More of the same...

Another crazy week flies by. Nater's week was full with soccer and basketball practices. He fit band practice and crossing guard in there too. The weather was nice this week so he and his friends Zane and Drew rode their bikes up to the basketball park. I'm not ready for winter weather! Nater scored a beautiful goal today as the Orange Crush tied 4-4.


Garrett's big thing lately is reading. He is a phonics-master!! He read through a whole series of Bob Books (a series for beginning readers) and as promised when he finished I told him I would buy him a new Bakugan (yet another line of toys the kids must have - the most recent version of Pokemon or Yugi-oh). He had his third soccer practice/game today and he still LOVES it. He scored a goal and his team won. He was pretty happy.

It was a great day for soccer. Sunny and crisp but not too cold. After both games, Quinn went fishing on the Snoqualmie River in Chad's new boat. The boys and I came home a made lasagna and brownies, then played board games. Pretty awesome day!!

The big news for Quinn and me this week was putting an offer in on another timeshare week at Peterson's Waterfront in Lake Chelan. We're waiting to hear if the owners accept the offer. It's for the week right before school. I really want it (crossing my fingers!).

Soccer and lost photos!!

Garrett had his very first soccer practice on Saturday. HOW CUTE IS HE!!!!! I took at least 100 pictures. Unfortunately, all but 6 of them disappeared from by memory card - along with pictures from the pumpkin patch and playing at the river. Just writing about it makes me want to cry! Luckily I didn't lose them all.


Nathan had a soccer game on Saturday too - in the pouring down rain. It was a really close game but we lost by one. The kids played so hard.


Nathan played goalie for most of the game. He took a hard one right in the chest. So hard you can see the imprint of the ball on his jersey! He's crazy tough!


This is where I would post our beautiful pictures from the pumpkin patch (I got some really cute ones too) - so sad! The silver lining...we get to go back to the pumpkin patch again (Quinn's idea - although I think he was just trying to get me to stop whining!). That means more pumpkins (and more yummy homemade donuts from the farm!).

A trip back to Cusick

Aaron #5Quinn grew up in Cusick and we still have lots of friends there; but we don't visit as much as we'd like. Usually only one or two trips a year. But we couldn't miss Homecoming at Cusick High School. Our nephew Aaron is a freshman on the varsity football team. The team is undeafeated and doing REALLY well this year. Quinn's friend Sonny (the younger brother of his best friend Roy) is the head coach. We're really, really hoping they'll make it to the State Championship this year. It would be the first time in Cusick history. Our beatiful nieces Lydia and Nadine were princesses in the Homecoming royalty court too. Aren't they beautiful!!
Nadine and Lydia in the royalty court!
Nadine riding in the car to the field
Garrett and a few of the MANY cousins we got to visit - Jacob, Lydia, Emily & Libby!The timing was perfect for this trip too because we got to visit Tonya and her family, see their super cool new property on the river AND be there for our neice Sevyn's 10th birthday. I can't believe how much "visiting" we stuffed into a 3 day trip. The boys were great travelers and we had a blast.

Crazy week!

I always forget how crazy back-to-school is. You have to get back into the after-school routine. No more coming home from summer camp and playing Wii! This is our first jam-packed week of the new school year. Soccer for Nathan on Mon and Wed, Soccer for Garrett on Wed, Band Night for Nathan on Wed, Running Club for Nater on Thursday and the Mt Si Wildcats Football Game on Fri! AND, if we can squeeze it in...guitar lessons for Garrett on Tuesday. It's crazy. But, I wouldn't have it any other way.
{The picture above is of the boys on Garrett's first day at CVES Kindergarten - they start 1 week later than the rest of the school. How do you like the shirt he picked out! Love it!}


We did find some time last week though to head up to the park after school for some basketball and soccer. The weather was awesome and we were all having a great time until Nater kicked the ball as hard as he could right at Garrett's head. Still no clue why. You should have seen the look on Nathan's face. He really didn't mean to. The ball barely brushed Garrett's ear when it passed by but it scared the bejeebers out of him. Which lead to tons of tears and us leaving the park!

Orange Crush!

The Orange Crush won their first game of the season on Saturday. And, Nater scored a goal!!!! :) All the kids played awesome! Last week, we lost our first game in a tough fight against another Ridge team. It was ok though because most of the kids on the other team were Naters friends.

Garrett is pretty excited because he starts soccer on Wednesday. I'm sure I'll have LOTS of pictures to post. I love soccer at this age.

Back to School

Ok...seriously, how cute are these two!!! Nathan started 5th grade at Cascade View Elementary. His teacher is Ms. Guinn. In 5th grade they co-teach so he'll also be in Ms. Anderson's class in the afternoon. Being in 5th grade also means he can sign-up for crossing guard. He's really excited about that (can't wait to get pictures of it!).

Garrett is going to do morning Kindergarten at Snoqualmie Ridge Early Learning Center, and afternoon Kindergarten at Cascade View. He is so excited about walking home from school with his big brother. Kindergarten at Cascade View doesn't start until the 8th, so he'll actually have 2 first days of school (which means 2 first day pictures!).

Great Wolf Lodge

One last mini-vacation before back-to-school. We took to the boys to Great Wolf Lodge for sliding and "MagiQuest". I had no idea how crazy it was going to be. EVERY kid in the hotel was playing this game. The first five floors were full of kids and parents (very frustrated parents) holding MagiQuest wands and searching for Quest clues. It was nuts. But the kids LOVED it. It was actually kinda nice to have something to do other than just sliding. It was a great weekend. The perfect break before back to school.

Catching up....WAY up!!!

Ok, so I said that I knew I wouldn't be posting everyday BUT only posting every 5 months is pretty pathetic. So, I will post the highlights...in bullet form.

We went to Great Wolf Lodge for Spring Break - awesome. The Campo, Fowler and Mulligan families went too - they rock!.

Nathan rode his unicycle in the school talent show and did great!

I spent 3 days in Lake Chelan for the Memories by the Lake Scrapfest 08. It was my second year at this crop and I had so much fun (plus I created 18 layouts - a record!)

Nathan's Battle of the Books team won the CVES championship.

Garrett played his first season of t-ball and LOVED it - go Diamondbacks.

Nathan got to pitch for the first time this season and was awesome!

Garrett and Nathan both finished up the school year with GREAT grades.

Quinn went fishing at Fish Lake with the guys (and we lost a chair - scary but hilarious story!)

We had the usual WONDERFUL time at Lake Chelan for our annual family trip.

I entered the Memory Makers Master contest (and lost) but love the layouts I created for it - plus it was a lot of fun.

We went camping at the ocean twice this summer. Once at Westport, and then a great weekend in the yurts at Greyland - grandma even came with us that time.

I had my first scrapbook page (actually an entire mini album) published!!! It was in the Scrapbook Trends Vacations 2008 specialty book.

Nathan spent most of the summer at Camp Terry (a great YMCA camp on the Snoqualmie River); but also went to mountain bike camp, hiking camp and Sounders Soccer camp.

Garrett stayed at SRELC for their summer camp program and was really happy about spending the summer with his friends.

Garrett and Nathan are both excited about being able to go to school together this year (in two weeks - I'm not ready!!)

There, those are the highlights. I know I forgot a bunch of stuff (how ironic, the whole reason I'm supposed to be doing this is so I won't forget!!)

I will start posting on a more regular basis - We'll see. :) BFN

Post Everyday??

I knew the whole posting everyday thing wasn't going to happen. Part of it was the yucky, nasty cold that went through our family (had to cut our trip to Mission Ridge short because Nathan got a fever), and I'm not quite used to it yet. Once I get into the habit of writing posts I think I'll be better at it.

Plus, to say our schedules have been packed lately would be an understatement. We still have two more weeks of basketball left for Nathan, baseball practices just started, then flag football begins. CRAZY. Plus, Garrett starts T-ball in April. This is his first time playing any sport - I am SO excited!! It's going to be so cute. He loves practicing and is getting good already. I'm sure I'll have LOTS of sports pics to post very soon!!

UNICYCLE

As many of you know, Nathan asked Santa for a unicycle for Christmas this year. Well, I thought I should probably post some pictures and an update on how he's doing. The first few weeks were kinda dicey. Lots of tipping and falling. A few bruises and lots of marks on the walls (we're only riding it inside for now). But now he's crazy good. He can ride for 10-15 feet without falling. He'd probably go a lot farther if he had more room. I can't wait to see him try it outside. We're going to give it a shot on the first sunny/not-wet/not-snowy day (so probably sometime in May!). Can't wait!

SNOW....again!!!

Snow again!! Not a lot. Only 2-4 inches but it came on top of the snow that's been out there since last week. We were super surprised that school closed....not expecting that. But, we made the best of it. It was a pretty awesome "Snow Day"! Garrett kept saying "This is the best day ever" and "Happy Snow Day Mom". Nathan's friend Zane came over and we spent the entire morning sledding at the "Hill of Horror" down the street from our house. We are so lucky to have such a cool, safe, fun sledding hill so close to our house. Plus, I bought these super cool inflatable sleds are Target and they worked great. Maybe too good. They were going a little too fast. More than a few wipeouts. All in all...a GREAT day!

Book reports

We've been all about book reports around here the last few days. Nathan read the book HOOT and had to write a HUGE book report about it (due tomorrow!). He did a great job and he is very happy to be done. While Nathan was finishing his book report Garrett decided to do his own so he wrote a "music" book. He came up with the idea all by himself. He was half way done before I even realized he was doing it.

Quinn headed off to Mission Ridge tonight so we're hoping for snow (only east of the mountains though!).