Idaho City

Greg took the kids on a little day trip to Idaho city last week. They had fun exploring nature and the old historic city.

Two Videos

Olympia Trip & Saying Goodbye

After the big ordination weekend, we got to stay in Olympia for the whole week to spend time with my sister and her family (warning, there are a TON of pictures in this post!).The first thing we did on Monday morning was go to see my Grandparents in Tacoma. We had a wonderful time catching up, having lunch and just being together.

Hanging out on the back porch...

Probably the highlight of the week was our trip to the Great Wolf Logde. This is a gigantic hotel with a water park INSIDE it. We all had SO MUCH FUN. There aren't many pictures because there's water spraying everywhere all the time, so I wasn't taking any chances with my camera. But here's a couple:
This was in our room. The kids got to sleep in camping-themed bunk beds!

I didn't get any pictures of the really big slides, but these were fun ones that all the kids could go on. Even Maren! She is still talking about going down the "lellow" slide all by herself.

There is a HUGE bucket on top of the structure you climb up to go down the red & yellow slides. It fills up with water and then dumps over about every 2 minutes. If you are waiting in line for the slides you get DUMPED on. But you can stand in the toddler area (see me and Joel at the bottom?) and it doesn't even splash you. (I'll try to post a video of this soon!)

My sister's family.

After two full days of playing in the water, we were all wiped out.

The rest of the week we just hung out, played & tried to stay cool. Christina & I got a whole day to scrap, and the guys got a surf day. Here are some random pics from the week:

It was so hot the kids were literally wilting...

The oldest of the cousins...Emma is a big reader - I often found her curled up with a book. So fun (and crazy that she will be 10 this month!).

Love this pic of the J's.

All of Maren's clothes have been passed down from Christina's kids - we brought these pajamas for Maren to wear, and Jordan still has some that fit her! So cute.

These boys had a lot of fun together this time.

This is Emma waiting to get a group picture of the kids...

This is my dad hanging out at the BBQ on Sunday...crazy! This mannerism comes directly from my Grandma (who passed away last July). I am hoping to find a picture of her like this, to show the three generations. :)


After a great, long, busy week it was time to say goodbye. This was a "special" goodbye because they are moving to Germany August 1st. So we won't see them again for quite a while. We are so glad the kids all got to spend so much time together these last two years, and we look forward to visiting them in Germany!

We will miss you all so much! See you on Skype!

We made the long drive home on the 4th of July...and we got to watch some fireworks from the car! We stopped and got some sparklers and let the kids do some before bed...it was a late night!

Thanks for sticking with me through that LONG post. I am trying to get caught up before things get too busy around here (hint, hint - stay tuned for news!).

"Graduation" Party

As fate would have it, Geoff (my sister's husband) graduated from his medical residency on the same night as Greg was ordained! They have been leading these strange parallel lives since they graduated from Westmont in 1996. After several years of both of them working in Santa Barbara Geoff went to Israel for medical school (3 years) and Greg went to Chicago for Seminary (3 years). Then Geoff has been doing his medical residency in Olympia, WA and Greg did his Chaplain residency here in Boise. Their "graduations" were on the same night, at the same time and at the same hotel chain - only in different cities. I am hoping that we can make our parallel lives intersect at some point!

So since we couldn't go to each others' ceremonies, we had a big family get-together/party the next day in Olympia at Bur Foot park.

The graduates.

We had a great picnic (with WAY too much food), complete with roasted marshmallows! Thank's Del for being the grill master!

The kids all had a blast playing together...

(love this one of the oldest and youngest of the cousins-not counting Dean, who wasn't there)

Adventuresome Aliya

(Thanks Auntie Beka for my new dino-lizard!)

Sisters...

After the BBQ, some had to head back to Portland, and the rest of us took a little hike out to the beach (the sound) to look at the water.
Love this family picture!
Sisters (yes, I have a handful of rocks and beach glass!)
There always has to be a competition...Geoff won this rock throwing contest hands down...I attribute that to the fact that his arms are A LOT longer than Greg's! :)

It's in our genes - the rock collecting.

Thank you to all who came from near and far to celebrate these milestones in our family!