July Activities

An overview of our July. My nephew Donny came to visit from Montana for six weeks. He spent time going from his mom's to my house to my brother's house to my other sister's house to my parent's house. He said he felt very loved since we all wanted to spend so much time with him! We hadn't seen him in two years and we had such a nice time with him - he has grown up so much and is doing so well considering the difficult upbringing he has had. After one of the nights he spent at our house, he came with the kids and I to a new park we'd never been to: Frye Cove. It was somewhat of a disappointment (nowhere to sit on the muddy "beach," a family with SIX dogs that took over the playground the whole time we were there and so I wouldn't let the kids play on the toys, a very long and steep walk down to the waterfront, etc), but we still enjoyed our time together anyway.

That evening after our Wednesday evening church service, we stopped along the boardwalk downtown and enjoyed the summer sunset.

Kevin's niece Rebekah got married the first weekend of July down in Beaverton, Oregon. The wedding was lovely...but HOT, especially for this pregnant mama. :)

Jake fell asleep in Kevin's arms during the service - so sweet, especially since that rarely happens anymore!

The reception was held in a 100-year-old barn. Very beautiful setting. Here Benny is enjoying his sparkling cider. :)

The following two weeks, I took the kids to swim lessons Monday-Thursday. Abby and Ben made huge improvements. All three kids were terribly afraid of the water at the beginning, but progressed a ton (well, not so much for Jake).

Blowing bubbles

Abby and I invited a friend from church and her daughter to go with us to the Lavender Festival in Sequim. I'd been wanting to go back ever since the first time I'd gone over ten years ago! It was so much fun and so lovely - a perfect way to spend my birthday weekend. :)

 

The girls were so funny and would stuff the lavender right onto their noses to get a really good smell. :)

We enjoyed the Lakefair fireworks from the 5th Avenue bridge this year with Donny and my mom.

We didn't see Kevin much during July as he was crazy busy working on the boat, preparing for tuna season. So, one day we went out to visit him for a bit and then headed down to the beach to play all afternoon. We brought along cousin Solomon and my mother-in-law met us at the beach.

"Helping" Daddy work on the boat by peeling off the tape leftover from a recent paint job.

For a couple weeks, we enjoyed these two hawks who often sat and splashed in the neighbor's backyard. They were pretty tame, as we could walk right up to the fence about a dozen feet from the birdbath.

We had one final July excursion, but I will save it for a post of it's own coming up next. :)