A Touch Of Tyrell

If we didn't have something going on, we were probably eating sunbutter and honey sandwiches (cousin Maleah is allergic to peanuts)... ... getting a letter from a friend in AZ and sneaking through the gate... ...swinging and swimming... ...crafts and making messes... Cleaning s'mores out of hands and hair and in between fingers is every mothers dream :) Poor Haley had to endure Roxy's bullying... The babies had the brilliant idea of climbing into the cooler all on their own.... A couple of days Everett spent at his boy cousins house. Those days he played the x-box all day... even when his cousins invited him to swim or play something else... he just kept playing the x-box all day. Those were probably some of his favorite days 😅

When we first moved to WA (10 years ago) Jake was was doing construction (framing). His very first job was to remodel the Lay's farmhouse. It went from around 1,400 sq ft to something like 4,500 sq ft. We because pretty good friends with the Lays then and have stayed good friends ever since.  Right before we came to AZ they sold their farmhouse and bought one on the Lake. I had always been envious of their farmhouse and huge gardens and country living... and now I just want to live on a lake! But since we can't have either, we've been grateful that they invite us over to share a little of their life with us. To get a taste of what it would be like to watch your kids run and jump off the dock, dinner by the lake, and an evening boat ride was sweet.  I feel like I could move back to WA if we lived on a lake 😁 Even if you can't see the sun, at least you have a gorgeous view of the lake! *Ezra drew these pictures of Breckie. Pretty amazing and I think...

One day we dropped Jake off at his friends office (where he had been working for the last few weeks) so the kids and I played in town all day. We went park hoping and ended up at McDonalds for happy meals.  They had a pretty sweet play place so we played for a really long time. All three kids were super happy so we bought ice cream to make it the 'best day ever'.  I ordered two cones and she asked me if I wanted a baby cone. I wasn't really sure what a baby cone was but I said yes :) Just when I thought it was possible for me to take less pictures... Roxy with a baby ice cream was just the cutest thing!

We had limited days left with Jake (that weren't booked already) so we took a last minute trip to Mt Rainier after church one Sunday.  The church building was 30 minutes in the right directions so it worked out pretty good.  We stopped at Vivian Falls first.  It's a short walk down from the parking lot and worth every step. The overspray was nuts so it was cold, wet, and slippery! (How cute are these pictures 😍!) It wasn't necessarily a cloudy day, but there were clouds in all the wrong places.  When we got to Paradise, we couldn't even see the top of Mt. Rainier. The clouds parted for just a second, but that was it. I asked some mountaineers that were on their way down from the summit if they had a view while they were up there. They said yes... it would be the worst to climb up and risk your life and basically just be up in the clouds without a view.  There were so many things that I was looking forwar...