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.  

Super Sunny Summer

This is becoming an annual tradition: the September run-down of the events of our busy summer. We started the summer with a 100-mile biking chart hung up in our hallway.  So far, we've made it 76 miles and we better get back out there before it gets too cold to ride the last 24.  The girls love bike rides.

We also went to a summer party put on by Alaska Public Media.  There were bubbles, popcorn, hot dogs (with Sabrina demonstrating her own unique ways of eating them), and music and dancing.  The girls quickly grabbed some new friends from the crowd and started dancing.

The girls participated in the summer reading program.  They both finished and got dinosaur chompers and a new book.  Here they are proudly posing in front of the library fountain (picture taken at their request).

We had a record breaking summer this year.  It was GORGEOUS.  The record was for the longest streak of days over 70 degrees.  But this was by far the most fabulous, perfect summer ever.  The girls did water balloons and ran through the sprinklers pretty much daily.  

Oh.  And so did we.  Sometimes.

The girls got so used to wearing their swimsuits they just hung around the house in them at times.

These last two were from May, before the sun really came out. Sabrina looks chic-punk as usual in her bright colors, and Celia's sporting the old maid librarian look, which seems to be one of her favorites.

And now that we've done the overall summer recap and we're starting to shut ourselves in for fall, we'll catch up on the specific events of the summer. Coming soon to a blog near you...