Summer News

Hello All.
Here are a few Pictures of our new house as well as a recap of our Summer.
The beginning of summer was spent with a visit from our Grandma from Phoenix (Julie's Mom).
Grandma came and stayed with us for 3 weeks. The time was spent going to Ethel's baseball games, shopping, listening to violin concerts, playing in the sprinkler, and good old fashioned board games and of course the occasional karaoke night. We had a great time and are looking forward to her return.
After Grandma left the girls took their usual summer swim lessons where Julie hung out by the pool with Ruthie and many of the girls friends parents-This is a favorite of ours, to go take lessons at our favorite pool over the summer. We always get to play catch up with those friends we only see at the pool in the summer.
Forth of July was a little different this year. For starters Pappy (Julie's Dad) was not here to celebrate with us. I think this was the first time in 5 years we didn't celebrate 4th of July with Pappy-However he did call us that evening to see how the fireworks were! Early in the evening we went to our friends the Peters to celebrate at their block party. We had a great time hanging with our friends (the sleepers where there too). We had every intention of staying to see the fireworks but Ethel was not having the whole messing with Tradition and all. So around 7:00 we headed out t0 Blue Lake Park for our usual 4th of July picnic and firework show! When we returned home around midnight we realized our new neighborhood enjoys 4th of July as much as we do....3 houses on our block and the house behind us all put on an illegal firework show that went on until 2am, Wow-what a difference from our old neighborhood!
The next week we went on our summer vacation to SunRiver with our friends the Peters, Sleepers, and Dana (she is worthy of just a first name)! We love this vacation, it is so relaxing and all the kids get along so well. It is one week full of Swimming, Biking, Eating great food, Megan and Bill's fantastic mixers (beer tasting for Pax and Bill), Great stories, music and just plain laughs. It is always sad when the week is up, but all good things must come to an end, and there is always next year-Or New Year's!
At the end of July we had an Open House and baby dedication for Ruthie Party. It was great to see all of our friends and a few family members (Pax's Aunt Pam, Uncle Bob, Grandma Keen, cousin Julie Fretwell and her 6 kids and cousin Michelle Richards all came). We are so thankful for all of our wonderful friends here in the Northwest, it truly is home to us and our friends have really become family to us and our kids.
In August Ethel celebrated her 7th birthday with just the 5 of us at Red Robin for lunch, a trip to Target to check out ipod shuffles (she thinks she wants one with all of her b-day lute), the catch a Movie (WallE-go check it out it is great) and then a dinner of popcorn shrimp and a dip in our favorite pool for family swim to round out the evening. The next day she had her Birthday party....A Luau Theme and 10 girls ranging in age from 4-10-Wow what a day! This was her first ALL GIRL party, we of course where bummed since up until now we always had the family BBQ thing and was always a great way to finish up the summer with our friends. I guess this means she is growing up.
Enjoy the summer pics. There is one more week of summer and then school starts So I will update you all soon on how that is going, have a great rest of summer!