Summer Wrap Up

With today being the last day of August, even though Summer is not "officially" over, it is starting to feel like it. The last few weeks have been pretty busy. For starters, we welcomed a new member to the family with the birth of our nephew, Felton Briggs. For obvious reasons, we haven't had the chance to connect much with the proud parents(Steph's sister Stacey and brother-in-law Ryan), but we hear from Steph's mom that all is well...and Haas is enjoying his new little bro!



A couple weekends ago, I had the opportunity to join 3 others on a trip to Bandon, OR...the home of Bandon Dunes golf resort. We played both Bandon and Pacific Dunes...two of the top 10 courses in the entire US. It was an amazing experience, especially since I played one of my best rounds ever given the conditions.






After returning from Bandon, we packed up the family and headed north to Semiahmoo for a few days. We were racking our brains for a place to go and we were glad that Semiahmoo came to mind. We enjoyed just walking on the beach, riding bikes, going on walks, visiting Langley, etc. On the day we came home we spent a few hours walking around the WWU campus with the kids. It was great to see how things have built up, and our old dorm rooms up on "the ridge."





On Wednesday we have our first official "back to school" activity with orientation. Maddie starts 3rd grade this year, while Kenzie is in P4, at Hope. Both are getting excited to be back at school with friends and their teachers. This week we are trying to get back into a routine of early to bed, early to rise, so that next week is not too big of a shock to the system.

Staying put...for now.

We gave it our best shot, but after 3 full months on the market, we officially pulled our house off the market a couple weeks ago. Way back in February we found a new house just north of the junction, but in order to make it work, we of course had to sell our house. Although we had a TON of traffic through our house, and a lot of interest, in the end we only had 2 couples that were interested enough to make an offer...and in both cases I am not sure they understood that our house was built in 1910...and with that "vintage" everything isnt new. So, we took to failed attempts as our sign that it just isnt the right time. We think that there is still an outside chance that something happens, but it will have to be just right for us to think about it. So, for now, we are settling in, enjoying the house we do have, and letting the kids be kids! Josie came back from her "vacation" so it is nice to have her back to keep the raccoons and cats out of the back yard.

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