Summer Fun

We were gone from Livermore for almost 8 weeks this year!  The kids flew to with grandma and grandpa to Washington straight from New York and Ryan and I drove up a few days later.  The weather was not quite summer for a few weeks but it finally came around and we were able to enjoy the lake in all its glory!  We did tons of tubing, bonaire riding (looks like a big banana in the water), kneeboarding, Reggie did a little wakeboarding and Ainsley got up on a single ski this year, but didn't find it to be much fun.  We did lots of paddleboarding, jetskiing and beaver hunting (Khalif and I saw him down the outlet at a very close range and I was stalking him as he swam by several times a week, but somehow never was able to capture him on video, but my mom did after we left).  We also did a little hiking, exploring the log jam and further down the outlet (thank you mom for coming to guide us out of the forest by honking her car!  We would have eventually made it, but we were getting eaten by deer fly and happy to get out as quick as possible...thankfully I had my cell phone and good it was waterproof because we got very wet and dirty and lost a couple inner tubes!).  The girls did a volleyball camp at Sedro-Woolley high school, we horseback rode at Lang's pony farm, we jumped at Altitude in Marysville a couple times and went to Wild Waves and had a blast.  The boys had a sleepover at Grandma Peggy's, Easton came to the lake to visit a few times, we got to see Anthony and Emily's new house and Ryan tracked down his dad and visited him for the first time in years!  We celebrated Dad's, Khalif's, Ryan's and Ainsley's birthdays, had a couple family BBQ's, hosted Ryan's work party (and had a painting place come!).  We had an afternoon of flyboarding thanks to Mike Renstrom and everyone enjoyed that :).  We had our annual trip to Lummi Island, but Ryan and Dad joined us this year and that was fun to mix it up a little.  It was a good summer!!!!

Crossing the log jam

 Dad's 75th!

 Getting tricky on the kneeboard.  Reggie did it too and lots of 360's!

 Ryan won the height contest by far, but Reggie won for picking it up the easiest.  He even did a dive and came out and kept going!  Ainsley probably had the hardest time and was disappointed that she wasn't successful but thankfully, we had a very patient teacher who took her again and she left feeling much better about her efforts :).

I almost forgot....Ryan's brother went to Livermore for a boys weekend and they went to the comedy club, golfed, ate and drank a lot!

Ryan's work crew

 Mom and Ainsley dancing away....

 Interesting experience Khalif had on the horse...That night at prayer time, he told me his mind was so still on while riding.

 Adults drinking a little too much!

 And everyone started playing Donkey Kong.  Amazing how terrible these kids are at old fashioned video games!  I made it farther than I ever have and its been years since I played consistently.  I win!

Lummi

 Rock target game-this kept them busy for way too long

 We found a treehouse at the rock beach

Our special friend Ethan got my phone and took quite a lovely picture.

 Oh the laughing we did :)

The day before we drove home, I was getting a glass out of the cabinet and the top glass fell on the bottom one, broke and sliced the crack of my hand.  It was deep and painful and in a place where there's lots of movement, but I really didn't want to go and get stiches.  The kids were a bit freaked out, but hopefully, they learned if you remain calm and use logic it'll be o.k.  We ended up calling the local EMT and he stopped by and said I needed a couple stiches.  Ugh, we decided to go with superglue and a butterfly bandage surrounded by waterproof tape.  Thankfully, I had already done most of the packing, but it really made it difficult to do anything and it was pretty sore on the drive.  But, it healed up nicely several days later thanks to my mom's handy butterfly skills.  Never a dull moment!

First day of school

Reggie 10th, Ainsley 8th and Khalif 4th