Juliette's first day K2016-17

Today was Juliette's first day of school! She loved it, and when she got off the bus the first thing she said was "I didn't get to learn how to read today". Darn!

She has Mrs Johnson for Kindergarten and she wants to rescue ducks when she grows up. 

Grade 2, Year 2016-17

Dex started 2nd grade!  His teacher is Mrs.  Downes and he wants to be a zookeeper when he grows up!

A beautiful day

Yesterday was a beautiful day. We began our day sending Dex to school, then Ashton picked up a sod cutter and we took it to the neighbors. They cut what they needed while we went shopping for a border. We bought a shed and are laying a gravel base for it and needed some sort of a border. We thought we'd save the good grass and put it over our dandilion patch, thus the sod cutter. 

We shopped at Home Depot and the girls looked like this

So perfect. 

We worked hard. The machine was clunky and hard to use. Once we were done, Ash took it back and picked Juliette up from school. After that was a quick dinner then off to Dexter's baseball game. It was the first game Ash got to see. Dex had a good game. He had great hits, and was so awesome on third base. He is still all smiles about it. 

At the game, we sat by the outfield so the girls could run. Ru sat in the stroller. The girls picked daisies,

I made daisy chains,

and Lissy ran around the field dragging her blanket with her.

Ash played with girls, making them giggling, and life was beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. 

June

June brought birthdays and more visitors and more adventures.

First up was Dexter's 5th birthday.  My baby is 5!!! AHHHH!
To celebrate, we did a star wars birthday theme and he chose an R2D2 cake.  I think it turned out well.  At the last minute, he decided he also wanted to do dinosaurs and he put most of his dinosaur collection on the edges.  He also chose to forgo a friend party and go camping.  We learned that we aren't equipped to go camping in the great North West.  We got rained out.  We tried really hard to make it work, but it just didn't.  We set up the tent in between rain breaks but finished in a down pour.  We at lunch and played around in the tent.  Then we went and explored.  We found lots of slugs, Ashton taught the kiddos how to skip rocks, we picked up litter, and noticed that everybody had eating tents as well.  It just kept raining and we couldn't put chairs up to sit down in because they would be out in the rain and we don't have an eating cover, and being 7 months pregnant, sitting on the ground for that much, just wasn't working for me.  We packed up and left and camped in the house.  We pulled the kids mattress off their bed and put it in the front room, cooked our camping food and watched a movie.  It was still fun.

Juliette's hair get curly when it's wet. Cute, huh....

The next week, we were supposed to go to Idaho for my 10 year class reunion.  I was in charge and had it all planned out, location reserved, but only 3 people could come.  Ya, not happening.  I was supposed to go and leave the kids with my parents so I could get 12 observation hours for one of my classes done.  Well, I had a melt down about that too.  I couldn't leave them.  So my parents decided to come here instead.  They were going to drive the kids back but decided they could come earlier and watch the kids while I was doing my observations.  

We had fun.  I did 9 out of the 12 hours while they were here but I also managed to have some fun time with them.  

I took them across the Megler Bridge.  My mom freaked out and covered her head the whole time we were going across.  Once over into Washington State, we went to Long Beach and to the kite museum.  My dad loves kites.  I get my love of kites from him.  We played around trying to make some different shapes with kites and learned all about different kites from all over the world.  

They even had a kite making station and the kids each made a kite.

Yep, selfie in the bathroom.  I hadn't taken one yet and thought since I had the camera with me, I'd taken advantage of that.

Then we went out to the beach.  This is where the kite festivel is held as well.  Dad has this cool parrot kite and he hasn't ever gotten up and he brought to try at the beach.  Well, it was a success!

We also made our way to Peter Iredale.  I took a beach belly shot...

...and Dex did a shadow dance.  

 

AFter everyone had gone, I was studying for a test night and needed out of the house.  We headed to Peter Iredale for some stress relief.  Dex flew his dragon kite and Juliette tried to build a sand castle, but found that smashing them was a little more fun.

  

May

May brought visitors.  Ashton's grandparents came to visit as did his family and Grandma Jenks we had fun!

First we had Grandma and Grandpa Hansen here.  They camped at Fort Stevens and we went over to play with them.  The first night AShton was with us, but the next day I went with just the kids and a friend I was watching, Kable.  We went down to the Peter Iredale, the shipwreck.  

We just relaxed down by the ocean while the kids played in the sand.  I absolutely love Juliette in her tutu getting all dirty.  It is 100% her.  Cute and frilly, but getting down and dirty.  

Grandma and Grandpa Hansen just relaxing.  I brought some stuff to study too.  Oh ya, did I mention I had gone back to school?  I am doing online courses through Utah State in a communication disorders major.  

May was also Ashton's yearly meeting for Costco managers in Issaquah, Washington.  The kids and I joined him and we got to play while Daddy was in meetings :)

First we went to Pike's Market, the famous fish market in Seattle.  Here is a view from one of the windows.

The kids and I set out to have some fun.  I let them choose where to go.  This was Dexter's choice.  The museum with dinosaurs.  We went to the Burke museum.  They had fun seeing all the dinosaur bones and other things they had on display.  

He wanted his picture taken with the stegosaurus

The triceratops

The brontosaurus leg bone

and how could we forget something that lived in the ocean?  

We also found a target to go walk through.  I had to pick up a couple things and hadn't been in a Target for about 5 long months.  I miss Target.  You could say I was addicted to Target.  Not having one close was hard at first.  We ate lunch there and they had an icee machine, so we got some :)

The next day was Juliette's pick.  She chose the Children's Museum.  I was going to go to downtown Seattle to their children's museum, but after having gone to the fish market with Ashton and seeing how expensive it was to park, $6 for a half-hour, we found another smaller Children's museum much closer to Issaquah.  

It was small but they had fun and got wiggles out.  What more can you ask for?

Then AShton's family came with his Grandma Jenks.  I somehow got no pictures of Grandma Jenks.  I don't know how that happened. Juliette loved her.  She would snuggle in her lap and fall asleep.  It was very sweet.  

This was a rough time for me.  I was prepping for 2 test the next week, and had my first 1 hour SLP session observation due.  We made it work though!

 We went to the Maritime museum with them.  The kids got to make little boats there.  They had fun.  I got to chat with Grandma Jenks some and I had no idea that this was her and Grandpa Jenks old stomping grounds.  They used to go across the Columbia River to Ilwaco, WA and do some deep sea fishing.  She even drove Grandpa back there when he was very sick after his cancer treatments, a couple months before he passed away.  I had no idea this area held so much sentiment to her.  It was very touching and I am so very grateful for that opportunity I had to learn that.

On our venture to Washington, we went to the North Head Light House. This was the first light house I have ever seen or been to.

On the way back we saw these snails.  Juliette picked it up but then touched the "squishy" part and dropped it.  Poor snail.  That was probably the fastest it had ever traveled in its life :)

We went to Long Beach, WA and played in the sand.  Juliette of course was an absolute mess.  Crayson and Stratton went and jumped in the ocean.  It was chilly, but we had fun.

After all of our visitors had left, we had a fun time as a family.  We took Ashton down to Indian Beach, one of my favorite places to go.  It has sea anemones that you can go and touch and you can let kids play in the water but not be right at the ocean.  We went at high tide, (we forgot to check the tide schedule) so we couldn't show him the anemones, but the kids got to play.  It was chilly but fun to watch all the surfers.