Pioneer Day

Our ward (the Brayton ward, which we were taken out of last week to start a new ward) put on a pretty large Pioneer Day extravaganza this summer.  Tom and I were in charge of making 10 dutch ovens of scalloped potatoes.  (They were delicious, but we had one spill in our trunk and I can still smell it.)

The girls jumped right into the competitions of bag races, water pouring relays, and primary tug-of-war (they beat the boys). 

(Sabrina finally finished with a little help from our Primary President, Vickie.)

(And she really pulled her weight here as the anchor in the tug of war.)

It was a very fun ward activity.  When I was helping Sabrina change into her jammies that night, however, I found that she had welts all over her tummy and bum.  When I asked Tom about it, he said at one point, he had to empty a cup of wood chips Sabrina had stuffed into her panties.  What a weirdo.  

Visiting Oregon

After Washington and Victoria, we headed out to the Oregon Coast with the Edvalsons.  We enjoyed some meals out.

The Tillamook Cheese Factory, of course.  

Spent some sunny days playing like crazy at the beach.

Tom even pulled out the old skim board for a bit.  

And we all took a little hike to see a waterfall.  

July 4th is the annual Trusty Family Reunion in Oceanside.  This year, with the matching family t-shirts Tom and I screenprinted, the Trusty Family made quite a showing at the little Oceanside 4th of July Parade.  The best comments from the crowd: "What's a Trusty?"  And "I don't know what a Trusty is... but it's lookin' Good!"  

It helped that a good part of the Oceanside parade spectators were also wearing the same shirts.

In the afternoon, the official reunion began.  The kids, as always, were in charge of the flags for the songs and Pledge.  I think they were mostly confused about why it was taking so long to eat that array of food in front of them.  

Later that evening, we met some cousins on the beach for hot dogs, S'mores, and glow sticks (way less scary than sparklers, which we also did, but didn't take pictures of).  

We also visited the Cape Mears lighthouse.  Celia insisted on waiting in the long line to get to the top (it was pretty backed up after a proposal apparently arranged to have the whole place to themselves).  

We also pulled out the photo studio lighting on the glorious blue wall in the beach house and had a bit of success. 

And took a million pictures in the trees by the Octopus tree and ended up (after a bit of editing) with a real winner.

Visiting Victoria

Tom and I got to take a little vacation without the kiddos to Victoria (where we went on our Honeymoon). It turns out that when we don't have kids around we take pictures of strange things. For example, why did we take a picture at the back side of parliament?

And what was Sully doing on Government street? I suppose we would have taken this one with our without kids.

In  the end we mostly just took pictures of flowers and bugs.

We also took a few pictures on the Clipper to and from Seattle. On the way up to Victoria it was raining on and off the whole time, but the way back down was sunny and clear.

Can't you tell we had fun?

Visiting Washington

Our big summer trip was a three-week trip to the Northwest which included Washington, Victoria, B.C., and Oregon.  Our first stop was the Stock house in Washington.  The cousins all spent some quality time just hanging out at parks, in the backyard, roasting marshmallows, and playing together.  

The girls shared a room with their cousin, Jack.  It was a pretty hilarious situation which we got to watch on one of the Stocks' security cameras we moved into their bedroom to use as a video monitor.  (As a side note, I've since purchased one for the girls here at home and it's awesome.  I can check my phone before going to bed to make sure Sabrina hasn't fallen out of her bed, etc. without having to go in and wake them up.)  But overall, they tired themselves out pretty good during the day, so they did pretty well together at night.  

Tom brought the photo studio with us on vacation to try to capture pictures of the cousins.  As you can tell, it was more of a comedy act than a success, but cute in its own way.

We went to the beach at the Puget Sound and found a million tiny sand dollars and played in the water.

We also got to spend some quality time at the Stock family cabin allowing our kids to enjoy the same things Tom and his siblings got to enjoy as youngsters.  The kids had a great time exploring the various boat options and just swimming around playing in the water.  

We were also in town for the Rogge family reunion.  It was a lovely home in rural Washington with a hammock, a large yard, and raspberries.  It made it a super eventful and exciting event for the children involved and it was fun being with all the extended cousins as well.  

And, we got to enjoy plenty of fabulous Pacific Northwest views from the Stocks' backyard.  It was beautiful.