Sitting, Swimming, and Mud Pie!

Okay these things have nothing in common but I thought it sounded more interesting put all together like that.

Gracie has enjoyed sitting up by herself. She falls over occasionally but is happy to sit and play, she’s growing up so fast! Since she’s been three months old she has tried to sit up (what an ab workout) mind you she only has rolled over a few times but hey, why not do things in a different order.

(Notice the boxes in the background)

Colette passed her swim lessons and was cleared to advance to the next level. The only thing she needs to work on is putting her face in the water. She will do it but she really doesn’t like it. It will give us something to work on. She was really excited about "Popsicle day" which was the last day of classes. She was the only one who shared one half of her twin pop with her mom :)

I had a girls night last at Red Robbin where we devoured a gigantic piece of mud pie.

Hungry mama's!

Family Pics

Here are some pictures from our recent family photo shoot. Thanks for you time and effort Randi!

Fire Fire Fire!

On Thursday evening of this past week, Shar and I made arrangements for our semi-annual date night. Okay, well we might get out a little more often than that, but not much. Shar and the girls met K Rae and I downtown to check something out at REI before our date. As we loaded the girls into the car and K Rae drove off, both Shar and I felt a little uneasy about letting them go. Something didn’t seem quite right. Nevertheless, we had an enjoyable meal and then went shopping. Just before we were planning on heading home, I got a call from my coworker and close friend, “Hey Bob, what’s up?” I asked.
“Hey, are you in the evacuation zone?” he responded.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked, confused.
“Dishman hills is on fire and your house is in the evacuation zone.” He blurted out.
I suddenly felt sick to my stomach as I thought about K Rae and our girls at home, 35 minutes away. My mind also flashed back to a huge white plume that Shar and I saw as we exited the restaurant. I hadn’t thought much of it at the time, but now it made more sense.
In retrospect, I probably scared the gajeebers out of K Rae when I called her. Letty was in the middle of a bath and K Rae knew nothing of the evacuation orders. I reassured her we would be returning ASAP and asked her to get the girls ready if we needed to leave

As soon as we got in the car we turned on the radio and immediately heard the excitement over several area fires. Reporters were quickly and nervously blurting out what they knew. Four homes had burned to the ground, and over 1000 acres of the Dishman Hills, just miles from our home, had already burned. The governor herself was en route to Spokane Valley to assess the situation. Still we did not know what danger existed for our family. We continued to speed toward our home through a sky choked with smoke.

We arrived home and turned on the TV to realize that the danger to our house was not immediate. The winds had shifted driving the fires further south steering the danger away from much of the Valley residents. We also saw a map of the reduced evacuation area which now lay several miles to the west of our home. The danger to our family only subsided over the next 24 hours.

During this time, I visited the Red Cross Center temporarily set up a University High School. While emotions seemed to be running high, I was impressed at the number of individual helping out. Food, water and other supplies, such as children’s toys and games were flowing into the center. Many people were looking around for ways in which they could help out. I felt very proud at that moment to be living among such a loving people. As I drove home from the center, I looked out and saw the red glows spread across the top of our beloved hills. The event seemed unreal, something you witness on the news with names and places unrecognized, nothing visible from your home or affecting of your own life other than sympathy for those impacted.

Birthday Fun!

Happy Birthday!
Yesterday was Letty’s fourth Birthday! Every day for the past week she wakes up and asks me if she is four yet? So the heavily awaited day has finally arrived. She has ended up with lots of birthday celebrations since it is a holiday weekend. She had her first friend birthday party on Wednesday; the theme was a swimsuit party. Thursday T-man got off work early and we went to Riverfront Park to experience some of the rides that she has never been on. We all were melting by the end of the day the car thermometer said it was 101. Yesterday we spent the afternoon and evening at a friend’s house where Letty swam for five hours. Later we watch the fireworks from a parking garage downtown. I don’t think we will do that again. It was too far away to really enjoy them like I like. Letty didn’t go to bed until 10:30 and ended up awake at 7:30 which is not early but we thought she would be exhausted. I guess we are more tired than she is from swimming. Kids, they have endless energy! It was the first time she has not clung on to us in the pool. She either wore her life jacket or used a tube and swam independently, it was actually really nice because we didn’t have to be in the pool with her the whole time. Lots of fun!

Sunday we gave Gracie food for the first time. We have only given it to her twice, we keep forgetting. So far she hasn’t thought much of it. She enjoyed being in the pool yesterday and surprised us by fitting in Letty’s 12 month old swimsuit being that she is 5 months old. The water in their pool was set at 90 degrees and felt really comfortable.

I love summertime!

Letty was really disappointed that she couldn't feed Gracie...we told her once she starts to like her food then she can feed her.

Cup cakes all around...the easiest birthday party food ever.
It's sad to be leaving now that Colette is old enough to enjoy the perfect slip n' slide hill.


Letty was pretty proud of herself swimming around in her life jacket.



We are discovering that Gracie doesn't like the heat so she enjoyed chillin' in the pool.

T-man wanted to add his version of an unfortunate event at Letty’s party: What every kid birthday party needs is a Dad present to liven things up. For Letty’s B-day party this week I pulled out some plastic drop cloths and constructed a water slide in our back yard. The slide worked great until an incident occurred and I was subsequently chastised by my wife. Near the bottom of the slide lies a perimeter of sharp rocks (No, thank goodness the rocks had nothing to do with the injury.) In planning for the slide and anticipating the damage the rocks might inflict, my neighbor offered up their large disk inter tube as a cushion against the rocks. The cushion worked just fine, but I found it hard to look at the slide and the inter tube and not wonder how well the two might work together. Only three girls got up the nerve to take the first ride down. The tube was a great success and as a little is good, more is better, right? So the second time around six little girls climbed on board and took off like a rocket. It was that moment when they reached the bottom of the slide and were still accelerating, that I realized, another 25 feet of slide was necessary. Since a video is worth a thousand words, I won’t go into more detail except to warn the mother’s of the children involved that the video is rated PG-13 for violence.

P.S from Shar: For those of you whose kids you entrusted to us, I am deeply sorry. It is rather funny, but I hope you are not appalled thinking we were crazy, stupid or both. Thanks for letting them come...when all is said and done, I think they had a good time.