Capucine visits!

Our French daughter and sister came to visit us the last 2 weeks of July. 

We had so much fun.. the time went quickly.

We tried to pack in as many things as possible.

When Capucine lived with us as an exchange student in 2013, she was here in Spokane for Jan, Feb and March.. probably the worst time of year.

That winter was very cold and we did enjoy a trip to Seattle for spring break, but other than that we didn't do much, so we really wanted to show her Spokane in the summer.

All of these photos were taken with my iphone.. 

 Capucine's flight was direct from Paris to Seattle.

Since both of our cars are older with high mileage, Jeff suggested I get a rental car to drive to Seattle to pick up Capucine.

We ended up renting this cute VW bug for the day.

The girls loved it!

 We had a little Saturday morning crepe party..

We love Capucine's crepes!  :)

 We did some local sight-seeing.. this was at Riverside State Park.

 The view of a storm rolling in from atop Mt Spokane...

I'm thinking this was the only rainy weekend we had all summer.

 A chicken wing dinner.. Capucine loves American chicken wings. :)

 We enjoyed some down time too.. just hanging out on the back deck.

 Jeff and ended up taking the girls on a mini vacay to Portland OR.

This was a stop at Multnomah Falls on the way to Portland. 

 We were told the best way to see Portland was to eat your way through.. 

Our first stop was Salt and Straw ice cream.. 

YUMMY!

 We then headed to Cannon Beach for the day..

It was chilly, but SO beautiful.  I cannot wait to go back.

 There was a full moon and low tide.. it was cool to be able to walk out this far.

 Voo-Doo Donuts..

another fun stop.  The donuts were HUGE!

 beacause I love fun signage.. 

Portland is weird, but a fun place. 

We headed back to Seattle to stay overnight and get Capucine back to the airport..

As we were headed to the Pike Market we passed this group of young sailors and I couldn't resist a photo op.    :)

We dearly miss our sweet Capucine and we are so thankful she was able to come us this summer. 

45!!!

I'm so behind in blogging...

Here is a photo from Big Daddy's 45th Birthday celebration in July.  

I'm so in love with this amazing man!

Happy 45 Jeff!

Fun with the bestie...

Early in July I went to Seattle to meet up with my bestie of 27+ years.

We hung out in Seattle and then went over to Orcas Island. 

We shopped, we drank, we laughed.. a lot!

I even survived driving in Seattle traffic.. :)

I took mostly iphone pics, but I was able to capture some fun street photography/signage.

Here's just a few of the photos from our get-away.

 Staci and I were in the Pike Market and turned down a back ally and saw this homeless man napping.  I could't help but take a picture.  I have never really gotten into street photography, but this really spoke to me.  It's one of my favorites. 

I love to think of myself as a "wanna be" hippie, so when Staci pointed this out to me I had to take a photo of it.  

I found this sign on Amazon and I plan on ordering it.  :)

Thanks Staci!  Let's do it again soon!

Some super heros don't wear capes..

A few weeks ago we celebrated this man.. we had him over for dinner and showered him with gift cards to some of his favorite places.

This man was Lucy's 4th grade teacher, he was the one who help us discover Lucy's vision suppression and dyslexia.  

He adores Lucy and wanted to continue to help her.

He came to us this past fall and asked if he could tutor Lucy through 5th grade. 

He came to our house every Monday night this past school year and tutored Lucy for free!  

You read that right, Free!  

He is an amazing man and teacher! A true super hero in our books!

With his help, Lucy has made great progress.  We has helped build her foundation to soar. 

I always pray that our kids would be blessed with great friends and great teachers!

It's great to see those prayers answered.  

Start of summer...

This is our first official week of summer vacation...

Jeff recently found a new job (yes, here in town) and his last day of his previous job was Friday.

He decided to take a week off between his old job and new job.

We are getting some projects out of the way and spending some quality family time together.

We went yesterday to pick strawberries.

Just look at this gorgeous backdrop.  Spokane really has some beautiful landscapes.

My trio..

They are all about the same size, which makes laundry sorting difficult, especially when it comes to black athletic shorts.   :)

Olivia was the least excited about waking up early and picking strawberries, then she was the one saying we had to stay and pick more.  It's hard for me to believe she will be a senior in the fall.

So, I've posted before about how handy Jeff is.... 

He can seriously do or fix anything.

We have been creating an outdoor oasis for the past few months.

We LOVE our gorgeous/private yard and we enjoy the summer months relaxing and eating outside.

We have an outdoor dining table that seats 6.

We have found it difficult to have room for both our plates and food dishes.

We decided it would be good to have an outdoor buffet table to set food and drinks on.

I found some plans on Pinterest and Jeff went to work...

This is before I stained it...

Here it is stained and in it's spot on the deck.

We used it last night for dinner and it was great! I absolutely love it!

Now Jeff is ready to make an outdoor coffee table for our lower deck.