarth Park Beach. The boys went to the same beach yesterday with Celia and the other daycare kids. So they enjoyed showing us all the places they played and things they did. Even though the sun was hiding behind the clouds, it was a great morning adventure as a family!

Everett High School Class of 89 Reunion

Last night, Troy and I attended our 20 year class reunion at the Everett Golf and Country Club. There were only about 30 classmates from our graduating class of over 300 so that kind of tells you about our class!! It was fun to see some people that we haven't seen in a long time but most of our friends didn't make it to the Saturday night function. Sounds like we missed out on lots of fun and craziness at the Friday night party for grads only. Glad we're done with that for another 10 years!! (Pictured below: Corrie Pardue and me; and Troy looking handsome!)

Junior Farmers of America

Gabe and Daniel have spent the past couple mornings at Farm Adventure Camp at Forest Park Farm. They've been feeding and petting all the animals, holding bunnies, riding horses and learning about the animals while touring the farm. Tomorrow is their last day and they tell me they're having a picnic. It's been great fun for them (and for me to have a couple mornings to myself!!).

A Week of Family Fun

We have had a fun-filled week with family!!

Monday we met Pam, our sister-in-law, and her kids, Andrew and Emily, in Seattle. We took the kids to the Seattle Aquarium and then wandered around Pike Place Market for a little while. It was a pretty hot day made even hotter by being surrounded by people in the market but, after hitting a couple coffee shops along the way, we had a great time!!

On Wednesday we met Pam and the kids at Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium. Another hot day but it was made bearable by shady spots and indoor exhibits. :-) The best part was our front row view of the Walrus talk. Those are some darn smart animals!!

After the zoo we drove to Gig Harbor for some ice cream cones and a very short walk by the harbor. Then we all hit the road and headed to the Canal. The minute we got there we all got in our swimsuits, applied more sunscreen and jumped into the water--ahh!!

Thursday and Friday were spent mostly in the water. All the kids are like little fish out there floating around in the water and there was much more grown up water time than usual due to the really hot weather and nice temperature of the canal water. We had a great time!!

Saturday was Troy's family's 37th anual Family Party. There were about 60 people there from the age of 10 months to 89 years old! It was a great day full of family, food and fun!

Weekend at the Canal

We had a great weekend at Hood Canal at Troy's parent's house!! Troy's brother, Tory, and his sister-in-law, Pam, and their two kids, Andrew (age 5 1/2) and Emily (age 2 1/2) are visiting from Phoenix--it was so great to spend some time with them, even though it was a quick trip.

We spent most of the time on the beach at Troy's grandpa's house--Bill is so gracious to put up with all of us and all of our sunscreen, watershoes, sun glasses, floaties, life jackets, buckets, etc.!! :-) And he even feeds us fresh clams and oysters right off his own beach--yummy!!

We had a great time jetskiing, going on the tube, splashing in the water and hunting for little crabs. The big kids even got to enjoy eating a crab--it's been a while. :-)

One of the highlights of the weekend was a personal tour of the Union Firestation courtesy of Papa Troy who is a volunteer fireman for the area. The boys (both young and older) and I all really enjoyed it. Papa Troy even had an opportunity to spring into rescue mode when Charlie the pup fell off the deck while tied to a leash. It was a very scary moment that thankfully has a good ending--Charlie is doing fine!

We are really looking forward to heading back down to the canal next week for a longer visit!!

Pacific Science Center

For a fun family outing this past weekend, we decided to go the Pacific Science Center! Troy and I hadn't been in years and the boys had never been. The latest exhibit is Animal Grossology, which seemed right up the boys' alleys--animals and potty words. Troy, however, was pretty uncomfortable saying the word poop and couldn't believe he had spent his hard earned money on looking at different kinds of animal poop!
One of our favorite exhibits was the dinosaurs. The boys were very impressed with how life-like they were and enjoyed taking their own pictures of them.

We also really liked the butterfly exhibit! There were so many beautiful butterflies. One butterfly landed on the ground right in front of Gabe and me--we stood and guarded it for a couple minutes but eventually moved on. Luckily it flew away soon after so it didn't get squished!

Charlie

I've always thought it would be fun to start a blog but now that I've started it, the white screen is pretty daunting!! What to write??

Well, the latest news in our family is our new addition, Charlie! Charlie is a 12 week cocker/poodle mix puppy who is fun of energy and spunk--sometimes too much energy and spunk! He likes to chase our legs, chew on his many toys (and whatever else he can get his mouth on, like the tissue I just pried from his mouth) and steal dish towels from off the oven door! He thinks he's pretty clever but you know he's up to something when you hear him run away from you as fast as he can so that you might not notice the green towel hanging out of his mouth. He also likes to nap when I nap, he sleeps all night long and is really good at going potty outside most of the time. Overall, I think he's a pretty good fit for our family!!