::Part 2

 

He bites his fingernails.

We found this teeter totter.

There.

Perfectly balanced.

This kid is so chilly chill.

He sleeps, then wakes and plays.

He rarely makes a peep, just studies the world around him.

Another pant-less child.

This one was because she sat in the water.

On the hike down to the water, there was a tree full of beach treasures, so we all picked something to take to it on our way back.

Weenie roasts on the beach are my favorite summer activity.

I don't know what it is, but all the kids are always so happy.

 

Kids are so fun to take pictures of because they are so photogenic.

Seal!

 

S'more!

And then the big boys started throwing rocks...

at birds...

just for a moving target, not thinking they were actually gonna hit one.

Until Robbie hit one.

It just kind of changed trajectory and went on its way.

The kids were so happy the whole time.

In fact, the adults had to call "times up!" and pack it in.

Usually one or more of the kids is crying, and we are forced to go home.

 

It was the perfect evening.

Fun With Rob and Mary:: Part One

To accommodate all the millions of pictures I took, I am going to split this into two posts.

I seriously took a lot. It was kind of fun to dust off the camera and just snap a zillion pictures.

Farmer Buckley's blueberries are done for the season, so we went to Barbie's Berries. 

They were so big and so delicious.

Edaleen's ice cream as a reward for picking 8 pounds of bluebs.

I've eaten a lot of blueberries in the past few days.

This park on the Canadian border always has new sculptures. This one cracked me up.

That's my kind of art.

No, but this one was really cool. 

It's a picture of Lincoln made with different colored pennies.

At first I wondered if the pennies were painted after the fact, but the shiny pennies are new and the rusty pennies are old. So it's completely done by using different shades. 

I liked it.

The other side was Queen Elizabeth made out of Canadian coins.

And this is made of flowers when you look close up.

Oh. Why is Avery wearing my sweater as a skirt?

Because when we were picking berries she had to go to the bathroom. Short story short, she peed directly on her skirt. 

Robbie is in two countries.

He's all: Aye! Howdy. Aye! Howdy.

Somehow Andrew fell asleep while Evan pushed him around demolition derby style.

What's wrong Annie?

At least one child was unhappy at any given moment during all our excursions.  

I will be referring to the "Mendoza Line" throughout these posts.

That's when something is, or is not, "worth it". Most of our family outings straddle the Mendoza Line. 

There are moments of awesome town and moments of melt down city.

In the end, I always think it is definitely worth it to get out and have an adventure, but we just have to plan on hovering around that Mendoza Line.

Something about ferry rides brings out the crazy in my kids. They run around dancing and singing.

After about 10 minutes in an area, all the other people around us clear out and we are left with the space to ourselves. They can't handle the circus act.

We sat and waited for the whales to show up...

but they never did. 

This is Annie finding a nice quiet spot in the woods to 

ahem

take care of business.

Robbie finally got her to come back by offering her a pine branch.

mendoza line...

Jim packing two babies.

Back in line for the ferry home...

Once back on land, we got pizza and went to this great park. 

Everyone was happy!