You wouldn’t think that one of our beautiful brown skin boys would have such a dramatic tanline. Can you tell we’ve spent the last few days outside all day in the 100 degree heat?

Went camping down at Fay Bainbridge with the Barnums and had yet another great time! Our families just seem to camp well together, the kids play and play and the adults get along well, too. That’s sometimes hard to find. This time we camped next to two sets of friends from the island, which was fun too. One of the nights, one of the teachers that subs at the boy’s school came down and Carlos made it his job to shower her with roasted marshmallows and he even got out his lantern and took her on a beach walk. It was pretty cute.
Alexis had her 16th birthday at the campsite, complete with an ice cream cake and balloons. She managed to entertain all the kids by sucking the helium and talking funny over and over and over. Hope there’s no permanent damage from doing that!

Last week was gymnastics camp for Levi and Carlos. Trey was scheduled to go, but we opted for him doing summer session at school (that boy needs structure!) He was great with it, he loves the teacher, Jessie, and he’s benefiting from it in a huge way. Even they could tell the difference in his behavior after a weekend without school.
This year, both Levi and Carlos had special buddies for camp, which meant they got some extra support from a camp counselor. The best part about it for me was that one of Carlos’ buddies was a guy who was in my 2nd grade class when I was the assistant at Island School. Full circle. I think Levi has some real talent in the gymnastics area, he really stood out with his skills. And I’m not just saying that as his mom! 🙂

The pictures aren’t quite in sync but we went to Holly’s for a BBQ and Potato Salad Cookoff. So much fun to hang out with her, although she and Dee were the only ones who made potato salad. I’m not a huge fan so I was good with that. As always, great food and excellent friends and conversation.
With the weather as hot as it’s been, we’ve taken to filling up the kid’s swimming pools and having family water fights. The boys are GOOD at it and we all end up soaking wet but dry off in about 2 seconds. Such a fun way to beat the heat.

I’m going to try to catch up here….sorry for the lack of blogging this week. You can only imagine why! 🙂

Yesterday we got quite the treat, with the weather being 95+ degrees here in Seattle it was more than refreshing to be able to spend the afternoon at our friend Helen’s pool. Her backyard is absolutely incredible, she has an amazing green thumb and her plants are thriving. Add to that, the pool. The kids are all at the stage where they can at least dog paddle to the side and Carlos found that arm floaties were the way to go. He and Trey used them and got around everywhere. Levi and Alice were busy doing flips and cannonballs off the diving board. Carlos even learned how to do a somersault in the shallow end. Pretty cool. Thanks to Nana for helping up out and many thanks to Helen for letting us swim. Hoping to repeat the trip in the future.

I can’t hold myself back, I have to vent here.
Some people have WAY too much time of their hands, and you know who you are. We got a complaint filed against us that we were posting pictures and information about foster kids on our blog. There was NO information but apparently not even pictures of the back of a baby’s head or with a gigantic cartoon graphic covering their face are acceptable. I’m wondering if the person who is wasting my time, the state’s time, my agency’s time and sending a lot of bad vibes my way realizes that instead of holding our little foster baby today, I had to spend over an hour going over the blog with a fine tooth comb. That’s time well spent, thanks. And before you get your panties in a bunch and file a report that I wasn’t holding the baby, rest assured that I made the time while he/she (wouldn’t want to post important info, such as gender) was napping soundly in bed.
I’m seriously contemplating locking the blog….I still wouldn’t post information or foster kid’s pics but maybe send a message to whoever is lurking out there to leave me alone. We provide a safe, loving home for kids while the state figures out their plan and we treat them as our own. Kids going into care at all is a sad, tough situation all the way around and we are on the front lines when we comfort a child after their world gets turned upside down. Don’t take your anger out on us, we aren’t the enemy, we’re just trying to make it as easy on the child as possible!
To my loyal readers (all 20 of you!)…sorry, no more cute baby hand pictures. If I don’t post for awhile, most likely we have a little one. I’m done ranting here, sorry for that. I have a thick skin, but after awhile I’m done.

Check out this contest and vote for our I Love Summer picture!

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Thanks!

Nana and I took the boys into the big city for a trip to the aquarium. They love going on the ferry and the walk to the aquarium is fairly short and we’re members so it’s an ideal place to go. Not to mention that the boys LOVE it. Levi could spend his whole trip at the touch tank. We got to see the feedings at the dome area, which was cool, but we had to wait quite a bit and snapped a “See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil” shot of the guys while we waited. We brought along the stroller to haul stuff (and Trey if he got tired) and Carlos decided he’d spend most the trip riding in it. He also went to bed tonight at 7:30 so I’m guessing he’s not feeling 100% great.
Nana spoiled her guys with a trip on the Merry-Go-Round and some ice cream before we headed home. We had stopped into a Seattle souvenir store that has some cute stuff and Carlos found a mini tape measure that he HAD to have. Only problem was, he didn’t have any money and I wouldn’t buy it for him (ya can’t always get what ya want). Leaving the store without the tape measure lead to a 30 minute tantrum, which I’m sure all the ferry commuters enjoyed as much as I did. We’ll be heading back to the aquarium at the end of the month for a member’s movie night, so he’s got some time to work and earn the $2.50 he will need to buy the tape measure. We’ll see just how much he wants it if he has to work for it.
We’re all beat, headed to swimming lessons after we got home from Seattle and then tried to setup our campsite for our weekend adventure, but got down there just in time to find out that all the sites were taken. What a drag…hoping something opens up, but we may be doing some backyard camping with our friends instead. Not quite the get away I was hoping for!

So Trey was showing our neighbor, Yvonne, his new shoes…and when they compared feet they basically wear the same shoe size. UNBELIEVABLE! Our little guy is going to be a giant. We were thinking NFL but maybe NBA is more like it.

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We loaded up the van this morning with the plan of going to see the free showing of Horton Hears a Who and then having a picnic at Lion’s Park. Well, you know what they say about the best laid plans….we got to the theater a little late and both movies were full. We made a detour to the Evil Empire (where I was accosted by a marriage=man+woman group who were trying to convince me that they were in support of my family…ha ha ha, not so much!) and picked up some strawberry and coconut flavored marshmallows for our camping trip this weekend. Then we headed out to the Keyport Naval Underwater Museum. What a fabulous find for our family, the kids had a ball and want to go back again. There was a dress up section, lots of torpedoes on display and the kids favorite part (by far) was the submarine control panel where they had periscopes and buttons and knobs galore. So much creative play for our little ones. The best part of all was that it was free, we’ll head out there again for sure!