James football/twins sunglasses

Wow, time goes so, so fast.  Seems like it was just yesterday that I started taking care of James...

and he was a month old,  

James rolling out for a pass

and now he is a freshman in high school, the starting quarterback on his team at Mark Morris!  They lost a tough game to Kelso tonight but James played well.  It was so fun to see him out there, even though he took some very hard hits, I don't like seeing that.  He also played linebacker and punts, too. 

 

 

It was so sunny this afternoon that Ava ran insde to get her sunglasses and brought a pair of Rielee's out for Harper to wear,  they wanted popsicles but didn't eat much of them.  After a 3 hour nap they were in great moods.

Rielee's 1st day

 Rielee stopped by this morning on the way to her first day of 2nd grade.  She loved her new back pack with the owls and wanted me to take a picture of it.  Then Ava wanted to take a picture of Rielee--

 we all got a laugh out of her headless picture.

 Fortunately, Auna came over this morning so Ava and Harper had someone to play with and they didn't miss Rielee as much.

We went for a walk later and ended up visiting Parker and his friends who had slept out in the tent, they were all just sitting around the fire talking. 

Treehouse move/girls playing school

 Sunday - Gabe, Parker and Papa moved the treehouse, a job made pretty easy with the old boom truck. 

 They loaded it on the trailer and hauled it over beside their garage so they can make a few changes to it, and then give it a new and hopefully somewhat lower to the ground home on their property. 

 Parker and Gabe got right to work on it, finishing the walls inside.  Parker has plans to put up a shelf in the corner to hold a small TV, then run cable to it, extend the roof to cover the porch, and add a deck around it. 

With all the talk of Rielee starting school on Wednesday, I suggested they play "school".  Rielee read several books to the twins, and then Harper took a turn at being the teacher.  She pointed at different animals in a book and  asked Rielee and Ava to name them.  Later in the evening, Ava and Harper were playing school again, except it was a dance school.  Ava would instruct Harper to do different dance moves and Harper would do them, it was really comical.

Luke's football

Luke in blue playing nose guard

 Luke's team beat a Battleground team today, 28-0.  They played on the new turf at McKenzie Stadium.  Luke played well and was in on some good tackles.

Assistant coach Gourde and Luke have a similar stance

Ava and Harper singing and dancing around

On Friday morning, they broke into this song "me dance all myself" and amazingly, didn't stop when they noticed me filming.

A day with Parker

 Papa picked up Parker after his morning football practice and after he got cleaned up they rode the scooter into town.  I was in town garage sale-ing so we met at the Masthead for lunch, where Parker had the "best mushroom burger ever".  Afterwards they went over to the Unique Tin car show at the fairgrounds.  Parker said he saw several "sweet rides" there, and Papa took a picture of him in front of an Army jeep they both liked.

Parker got to ride the scooter around a little

They stopped at a few garage sales on the way home and also went to the junk store in Castle Rock.  It is Parker's newest favorite place, he begged me to take him back down there later in the afternoon so he could look around again, he ended up buying an old Army officer's pin for $4.  After that we rented the newer Longest Yard movie after not being able to find the original one.  It was pretty good.  Then after he and Papa did some mowing we read some of Artemis Fowl, the book the kid's have to read over the summer, and made an ice cream cone run, which included questions from Parker such as "what is your favorite gas station, Grandma?"  He's a fun kid.

Zoo trip

Ava and Harper got a kick out of the sea otters.

 Ava and Harper spent the night and woke up this morning all rested and happy, so we decided it was a perfect day to take them and Rielee to the zoo. 

 They really liked the elephants, and were very impressed by their poop, too!  They also liked the sea lion, polar bear and the big ocean fish, the giraffes, mountain goat, tigers and black bear. 

 Ava and Harper liked the zoo train ride best of all.  No carseats, they could climb back and forth over the seat to sit with Papa or I, they were thrilled by it.  When the train went by people, they both waved little expert parade waves to them. There was a set of identical 2 year old twin girls sitting behind us,  Ava and Harper noticed them and said "hi twins" and waved to them.  Rielee was kind of bored by the train ride, she thought she would see all the animals but there were only a few glimpses of them. 

"I see my sister!"

Our last stop was the gift shop where Harper bought a light up bubble gun for her souvenir, Rielee bought a little parrot and Ava got a kitty, and they got zoo cups, too.  It was a very fun day.

Dress up and painting

 The kids had one last play session today before Liann and Lindsey left.  Rielee and Lindsey were toasting "to  pb & jelly sandwiches", which Lindsey said were her favorite.  I had picked up the twins in Vancouver this morning after they had their 3 year check-up this morning.  They are fine and right on track, and they got their flu shots.

 They got to play over at Rielee's for awhile this afternoon.  They came back dressed up in princess clothes, Ava wore slippers back, too.  They were invited to eat dinner there but said they didn't like chicken, or rice, and even turned down a bowl of Frosted Cheerios until Des told them it was candy cereal and then they changed their minds and Harper ate 2 bowls full.

They wanted to paint birdhouses tonight, and of course Ava asked for pink paint and Harper green.  By the time they were done, they had added several other colors and Ava's was mostly green and Harper's a charcoal with spots of pink.  Rielee's was blue with a little white.  All were very proud of their work.

 Scott, Liann and Lindsey came back today.  Right away, the girls went swimming with Rielee, and didn't get out until dinner time.  Liann and Lindsey showed me their synchonized swimming routine and Liann jokingly told me that she was asked to be on the Olympic team, but she wasn't old enough!  Too funny, the routine was cut short because of that darned water up the nose problem.

Lindsey turned 7 today so we had a little party for her after dinner, then the girls were back outside again until dark..  Lindsey got a speaker for I-Pods or Pads for her birthday, so they used it with Rielee's Nano and were listening to music while they played volleyball.   They will leave tomorrow, headed back to San Diego and then back home to Japan next month.  We will miss them, so will Rielee, she loved having the girls around, especially Lindsey since they are the same age.

Liann, Lindsey, Rielee

 Scott, Jill, Liann, Lindsey and Ashli came to visit us Friday night.  Rielee and Parker were staying with us also and Rielee and the girls wasted no time this morning, playing every game in the house, playing outside and riding scooters all day.  Scott, Liann and Lindsey will be back next week to visit again.  The girls have grown so much, Ashli is 16, Liann is 11 and Lindsey will be 7 on Monday.

Proud Grandpa with Ashli, Lindsey and Liann

Luke came up to visit today.  Parker enjoyed his company a lot, they shot some hoops after breakfast, then we all went to the pool.  The girls had fun showing Luke how they can float by themselves.  Cathy and Bob brought Jillian and Bridget up to swim, too.  Jillian swam around with her floaties on and Bridget came in with me a little bit but was kind of apprehensive, probably because of the boys in the pool, especially Uncle. 

Fun morning

 Rielee's friend McKenna spent the night with her so they were over early for breakfast and to play with the girls.  Rielee and McKenna were pretending that they were twins, too.  They all had an early morning tea party in the playfort.  It was such a beautiful and warm morning that we were all in the pool by 10:00 a.m., the water was really warm, too. 

Harper floating around all by herself. 

 We had such happy faces this morning for breakfast, everyone was up early to see Ava and Harper.  Then they headed outside to play at the playfort.  Harper was driving her "car", taking everyone for a ride, she kept yelling "all aboard" and was pretty surprised when Uncle Alan came onboard.

 After they were done at the playfort, it was hot enough to go to the pool.

 Papa got the girls this little boat to play with, they really got a kick out of it.

 Ava wanted the floaties on and jumped in to me over and over.  She was really comfortable floating around, but wanted me holding on to her.  She is frowning because she didn''t want her picture taken.  Harper entertained herself by squirting everybody with the water guns.

Parker re-opened the treehouse today, cleaned it up and somehow managed to move the desk up there by himself. 

Parker's garage sale find

Parker found a bunch more golf balls at garage sales today, plus Papa had found him another 100.  Add those to the 200 he ordered off E-bay and he should be set for awhile. Now he just needs to find some clubs, he borrowed one from David tonight to practice with until he finds some. 

Playing with Jillian and Bridget

 Cathy called this morning and asked if any of the girls wanted to come and play.  Since Rielee was already at Auna's playing with Jack and Gracie, I took the twins down for a little while.  They did some driving and they seem to be getting the hang of it, at least the stop-when-you-are-about-to-run-into-someone-or-something part, so there was progress.  Ava was content to ride along or in the wagon but only if Harper was driving.  She tried driving herself and riding the other little ride-on but it was a little scary for her today.

After playing at Cathy's, Jillian and Bridget came up and played in the sandbox with the girls, plus Rielee, Jack, Gracie and Auna all showed up at the playfort, too, so it was a very busy place for awhile.  

Sandbox volcano

 Rielee and the girls had a bath together and then dressed up and played Princesses and Queen.  Rielee brought the girls presents this morning, she gave them some of her old stuffed animals, a puppy and CareBear for Harper, and a kitty and big Lil' Pony for Ava. 

 It wasn't warm enough today to go swimming so I let the girls flood the sandbox instead.  They made a volcano and then let it "erupt", pretty exciting stuff,  Ava and Harper thought it was pretty cool. 

Parker, Riels, Auna

 Parker spent last night with us.  He and I couldn't agree on what to watch on TV, I wanted the Olympics, he wanted golf, no! Or Pawn Stars, so we watched some of both, but no golf.
We spent the morning playing an Olympic volleyball tournament, in the house, with the beach ball.  Rielee was very serious about it,  she and Auna made medals for the winners.  First it was just going to be the 3 of us playing, but then Parker wanted to play, too.  Auna won the gold, Rielee silver, I got the bronze.  Parker received several yellow cards for various rule violations (he was Auna's coach for the championship game) and almost got tossed out of the tournament!  It was fun, but the silver medalist was kind of disappointed afterwards, so we headed to the pool.

The kids jumped in while I took pictures, over and over,

 as they tried to land on the tube,

 Rielee landed this one perfectly, and then they did one last crazy jump for me, it was a fun pool session.



Parker cuts down a tree

Parker, dressed in his new chaps and ready to cut down a tree

We decided the pine tree beside the playfort had to go, too much mess from it's many little cones.  Parker had been asking Papa if he could fall a tree, so Papa finally said yes.  They rigged a line from the tree to Papa's truck so they could be somewhat sure it would fall in the right direction and not wipe out the playfort.  Parker did the cutting with instruction from Papa.

"It should fall over there."

And it did!

   

Now the hard work of cleaning up the limbs and cutting it all up begins, glad Gabe showed up to help.

 Even though they started at 10:00, it was starting to get really warm out, by the time we finished up it was noon,  Parker was ready to hit the pool!     Note:   Rielee was helping by collecting the green pine cones off the tree, she thinks they are special.  And who was in charge of safety here,  Parker forgot to wear his safety glasses!