Fantasy

Here is an actual photo of my biggest fantasy (don't worry, you can look; it's totally G rated):



This is Colleen (Super-mom of the family we met at Christina Lake this week).
She is lounging on the beach in the sun, drinking coffee and reading her book while her two boys practice rolling over and righting their homemade wooden kayaks.

She actually read an ENTIRE book AND painted her toenails.

Purple.

Someday.....

Kettle River

We topped off our Grandpa vacation with a float trip down the Kettle River and a night sleeping under the stars.

Christina Lake

Christina Lake is not just my favorite camping spot. It also has some sort of old graffiti:


I'm pretty sure this says: "I double-dog-dare you to jump off this cliff" in ancient Sinixt.



Drake's new hero, Malachi ditched his kayak to contemplate some cliff diving



But his inner dare-devil wasn't quite loud enough right then, so we paddled back to camp to play with fire instead.

Martha

The best part of the drive to Grandpa's is the little ferry Martha S.


Little Martha has been chugging back and forth across Lake Roosevelt since 1948. Six cars at a time.


Now it's time to explore Grandpa's house.





Drake says "you can see forever up here!"

Summertime in our backyard

Over the River and through the windmills...

To Grandpa's house we go!!

All my bags are packed...♫..

I told the boys to pack for camping. This is what I got:

Handicap

As soon as the boys heard that we're going to Molokai they started working on their golf game...watch out Great Grandpa, these guys are going to show you how it's done!

Ft. Nisqually

We brushed up on our Pacific Northwest history today at Ft Nisqually's Brigade Encampment weekend.











This one's especially for Popo who always tells Drake about when Dad'n was a young spiderman and ran around Plymouth Plantation trapping unsuspecting pilgrims in webs. (We only had Hudson Bay fur trappers to catch with our webs).

Niiiiiice

We saw Daddy's dream car yesterday:



Drake said "We would need a tow truck".

Drake's New Boots

Grandma just told the story about when I was Drake's age and I insisted on wearing red(i think) cowboy boots on the airplane to Hawaii. And how I kicked the seat in front of my the entire flight.
Now we are planing a trip to Hawaii in January to go see Grandma and Grandpa.
Well here are Drake's boots, and he wears the everywhere.

Did I just say that?

Things I have heard myself say recently:

"It's not nice to hit the dog with seaweed."

"You can play with yours, but please leave your brother's alone"
(yes, to what you're thinking.)

"Don't play the piano with your butt."

"No you can't live in Safeway."

"It's not broken, just sit on the potty a little bit longer."

"Because I don't really know what a shark butt looks like"

Jungle Sanctuary

This is the Jungle Sanctuary for animals who have been rescued from the jaws of hungry lions (Emery and Tess).



Two Legged Panda, Faceless Dr Porkchop, Traumatized T-Rex, Blue John Doe, Slow Zebra, and a couple of camels all live in relative peace in the corner of our living room out of sight of predators.

Upside Down

Drake likes to see pictures of himself when he was "Yittle Yike Ewan"






Turns out they had similar interests at 8 months.

POPE

Some pictures from Marti's visit:

Mickey Mouse Weekend

We're spending a less than adventurous weekend camped out in the living room with a new Mickey Mouse video game while I recover from knee surgery.

This is step one in my mission to enter the Molokai paddle board race. (Step two will be to get my hands on a paddle board.)

Obviously this is a sort of long-term goal....

A Mommy Tip:

Celery makes GREAT drumsticks!


Great for Mommy, that is.
Less than satisfactory for the mini rock star.

Look, no hands!

This watermelon was so good that he forgot to hold onto something!

Lessons

Today we learned a very important lesson:

Just because you're ALLOWED to drive all the way onto the beach does not always mean that you SHOULD drive all the way onto the beach.

Luckily our trusty crab bucket (which has helped us out of multiple jams) was there to dig us out (that, and some impressive pushing by Mima!)



Unfortunately, during the excavation process, the fog rolled in, hiding the beach off ramp.

Having learned our lesson about wandering aimlessly on the beach in oversized two wheel drive vehicles, we nearly got ourselves stuck again, when another old friend showed us the way:

Grayland Beach