Silverwood

This past weekend we did Silverwood with my parents and youngest brother Kyle.

We were 5 adults, 1 teenager, 1 pre-teenager, a 5 year old who thinks she's a teenager and two small dogs.

Clint and I flew into Spokane with Hunter and thought we could rough it for a few nights in a tent.  We ended up in my parents motorhome on night two when we found out our old tent leaks during a thunder, lightning and rain storm.  Thank goodness my parents have a humongous motorhome that was able to fit all of us snugly inside of it.  Night three was dry but the kids had bailed on us and decided they were done with tent camping taking up residence in the motor home at the beginning of the night.    

In true form Lillie made a few Canadian friends who spent some time in our campsite visiting and petting Hunter in the mornings.
. 

JK, Molly, Uncle Kyle and Papa did rides that even I wouldn't do.  A few of them, they did over and over again.  My little daredevils have now officially passed me up in the extreme rides category.

We had one puker who refused to be slowed down by the upchuck of lunch and who against my wishes conquered the upside down, spinning ride by the end of the weekend. 

Clint most certainly won dad of the year award by riding Dumbo with Lillie (who insisted he ride with her, but in his own flying dumbo) at least three times. 

We stayed cool by floating the lazy river, and spending lots of time in the two different wave pools.  

We stood in countless long lines just to fly down water slides in a matter of seconds only to get right back in the same long line to do it all over again.  

We enjoyed (and watched Molly who was the only one out of all of us to consume in it's entirety) the biggest ice cream cones we had ever seen, two days in a row.  

By Sunday evening we had covered every inch of ground on both the theme and water side of the park at least three times over.  We headed home exhausted with achy feet but happy, happy, happy!  

JK and Kyle are in the very last row on this roller coaster and 3 cars up is Molly whom you can't see sitting next to my dad who is just like a big kid with his hands in the air. :)

Where fairies come to play...

Last weekend as we combed the beach for seashells, I was inspired.  Inspired to build a little pixie house for Molly and Lillie's fairies.  (I'm sure I saw the idea on pinterest or somewhere, but since I can't remember where or if I saw a similar creation I'm happy with taking the credit as my own for now. :)  

After the kids did an excellent job searching for twigs yesterday, we had lots of fun letting our imaginations run wild as we dreamed up what our little fairy home would look like.  We didn't use nearly as many seashells as I had thought we would, but I still think our creation turned out super cute. I was so proud of the amount of work and creativity each of the kids put into this little house and garden and am now having fun dreaming up a whole little community we might be able to imagine and design together.  

And since our creation was inspired by our beach trip, I decided this might be a good time to share this little glimpse of our camping trip to Ocean Shores last weekend.  The weather wasn't fabulous, but it was dry.  There was lots of wind which made for perfect kite flying conditions and of course there was lots of taffy, ice cream and other goodies consumed.  From the looks of our bath tub after each of the kids and Hunter were showered and bathed I'm pretty sure we brought home at least half of the sand from the strip of beach we visited, which for me confirms the amount of fun that was had by us all.  

It was a perfect little getaway that made me just a little sad about the fact that school will be starting up in just a few weeks, bringing another summer break to an end much too quickly for us.     

First Half of Summer in Review...

I have been horrible about having my camera out this summer!  The lack of pictures I have are a sad proof of that.

Even though we've had a quiet summer, we have been having lots of fun.  At the end of May we kicked the Summer off with a trip to our family property just outside of Ephrata.  Unfortunately JK and Molly were at their other houses that weekend, so it was Just Lillie, Hunter, Clint and I.  Lillie made it a memorable weekend by catching her very first fish.

Both her daddy and papa were super proud of her prize catch! :)

At the end of June Clint and I flew to Las Vegas for a weekend to celebrate my youngest brothers 21st birthday.  Laying by the pool in the 105 degree heat was fabulous!!  It ended up being a very laid back weekend for a 21st birthday which was fine by me.  My highlight of the trip was going on the zip line over Fremont Street with both my brothers and dad.  I was really hoping Clint would go with me, but there was just no way I was getting my big, strong, brave husband up high to then jump off a podium and sore over a street on a rope.  There wasn't even a half of a second where he thought about maybe joining me.

We had thought about skipping our annual 4th of July party this year, but after several requests by friends we were talked out of canceling and ended up hosting our little party the weekend before the 4th.  We cut our guest list down by over half this year, but still had an amazing time with nearly 30 people.  I usually get tons of pictures from this weekend, but forgot my camera.  Oops.  As always Clint put on an amazing firework show and then got to do it all over again in our neighborhood on the 4th.  I love how my husband turns into a big kid when it comes to Holidays.

On July 15th Clint and I celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary.  We enjoyed dinner out, followed by a quiet night in.  Amidst the usual busyness that seems to be our life right now, it was a perfect evening!!

Before our anniversary/date night could begin, we dropped JK off at his very first summer camp.  He went with our church youth group and was gone for an entire week.  From the sounds of it he had an absolute blast and can't wait to go again next year.

While JK was away at camp Clint ended up getting stuck working a lot more then he had wanted, which meant Molly, Lillie and I had lots of girls days.  We saw the Disney movie Brave, made forts and candy necklaces, played in the sprinkler and pools, laid out in the sun reading, and snacked on frozen yogurt from Menchies (my new favorite place) a time or two.

JK came home from camp just in time to celebrate Molly turning 10 and Clint and I got to spend one whole week with all three of our kids under one roof.  Our very favorite times of the year are when all three of the kids are in our house at the same time.  Well, most of the time it's our favorite times...  I have to admit we did have one day where I thought I might go crazy from all the bickering and whining.  I finally decided before I lost the little bit of calm and cool I still had left it was time for everyone to spend some quiet time alone in their rooms. (Hunter was even sent to his kennel.)  After an hour of quiet time the monsters who I was sure had taken over each of my kids bodies had left and and the three sweet and silly kids I know and love had  returned. 

I'm hoping to be better about getting more pictures over the next couple of weeks as Summer comes to end.  For now though, I think that about wraps up whats been going on in our family.  Of course as always there have been plenty of days spent in the pool and outside which means that for a few short months our playroom floor actually stays clean.

The above are just a few more images of Summer that I must have thought were sweet enough to get the camera out for.  I'm not sure what those two silly girls were doing in the top right picture, but boy I sure do love their sweet faces!

Going to the lodge...

Great Wolf Lodge!

After weeks of anticipation we finally made it to the Great wolf Lodge, and we had so much fun! There was so much to do in and out of the water.  It was truly the perfect little get away for our family. 


While I will admit I was a little nervous that our entire time would be dividing and conquering... me with Lillie in the wading pools and Clint with JK and Molly on the big slides.  It wasn't too bad.  Of course some of that did happen, but not nearly as much as I thought it would.  Clint and I took turns with the kids in the pools/ slides of their choice, and actually spent a lot of time all together playing in the wave pool.  And on our last day we finally decided to convince Lillie to try out the big slides and that crazy girl of ours, she loved them!


In fact if I had any regrets from this little trip, it would only be that we didn't have a water camera to bring along. It's hard to take pictures of adorable kids in a fun water park without one. And since it seems that the majority of our vacations are based around water, it only seems right that a good water camera would be a sensible purchase for this family of water lovers.

So while I didn't get any pictures of the water park side of our stay, I did get some fun ones of the kids while their fins were drying...

*And if you're wondering... Yes!  That is Clint's arm with the little glitter chihuahua tattoo.  It's amazing what a sweet little girl can talk her daddy into doing. :)


We've decided that whether or not we return to the Great Wolf Lodge is not a question.  What location we decide to return to might be. The kids think it would be fun to visit all of the Great Wolf Lodge's in the country and Clint and I agree that, that might be a fun adventure to take on.