The Rest of July

A few more pics from July:

One of our first outdoor projects at the new house was installing pavers in the back yard next to the patio. Sand kept making it’s way inside, so we wanted a place for the sandbox to live that wasn’t on the patio We were working on this together after the boys went to bed one evening, and remarking about how much fun Avery would have doing this. Then a few minutes later, he came down saying he couldn’t sleep. He thought it was so cool that we invited him out to help!

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Play date with Hayden. These boys love Legos!
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Adorable sleeping baby photo.
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Nicole’s Visit

Our favorite niece, Nicole, spent a few weeks with Grammy and Papa over the summer. She flew back from Texas with us and stayed a week before returning home. We had such a fun time! She is such a sweetheart, and we loved having her at our house. I didn’t want to let her go!

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Nicole, Silas, and I went blueberry picking one morning while Avery and Kieron were at camp.
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What happens when a girly-girl with three little boys has her niece over to visit? She breaks out the Barbies, the nail polish, and the old dance costumes, of course!
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Pedis for everybody!
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Avery opted for alternating black and white polish, just like Nicole. Still a mama’s boy, Kieron went with the hot pink polish his mom picked out.
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And then the costumes:
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Blackmail!
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I even got in on the action
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Then Kieron decided he like the boots in Mommy’s closet best
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Texas

Another fun trip to Texas in the books. There are a ton of pictures, so I’ll keep this short and just say we had a blast as usual!

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Avery made a ton of progress in the pool on this visit. Nicole taught him to dive to the bottom of the deep end. They spent a lot of time over there fetching dive sticks!

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Volleyball!
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When Jonathan gets in the pool, he has his work cut out for him! The kids love being blasted off his shoulders into the pool.
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Kieron got more comfortable jumping and swimming to encouraging arms
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Love this grin!
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The kid table
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Silas loved being dunked!
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At In-N-Out Burger
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No, he would not eat a burger. :/
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Cute sleeping baby photo
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At the park
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Me and my mama
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Right before we left for the airport, each of the kids got a ride in Papa’s convertible. This was a big hit!
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Nicole flew home with us. Here’s the kids studying the emergency manuals.
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And here they are by the time we landed. They were all very good, but Silas never did fall asleep. Glad that flight is behind us!
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The Postal Service

In July, one of our favorite bands, The Postal Service, commemorated the ten year anniversary of their first, and only, album by touring. Coincidentally, we celebrate our ten year anniversary this summer too. Of course, we had to see them!

Funny story: about ten years ago, I was raving to Jonathan about the Postal Service. I loved their music, they were so awesome, etc. etc. Meanwhile, Jonathan was like, “no, no, Death Cab for Cutie is so cool! I love their music!” We learn a little about the bands, and, turns out… same guy!  The lead singer of the Postal Service, Ben Gibbard, is also lead singer of our other favorite band, Death Cab for Cutie. And what a small world… they’re from our college town! During our college days, Ben and the other band members of Death Cab were recording music just blocks from us! We probably passed them on the streets of Bellingham back in the day and didn’t even know it! We “discovered” these bands right after college, and by then they’d hit it big and were in California doing their thing. Throughout our twenties, and into our thirties, we’ve enjoyed listening to their music and sharing it with our kids.

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Fourth of July

We had a nice, fun, mellow Fourth of July this year. In the morning we decorated the boys bikes and rode in the local parade. After that, we enjoyed some activities at the fair that followed. In the evening, we set off a few fireworks, roasted s’mores, and went for a short walk.

During the s’more roasting, we were visited by what turned out to be “the elusive mountain beaver.” We didn’t know what he was at first. We were literally just sitting there around the fire when he scurried out of the woods and into our yard. We followed him around for a couple of minutes, trying to figure out what he was, before he decided he better get the heck away from us! Was he a rat? A mole? A gopher? After some googling, we decided he must be the latter. Then a few days later, a forester came to cut down a sick tree beside our yard. We told him our story, showed him pictures of the furry critter, and he said (in his British accent) “Ahhh, you were visited by the elusive mountain beaver! You’re very lucky! Not many people get to see ’em!” He then went on to tell us all about mountain beavers (not actually beavers).  So here’s some video of what we saw:

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Getting ready to go on the zip line with Daddy!
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Kieron prefers to eat straight out of the garden
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We don’t have a fence up yet, and Silas likes to scurry off into the front yard and get chased. We’ve trained Avery to bring him back for us.
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Sparklers
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Silas seemed to really enjoy the fireworks, and wasn’t really bothered by the noise
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Happy hour service
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