The Emerald City

We just spent the last 3 days in beautiful Seattle with Jeff's sister, Anna and her family.  They were on vacation from St Louis and we decided since we're close we should definitely crash their vacation.  :)

We had so much fun!  We purchased city passes and got to see and do everything.  I took just under 600 pictures, so bear with me....there are lots of photos to share.  

 Mark and Anna

 Aunt Anna and the girls on the harbor crusie

 Seattle skyline from the harbor cruise

 Olivia never wants me to take her photo, so I always get one of her looking away all pouty....I have to laugh, this is when I get shots of her.  HA!

 Smith family outside the market

 Group shot, minus me....the photographer

 Anna and I enjoying our yummy pizza

 Jack with Sam and Danny

 Family photo on the space needle

 The kids enjoying afternoon fraps

 My Jack dancing with a street performer....we should be so proud.  :)

 Outside the original Starbucks

 The gorgeous flowers at the market

 Jeff buying our fresh fish to take home.  Two fillets for $90.....nope, that's not a typo!

Last, but not least.....hitting a Chipotle on our way out of town.  Oh, how I miss Chipotle!

Wordless Wednesday

A Day at the Lake

We had super fun Sunday afternoon spent with our dear friends and former neighbors from HR.  The Elledge family, Matt and Joan have parents who spend their summers here in WA at their lake cabin.    We have been anticipating their trip for weeks now and we were thrilled to spend an afternoon playing and catching up with them.  We are planning to have them over to our house on Tuesday.  We really miss our Mulberry neighbors.  :(

 Lauren, Olivia, Matthew and Jack

 This is fun!

Me and Joan

Gorgeous Loon Lake

Wordless Wednesday

Strawberries!

We took a little drive up north today to go strawberry pickin.  It was so much fun and the strawberries were yummy!  Here's just a few of the fun photos I took while we hauled in our berries.  

Jack was all business finding the biggest berries

 Lucy skipping through the strawberry field

 Yes, Lucy is wearing her "cherry" dress for strawberry picking

 This one of the two huge containers of strawberries we collected.

 I fell in love with this beautiful barn on the orchard property

Everyone was busy finding strawberries and eating them too.  :)

Soccer Camp

Jack had soccer camp this past week. He loved it!  He has been meeting friends in the neighborhood, but hasn't really been doing any sports.  He's really bummed to have missed baseball season....I am too.

Today was the last day and they invited the parents to come early so the kids could show off their new skills.  Jack was all over it!  He asked if he could go again next week.

Wordless Wednesday

Birthday Boy

Jeff had a birthday last Saturday, but we did not have a chance to have birthday cake until last night.
Yes, that's the infamous Chinese candle.  :)  Here's the group shot before we cut the cake.  It was chocolate cake with white icing....Jeff's favorite.  Happy Birthday!!!

Mondays....

 Daisy Doodle doesn't like Mondays either....ugh!

1st Dinner Guests

We had our 1st dinner guests last Sunday night.  My friend, Katie and her kids were in town from CA.  They were here visiting Katie's mom.  I was so excited to see Katie and her kids. I haven't seen Katie in 8 years and have never had a chance to meet her kids.  The last time we were together was when I traveled to Alaska to visit her in 2002.    

We had so much fun catching up and the kids had a blast playing together.  We had pizza and "Sunday Sundaes"....our new summer tradition where we make homemade sundaes on Sunday.  

 Katie and Me

 Ariana

 Micah and his cowboy boots  :)

That's Josiah next to Jack

The gang!