July July

Just when I thought we had a busy spring, we are having an even busier summer!!  For the first time in as long as I can remember, I am actually looking forward to fall.  Or maybe I am just looking forward to finishing fixing up our new house, renting out this one, and being all settled down into normal life again...which all probably won't happen until fall.

But while it is still summer, I thought I would share some of the fun things we have been up to.  The 4th of July was a gorgeously perfect northwest day, so we decided to start celebrating early by hitting the Steilacoom parade with Aaron's family.  The gun salutes were a little much for Barett, but Adelyn had a blast getting candy thrown at her.

Yes, she is wearing a scarf.  One of her independent wardrobe choices.

The kids napped in the car on the way back down to a yummy BBQ at my parents, followed by a great night at the Tumwater Artesian Festival.  This is our yearly tradition thanks to my big sis working there, but we weren't sure how little Barett would do.

We decided to all get our faces, or something, painted this year...even Barett sat long enough to get a little lightning bolt on his cheek!

We didn't think we were going to last through the festival and into the fireworks with the young kiddos, but we actually did!!  Barett refused to go to sleep with all the excitement going on and was loving every minute. But even he is only so stubborn and was so tired that he finally fell asleep...sitting on my lap...right in the middle of the booming fireworks show. Ya gotta love him!

Jadyn begged and begged Aaron to do the jousting with her and was surprisingly sad she didn't do better against him.  But she gave it her all...do you see her determination in this picture?

We had the kids in swimming lessons, gearing up for what I hoped was going to be a summer spent lazing by the pool getting tan, but the Washington weather had different plans.

Thanks to the Rosados, we did get a few good days of swimming in!  And crossing my fingers we will get at least a couple more in before all the pools close on Labor Day!!

Fresh berries from Spooner's are another of my favorite parts about July, and it looks like I am not the only one.  I turned my back on the open door to the fridge and found a couple of scavengers when I turned back around.  They were shoving them in by the fistfuls like they hadn't eaten all week!  Spooner's just closed for the season...:(  Maybe I am not happy about fall after all.

While Aaron was gone on one of his too many/too long business trips, we decided to meet up with my sister to go to the Woodland Park Zoo.  Believe it or not, this was my first time ever going, even though I lived practically next to it for two years.  Zoos aren't really my thing, but while my kids love them, I love them.

And they definitely had an awesome time!  Though sometimes they seemed to have more fun with the statues of the animals than the actual animals themselves.  This was our best attempt at getting a cousin shot.  With those two boys being mobile now it was obviously a little out of our skill set.

Since the Tacoma zoo doesn't have lions, this is what Adelyn and I were most looking forward to, and boy did we get a good shot!!  I do NOT have a fancy camera with great zooming, this was just how close we were to it!  It was RIGHT on the other side of the glass, which another lady said this was the closest she had EVER seen the male lion and she goes to the zoo a lot.

The elephants were awesome too, though not long after this my kids started to break down a little as it got more and more past naptime.  It was just a little too big to see everything in the two hour window that Barett can usually stand being awake in between naptime.  He screamed the whole 20 minute walk back to the car and all that beautiful Seattle traffic somehow didn't seem to brighten his mood or help put him to sleep.

 In bigger news, Aaron's sister had her baby, Brynnalise Rose in July!  She came close to sharing my birthday, but ended up coming the 24th, while I was gone at Girls' Camp.

The kids got to see her though...here is a little better cousin shot of the Anderson side cousins.  We are so lucky to have the cousins all fairly close right now!!

Hope you guys have been out there enjoying the summer too!