Backpacking Flashback

A few more pictures from our backpacking adventures.  When you have 5 kids it is very likely that one of them will fall back behind the rest.  On our hike to the lake, Ollie was having a tough time.  Brad and I stayed with him.  Thankfully the last third of the hike he was able to rally and stopped complaining. 

We pumped water and washed dishes by the river.  The water was so clear I was tempted to drink straight from it.  The only downside is the walk was about a half mile from our tents.  It made for good exercise and also a great reminder of how lucky we are to have clean water straight from our kitchen sink. We know there are many people in the world who do this daily and probably have to walk even further. 

These were the big rocks next to our camp.  The kids had a blast climbing up and down these. 

Brad and Dan came up with an idea to make a hot tub out of the pool of water.  They heated up rocks and dumped them into the water. 

The kids even got in the "hot" tub. 

Alki Beach

We are now on our 3rd year of a trip to Alki beach with the Hodo family. 

This year we ended an evening component to it and invited Brad and Dan to join us after work.
We played and roasted hot dogs and s'mores on the beach.  

Blue Jaguar

 We had an Ice Cream Social at our neighborhood park.  I didn't take any pictures but ended up with this fun story that I shared on our neighborhood facebook page.  

Hi neighbors! Yesterday I stood in line for a balloon animal with my 4 year old. (If you stood in line you understand how long it took). Less than a minute after Bo got the blue jaguar his balloon popped. We got back in line and tried to wait until he had to go to the bathroom. So he didn’t get the balloon animal he wanted.
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About 40 minutes later a young man named Sebastian (who had been in line too) found us and gave us this blue jaguar. He used his coveted spot in line to have a blue jaguar made for my son! So if you are Sebastian’s parents you should be proud of the kind and thoughtful thing he did.
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Once again I am thankful there are wonderful kids in our neighborhood who are great examples to our kids.

Have a great day! (And this blue jaguar is still alive).

Orthodontist Party

Our orthodontist has a customer appreciation party every year. They go all out and the kids have a great time!  This year's theme was Fiesta! 

Ollie with Dr. Tingey! 

Love this kid!

Pin the mustache on the Dr. Tingey

Abi & Andrew were there too. 

Love this kid too! 

I think there were 6 Pinatas and SO many prizes and Pixie Sticks. 

Anniversary Date Night Do Over

We had our 14th wedding anniversary last week and went out on a date. Long story, short....it was a terrible date. You can read more about it here. 

So, we decided to have another date night and count it as our anniversary date. Thankfully we were able to get a babysitter and went to the Sounders game.   The Sounders won 2 - 1 and it was a wonderful evening for soccer.  

 

Train/Hall & Oates

We took the 3 older boys to the Train and Hall & Oates concert. It was at the Key Arena. Darby & Bo stayed the night at Papa Bob & Grandma Shari's which made it nice that we didn't have to rush home. Although we did rush home because we were all tired but we didn't need to be back for a babysitter. It was also very fun to have a fun outing with just the 3 boys. What a difference it makes! 

We are pretty sure these were the youngest fans there.  

I love that the boys were rocking out to almost every single song.  (Colt wasn't rocking out quite as much but I think he still enjoyed it) 

Around the Camp

When we arrived at Lena Lake, Brad and Dan scoped out the place for a good camping site. They found a great one! The best part about it was the dry waterfall with big rocks. The kids loved scaling them.  We made lots of great memories with the Hodo family and I can't wait to do it again next year. 

With all the climbing and running through the woods we escaped with very little incident.  On our hike down, 10 minutes before the end of the trail, Ollie tripped on a rock and fell on his face with his backpack on top of him.   He got this big scrape and black eye.  He was a trooper and recovered pretty quickly.  We are SO thankful this is all it was.