August and September Miscellaneous

These girls play Warriors out on the tramp for hours. 

You can tell where all the kids are because all the bikes and scooters are dumped in front of the house. 

Hair.

Last Padden of the season. boo

One day me and Emily went up near Baker for a run. 

Coloring at recess. 

Open house.

Home from work. 

One day Avery was mad at us so she "ran away". This was her card board homeless camp. 

Good bye hair!

It was like we were digging him up - unburying him from all that hair. 

I don't have an "after picture". 

Too bad. 

Crab Festival 2018

This year we got to do a lot of the crab catching. 

Jim went out with Frank on the boat and got 11 big ones.

We went to the marina with the Chambers to check up on their crab pots.

It was so fun. 

I don't even care that I force the Crab Festival upon everyone. 

We caught a sea star!

The next day after soccer games, we had everyone come over and eat and festivize. 

I am pretty much the only one who ate the crab. 

Turns out a lot of crab snobs don't eat crab when it's a day old. 

No problem for me - I just went ahead and ate it all and it was delicious. 

I want more right this second. 

Tuesday Mt Baker Day

Literally the day before me and Jim went to Mt Baker, Avery asked us what we do all day while they are at school.

We do this. 

We drive up to Mt Baker and nobody complains or fights or whines.

We walk and run on this super exposed trail that wraps around the mountain side and nobody dangerously veers near the edge. Nobody whines or complains. 

We sit there and enjoy the view and crack jokes and kiss, and nobody needs a snack or a piggy back ride.

You know how some hikes you have to walk a long while before you get to "the view"? 

This trail - Ptarmigan Ridge Trail - is the most beautiful view 100% of the time, for 8 miles. 

8 miles of view. 

At the turn around, we looked down and saw a bunch of white mountain goats feeding. 

President Nelson at Safeco

My brain is split into a million different ways lately. 

I got called to be the Young Women President.

Last week the bishop asked me to speak on "how to turn the youth to Christ", and also asked to see me before church about a new calling. 

I went in, he asked me to be YW Prez,

I cried with joy because I thought he was going to ask me to be the Relief Society Prez.

Then the High Council who was supposed to speak with me that day called the bishop while I was in his office and said "was I supposed to speak in your ward? because I can't."

And then the bishop said "also the youth speaker forgot".

So suddenly I am the YW Prez and the only speaker on the program for the day.

It was super.

But actually I had a lot to say on my topic and I don't mind talking once I'm up there. 

He also asked a few people from the congregation to come up and give their testimonies on their experience from the night before....

...which was President Nelson, Sister Nelson, and Pres Eyring coming to Safeco field and talking to us all.

Driving into downtown Seattle there were Mormons everywhere! Lining the streets, filling the stadium.

There was almost 50,000 of us packed in there. 

It was awesome.

Traffic was the worst, but it was worth it. The kids were really excited about seeing the prophet.

So back to my brain.

I keep wanting to blog, but I feel so overloaded with everything. I am going to have to speed blog for a few posts here so that I can get that off my "to do" list. It's an important "to do", so I don't want these moments to get lost along the way. 

PS Avery had strep throat here. She was not yet diagnosed. She laid on my lap most of the time, sick. We went Monday to the doctor and got her all fixed up. 

Everything went fine until the doctor offered a flu shot. Then Avery pretty much freaked out. She hates shots. Poor girl. 

Ward Carnival

The last ward party - cinco de mayo - was comically disastrous. I don't really know how to explain it all, but lets just say that when the children have nothing to do, they will run around the building and be rowdy. 

So some kids were running out in the halls, and ran around in the chapel, and this old lady came into the gym and got all of our attention (like, full attention - the music was turned off and all eyes on her) and let us know that the kids were being wild in the chapel (to this, we all agree, that isn't an appropriate place for kids to be rowdy in), but then she continued walking and ranting about what terrible kids and parents we all were...

and then as she is yelling in anger over her shoulder, she walks into a chair and trips on it, and stumbles and then she grabs another chair to catch her balance, and then she starts going down and she is a tumbling, ranting, falling, mess on the ground, tangled in chairs. 

Jim was the first responder because he was the closest person...but then lots of women ran to her aid and helped her out of the gym.

We all just kind of sat there in the silent gym catching each other's eyes...not sure if we are allowed to snicker at that what we all just witnessed. Because it's NOT funny. But it was kind of funny. 

Anyway, we all agreed that we are setting the kids up for failure when we make them sit quietly in the church building for a ward party...

So Lisa volunteered to do the next ward party, and she was gonna make it awesome and the kids could run wild, scream and play and whatever without getting fingers wagged at them.

And it was unanimously agreed that it was the best ward party ever.

Jim and Joe had a corn dog booth, so of course we had to have a pre party - corndog party to make sure the corndogs were perfect. We ate so many corndogs. We had so many tasters. 

I went out and took a picture of the sun in the horrible smoke during the pre party.

 See that orange dot in the sky?

Anyway, so the actual ward party was so fun. It was a great end of summer shebang. 

The people were lined up around the block, wanting to try a corn dog.

(This wasn't the main meal...this was just a side show - like a real carnival. There were also snow cones and funnel cakes.)