Final day on the water

Tuesday August 24th was the last day of playing on the water for our family. Dan headed out early on a friend's boat and try his hand at the fall salmon run. It was slow going at first, but finally the action picked up, and Dan was rewarded with a great catch! It took him about 35 minutes to haul this one in and weighed in at 32 lbs! We enjoyed grilled salmon the next night for dinner, and oh, how wonderful it was.

32 lbs! Yeah, baby!

The girls and I headed out with some friends to do some tubing and knee boarding. The weather was warm, the lake calm and refreshing, and the time on the boat relaxing. We were treated to great views if both Mt. Rainier and Mt. St. Helen's on this day. It was a great way to spend the last hot day of summer.

Maggie tubing on Silver Lake, with Mt. Rainier in the upper left corner.

Lanna on the tube on Silver Lake in the shadow of the mountains.

Knee boarding during sunset!

As we docked to load up the boat, we were greeted with this moon rise over Mt. St. Helen's. The picture does not do justice to the view we saw that night. Great ending to a great day.

Summer Soccer

The month of July and the first weekend of August had us busy with soccer tournaments. We traveled to the bigs cities of Tumwater and Federal Way for two, and stayed in our own home town of Longview for one. In our first tournament, we won one of three games, but we had fun in our first tournament of the summer, and were eager for our next tournament. In our second tournament, the toughest part of the weekend was just getting to the field Friday night. A 12 car pile up on I-5 closed the freeway and left many families stranded. However, we all made it and once again the girls won one out of three games. They showed great improvement from the previous tournament, and had a great time.

The final tournament was in Longview, and the girls won every game and took first place in their age group. It was a fitting end to a fun summer and the girls are looking forward to the fall season beginning soon.

We had fun in between our first two games at a team picnic. The girls enjoyed climbing he playground equipment and parents had fun relaxing and visiting.

Maddie off, Maggie on.

Eyes focused on the ball (somewhere).

Lanna was our official photographer, as seen in this self portrait.

Mom and Maggie into watching the game.

Lanna's 9th Birthday

Lanna turned 9 this month and we had a fun gathering with just a few friends and family. They had a great time bowling, playing Wii, eating junk food and watching movies.

Something was funny to Lanna, but the others are
wondering exactly what.

"Cake was great, Mom & Dad!"

Lanna and Brooke with her new Timbers Shirt
(will that fit mom?)

Lanna with Eastyn and a new brownie pan & brownie mix
"Because I know you want to be a chef."

Veggin' out watching movies.

Happy Birthday Lanna!!!

Carol's 40th Birthday

We spent the day in Seattle for Carol's 40th birthday. Here are the highlights.

Head to Pike Place for obligatory picture in front of fish throwing stand.

Take picture of kids on Pike pig!
Get picture with husband in front of Pike Place Market.
Contemplate midlife crisis tattoo.

Do a little urban caching.
Visit Ivar.
Enjoy a beer at the Mariner's ball game.

It has been a fun ride so far. Hope the next 40 are just as fun.

5th Grade Celebration

We started the month of June with Maggie's 5th grade celebration. She has managed to complete elementary school all at the same school, Columbia Heights Elementary. I can remember when she was a kindergartner on her first day, it seems like not that long ago. And now she is getting ready for middle school (sniff, sniff). We have had a wonderful time watching her grow into a beautiful young lady. Way to go Maggie!

Maggie on her first day of 1st grade.

Maggie at her 5th grade celebration.

Receiving her certificate of completion from her 5th grade teacher, Mr. Clift.

Month of May

May came and went with a blur and a few fun trips to Eugene to celebrate the twins birthday and headed to Ontario for Memorial Weekend. Of course, we did some caching along the way!

We helped Jill do a cache that required us to haul a ladder to the site and climb the tree. Since this was her idea, she was the lucky winner to scale the tree and started the climb with high hopes.

Here she is about 20 feet up the tree, with still another 20 feet to go. She got site of the cache, but was not adventerous enough to release her grip on the tree and venture out onto the branch where it was haning. Logged the cache as found, but did not sign the log book. Not sure we will do one of this difficulty in the near future.

On our way to Ontario, we took our time and cached along the way. We stopped at places and saw things I am sure we would not have seen otherwise, such as this stage coach at a gas station right off the freeway. It was a cool find and the girls had a fun time climbing inside. Not sure what Dan is thinking with that look on his face.

We arrived in Ontario with much anticipation. The cousins quickly reacquainted and had fun at the park.

Maggie could not resist climbing a tree; looking more like a teenager, but still a kid at heart.

While in Ontario, we visited Boise and the girls got to see Boise State University where Dad went to college (#2 on the girl's college choice list behind, of course, Washington State!) Dan wanted a picture with the girls on the Smurf Turf. This isn't actually the Smurf Turf, but close enough.

April Caching

We did yet more caching in April, the girls having a blast finding as many as they can and dragging friends along with them. We went to Astoria on a beautiful day and did about 10 or more caches. We saw sights from the movie Goonies, rode the trolley and logged a cache while on the ride, climbed to the top of the Astoria Column (great view) and visited many sights in Astoria we would never have seen had we not decided to cache. What a great day!

The girls, Auni, Maggie and Lanna, showing their latest find.

Found a travel bug that wanted to visit as many bridges as it can. The Astoria-Megler Bridge in the back ground. We moved it along to another bridge cache.

Jail used in the film Goonies. The girls thought this was cool.

Virtual cache atop the Astoria Column, great view!