All Caught Up

Other than the 4th of July, I am all caught up on what I wanted to blog about from the last few weeks. As far as the 4th of July get together goes, I don't have any pictures from it yet (I'm hoping at some point to receive some by email from Kevin's cousin). As is tradition, we went out to Grayland to be with Kevin's family at his aunt and uncle's house. We barbecued, played badminton and croquet (I beat everyone at croquet for the first time! Whoohoo!), and ended the day by taking the Tally Ho out into the bay to watch the fireworks...which was a huge disappointment. For the first time in the seven years that I have been apart of the Marks family 4th of July, we have never had rain nor had low clouds that obstructed the fireworks. That's right, we couldn't even see the fireworks! Well, to be honest, we could see about the lowest 20% of the show; the rest just kind of lit up all the clouds. It was pretty lame, but also pretty funny. There were many comments such as, "Ooooo, that one would have been pretty if we could have seen it!" and, "Ah, that one was beautiful in my imagination!" and, "Wow, that one sounded cool!" We tried to look at the bright side of things and decided that this year will always stand out in our memories...but next time, we will definitely check out the weather first before heading out on the boat!

On to more current things...yesterday was my dad's 70th birthday. As I typed that, it sounded old, but my dad seems the same to me as he did 5, 10, or 15 years ago. He doesn't seem 70. He can still play a game of basketball or football with the family, he still works very hard at his job (a marine engineer in Alaska), and he still heads over to the gym across town to work out. I hope that he continues to take good care of himself so that he will be able to enjoy many, many more years of life. To celebrate his birthday, we (my dad, mom, niece Hannah, Abby and I) met my aunt Doris (my dad's sister) in the Seattle are for lunch. We had a very nice visit. The weather was perfect - high 70s and sunny with a nice breeze. Abby did fabulous even without getting her morning nap. And we enjoyed a yummy, leisurely meal. Before lunch, Dad had to stop by the union hall in downtown Seattle to see if a new job was posted that he's been waiting for. Abby got a break from her car seat and I snapped these cute pictures of Abby and my dad playing together:

Here's lunchtime:

We also did some picture taking outside the restaurant:

Visiting in the warm breeze/My dad with his two granddaughters

My dad with Hannah and his sister, Doris/Abby finally conked out

On the way home, we enjoyed views of Mt. Rainier. My mom's car doesn't have air conditioning, so Hannah found a new use for my nursing cover - to provide shade during a hot car ride!