Luke

This morning we went to Vancouver to watch Luke's first All-Stars game. They got off to a rough start, pulled within 2 runs in the 5th inning, but just couldn't close the gap and lost. The twins came home with us and stayed for a few hours while Charb went to the reservation for fireworks. Luke played right field.

On the way home, I looked back at Harper and instantly knew why she was hiding behind the book...

... because she was eating it!

Too quiet

It's "kids beach trip" time again and they were so very anxious to get going. Aunt Cathy wasn't leaving until 12:30 so they had to wait all morning to go, and were bouncing off the walls in anticipation. Only 9 cousins going this year, down from an all time high of 15 last year. The kids just love this trip and all the traditions they have, stopping at the Custard King, swimming at the Astoria pool, playing at the playground, going to Funland and of course, the beach. Aunt Cathy confiscates all of the kid's cellphones, I-Pods, etc. when they get there and allows them only 1 phone call a day, thus making sure that they all interact with each other. She said Rick really keeps them busy. Parker, Auna, Bridget and Rielee-all loaded up in Cathy's car-1st stop Rick's house
They were going to draw names for seating in the cars when they got to Rick's and Rielee was really hoping she would get to ride in Cathy's car with Mocha the dog.
The neighborhood is way too quiet now.

Happy girls

The girls slept great and woke up happy and ready to play. Rielee and Parker were over to have breakfast with them. After breakfast, Parker played with Ava and was happy that she was having fun with him. Then it was time for a bath with Rielee, a long bath with a lot of singing. It was a nice enough morning to take them outside to play in the sandbox and do a little swinging, too. They were so covered in sand that we had to change their pants when they came in. Then they had a messy lunch and needed to change their shirts because a lot of their soup didn't make it to their mouths.

What's not to love about this sweet little face? I tried to get them both to sit for a picture together, but Ava didn't feel like it.

Whenever they hear Parker riding the 4-wheeler, they jump up on the couch to look out the window to see him. Our day with them went by too fast, and we were sad to take them back.

Ava and Harper 1st summer visit

Ava and Harper came up this afternoon and are spending the night with us. We were so happy to have them here again, and they look so much bigger. Immediately after they got here, Alan stopped over to visit, and before long the rest of the neighborhood was here, too. Laury and Alan also thought they had grown. The girls continued on their quest to drive Emmy nuts by refusing to say her name, but were nice to her otherwise, and even "cooked" her some food in their kitchen. Their evening entertainment consisted of pens and notebooks, which they packed around and wrote in.

More firewood

Parker stayed overnight with us last night. We watched True Grit and that was fun, but it caused him to have a bad dream. In the middle of the night he woke me up saying he needed to ask Papa a question about snakes. All through the movie they were discussing snakes, with Papa sharing stories about the snakes around his relative's homes in California when he would visit there as a kid. The snake talk continued this morning during breakfast, then Parker went to work on the shop, one of his summer jobs is to clean and organize it. I pulled him off the shop cleaning to help Papa with the firewood. Papa had cut down a big fir that Alan and Vera gave him. Parker hauled a couple of loads of limbs to the burn pile, helped me stack a load of wood and then split a wagon load of wood by himself. He was pretty worn out after that, since he had to use a wedge to split the wood in half first and that is tiring. He was more than ready to go back to the shop cleaning, but was done with that for the day, too, and wandered off to play with his bow and arrows.

Firewood

Papa was happy to take a break from cutting firewood when Rielee showed up to say hi to him. She had just got back from their houseboat trip. She told him a very scary story about a 4 year old girl who was visiting another houseboat and was running around on the docks without a life jacket. This morning the little girl fell off the dock while the kids were feeding the ducks. Macee jumped in and grabbed her and handed her up to Boris, Parker's friend who was with them. Rielee, along with everyone else who saw it happen, was very traumatized. Thankfully, the little girl was fine. Papa cut down 2 trees today. Parker came along later with the 4-wheeler and wagon to help pick up and haul brush to the burn pile.

Last day

Today was our last regular day with Ava and Harper :(
They had a busy morning, first having oatmeal for breakfast with Rielee, which they all gobbled up. Then they got in the tub with her for a long, fun bath. Auna, Parker, Emmy and Laury came over to visit them, too. Auna played on the computer with them, and Rielee played with cars, dolls, and played school with them. They were being silly on the ride to meet Mom, playing hide and seek under their blankets. Ava had the funniest post-nap hairdo.
We were very melancholy on the drive back home, already missing the fun of the daily routines we have with our little darlings. We plan to see them every week, though, through their summer vacation.