Where did July go?

Holy flying months Batman? Where did July go? Realizing that this is the last week of July, yikes. Only 1 more month of summer vacation. Steph was out with the kids and hitting some of the back to school sales already...crazy!

Since the 4th of July recap, things have been fast and furious. We spent a great weekend at the Coaches Time Out conference in Vancouver. It was a great event (as always) and gave us a couple days on our own. It was refreshing to be driving in the car and be able to have a full conversation for more than 30 seconds :-)

The following weekend, I passed up my Sounders vs Chelsea tickets :-( for an awesome time with the Hope caravan in the West Seattle parade. Our new tradition of piling about 20 kids in the School Bus and handing out candy to the parade goers. This year SLHS was in front, followed by Hope Church, then us in the back. The cool thing was that Hope got 1st place in the "community" category, so we were really excited to be a part of it.

Spattered among the weeks have been Hope Softball games...a new adventure for me as I have not played softball since the 8-ballers back in 2001 when Maddie was just a little tyke. I had a lot of fun, and I think the girls enjoyed playing with friends, occassionally watching bits of the game, etc. Tradition was to always hit up DQ after the games with the team, so we all really liked that. As of today, we officially are done after a 3-2 loss in the playoffs. I managed to eek out a few hits here and there....and only tweak my hamstring a couple of time. I must be getting old!

This last week was a big milestone as Steph helped put on VBS at Hope. Her and Leighellen spearheaded the effort and did an AMAZING job coordinating the week. Over 150 kids and 50 volunteers were a part of the week. Steph led all the crafts and had a ton of cool ideas to pass along to the kids. Her creativity and organization skills were at their best.

Story of the month, and especially right now (literally) is the heat wave. We have had like 2 days with any measurable rain since June 1st....amazing. This week we are breaking records for the heat, with tomorrow supposedly flirting with 100!!! After that it "cools down" to around 90 over the weekend. As you can imagine, we have moved all our time at home to the basement, including sleeping. Not sure we could make it without it.

On the House front, there has been a lot of activity, but I am not going to write anything in case it might jinx it...All I can say is pray for some good mojo :-)

4th of July Recap

We kicked off our 4th of July early this year by heading out to Maggie Lake on Wednesday. We were excited to get out of town for an extended weekend...and enjoy some awesome Seattle weather (80+ degrees every day!) Fireworks were already going, as we had worked the previous days on striking a deal on our house (more on that later). After our routine stop at the Belfair Safeway for some initial food, we headed up the cabin...the girls and I immediately headed for the lake to cool down...and Josie too...she LOVES to swim. Thursday we headed into town, and worked our way over to Trophy Lake for lunch where we also met up with Bruce. While Steph and Sheryl headed to the store for the "official" grocery store trip, Bruce and I and the girls stayed at Trophy lake and went fishing. As I have showed a number of times, I really like fishing here. Since it was so hot, the fishing was a bit tougher than normal, but we still caught a few in just a couple hours...and the girls love being the netters. We caped the day off with more swimming and a BBQ.

On Friday, more of the same....woke up late, took a walk around the lake, and swam some more. Nana and Papa J came up on Friday to join the fun and after some "fix it" help around the cabin, my dad was out in the paddle boat fishing. I think he ended up catching about 4 fish over the weekend...maybe the same one multiple times :-)! Friday night we had a chance to sleep outside in the tent for the first time..great night for it with it being so hot. We woke up on Saturday raring to go. We headed down to Tahuya days, where they have a great 4th of July celebration. The last part of the slide show below has some great pics from the parade...it is a goofy parade, but the kids love it because it is like a 2nd halloween with all the candy they get.



We got back to the cabin, did some more fishing, swimming, and relaxing. Below is a little video I took of the resident Eagle, doing his own version of "Fishing" this was the 3rd time he came down....pretty cool to see them this close.



That night Bruce and I joined in on game with the neighbors that took about 4 hours...it is like a West Coast version of horseshoes...kinda complicated to explain, so I wont. After that we watched the fireworks for 2 hours...yes, 2 hours of a personal fireworks show. There are about 3-4 groups that go all out.

Sunday we had a small garage sale to sell some furniture, and then headed home. Oh, and we had to wait in the ferry line for 2 1/2 hours!! Yikes. Oh well, better than sitting in traffic. Another great 4th!!

T-ball Season Finale

Today was the final T-ball game of the year for Kenzie. It was a end of year celebration with the bounce house, hot dogs and a visit by the Mariner Moose. We got to the park at 11am and left about 2:30, so it was a full day. The weather was perfect for all the festivites, sunny and 75! The kids got medals as their "trophy" and all the kids love them...and the cupcakes! We had a lot of fun this year...Kenzie started to get in the "swing of things" after a few games...she actually has s pretty good swing and is pretty fast. We'll see where her baseball carrer goes :-) Special thanks to coach LE for a great season.

Father's Day Recap

Probably one word can best describe Father's day this year...Baseball! Between the T-ball double header on Saturday, and then the awesome day at the M's game on Sunday, it was all Baseball. Yes, KK had a double header T-ball game on Saturday...a marathon 6 innings! She made it 5 1/2 :-)

Sunday we got up and headed down to the stadium at 10:30 for "Youth Baseball Day"...there were thousands of kids from all kinds of baseball teams there. Before hand, everyone had the chance to walk all the way around the outside of the field...the kids (including this one) loved it. When we worked our way around to Home Plate, I noticed that Maddie was getting a look from a couple staff people...they came up to her and asked if she would say "Play Ball" at the start of the game....Unfortunately, Maddie was caught by surprise, and in thinking that she would be announcing this in front of 30,000 people, she couldnt commit to it. Oh well. It would have been fun to see her do this, but I wouldnt want her to freeze up either! The game was great and we all sat with KK's tball team...and even saw the M's win in the bottom of the ninth. To top it off...after the game, the kids got the chance to run around the bases...they started at 1st and ran all way to home plate. I think we finally left the stadium around 5:30...so 6+ hours at the ballpark. From there we had a great dinner with Nana/Papa J and Nana/Papa C. It was a great day! Happy Father's Day!

Grandma Cook Tribute

Hard to imagine it has been a couple weeks since Grandma passed away, wow..how time flies. Wanted to share with everyone a link to an online memorial that my Mom has setup. This provides a great way to share the entire message about her life, along with some great photos, and the opportunity for people to share their comments.

http://memorialwebsites.legacy.com/BarbaraCCook/homepage.aspx

"Great Grandma - Have a good time in Heaven"

No joke....That was what Maddie wrote in her 2009 Yearbook from School last night...this is in response to the news that Grandma Cook had passed away. We got the call around 3:15 that quietly and peacefully, Grandma took her last breath and moved on to much better place. Steph and I were recalling that it was Kenzie's birthday party just 4 short months ago, where Grandma was complaining of being short of breath. The next week she was diagnosed with lung cancer, and further test revealed that cancer was spreading, and quickly. Since then, we have tried to enjoy as many memories as possible. The biggest being her 85th birthday party in early May. It was something that she desperately wanted to make, and she did. Below is a picture from the party, when we were all singing Happy Birthday to her. We will miss you Grandma!

Hello? Anybody home?

Yes, we are here. It has been awhile since the last blog post around Mothers day. It has been a busy few weeks. Softball, T-ball, Open Houses, Hot Weather...we have seen it all. Maddie's softball team has made the shift to the playoffs. The majority of the season has been similar to t-ball where everyone hits, no one gets out, etc. With the playoffs, we count run, keep track of outs, etc. The girls won the first two games so the find themselves in the Championship game on Tuesday (Game is at 6:15 at Lincoln Park if you are interested). We are going to have a little fun and hold a family BBQ with the other two teams before hand. It will be a great way to finish up the year. While Maddie has been busy with Softball, KK is busy with T-ball. She is in the YMCA t-ball league that plays on Saturdays. She is slowly but surely getting the hang of it, hitting the ball good, and figuring out where to throw the ball. Bottom line she is having a great time. The girls are in the last week of school....Wednesday we head to Wild Waves for the end of year party, and the last day is on Friday. Wow..that went by fast...Maddie will be in 3rd grade (yes, 3rd) next year, and KK moves on to 4-year old Pre-School.

On the House front, it has been a little over a month since the house hit the market. We have had A TON of activity, with showings almost every day...open houses every weekend...and lots of people interested....but, no bites. We have been able to get an extension on our contingency, so we are still holding out hope that we can get a buyer and finalize our deal to move. We shall see...we have always said, if it is meant to be it is meant to be. We have lucked out with the weather while the house has been on the market...70's and 80's the entire time....we are excited to see summer coming early for a change, hopefully it will keep coming.

Lastly, as some of you may know, my Grandma (Grandma Cook) was recently diagnosed with cancer and has been battling over the last couple months. In early May, we had an opportunity to celebrate her Birthday with a lot of family in town. Since then, it has been tough. Hard to say how much time she has, so please keep her in your prayers.