A highlight...forgot to post

Here's a couple photos I forgot to add to the last post. This was a highlight for all of us as we had never gone whitewater rafting before. Here we are on the Yellowstone River.

To Iowa and back...

It's been very quiet on the blog front lately... The summer has just flown by - lots of friends & family have visited while our family continued to work very hard during the day. We knew that the end of summer would bring our turn to go on vacation. Our plan was to bring Lorelle to Iowa where she'd begin her college studies at Dordt. We left late Tuesday evening after a full days work. We figured the long drive had to be conquered one way or another.... so we drove 13 hours to Billings, Montana. We found a campsite close to Yellowstone Park and thoroughly enjoyed our time there. We sat and waited for Old Faithful to be faithful and spent an afternoon white water rafting on the Yellowstone River. After 3 days we travelled on (7 hours) to the Mt. Rushmore area. We camped there (sometimes a Kabin at KOA), enjoyed the tours and presentations about Mt. Rushmoor as well as drove through Custer National Park and the Black Hills area and saw amazing wildlife and geological wonders. You can't but agree that God is the amazing creator of all things - at times it just took our breath away. We carried on with our travels only to stop at the Badlands area within a hour of getting on the road. After that, we drove to Sioux Falls, SD where we spent two evenings just resting - playing games, a little shopping, etc. We headed into the wide open country of Iowa after that. We helped Lorelle settle into her dorm - talked with the other girls that had arrived from our area and introduced ourselves to the young lady from Nebraska who would make number 4. The following day we had to face the sad goodbye's - and the looooong trip ahead of us to get back home. We were enriched with the preaching at the Belgrade, MT URC and arrived home Monday morning early. Here is just a small sample of the many photos we took. It's hard to capture the amazing sites we saw - but I think you get the picture.

Our trip to San Juan Island

Henry & I were able to get away for an overnight trip to San Juan Island. The weather was beautiful - somewhat cooler at times than the mainland - but the weekend really was perfect. We had a gift certificate to use at Anthony's - one of our favorite restaurants and then we went on to Anacortes. We stayed in a tiny little hotel room - Captain's Cabin - and in the morning took the ferry to Friday Harbor. We rented mopeds to tour the island. We spent time watching numerous orcas playing in the water - they put on quite the show!! By 5:00 we had toured the entire island, stopping whenever we liked what we saw. When we arrived home we had enough time to unpack & spend a bit of time preparing for my cousin's family from Ontario who will be using our driveway as a camping "pad" for a few days. Lots of summer fun!

Oh baby, it's hot!!!

So, what's been happening this past week? Um...it's hard to think when it's this hot!! We've been enjoying beautiful summer weather again this past week but the last few days feel a little like I remember Ontario weather. You open the door from an air conditioned building and there's a wall of heat & humidity that hits you! I'm not complaining - but it takes some getting used to. I just don't count on getting much done this week. In fact, I'm packing to go camping at the lake for the next few days. We'll be tenting it but having a lot of fun on the boat, I'm sure.

Here's a few photos from the past week. Alec gave Henry a certificate on Father's Day to take him out golfing at Raspberry Ridge. This is his second time golfing and he absolutely loved it! It's genetic I'm sure - just not my genes. Here's a picture of him practicing his swing on the lawn.

The next picture is of my finch feeder. I know it's only one bird but we finally have been able to attract finches. The feeder has been up for a month and I was thinking our dog & cat were just too scary for them. It appears they can live together because we now have both yellow and purple finches - especially in the morning there can be up to 5 at a time. I'm thrilled because I've always been inspired by my mom and sister who are able to attract a wide variety of birds to their back yards. What should I try next? (Not blackbirds - they came the last time I tried to feed the birds...)

The next photo is of Alec having a lot of fun at the creek. We don't have a pool this year as we decided to sell what was left of our last one. We don't always have such heat and there have been years where we spent a LOT of money on chemicals and a LOT of time keeping the pool clean only to have the kids swim in it occasionally. Henry thought a few trips to the pool made more sense. But with this number of hot days & weeks it does not make sense for me to be driving to the beach or pool each day. So we discovered that the creek down the road works well to cool oneself off. I try hard not to think about what's all in that creek so it's a firm rule that the kids shower down completely when they get home. They're making a nice little spot there. I helped to cut down some reeds today and make some steps with a shovel while Alec swam.

Hot Summer Days!

This past week has been very beautiful!! It seems we've had hot, sunny weather for most of our summer so far and it's been wonderful. Hannah returned from Stepping Stones just bubbling over with excitement - her week was fabulous, the counsellors were wonderful, the chaplain did an amazing job teaching through the theme of "God is our Fortress". We picked her up on Saturday morning and each cabin pack did their "cheer", we sang a bit, saw a power point of the week, kids received their certificates, etc. and we ended with a lunch.

While she was away, Jocelyn turned 16 and I took her for her driver's test. She is now the proud owner of a Washington State Driver's License and I no longer have to take her back and forth to work each day. The only downside to her turning 16 is that she no longer can cross the border because we've been waiting to apply for a passport. We wanted to wait for the over 16 version which is good for 10 years instead of 5. Alec had a friend sleep overnight and they had a wonderful time playing boy stuff - sword fighting, going to the creek and getting rides on the 4-wheeler. Since the house gets so hot by dinner time we managed to escape to the lake with our boat and enjoy our dinner in a cooler spot and get some tubing and skiing in.

Who took the batteries out of my camera?

I won't have many photos to add to this post as each time I picked up my camera to take a picture I found there were no batteries inside!! I broke down and bought rechargeable batteries for my camera and made the mistake of telling the kids. They have a few books on CD they are listening to on the "walkman" so they took the liberty of using my batteries and not returning them.

This past week has been busy with lots of visiting and kid watching. On Tuesday a little 14 month foster girl was added to our household for a week. This is just for respite - a foster family went away on vacation and needed someone to take her. On Wednesday we had friends from Australia over for a BBQ as well as a birthday celebration for Hannah and her friends. It wasn't the warmest day so the hot tub was the perfect place to hang out together. Her birthday was a week later but she will be away to Stepping Stones Bible Camp this week so we decided to celebrate early.

On Thursday we had our friend's 2 year old come for a couple nights as his parents were in California. On Saturday morning we went out for breakfast with my sister & hubby from Ontario and hung out for the morning at our house. They came for a very quick three day trip to attend a nephew's wedding. They were gone maybe half an hour and Henry's cousin from Manitoba arrived & stayed till the following afternoon. We ended up going boating on the lake that evening & staying till sunset. That was a lot of visiting and I went to bed early Sunday evening because I was tired and it was fairly boring without guests to talk with :) I'm off this morning to bring Hannah to camp and then out for lunch with a group of ladies for a 40th birthday celebration!! This week looks to be quieter so I'm hoping to catch up on some inside-and-outside-the-house work!!

Reformed String Camp 2009

This past weekend was a busy but enjoyable one. With 4th of July celebrations as well as three concerts from the 2009 Reformed Strings Camp we were kept hopping from one event to another. Jocelyn spent the past week in Langley with her cousin and friend from Ontario at this camp. They had 3 performances on the weekend - we went to the last two. The final one was held in Langley and we think it was their best one! Jocelyn played her quartet piece again that evening and we were thrilled because we had missed hearing it on the first evening. The girls were very ready to be done - it's a long, intense week of playing music but it was worth it! Here's a few photos - some of them are a bit dark. We're happy to have a dvd recording of the last evening - a nice keepsake. The girls were too tired to come to a 4th of July fireworks at a friends so I made sure to make something patriotic to celebrate on Sunday - it was very yummy!

The relatives came...

This title is one of my favorite children's books (Cynthia Rylant). The pictures are just great and captures a house where a group of relatives come to visit and stay for part of a summer. We have relatives staying here as well - maybe not quite as many as the book describes. My nephew is here as an end of eighth grade gift. We've been on several fun outings but I've only managed to take my camera once and take two pictures... There's just too many other things to think about when you're taking a bunch of kids somewhere... and I'm sticking to that excuse. Here's a picture of the boys hanging out at the Windmill Mall. That day we went to visit J at the Lynden Dutch Bakery where she works. As we were waiting for our food she got a migraine and needed to be taken home. The places we didn't take the camera to were Cultus Lake Water Slides, Lummi Island (biking), Company BBQ in Mt. Vernon (view of the ocean & islands), Fourth of July BBQ & fireworks at a friend's and a picnic at Birch Bay (ocean). Kaleb's sister & friend were also with us this weekend and are now at the Strings Camp in Langley.

Looking Good...

I showed you this planter a couple months ago and said I'd show it once it had grown. I planted two of these knowing it would be used as decoration for the senior grad. It filled in nicely and looked beautiful at the back of the church. It now looks great on my back deck!!

Lorelle's Grad

As soon as I returned from Ontario I was immersed in the prep for Lorelle's senior grad. At our school the parents (moms...) of the graduates are responsible for the setup and decorating of the church (ceremony) as well as the decorating for the dinner which is held before the ceremony. Our group felt a little challenged in that department but we really did an amazing job!! Here's a few photos I managed to sneak. I'll post more later as the graduates had a wonderful photographer who took hundreds I'm sure. The following Sunday we had an Open House to celebrate with family and friends. Lots of fun and now it's a bit quieter as summer holidays have begun!! Ahhhh....