Our trip to Pateros (another town that is on my top 5 towns to live in) was fun. It had been about a year since I had been home and it was really good to go back. Makes me realize what a small town girl I am and how much I love that area and the unique beauty it has.
Our trip started early.... well actually I guess it started really late.
We decided to leave about 4:00 am Friday am... In order to leave that early one has to be prepared and have everything in order.... Well I work on Wednesdays and Thursdays so that meant I had to be prepared to leave by Tuesday... That didn't happen. So late Thursday night I was doing the normal snack packing, laundry and cleaning the kitchen.... but due to an amazing sale I couldn't pass up I also was planting flowers at 1:00 am. :) Ya at one point a cop drove by.... very slowly.... I'm sure he thought I was crazy or trying to break in or something... but I got my flowers planted and everything ready to go. The nice thing about packing stuff that late (or early) you can just leave your ice chests in the car ready to go... what's another couple hours. :) I went to bed around 2:30 and we were up at 4:00 and left about 4:30. Needless to say Brian drove the first part. :)
We stopped at a neat rest stop that had all kinds of cool creatures to look at. There were at least 40 gophers that roamed the sidewalks. They seemed very people friendly and they must get fed people food a lot because they come right up to your feet and stand up. Madi thought that was awesome and was loving life. She wanted so badly to feed them, but I was too scared of some rodent disease I kaboshed that. Tears were shed until we found this awesome Nike moth! Just do it :)
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| Determined to find a gopher and a treasure. |
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| I love how Mason's belly is hanging out. :) My pj kids... |
Alyssa's graduation was nice. She had a speech because she was the salutatorian and they had a guest speaker who turned out to be the screen writer for the transformer movie! Crazy that little P-town could manage that... But it was good. She looked awesome and it was fun to watch her.
Also fun to watch is this cutie pa-tootie niece of mine. She is so funny and I love her attitude and expressions! She was such a ham, she was dancing and giving her mom and dad a run for their money, but I think a lot of us were paying more attention to her than the names being read. She made graduation pretty fun too! :)
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| Awesome that my dad is on the school board so he got to had Alyssa her diploma. |
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| Seriously too cute.. |
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| Some kids dance and make cute faces, others make you think they are going to tear down the decorations.... I was a little nervous, must not have been too nervous as I was taking pics of it all. Just glad nothing came crashing down. |
The next day was pool day and all the kids were SO excited.
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| My nephew was so brave, like a little fish! He loved the water and was jumping in and swimming all by himself. I was so impressed. |
Aren't they cute? They were so much fun to play with and get to know again. We don't get together too often so each time I see them they have changed a bunch so I feel like I meet them all over again. It was a lot of fun. And I'm a pretty proud auntie... My niece and nephew are pretty stinking cute!
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| And look at that darling face! :) Drewnie the ever funny one... |
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| I love this picture... He looks like a cat ready to pounce. Makes me giggle every time I see it. |
Madison figured out where the toy box was and was in and out a bunch... I found it pretty humorous
There she is, and then oops where did she go...
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| Cool kids chillin on the floatie pad |
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| Another moth! |
A day or two later we headed to Chelan to do some paddle boarding and go to the waterslides. I need to get the paddle board pics from my mom... It was super fun. I was terrified at first because the water was SO cold... but once I figured it out a little it became really fun, and then it was getting warm and I didn't mind so much getting wet. :)
At the waterslides the kiddos had a lot of fun. It was very exhausting for the adults... well at least I thought so, but Madi was having so much fun. Mason spent most of his time in the kiddie pool area and seemed to like it quite a bit too. We went on the slide a couple times, but he seemed to think it was "meh..." and I was terrified he would go under. So we stuck to the kiddie pool and let Pappy watch Madi on the slides.
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| Scared mom + Mason could care less = Very few trips |
Later that day Mason was pretty tuckered out... He sat at the kitchen counter like this for quite a while. I found it funny because he looks so grown up, like he is pondering the ways of life...
Grammy and Pappy's house is a haven for children. Yummy fruit to pick right off the tree, chickens, bunnies, a pool, fun trikes and 4 wheelers. This is actually the 4 wheeler Madi had and Mason LOVED it. He sat on it and right away figured out how to make it go and had no problem, wasn't scared or anything. He couldn't steer real well, and ran into a lot of stuff, but he smiled and laughed the whole way.
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| Love this little boy so much. He is such a happy little guy |
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| On a walk to pick some fruit........ BUT |
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| We didn't make it as Mason stubbed a toe which made a face plant on the road which scraped up his forehead and little nose pretty good. |
Gram found a project on pinterest and her and Madi went out to try it. It was exploding chalk bags.... The name says it all. It was a combo of baking soda, vinegar, some flour and some dye. It was a lot of laugh provoking situations... It didn't quite turn out like the pinterest post (nothing ever seems to) but it was fun. And Madi just saw these pics and decided she needed to call her gram and remind her about the event. So must have been fairly memorable. :)
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| Wish I wouldn't have missed the head of gram here... oops |
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| Here are the battle wounds from the face plant. Still pretty cute right? I thought so. |
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| The finished product after a lot of re-do's |
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| And just like anything else, it ended with Madi crying. She was so excited and was making hand prints on the ground with the goo... and then stood up and started clapping rapidly which splashed some vinegar/chalk into her eye... ya not the best feeling, but gram fixes everything better than mom, so she got her all fixed up. |
Washington was a great trip and I'm glad we were able to go and hang out with family. It was a great start to our summer. I'm grateful for family and a beautiful earth to live in. I'm also very grateful for portable dvd players and coloring books. :)
