Scenic Beach

Every year we go to Scenic Beach camping with 5 other families.  

We started 30 years ago going on Labor Day weekend for one big 

bash before school started.  The past few years we have gone a 

week earlier for better weather.  We are clear up to the first part

of August now and we did have one of the best weeks 

weatherwise this year. 

 For all those years I have take a bunch of pictures.  

Most recently I've been kind of lacks.  

This year is the first time Brooke has come for more than a weekend.  

So consequently I took almost all my pictures of Ellie and Pete.  :o)

 They found the 'dirt' right off

 Sweatshirts only because it's 9am

 Lunch at the beach

 Oyster shell gathering was one of the pasttimes

 wave jumping another

 Shane and his four girls were visiting this day

Nelle sitting in the water is Pete's age.  Fun to 

have the little ones

 The park inside the camping area

 Eating smores at the little table

  Yummmm!

We usually take a group picture every year on the night with

the most visitors.  That night was so hectic no one thought of it, or any 

other night either  :o(

Chef Cade

Cade is becoming quite the baker

in the past he's made brownies and  his birthday cake.

He wanted to make popcorn on the stove and

now this

 He tried his hand at donuts

They look pretty darn good

Maybe we could get him to make dinners now

Good Job, Cade

Watching Ellie & Pete

Chris went to Boston with a friend of his from 

San Francisco for a concert to celebrate

Chris turning 40.  Brooke had a 'mommy night 

out' planned so we went over and watched the 

kids for the evening. 

 Ellie is getting pretty good on this thing

 I think soon Ellie will be making us all kind

of thing so eat

 Blackberries are ripe

 A walk on the trail in the afternoon

 Ending at the sandbox

 The kids thought our bed was a fun place to play

And brunch in the morning after church.

We had a fun time

Painting Our House

It's been quite a while since we painted the outside of our house

Of course, we had no paint can left or loose boards we could match

Off to the paint store for samples

Way too light

None of the sample cards looked anywhere near the same color 

 So I took a picture of the house

 and close up to see if I could get a little closer.

 I moved down into the gold brown tones

 and decided 'Corn Stalk' was as close as we were going to get

The wall on the far right is painted with the new color

to see how much different it is.  You can see where the

downspout was with the old color under it

 This is the back of the house in the shade,  looks pretty yellow

The strip on the left is the old color and the part of the house 

with the windows is the new color

 Here's a close up.  The old color almost looks green 

 It's a lot yellower than I wanted

 But it will do for another 10 years or so  :o)

 The bedroom walls on the right are done, the living room 

on the left isn't done yet

Here is another view of that too

5 gallons of paint used so far.  We're going back

for 2 more gallons to see if that will finish it off.

We only did the front and the back this year, next 

year we will do the two ends.  I'll take a picture of 

it when we get it all done so you can see the end with the front.

And, of course, the white trim needs to be done badly

Thursday with Ellie & Pete

Brooke sent me this picture of Pete.  They are playing

lawn darts in the backyard.  It looks as if Pete confiscated a couple darts

and is in the little house checking to see if anyone has noticed

the darts are missing.

We are now going over to Brooke's on Thursdays,

their Wednesdays got sort of busy.

 Ellie is in swim lessons 4 days a week so we got to go see

 Tummy floats are hard when you try not to get your face wet

 coming along

 Patiently waiting her turn

 Practically on her own

 A little more

 I think they are supposed to go over the teacher's arm

 "Rock"

 "Cone"

 Ellie got water shoes for beach walking (in Washington you need them)

but they had to go in the pool too...it is 'water' you know

 Too Cute

 Ellie is practicing her bubble blowing from swim lessons

Pete is trying to figure out how to blow bubbles without getting

his tummy in the water

 A home grown strawberry

 Pete loves his fox

 Ellie still loves her Kitty the best.  It was Claire's and she 

gave it to Ellie.  She's been  baptized and everything

Love those leg warmers from Aunt JJ and Uncle Matt

 New car for the trip

 to the hotel

What is it about blankets and pillows on the floor??

 Hard work

 This one looks done

 What do you think Ellie?

 Too darn cute!!

And the newest 'evil eye'