Yellow House

I'm behind! All the blog posts are stacking up behind me. I need to get focused. 

I love summer. I just love it so much. Every day we suit up and go adventure. 

Remember my last blog post, we were waving good bye to the Kelvingtons, reminding them to lock up when they leave, and heading out to the Yellow House.

As per tradition, we stopped at the Tunnels along the way. 

We made Evan stand under his name again - you know, to see how much he's grown - and he was really grumpy about the whole thing. Here is the frown to prove it. 

Snake!

The river was way more full this year. 

Then we drove for a bit, and instead of stopping in Kelowna, this year we checked out a little hike up to Falls Lake. It was amazing! So beautiful. So glacial. 

The hike was hot, so Jim jumped in. It took about two minutes before he was able to talk properly due to the hypothermia situation. 

Then all the kids took their clothes off and waded in. 

The next morning I went on a run through the trails. 

I got back and the dads went mountain biking, and the rest of us rode our bikes down to the village to have some fun. 

Pretty much I was so mad at Silver Star all day because they were supposed to have all these fun things - a party and free gondola rides and such - but they had to delay that stuff until next week - blah blah blah. 

On top of that they took out the play ground, and the pump track was a swamp of mud.

So, ok, we decided to go on the little 1.5 mile bike ride across the mountain. That should have been fun enough, but Hudson refused to ride his strider and refused to get in the trailer with Andrew. It wouldn't have been such a problem to sit there on the trail and be patient and let him make up his mind, but the MOSQUITOES! were eating us alive. I can't handle mosquitoes, and our deet free repellent was a joke. So it was miserable and the little boy was screaming and we were swatting and bugging out. Finally we picked him up and shoved him in the trailer and I took off at full clip with a child screaming bloody murder "MOMMY!" and turning 360 circles in a trailer frenzy. I just rode like the wind until we got back to the village. Then all the kids - Cooper and Avery etc accused me of being "mean" to him, took him out and hugged him and whispered precious things in his ear. 

I know they are all just kids, but I had to defend myself, "I wasn't being mean! He was being a turkey on the trail!"

So when Lisa arrived at the village behind us (she had to go slow with Hunter), Evan promptly told on me: "My mom called Hudson a turkey."

Ha. So yeah. The one fun activity turned out to be miserable, so we called in the dads to come give us some support. We went back to the house and ate lunch and debriefed and vented. 

After the dads went back up the mountain to have lots of fun without us, we decided to put all the bikes in the sprinter van and let them ride in the muddy pump track. 

This activity - the only activity - turned out to be awesome. We decided they could get as muddy as they want! And the little boys had fun making bridges through the puddles. 

The dads met us there at the end of the day and helped clean off the bikes. 

Joe said something about not letting them play in the puddles and I said "uh uh. Playing in the puddles is THE ACTIVITY. It is the only activity."

That night for dinner we ate at the Red Antler. It was so delicious. 

We walked outside with full bellies and there was a rainbow!

I yelped in delight! I forgave Silver Star for the unexpected disappointments. Everything was beautiful. 

We regrouped and decided on an action plan for the next day. The most important piece would be to buy some DEET. 

Bless DEET. It made everything better. 

In the morning, after spraying everyone with DEET, we went on a bike ride through Tin Tin. The dads came with us, so that solved the Hudson problem. 

Here is proof of the mosquito problem. I can't look at this picture without laughing.

A mosquito ate Hunter's blood right on his forehead. The night before this, it was just an alarming, giant goose egg. The next morning he woke up and his whole face was swollen. Avery came and whispered to me "Hunter looks different", so I looked at him and sure enough, he looked like Avatar. 

All day long we referred to him as Avatar and giggled behind his back. 

They gave him some benedryl and just kind of hoped it wouldn't be a real issue. 

Andrew rode some handlebars for a while. 

Then the boys suited up and went for a half day of riding.

Lisa said she felt like we should hike. I was like, "uh...yes!" I've always wanted to hike up the mountain, but in years past, the little boys have made it too difficult.

This year it felt doable. So we hiked up the mountain. Straight up to where the top of the chair lifts are. 

The mosquitos still hovered, but they didn't eat. 

It was so awesome! Amazing, intense with 7 little kids, beautiful, hard, lovely. 

We ate on some rogue chairlifts at the top. 

Then we headed back down on another trail that had some switch backs that made a gentler decent.

When we told the dads what we had done, they were so surprised and proud. 

We ended the day with the trampoline thingys. It was such a great day. I feel like the rainbow from the night before was an omen of good things to come. 

The next day was pack up and leave day. I get so sad when adventures are over. 

However, I had four World Cup games to watch, so that was alright. 

I totally forgot about this, but last year we put a quarter on this ledge, and it was still there! I can't believe with all the weather this mountain gets, the quarter remains. 

We wanted to get our yearly adult picture in front of the yellow house (so we can see how much we grow each year, ha) but the kids would not get out of the shot. 

There it is. 

Such good times. 

Fourth of Jamie-ly

There's so much to discuss, so little time. 

The title of this post is pronounced Fourth of Jamie-ly as in Ju-ly (not leee, as in family).

But let's focus on the important things here, like the ferry ride to Friday Harbor in which all we let the kids roam around the boat without parental hovering. It was the first time they were old enough, and we found they are better behaved when they manage themselves vs when we sit there and tell them how to behave.

There were no whales, darn it!

But I don't think the kids cared at all. See them there, blending in with that rock, pretending something? Cousins know how to pretend. 

We went to this great pizza place. We came here with Nettie and Jeff a few years ago. Best pizza and best ambiance. 

There was an old couple at a table near us, and as we were apologizing for our rowdy kids, he said he had 9 I think, and we eventually deduced that he is mormon too!

Remember outside the pizza place when the water truck sprayed dirty water practically right at us? The kids loved that. 

We roamed around the village, getting kicked out of this place and that. I mostly remember that the walk about through the village was one giant search for a bathroom. Didn't it seem like 20 kids needed to use the bathroom all at different times? 

These two used to be about the same size. At one time they were babies at the same time. 

When we got off the ferry, we swung by Deception Pass. The kids were crazy and it was late and Evan was in trouble, so we snapped a quick pic and headed home. And watched a soccer game. 

The next day...

(ps this post has been taking me forever to work on, and I promised myself I would post today no matter what, so from here on out, we are speed blogging)

I really wanted to go pick raspberries. They are my favorite to pick and eat, and I didn't want to miss the raspberry window. So you can imagine my disappointment when - for some reason - every third raspberry was inedible! disgusting! we had to spit them out. Such a bummer. I'm not sure why they were so yucky this season. boo hoo. 

We played at a park, then drove to Bham for some grub. 

It was so funny watching these girls (who stayed up waaayyyy too late last night playing games in the closet while we watched some World Cup) fall asleep in the car...

They just wilted like flowers, didn't they.

It was Jy Shird, Jamie's birthday, so we ended the day at the beach with a fire and s'mores. 

The burn ban started this week, so I'm glad we got one last fire in for the season. 

Andy lit a stick and stuck it in her s'more like a candle. We sang while she nursed her burned fingers. 

Inevitably Jim starts a rock throwing activity. Damon is in charge of readjusting the knocked over bottles. I think he got hit by a few rocks. 

Mt Baker finally came out from hiding! Just for Jamie on her birthday. 

Sammy walked over to the car complaining that her shoe felt weird...

then dumped out a mound of sand. 

All this was in her shoe. 

The next day: 4th of July! 

We compounded, played with the puppy, smoked some brisket...

Then we drove over to Pt Whitehorn (after watching another World Cup game. How many did we watch while they were here? Five I think. World Cup is such a part of this summer. I love it. But now that it's over, I'm a bit relieved because it consumed a large amount of my time. haha)

While swinging on a beach swing, Avery stood up and caught a tree branch to the eye. She came walking over to me quietly, trying not to cry in front of Sammy. Poor little thing. It could have been lots worse if it was just an inch to the right. 

Beach combing. Jamie had a pocket full of treasures. 

These two worked on the roof of the fort. 

Somebody mature spray painted "poop" on the fort. 

The Swing. 

We went home and watched another soccer game before heading to the Blacks for a 4th of July party. 

One million shoes.

I'm mostly going to skim over this next part because it was so stupid. I guess it was equal parts stupid and crazy.

High tide. Idiots lighting fire works close to the crowd. 

We left after an explosion landed on our party. Cooper got a burn on his leg. 

It's a bummer because last year was so perfect - still crazy - but much safer because the tide was lower, so there was more room for error and more room for the crowd to spread. 

After we got home, we were finally able to light our own fireworks the boys had been begging to light ALL DAY. 

Our finale - The Unicorn. 

The blur in front of The Unicorn is Jimi jumping over it. shaking my head. 

The next day, the Kelvingtons went home. But also it was the day we left for Yellow House, so it was super weird when we pulled out of our driveway, waving goodbye to the Kelvingtons. "Lock up!"

Look at this "speshl" note Reese left. 

These two just got done hugging. Those are two HIGH ENERGY kids right there. 

I think the Kelvingtons should come up here every summer. That's what I think. 

Get out of that Vegas heat. 

We will go to Vegas in the winter in exchange.