Rabbit Killer!

Last night Jeff had his first softball practice for his work's co-ed softball team. He came home SO excited to relay this story and I was horrified. Apparently, hitting the ball to right field eludes him. So, when he was up to bat, he suddenly spotted a bunny rabbit running across the field. He took aim and WHAM! He hit the bunny! Now, this was quite the feather in his cap (I can just hear the manly grunt coming from his hunter's mentality) but I, for one, cannot condone deliberate cruelty to an innocent bunny just doing what bunnies do. Jeff insisted the ball just "grazed" the rabbit, but I'm thinking the poor creature died a slow and painful death overnight. This morning Jeff is in agony, sore from putting his 40-year-old body through a punishing softball workout. My take? Justice! God is punishing him for being such a meanie. And I sure hope that bunny is frolicing this morning, just a little bit wiser, and stays off the softball fields (at least when Jeff is around!).

WA State History Museum

I went on a field trip today with Harrison's class to the WA State History Museum. It was ok (not the most compelling museum I've been to) but the Chihuly glass bridge and installation on the skybridge connecting the museum and the Glass Museum was awesome. As you can see, Harrison had enough by the end and had a nice snooze on the bus on the way home!

Hump Day!

This photo gives new meaning to "hump day" - Wednesday - which was when I found this dog and this elephant canoodling in Hannah's room! Shocking!

Disgusting Thought for the Day

I read online yesterday that every pair of worn underwear contains something like 1/10th of a gram of "fecal matter". The take away message was to wash your hands after pawing through your dirty laundry (presumably to wear something dirty, which something like 75% of people admitted doing). I'm thinking with all the laundry I paw through every day doing the wash, it's amazing I don't come away from the whites pile holding a healthy turd in my hands! (1/10th times HOW many pairs of underwear?) The bottom line is that doing the laundry is dirty work (quite literally) and it's a thankless job. Message to my family: you should be kissing my feet every day for handling your many grams of fecal matter without complaint. (Except that I'm sort of complaining now, right? Well, too damn bad!) Just a little something to gross you out and disgust you today!

The elusive parents.........

There are never many photos of the parents, but I found a few to share. The top one was taken by Hannah of me fishing (I spent most of the time tying new lines for everyone as theirs kept being sacrificed to the bottom of the lake - we lost a lot of tackle!). The next one is Jeff playing "camoflauge" with the kids. Jeff in a funyak (he had to go out in one to entice Rylie, who was scared to try it!) Me washing dishes (KP duty always falls to the mom!) And finally, Jeff in the car top carrier where I found him the morning we were leaving! I thought it was hysterical that he fit in there (and only momentarily considered shutting the lid and locking him in!). Good times...........

Harrison at Camp K

Harrison thoroughly enjoyed his weekend, catching some rays in the funyak, being Tarzan on the rope swing, burning sticks in the fire, and relaxing in the hammock. He spent a lot of time whittling sticks into razor-sharp points, and managed to keep track of my Leatherman tool all weekend (save for a few "temporary misplacements"). He also loved playing Capture the Flag at the field in the evenings!

Arlie at Camp K

Arlie took her best friend, Rylie to camp with her. They even brought matching clothes! Those two went off on adventures together and loved funyaking and fishing. Arlie caught four fish!

Hannah at Camp K

Hannah took her friend Drew with her to Camp K and they had a great time! Hannah was totally absorbed in her Twilight series books (egads, another fan, bleh!) but also spent time funyaking, sitting for photos and sucking down juice boxes!

Hayley at Camp K

So, I have so many pictures of the weekend, I decided to do a post on each kid. Hayley is a total princess camper! She took her hair dryer and flat iron and took a shower each day (after sleeping in till noon or later). She even took her makeup! On the first day there, she attempted to get into the hammock. You can see the results here. Fail! She did spend some serious outdoor girl time whittling a stick. And she was in charge of the camera for a while, which resulted in this nice shot of her flippie floppies! The sitting pretty photo was taken by yours truly and shows my pretty 15 year old "little" girl!

Camp Killoqua

For the Memorial Day weekend we went with two other families, the Micheals and the Churchs and headed to Camp Killoqua. This is a Camp Fire resident camp (all the girls went for a week last year) that holds a family camp over Memorial Day. It's a great time, with "funyaking", boating, fishing, s'mores, climbing wall, rope swing, hiking, trading post and sitting around the campfire whittling sticks. Amazingly, we got six kids (we picked up a couple of extras) and two adults, AND all our crap into our van. We did use the car top carrier, but we were packed to the gills. Arlie said "I don't need my seatbelt! If we crash, I'm not going anywhere!" It was like one of those clown cars when we unpacked and peeled each child from their respective space in the car. We all managed to get along in the cabin (8 bunks -we filled 'em up!) and everyone slept pretty well. Except for Hayley. Who woke me up TWICE to tell me I was snoring!! But I digress.....

Drew (Hannah's guest) caught his first fish (and went fishing for the first time ever) and Arlie, Harrison and Rylie went "funyaking" for the first time. The funyaks are like mini kayaks for kids. Very cool! Jeff and I rowed out on the lake to get some great photos of the kids and we got some awesome group photos (I'll include the five best here since Blogger only lets me add five photos per post!).

The downside? No alcohol! I mean, what's a campfire without a beverage with which to enjoy it? Ah well, we managed. The dogs spent the weekend in the doggy hotel (which cost me three times as much as the cost of the camping trip!) and everyone is home now, and ready to go back to school. Oh wait, I'M ready for the kids to go back to school........

It was a great time. OH, I almost forgot the BEST part - it was sunny the WHOLE TIME! Now, when does that happen around here? Never. So, it was a perfect weekend. Good times and good friends. Good food, too! It really felt like the kickoff to summer.

Cosmic Bowling!

We went Cosmic Bowling for our neighbor Jason's 40th birthday party on Friday night. It was a blast! For those of you who haven't frequented a bowling alley lately (and by the way, they're smoke-free now!), Cosmic Bowling is when the lights are low, lasers abound and everything glows (black lights). Oh, yeah! Plus, you groove to 80's tunes and do the Cha-Cha Slide. We had pizza and beer before the bowling gig and the pitchers were flowing throughout, so you can imagine how well we were all bowling! Jeff was on fire.....hitting strike after strike. I got one strike and a few spares, but managed to keep my score in the top three (and that's sayin' a lot, because I once bowled a 37. Yes, a 37!) The take away from the night? Bowling is FUN! And bumpers are for big kids too............

National Honor Society

Hayley was inducted into the National Honor Society last week. She had to have a 3.5 GPA and show "character" in her essay. Way to go Hayley! Here are some photos of her and her best friend, Laura, at the ceremony.

Grandma and Grandpa and no pictures!!

Well, Jeff's mom and stepdad were here for two weekends, and in between took an Alaskan cruise from the Seattle port. They had a great week in Alaska and returned to spend a few more days with us. We had fish and chips at Ivar's, visited Ye Olde Curiosity Shop, Theo's Chocolate, and had some nice dinners. Yesterday we spent the whole day just enjoying the sun and watching the kids play in the water outside. We ended the day with a homemade clam chowder dinner (thanks Jeff!) and said our goodbyes early this morning. The crazy thing is, I did not take ONE SINGLE photo of them! I had big plans to take photos with all the kids and just never did it. It always makes me crazy when an opportunity goes by and I haven't taken photos. But we had a really nice visit and now it's our turn to go back to San Diego next time! :)

Flowers!

These are some of the flowers we planted in our yard that are blooming! I LOVE Gerbera daisies, they are my favorite flower, so I got a six pack of them from Costco and they are beautiful. I had to take pictures so I'd remember how pretty they were. Lucky for the plants, they are outside where they will benefit from rainwater. Inside, I kill everything! (Well, the plants, anyway, I've managed to keep the kids alive......so far......). Anyway, enjoy the pretty!