Suddenly It's June and Avery's 16

Ok kids it's now June. 

I think I start every blog post with "how is it (fill in the blank month)? Time just flies. It's crazy.

You know how May is a wild month and people compare it to December? 

This year I loved the month of May. I loved having all my kids in sports, and by May they finished up all their sports. 

I think April was the crazier of the months. 

Now we are almost done with school. Two more weeks. I always get sad in June because the kids have a good thing going and I panic that summer is gonna go too fast. 

But life is beautiful, so it's going to be fine no matter how fast everything flies. 

This was a beautiful evening at the archery range. 

A beautiful Saturday at Galbraith, 

a beautiful morning on the soccer fields.

I LOVE watching this team. They are so so good. Honestly, they are way better than my middle school soccer team haha. 

I wish Andrew loved soccer more. Currently it is the "worst hour and a half of his week". So yeah. 

Tis the season for awards and such!

Avery got elected by her World History teacher and Human Body Systems teacher. 

I was away at our last game and missed most of it, but slid in for the last half hour. 

PS my poor soccer team didn't win one game this year. We ALMOST won that last game, but lost in the final minutes 4-5. 

I miss soccer season. I have so many good drills I want to try. 

Andrew went to Mountain School! 

He had a blast. This is the only picture I have. 

Poor Evan had to skip mountain school due to stupid dumb covid, the scam of our lives. 

This was us on the way home from mountain school, hearing all about it. 

They hiked, they saw a deer, he had a hard time sleeping, he was hungry. 

We pause this report of May to bring you cute pictures of Koda bringing us lots of joy. 

Nothing but joy. It's like having a toddler in the house - mostly messy, but everyone gathers round and praises the little stinker as if they hung the moon. 

If she really wanted to, she could literally snap his arm bone in half with her teeth. 

Luckily she loves him too too much to do that. They just play this fun game of hand sneak attack, bite gently. 

I love a Sunday family walk through the forest. 

Saturday was negative tide, so I met Roxanne and Das down at the beach to dig up geoducs. 

Das used his claws to dig one up, but the creepy suggestive thing retracted back into its shell and stayed there. 

Then we went and ran up Galbraith mountain. 

LASTLY 

my birthday girl is 16 years old. Ok? 

I don't know how it's already June, but I especially don't know how she's this old. It doesn't add up. 

The week of her birthday was sprit week, so she dressed up all week

(this was rhyme without reason - James Bond and Legally Blond)

Then on Friday she had a big party/weenie roast down at Semiahmoo with all her friends. 

I look back on all the birthday parties where I was heavily present, but now a days she parties with friends without me. 

Ps they were playing volleyball and Wade dislocated his pinky. The picture I saw of it - it was in the shape of like a W. 

Then the next day at Andrew's soccer game, I saw Wade out there reffing and I ran over to him and took a picture of his pinky all fixed up. 

So this is what happens when your child turns 16 - you don't get a picture of the actual birthday party at the beach, you get a picture of a random kid the next day at the soccer fields. 

Remember I used to get lots and lots of birthday party pictures of the cutie little girl and all her cutie little friends? 

Well anyway, this is what she used to look like back then. A beautiful little thing that would flit around and imagine things. 

I love her to the max.

PS she passed her written drivers test, but failed her skills test. So maybe this week we will get that darn license. I'm so sick of her not being able to drive herself too and fro. 

 

Padden Tri and Other June Things

Another triathlon down. 

This year I did the whole thing without not one single person there to cheer me on.

Jim had to work and I kept it a secret from Roxanne. 

I liked doing it all alone this year - no pressure to try very hard. 

Driving to Padden with no one but the butterflies in my stomach, I turned the music up real loud and sang along real loud.

Then while I'm riding my bike and running and such, I also sing out loud.

This year I had a Ben Folds Five song in my head:

"There are rooms in this house, that I don't open anymore,

dusty books and pictures on the floor.

That she will never see, she'll never see that part of me,

I want to be for her, what I could never be for you..."

etc

The swim was strangely lovely: my goggles didn't leak not one time.

The bike was great: I sang out loud to myself.

The run is so hard: I didn't train much in the cardio. I weight trained a lot and did a little running a little bike riding, so the run always kills me to death. One foot in front of the other. 

All these pics are from the photog guy.

7th year of Padden Triathlon Shirts and tattoos. 

The kids were playing Telestrations, and Koda plopped down in the middle of the fray. 

Opening day of waterslides! We were there counting down out loud for the people to let us in. 

We thought there would be a line around the corner, but it was just us banging on the chain link fence. haha

Happy birthday Jim! 

He put the candle out by smothering it in his mouth. That freaked us all out. 

Dad move. 

We had friends over to eat sheetcake with. I got to rock Rue when she got fussy. 

While we were in Hawaii, Avery got sick. 

When we got home, she was still feeling crummy and then she got red dots on her feet, hands, and mouth.

You guessed it: Hand Foot Mouth Disease. 

(PS I love teledoc. I have skipped so many trips to the doctor's office with teledoc. I thought for sure I would have to go in and get cultured for this, but he asked a few questions, and bang it was suddenly obvious what it was.)

Then we found out lots of kids at the middle school have it - they must have spread it around at the 8th grade dance and YAY! I am so happy to have dances and activities EVEN IF SICKNESSES MIGHT BE SPREAD. 

So the first week or two of summer vacation, we had to lay low since all three kids ended up sick. 

So this year we picked strawberries, played at Bertheson, and ate Edaleen without any friends. 

We had fun though!

We attempted to recreate this picture, but they were a little off. 

First beach day. Both Andrew and Avery were home sick and the water is so cold because this spring has been sooo cold. 

We met up at the rocky semiahmoo one day, Avery and Andrew still home with HFMD.

Me and Lisa happened to be wearing our Nevada shirts Mary gave us.

besties

One day Andrew made up a game and we tried to play...I was a bit unsure of the rules.

There was a fire dragon, water dragon, grass dragon.

There was blocking cards and action cards. I think if he honed the instructions a bit, it would be fun! 

The grey whales are feeding in Birch Bay, so me and Lindsay paddled out to see them.

We did not see any grey whales darn it. But I got a blister on my thumb from paddling! 

Another activity sans friends to BP while we were all contagious with HFMD.

The kids had so much fun pretending on the old farm equipment. It made them extra excited to go to Fallon. 

One day Joe was taking his family on airplane rides in their little airplane. 

I texted and asked if they had landed yet and they said they were still doing preflight on the airplane, 

and Jim piped in "Where are you? I'm sitting in the Golden Knights airplane!"  He had just flown in from Vegas. 

"Right outside the FBO"

"I see you"

So I said TAKE PICTURES OF EACH OTHER!

That's fun stuff. 

That's a root. 

The other day Andrew was chattering to me and then he got into bed next to me and fell right asleep. I don't even think his head had hit the pillow before he was twitching and OUT.

This was a Sunday family walk out to Rockpile.

One day Andrew dressed up as an "adult" and drew himself a mustache and wore my watch and put a sign on his door that said "Mr. Larsen". 

Then he called me into his office and had me sit down and talk about some serious business things. I told him I was busy trying to complete a Rubiks Cube so how long is this going to take? 

Then he said "my wife and I want to have a baby..."

haha I don't know why he called me into his office to tell me that.

 I said "That's not something I can help you with, but I do need to get back to work finishing this Rubiks Cube". 

Then I went back to my office and finished the cube.

So yeah, I know how to do a Rubiks Cube, no big deal. 

Keep your back pats to yourself, really it's not a big deal.