Moles

We've been having some "mole issues" this summer, but thankfully we've had some luck catching these buggers. (A big shout out to our friend Aaron who told us about this specific mole trap!) The kids LOVE going out with Daddy to see if they've caught one!

A funny story about the above picture - the poor mole was caught by it's leg and was still alive when Marcus dug it up! Whoops!! One swing of the shovel and it ended it's life too. Jaelyn & Ben thought it was hilarious that it was trying to get out of the trap...hence the picture that Jaelyn had to take of it! :)

Imagine Children's Museum

We finally got a chance to check out the Children's museum up in Everett - we've heard such great things about it! And boy is it a GREAT museum - we definitely did not see everything there was to see - - which only means one thing - - we have to go back!! Both Jaelyn & Benjamin LOVE playing with Dylan & Laurel...so it was a lot of fun hanging out with them for the morning (although us moms worked up a sweat just running after the kids!)

Ben, Jaelyn, Dylan & Laurel (probably thinking Jaelyn is "too" close to her bro!)

As you can see, I didn't get many pictures of the kids at the museum...they were running a mile a minute through the museum! Oh well...they had a blast & slept hard the whole way home! A good morning!!

friends

Play dates with Sophie are so much fun! Too bad we don't see each other nearly as much as we would like!

We are strider buddies too!

candy hunt - "country" style

This weekend we headed up to Everson (a little town outside Bellingham) for an extended...a really extended family reunion! I probably didn't know 3/4 of the people there! Someone in the family had a bunch of land that everyone used to camp on. Thankfully, we bunked with Oma & Opa in their trailer so we didn't need to haul all of our camping gear!! One of the activities was a candy hunt...in a bale of straw! Kinda fun for my city slicker kids!!

Getting it ready for the kids to dive in...the little kids got first dibs on the candy!

"I found one!"

So poised finding the candy - wasn't in a hurry to find them!


Deep in conversation about how to find the candy!

Checking out all the candy he found...

One happy little girl!

going on a walk

Ben has really been into talking "walks" - mainly with his strider bike. He LOVES riding his bike and keeping up with his older sister! It's so fun to watch him excel at riding a bike! The grassy area that we camped on was perfect for strider expeditions!



The kids also wanted to explore the Nooksack River - so off they trekked to the frigid waters hand in hand!

This little guy was adamant about going into the water! So we rolled up his pants and let him go!

strawberries

almost everyday we go out on the deck to check out how our strawberries are growing....and today we got a hauling! mmmmm....homegrown strawberries are the best!!

Lincoln Rock State Park

We had an amazing time camping with friends & family over the 4th of July! It's become a tradition! In all there were 10 families...kids far out numbered the adults this year! There were 23 rugrats running around ages 12 years to 9 weeks old! Super fun for the kids to play, play, play all day & night! We are already looking forward to next year! I couldn't narrow down the pictures we took, so I decided to put them into a little slideshow...so, sit back and enjoy!

And we can't forget about this one: the best form of babysitting...Opa's truck! Both kids thought it was so cool that we got to borrow the truck for the weekend!