Thursday July 24: Izzy's and Jetty Island

Wednesday was the Mariner's game for the guys and Becca gave me a hair cut...but no pictures sorry. I'll try and get a picture up later of my new do, it's to my chin now. I seem to get it cut shorter and shorter each time. But I promise that this is the shortest I will let it get and I'm not going to cut it anymore for awhile because I want to grow it out so that it's nice and long again.

Thursday my parents treated us all to lunch at Izzy's. We love Izzy's! It's a buffet that has lots of pizza and salad, they also have chicken, potatoes, desserts and much more.

After lunch we drove over to the loading dock so that we could climb on the small ferry and ride over to Jetty Island in Everett. I'm not a fan of ocean's(perhaps I'll dedicate a post to that subject alone at a later time) but I managed to have a pretty good time, mostly because Elisabeth LOVED playing in the sand and did just that for hours; it was fun to watch her and the other kids play.

It was really windy so Becca fastened her hood up to keep her hair under control

Tuesday July 22: Ballard Locks and the Museum of Flight

Tuesday we spent the day in the Seattle area. First we went to Ballard Locks and watched the boats lower as the water moved throughout the canal. We didn't stay for long-just long enough to see that happen- because it was cold and we didn't bring winter clothes. Scott didn't even bring any sort of long sleeved shirt; I packed me and the kids bags and was sure to include a sweatshirt for each of us(which we wore just about every day of our trip) but the rest was summer attire. I loved the weather for the most part because it was usually sunny and somewhere in the 60's or 70's which is perfect for me! But the morning we went to the Ballard Locks (and being so close to the water), it was just a little too cold for us.

We ate lunch at Dick's-Drive-In(which seemed so good in high school so I wanted Scott to experience it but we both ended up not really liking it, oh well) and then went to the Museum of Flight(thanks Traci and Neil for the tickets!). This was so cool! They had all sorts of special planes and jets in there, space craft stuff, a kid friendly area with some interactive games and rides and tons of interesting information to read. My favorite part was sitting in the jet and reading the information on space excursions.

When we first arrived and started walking down the stairs to see the room filled with planes, Charles was so excited he just started pointing at everything and shouting, "Airplane! Look!" over and over again.

A space car(lunar rover) that drove on the moon:

Monday July 21: Petting zoo and girls nite

Well I skipped doing a post for Sunday because I don't have any pictures but for my journal's sake I'd like to note that we went to church with my family which is my old home ward. It was nice to see some familiar faces.

Monday we got to see Becca's condo in Everett(for the first time) and then we drove over to the petting zoo and water park. The last time we went, the kids wouldn't get close enough to the animals to touch them so this was a HUGE improvement!Here is Annabelle with a bunny, and if you look closely at the sign in the background you'll notice that the bunny's name is also Annabelle and the sign reads, "I already have a loving home." How appropriate :)

After we finished with the animals, we washed up and walked over to the water park area. Annabelle was exhausted and fell asleep on the blanket we had laid out. You might not be able to tell from this picture, but she's under there:Peek-a-boo!

Later on that night the girls went out shopping and then had dinner at Becca's favorite Mexican restaurant. The dinner was yummy but very rushed because we shopped too long and we had a time deadline to meet. We wanted to have a girls night because later on in the week the guys were going to go to a Mariner's game...they went on Wednesday and were gone for 7 hours! Man, I just don't get sports some times. Why does it need to take up SO much time? Whatever. Anyways, back to our shopping excursion: my two nieces, Lani and Leia, are very into name brand clothing these days and definitely do not want anything used because everyone their age makes fun kids who wear used clothing. But we(the older and wiser women of my family) told them that we loved going shopping at used clothing stores because you could always find something you loved(and name brand if that matters to you) for SUPER cheap. So we took them shopping at Value Village and told them that afterwards we were going to have a fashion show so they needed to get really good stuff that they would actually wear. We also told them that when friends asked where they got the clothing to just tell them that, "It was a gift from my grandma" which is true because they certainly didn't pay for their own clothes. So anyways, here are a few pictures from our fashion show(there are a lot more pictures because we each got several items but here are just a few, oh and Mom, please note that I've heeded your wishes and didn't post any of your pictures from the fashion show.):

Lani sporting several new clothing items which include shorts, and two sweaters:

Modeling my new skirt:Leia(our tomboy) showing off her new church clothes...she wouldn't have picked these out herself but sometimes there is a need for some loving adult intervention :)

Becca and her cool new pants (man she's flexible! :))

Saturday July 19: wedding reception and old friends

Saturday afternoon my cousins' daughter was married. We went to part of the reception(the whole thing was 8 hours long) and we were lucky to have gone when the mariachi band was playing! I love mariachi bands! Our kids loved them too. Here is Elisabeth and Bella dancing:



We left the reception and had dinner and dessert with some friends from our last ward. Ben, Casey, Traci and Neil it was so good to see you and your beautiful children. Thanks for having us over!