Berry Picking

It’s berry season in Washington! There are tons of wild blackberry bushes growing all throughout Issaquah. You don’t have to go very far to pick some delicious berries. Allie was dying to go berry picking, but when we actually did it, she didn’t like to do it very long. (We picked the first glass bowl with Allie and the kids). She did not like the thorns or the spiders that seemed to go hand in hand with blackberries. Although she did like to direct us to some beautiful looking berries that always seemed to be just out of reach. We’d have to squish into the bush and get pricked and poked by the thorns.


We’ve made some delicious blackberry buttermilk syrup with these scrumptious berries! Owen just eats them by the handful and gets a purple stained mouth. Drew, Owen and I went a second time and picked some berries for about an hour. I filled an entire mixing bowl (the white bowl below). I rinsed them and laid them out on baking sheets to freeze. I filled three entire cookie sheets. Now we'll have tons of berries for pies, yummy desserts, jams, syrup, etc. And the best part was it only cost me a small tear in my shirt and a few scratches on my hand ;-)

We've had a birthday, shout hurray

Dan got a little slighted this year for his birthday. There was so much going on trying to unpack and get settled. It seemed like there was still SOOO much to do despite our staying up to wee hours in the morning working our tails off… We wanted to make him feel special on his special day, so we decided to bake him a yummy birthday cake. Some of our usual birthday decorations were still packed, so Allie got out our birthday hats. Owen put one on and walked around singing “Happy To Me, Happy to You” for most of the day.

When Dan got home from work we had a quick dinner and some delicious cake, then headed out to Ikea to get some desktops (to set the computers on) and a few other necessary things. The kids were bummed the kids area was closed for the night, but seemed to have just as fun in the store and on the cart ride given by dad!

I am so grateful for such a wonderful man in my life who works hard to be a great dad, husband, priesthood holder, son, friend, employee, etc. He’s the light of my life and keeps me sane! Happy Birthday, my love!!!

Beach Day

We headed to the beach for the first time on Tueday, August 16th. It was a beautiful, sunny day with the high of 74. It's not the ocean, its the beach at Lake Sammamish, which is convieniently about 8 minutes from our house.

The water was FREEZING at first, but oddly, you got a bit use to it. The kids went in the water up to about their waist. They had so much fun digging in the sand and playing with the Hawkins kids. We had a picnic lunch and enjoyed the sunshine!

We Made It!

After weeks of anticipation, nervousness, hesitation, and excitement we finally made the 1,500 mile journey to the Seattle, Washington area on August 7th. Luckily, we only had a three hour flight to get there ;-)

All our possessions and valuables would meet us in Washington in a week or two. We had a good flight - the kids were well behaved and Owen even slept for an hour! We looked absolutely ridiculous trying to get our 7 luggage bags, pack and play, stroller and children out to the rental car area to get our car. I had to resort to bribing with candy and treats to keep the kids from running wild. They were done with airports and airplanes. We were packed to the brim in our rental car and were off to see our new house (in Issaquah) before making the drive our temporary house for the week in Bothell.

This was the first time the kids had seen our new home, and they loved running around an empty home exploring, being loud, and checking out their new rooms.

Our temporary house was a typical 3 bedroom town house that worked well for us. The one downside - no A/C. Come to find out most Washington homes DO NOT have A/C!!! This was a HUGE adjustment for us. It was very warm to sleep at nights, even with a box fan. I had to open the kids doors, to help get cool air circulated into their rooms. Me and the kids were able to go on walks, explore the forest in our back yard, play at parks, and relax while Dan was hard at work.

Our things arrived at our home on Friday, Aug. 12th and we were excited to get into our new home and get settled. Drew kept asking when we were going to go back home to AZ. Like we were on a bad vacation and he wanted to go home ;-) It was a busy, hectic day unpacking the truck and making sure everything was accounted for. Poor Owen had to take a nap in the bathroom because each room was filled with boxes and noisy movers! Allie and Drew were troopers that day - they spent it exploring outside or watching a movie! We couldn't have asked for better weather when we arrived. It has been sunny and beautiful in the 70's and 80's.

(Mount Rainier)

Boxes, Boxes, Everywhere...

We spent the week up in Bothell until our furniture and things were delivered. To help the days go by, we played at a few nearby parks. The kids had a blast climbing this huge rock wall. I was so proud that they climbed up ALL by themselves, and down (mostly ) by themselves. You truly can’t appreciate how high it is, and to climb up you were slightly inverted. Owen found him a "nice graffiti wall” to hang out by while Allie and Drew were monkeys.

Boxes, Boxes, everywhere... (sung to a Blues Clues tune by Steve). We had over 300 boxes to now unload and unpack. We immediately started on the daunting task. We tried to get the kids rooms set up as quickly as we could so they could feel some sense of stability and familiarity. Their room was livable enough by Friday night - and all kids slept well in their own beds! Drew laid on his bed with his big blue polka dot blanket and just said "awwwwww - nice and cozy". He missed his bed! Him and Allie had to share a full size bed at the temporary house. It was very warm inside, and the beds were pretty hard with plastic pillows - needless to say, none of us got very good sleep that first week :0

Our sweet friends, Chase and Ali came over Friday night and helped unpack boxes and brought us some delicious brownies. (I think that was my dinner that night too!) They helped unpack the kitchen boxes and pantry. Chase enlisted Allie and Drew to help him put cans on the pantry shelves. They talked about that for about a week or so later - recalling how fun it was to unpack the pantry with Chase! And Allie would remind me often, on how good the pantry looks - cause they did a GREAT job!
Our neighborhood had a BBQ at the park the very next night, on Saturday. We were welcomed and introduced to many new people. There are some kids in the neighborhood that are close to Allie and Drew's ages. The kids were ecstatic to be outside at a park and not profusely sweating!

Silly Girl

This is Allie's latest thing - whenever I pull the camera out to take pictures, she becomes silly. She won't let me take a normal picture of her anymore. She's been my hardest child to photograph her entire life - she'd turn her head, or not look at the camera with her eyes, or walk away, and now silly! I guess payback will be in her wedding video someday...

She's going to hate this post when she's older...

So, I was scrolling through my camera the other day and let out a belly laugh. Allie took some pictures of herself with my camera and these are a few of them. She really is an adorable little girl, but she looks like she has 5 chins in these pictures! For the next few weeks, everything I needed a good laugh - I'd look at these silly pics. She's a ham!