Not slowing down!

First soccer game of the season for the Grey Rhinos and these guys did great!

Joey got his first goal and was loving it!

Still working on those throw-ins! :)

Quite the defensive line.

Blue and White day! We pulled out Daddy's old jerseys.

We had beautiful weather for the Jog-a-thon. It was a great day and things couldn't have gone better.

Joey was busy weaving in and out of traffic.

Tyler and Emma enjoyed their time cruising the track together.

I totaled all their "laps" and it came and they had a combined total of 142 which comes out to about 17.5 miles. That's a lot of miles for those guys! We're all going to sleep good tonight!

Fall is in full swing over here.

Everyone is playing soccer this fall! Lots of fun and it also means lots of time out at the fields. L, T and J have been waiting patiently for their turn to be on a team and this year it finally happened. Can't wait to see what happens, they've got great coaches and a fun little team!

Mia's already had her first field trip of the year. We headed out to Padilla Bay in Anacortes. We all learned a lot of new things about the estuaries in our area and even were able to take some of the creatures we found back to the center to check them out under the microscope.

And yes, I was made fun of (and, yes, I'm used to that!)for taking photos of these huge things (this is a a sea slug I think) They just looked really cool through the microscope, projected onto the overhead.

Holly and Mia are in their second week of the new season. This is the face of Holly at half time running to us for more water.

And this is the face of Holly on the field during the game! :)

We had a little birthday party for Nate tonight to finish off the weekend.

And if you ask nicely I may post the picture of what made all these kiddos laugh so hard. :)

Finally their turn

Wednesday was finally Lucas, Tyler and Joeys first day of Kindergarten! All day long, lunches and everything. I was told they have LOTS of snack times LOTS of recess. Apparently I didn't pack enough food because they were soooo hungry. They had a great day and were anxious to go back on Friday.

Back to school

School has begun! Mia and Holly had their first day today. It even felt a little like fall this morning with the heavy fog and cooler air. But by afternoon it felt like summer again.

Holly has the same great teacher that Mia had. She had a little "welcome packet" on each of the kids desks to welcome them back to school.
Mia had her first day as a middle school student and loved it. Her teacher is going to be awesome, too!

And it's t-minus 2 days until kindergarten! More pictures to come of that of the BIG day!

We are here!

This month is flying by! Grandpa and Grandma R have spent the month here and we're making the most of their visit!

They made us this fun Corn Hole game so we've been trying it out.

Lots of BIG fish have been caught!

We were at the park playing soccer the other day and ran into Uncle Herm flying some airplanes. Once we saw him, he didn't do much flying himself.



I can't believe school starts Monday although I think EVERYONE is ready to go!

IT'S HOT!!!!!

These first few pictures were taken  last week, sunny, warm, beautiful Washington summer weather.  We went blueberry picking at a friends u-pick, great berries, great fun, LOTS of big blueberries!

Then a couple days later we met up with the Mrs. Vander Wendi family to head to the bay.  We actually were quite cold when we got there, sunny and very breezy.  Wished we had had a sweatshirt.   

Check out the kid in the right hand corner of the above photo.  We think he works for the EPA.  

Because when Tyler said he caught a crab, a real LIVE crab this kids ears perked up and he marched right over (see above picture) and grabbed the crab from Tylers hand.  These mama's weren't havin' it so we "kindly" asked him to give it back, then Tyler continued to play/whip it around and ripped off one of his legs, right in front of EPA Jr.  (oops!)  :)

But the rest of the day was fantastic, with loads of fun and it even warmed up a smidge.  

Then, this week, it started to heat up...like HOT, Michigan humid HOT!   Monday was bad, Tuesday worse, Wednesday and Thursday have been the hottest!  Like 97 degrees yet at 7:30 p.m! My attitude has changed since Monday and we're coping quite well I must say.

It may have something to do with this little number we scored at Rite Aid yesterday.  It was the last one.  We were so desperate for something that Mia almost had me talked into going to Walmart.  I am currently on a 2-3 year strike with that place and really didn't want to break it now.  Thank you, Rite Aid!

And each day at 4:00 we head to swimming lessons in the heat and get to watch these monkeys learn to swim while we sit and bake in the sun.  Ahhhh, summer!  :)

Four little VH's on the diving board.

Alright, the whining is all over. We've got  lots of fans going and a basement that provides plenty of relief when we need it.  The kids are having a ball. I think they've spent almost every waking moment that we've been at home in our little pool.