Lily is starting kindergarten tomorrow! I am freaking out and trying to hide it from her. I don't know what to have her wear or how early to get there. I still need to go buy pencils, it's the only thing on her list we haven't gotten yet. I don't know how we're going to handle adjusting to the routine and I want this to be so good for her. I'm so nervous for her. I hope her teacher adores her and her classmates are patient with her and love her. I hope she finds a best friend. I hope she knows where to sit. (When I was in 5th grade I was going to a new school and my mom told me to go sit by a nice looking girl with pretty blonde hair, so I did and she became my best friend for years and years - that's you Krissy) I hope I can point out the same kind of girl to Lily. Please everyone say a prayer for her tomorrow. Pray that she won't be afraid to communicate and she won't pick her lip or her finger and that she'll have a great day. And give me any advice you've got.

Pictures tomorrow!

WHATS IN A NAME?

1. You have to post these rules before you give the facts.
2. Players, you must list one fact that is somehow relevant to your life for each letter of your middle name. If you don’t have a middle name, use the middle name you would have liked to have had.
3. When you are tagged you need to write your own blog-post containing your own middle name game facts.
4. At the end of your blog-post, you need to choose one person for each letter of your middle name to tag. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

CHRISTINE

My middle name is Christine. I was named for my great-grandma Christine. I never knew her, but from the little that I've heard, I think she was probably an amazing woman.

C

Cooperative - working or acting together willingly for a common purpose or benefit

H

Hot Dogs - truly my favorite food :)

R

Rachael Ray - someone who has truly influenced my life. As silly as that sounds, it's true.

I

Impressionable - easily impressed or influenced; susceptible. capable of being impressed

S

Stay-at-home-mom - what better thing to define me but this

T

Tacoma - I love this city and I'm happy to be defined by it

I

Interested - involved in or affected by or having a claim to or share in

N

Not-creative - I'm starting to have a really hard time coming up with anything

E

Earnest - showing depth and sincerity of feeling, I want this one to define me even more and more, about so many things

Wow, everyone else made that look so easy. ~I now tag Kerry (Do it) Sam (and any others of my lurking roomies) and Val!! :)

Camping time, number 2

We had such a special time this past weekend camping for 1 night on beautiful Mt Rainier. It turned into such a joyful, restful, exciting and relaxing weekend. Our gang of kids had a blast in woods and stumps around our campsites and Kyle and I were so blessed by the companionship of our friends Joel and Teresa and Aaron and Stephanie. I hope this becomes a yearly event.

Pictures from our nature hike to the hot springs. The kids had so much fun finding the numbered markers and feeling the HOT water flowing along the ground.
Bad picture quality, but this is one the markers that they all raced to find. This is Daniel, Manna and Jude.

Lily had a great time exploring the river with Kyle. If we'd had more time that would have been an area we would have liked to spend more time in. Beau was a little fragile, during our trek down the hillside to the river, so no pictures of him this time.


I love nighttime camping. We all feasted on S'mores and other treats. Our camara batteries were dying the whole time, so these pictures were all I managed to get. I really want to share this trip because it was so great, but I know this doesn't do justice.
One of the great stumps we had to play on. These were a hit with the kiddies!

Can't miss Alder Lake

Here are some pictures of our camping trip 2 weeks ago that were hiding on my camara. We're off again this weekend, so I thought I'd better get these up. My camara needs to go with me everywhere for the next two weeks, because I feel like I've missed so much of what we've really been doing this summer. That's my goal.

Fish caught by remote control boat!


We hit up Alder Lake again this year with our good friends. I actually took the kids by myself and then at the last minute Kyle was able to come down in the evening. That was very fun and we were so glad to have him. These pictures are all from our time at the lake which was fun, but a little cool, plus some sick kids. So we made the best of it and still had a great time.

We're going for another quick trip this weekend and we're hoping to do one more in September, maybe at the ocean. We'll see how that goes. Has anyone ever camped at any of the ocean campgrounds?

7 long happy years

Well back when I got married, we didn't get our wedding pictures on CD and we're not savvy enough to have figured out how to do that yet, but I did just want to post that Kyle and I celebrated our 7th wedding anniversary yesterday. It was a wonderful day, we had already decided that we wouldn't be going out to celebrate, but then we were invited by Kyle's Aunt and Uncle who have an amazing pool, to a family pool party. So that ended up being a blast! We couldn't have asked for a better day. Thanks again Jamie and Dona! Wish we had pictures of that too, because the kids had a blast! My mother-in-law likes to say (insert number of years of marriage) long happy years, some of them long, some of them happy. :) Our years sure have been a combination of the two, I'm so thankful for my wonderful husband, no one could have been more perfect for me and I don't know what I would do without him. Can't wait for 70 more years!

I thought I had a better picture ready, but I've been wanting to show how crazy our tomato plants got. And this was taken a few weeks ago! They are just amazing, every other day we're having to add more stakes and tie string to the shed to hold them up. So far to red ones, but probably hundreds will appear all at once. Salsa at our house!

Lost Dog

On Tuesday Kyle co-worker found at dog at their office. He has no tags and no microchips, so we decided to take him home with us while we decide where he belongs and what we should do with him. He is a 10 month old chocolate lab and he is quite the puppy. :) Much different from what we're used to with Chef! But we're loving having him around.