Summer Days Round Up

Whenever anyone mentions school starting, 

I cover my ears and say "lalalalalalala". 

I don't want to talk about it yet. It cramps my summer. 

It would be a joy if my children puzzled with me their whole lives. 

Family bike ride down to Halverson. 

Avery saw one of her classmates at the park. They ran up and hugged like long lost...classmates. 

One day at Semiahmoo the kids were catching jellyfish. 

A busybody lady came along and lectured us about how this kills the jellys. She asked me "can I educate your kids about jellyfish?" 

I rolled my eyes and said sure, lady. She told them they could go get a book from the library and read about it. 

As if I didn't know that the jellyfish die when you pick them up. But I also don't care. They are everywhere and gross. I also don't care if we kill mice or mosquitoes. 

The other day we had a Padden redemption.

Everyone was happy and I mentioned earlier in the day that I really wanted to watch a sunset before this summer is over. Our sun sets so late up here, so we are usually getting kids to bed by then.

This Padden night, I realized the sun was going down on the water, and here we were. And everyone was still happy. It was a magical combination. 

Then there was some people driving RC cars around, and the kids sat and watched them for another half hour. Happily. 

It is one of my favorite summer moments. 

My cousin Andrew was posting pics of vacationing in our vicinity, so we met up.

 I always forget how tall the Jorgensen men are.

As we were talking, we realized they were vacationing with friends of the Blacks, and Hilary actually hung out with Lisa one time when she was in Boise. Small world. 

On Sunday me and Evan went on a bike ride together. 

He was throwing rocks in the water while I lined up these unicorn horns. 

He turned and saw what I was doing and said "oooh, what have we here?"

 I said "I bet we have 100"

and he said "I bet we have 103",

So I counted. 

And we had 103!

He loves picking green beans. He does not love to eat them.

We spent an afternoon at the children's museum.

That museum is not ready for the Larsens and the Blacks. By the end of the two hours, a worker told us "I think you need to go find a park to play at."

I'm so sick of everyone around here with their one docile child giving me the stink eye because my children are active and loud. 

In Whistler when we went and swam at the pool, there were these two people who just sat and stared at us. Stared and stared. They could not believe their eyes. Children were making noise. And splashing. They could not look away. 

eye roll.

Can you hear Evan's giggles? I promise you we were loud and running around for hours on this fabulous summer evening. And no one was staring or frowning at us. (I think...)

There is nothing funnier to Evan than a naked Andrew. 

Then the Blacks dropped by to use my copier and there were ten children running around the neighborhood. Yelling. Giggling. 

Me and Lisa were upstairs trying to get the printer to work, and the sound of ten children being wild and free kept wafting into window. It was a delightful sound. 

Yesterday me and Emily took the kids on a hike to Chuckanut Falls.

It was three miles round trip. We waited for someone to whine or complain or melt...but they never did! It was a hiking miracle. 

PS the key to happy hikers might be walkie talkies. 

We went to Wendy's for dinner.

One lady was scowling at us from her corner table the whole time,

and another older man was friendly and talking with the kids the whole time. I thanked him profusely for being so pleasant to our "unruly" crowd.  

He said "I thought I was the crazy one."