We Love You, Seabrook!

We spent a long weekend with the fam on the Washington coast. This was the house we rented. We were all longing to move in right away, it was so stinkin' cute. The development is called Seabrook and this house was named Once Upon a Time.

Uncle Steve and the kiddos checking out the surf. It was way too cold to get in, but they couldn't resist dunking their toes.

Steve managed to snap this pic of the nieces and nephews; one of our favorite shots from the weekend. It isn't often that they are all standing that close together and staying still for a more than a couple of seconds.

Enjoying the Seabrook bicycles.

It's a long hike down all those stairs to the beach, but definitely worth the effort.

First Mariners Game

It looks like Steve was having a good time.

Highly resistant to having his picture taken. Perhaps he was hoping to block out the whole experience, I'm not quite sure.

A little pre-game snooze

We had two tickets to Saturday night's game between the Mariners and the Yankees. I suggested Luke and Steve go together. I was so excited for Luke to experience his first trip to Safeco field. It's such an awesome stadium. He fell asleep in the car on the way there, which is good, because it probably helped him stay awake to enjoy a few innings of the game. Steve says he was totally overwhelmed by the crowd, the noise, all of it. Poor kid. He wanted Steve to hold him the whole time, but Steve was able to convince him to sit in his seat and try and enjoy the game. When he got home, I was still watching the game on TV. He said he had a great time and started rattling off fun baseball factoids at me. I suppose it was mostly a successful adventure.

Family Photos

My college friend, Dawn, got married in Puyallup last weekend. I was a bridesmaid, most likely for the last time. This was Dawn's 16th wedding...she has served as a bridesmaid or best woman 15 times. She was a wonderful bride; excited and cheerful-if she was stressed, she sure didn't show it. Ryan was an excellent groom, as well. Sadly, I don't think I took a single picture of the happy couple with my own camera. Steve and my parents were in attendance, though, as well as my good friend, Caryn. She is a professional photographer and took a few pictures for us. The weather was just for an outdoor wedding, too. It has poured buckets ever since, so I think we were fortunate.

Boredom Busters

As temperatures soared to record highs, we tried to find some creative ways to beat the heat and keep ourselves occupied. I voted for retreating to our comfy, air-conditioned house instead of going out in the sweltering hottness. Since I'm the mom, I suppose I'm really the only one who votes. Ha! The boys spent lots of quality time with their Legos, held numerous car races in the living room and watched their quota of Playhouse Disney. Steve and I did hire a babysitter on Monday morning so we could go to the "big" ultrasound without any assistants tagging along. In case you haven't already heard, it looks like we will be welcoming a third son into the family before the end of the year. Yikes! I'm in a heap of trouble. He looks just perfect, for which we are extremely grateful. I had a lot of anxiety over the weekend regarding the ultrasound; Luke and Andy both had minor issues crop up and I was just afraid something significant would appear this time. Nope. The ultrasound technician blazed right through, took a ton of pictures, confirmed that he was most definitely of the male species and sent us off to chat with the doctor. Steve and I enjoyed a kid-free lunch at Chipotle before going home to share the news. Luke is very excited, wants to name him Thomas. Andy just likes to lift up my shirt so he can "see" the baby. Oh, to be three.

Our other big news is that Luke, our resident fish, decided he was ready to swim solo at his swim lessons. I guess all that time in the pool in North Carolina paid off. He told Missy he wanted to try it without the pack (flotation device) and he swam across the pool, beamed with pride at the wall, then swam back across. I couldn't believe it. This is the guy I had to drag kicking and screaming to his first lesson in June. He was awarded a certificate and some chocolate chip cookies for his achievement. She told him he was promoted to level 2. A look of total fear washed across his face. He asked me in the bathroom what level 2 was all about. The poor little perfectionist couldn't even enjoy his achievement for 5 minutes without worrying about how he would perform in the future. Oh, boy.

We wrapped up the week with a celebration of Allie and Aaron's birthdays. Allie turned 8 and Aaron will be 10 this week. Good grief. Just a little while ago we were welcoming these little ones into the family. I can't believe how much they have grown and changed just this summer.