Camping in the 'burbs

Opa and Oma were here for a few days. They'd planned to go off camping for a night or two with the kids but the weather was iffy so instead they just camped across the street from our house.

You can see their heads in the back window--this picture was taken from our front porch :)

Ezra lost his first tooth!!!

My 35th (August 12th)

...gee, what an exciting-looking party! A bunch of guys in plaid shirts hanging around watching the Olympics.














Of course the ladies know how to party! The camera is rather out of focus, it seems to have had a bit too much to drink... hmm... ;)














Aww, what a fun surprise--birthday cake(s)!! I hadn't expected that from my "I don't eat sweets" husband. And by the way, no, I'm not 53 as the candles on the white cake might make you think ;)














"Cousin" lovin. Ezra and sweet little Alice.














Good times were had! A post-party margarita... Just one more drink...














...over and out. It's tiring be 35!!

Horse Camp

One of (several) highlights of the summer for Asia was her week at horse day-camp. Here she is on the last day showing the families their new skills. Her horse was named Sierra.














She looks so confident on Sierra! It was such fun for her. She first got to ride a horse when she was just two years old and her Auntie Theresa took her for rides on her own childhood horse, Dusty, when we visited them in California.














Asia's buddy Sylvie did horse camp too. Happy girls!



















Their other favorite thing about horse camp was playing carpet ball...

T-ball, er, I mean Softball

Andy's office started a softball team this year with the local parks & rec department. I keep telling people that Andy is in t-ball b/c I'm used to sports for the kids, not for one of us adults!

I know I'm biased, but Andy was definitely the MVP for his team at their first game.














Here he is, the MVP himself coming around on his way to making one of their two runs (I totally don't want to embarass Andy so I wouldn't dare mention that the other team had, oh, 27 or so runs... ;). Hey, it's all about having fun, right? That's what we tell the kids when they play t-ball and soccer!!

Happy Birthday, Kelly!

A mini GNO to celebrate Kelly's 22nd (hee hee) birthday. Cheers, girlfriend!

Sept_99 Mom Good Times

Many of you know about my email-group-friends that I've had since I was pregnant with Asia. We are a group of 9 women who were all due in (or around) Sept, 1999. We formed a group via babycenter.com and have remained close friends to this day--almost exclusively via email. I'm the only one on the West Coast so when one of the girls decided to go on an Alaska cruise--departing from Seattle--with her family I was VERY excited! Only one other mom from the group has ever visited me out here.

Karin and I had such a great time hanging out in person. What a treat! We'd met a few other times but it'd been around 7 years since the last time we saw each other.














We asked our dear Vietnamese neighbor, Mr. Huong, to take a picture of our group. He cracked us all up with his random counting and his random angles!

Our families freaked out at how much we know about each other. Tim's face was priceless when he realized that I knew the name of his best friend (and that he also happens to be his neighbor). The husbands got a tad nervous wondering exactly HOW MUCH we know! We know everything, boys. Everything. ;)














After their fun Alaska cruise we got to spend one more evening together while my parents babysat the kids... A beautiful (and delicious) dinner out together.














Two of the Sept_99 Moms...


















...and two of the Sept_99 kids. Asia and Tim were born two days apart.

Early Birthday Celebratin'

Mom and Emily took me out for an early Birthday Lunch during mom's quick visit to Seattle. The ladies and the kids had a lovely afternoon.














This lady has been lovin' mojitos lately. Now I just need for Andy to figure out the recipe!


















Cousin Girls Rock!














Gramma and her four grandkids.

National Night Out 2008

As usual, we had a fun block party for National Night Out (1st Tuesday in August).














The clown noses were for the adults to enjoy too!

Seal Beach, 2008

ParentMap fun

Traffic... bah! On our way to a goodbye party for my supervisor.














A gaggle of ParentMap children. Is that the word used for a bunch of kids? Or would it be "flock" or "gang" or?? Hmm.

Tennis

I just posted a slideshow with pics from our weekend in Portland and this is the info I wrote about the slideshow (since you'll be seeing this post before you see that one if you are looking at my blog from the top down):

I'm trying something new--using Picasa to put slideshows on my blog when I've got multiple pictures of one event.

Here's my first try, I hope it works! Just hit pause (by hovering over the bottom of the slideshow) if you need more time to read the caption/view the photo. Enjoy!

Ezra finally hearts swimming!!

We went swimming with some neighbor friends and this was the first time ever that Ezra was brave enough to jump in the water like this! It was such a blast and made me realize that all the $$ we've paid for swimming lessons have definitely been worth it!

Happy Birthday Tara!!

A fun evening out to dinner to celebrate Tara's 28th birthday (she's such a young pup!).














Birthday smooches

The chef

Such the budding chef! I woke up one morning and she'd gotten started on making pancakes. From scratch, I might add. No pancake mix for Chef Asia!

Portland

I'm trying something new--using Picasa to put slideshows on my blog when I've got multiple pictures of one event.

Here's my first try, I hope it works! Just hit pause (by hovering over the bottom of the slideshow) if you need more time to read the caption/view the photo. Enjoy!

Girl Scout Camp

Another fun week of Girl Scout Day Camp. I was one of the leaders for Asia's group. Thumbs up!


















The sons of the leaders at camp also go to Girl Scout Camp--they have their own boys unit there. Ezra LOVED it. On the last day the boys unit did the flag salute. Look at that little Boy Scout-in-the-making! ;)

Kent Cornucopia Days

After Acacia's party I had to work at Kent Cornucopia Days so the kids came with me to do crafts in the kids area. Afterwards we walked around a bit but it was just sooo hot. All they wanted was a sno-cone...

Another birthday party

The birthday parties never end! But that's okay because they are all such fun...



















Today we went to a 4 year old birthday party at Libby Lu which is basically Little Girl Heaven (ie: think PINK and glitter).

We were meeting up with the kids there after our kidless time and we arrived early. Early enough for the Libby Lu ladies to ask Andy if he'd like them to do his hair. He's such a sport, he let them give him a random girlie mohawk thing--with pink spray and glitter even! It was quite a sight.

(Trent and Stuart, the kids specifically wanted to make sure you saw Andy's fancy hair and I assured them you'd see it on the blog :)

You might need to click on the picture to enlarge it to see the pink mohawk better...



















Slightly more the target audience (more so than 34 year old men). Asia and cousin Eva--little rock stars!














After getting all dolled up they did a little fashion show. The birthday girl, Acacia, is on the left--a happy little princess! (Acacia is Eva's cousin on the other side of the family. We've all known each other for a long time so even though we're in-laws of in-laws, we're all one big family)

Asia was pretty funny, I knew she was loving it but yet she acted a bit too old for the whole thing. Ehh, deep down inside she still loves pink ;)














After the girlie goodness we went over to Acacia's family's new condo (welcome back to Seattle, guys!!) to open presents. More pink...














The party was over so it was time for the kids to say goodbye to Auntie Emily and Eva. The kids had a blast with them the last few days.

Although we heard that little 1 1/2 year old cousin Day was seen as a bit of a problem because he liked breaking up their lego and other toy setups. Obviously Asia and Ezra aren't used to having a little one in the house :) He just wanted to play with his big cousins I'm sure!

DINKs!!!

I had to work all day Friday at an event so we arranged for the kids to go to Bainbridge Island to spend two nights with their cousins. We felt like a pair of DINKs (Dual Income No Kids for those of you--like Tara--who'd never heard of that ;)

It was fun, but we missed the kiddos. The house was just too darn quiet! Yes, we're pitiful. But we did have a nice dinner date. Originally we were going to spend the evening doing some home improvement projects but we realized that'd be a lame way to spend our kidless time.