July

 Here we are, almost at the end of July already! It's the first rainy day we've had in months and the girls are all out at Birch Bay for an outdoor survival-themed day camp. We dug through bins in the garage trying to find rainboots that fit before heading out the door this morning!

Looking back over the past month, we've continued to have a lot of fun! Kyle and the girls camped in the backyard, we picked 72 lbs of blueberries, went swimming in CA, visited Grandma and Grandpa at a campground along the Skagit River and more! 

Here's the photo dump (in no particular order!)

Family game of Clue

So many blueberries!

Annaliese is an incredibly fast blueberry picker!

Edaleens for ice cream after picking blueberries (the first time) We went blueberry picking three separate times.

Haleigh at Clayton Beach

Clayton Beach (near Larabee St. Pk.) The tide was so far out!

Doesn't get much better than hanging out with cousins all day!

Digging for clams

Playing Scrabble in Grandpa and Grandma's trailer

Huge mossy tree at Rasar State Park

Along the Skagit River

Lydia and Malachi

Set up to camp in the backyard. 

Waiting at the vet for lab work...besides needing to take prednisone every day and getting some expensive shot once a month, she's doing great! 

Camping at Deception Pass

 We spent last weekend camping at Deception Pass with the whole family, except for Uncle Ben who was off fighting wildfires in Eastern Washington. We picked the perfect time to go because the temperature in Lynden was near 90* (which gets a bit hot when you don't have AC!) However, at Deception Pass, it warmed up during the day to the mid-70s and cooled down nicely at night. 

Our tent is a bit ridiculous looking because we left half of the poles at home. (Funny now, but I was quite irritated at the time.) The plus side was that there were lots of places to sleep so the girls rotated between the trailer, Kelsey's huge tent, and a small 3-man tent. 

We swam at Cranberry Lake, went for a short hike, played Uno, roasted s'mores, and did all the fun camping stuff.

Playing Musical Chairs

The tents all in a row

Smores!

Playing a game!

Swimming in Cranberry Lake

Building driftwood forts

Shelby found herself a nice place to rest.

Playing Big Boggle

All the cousins!

Bremerton

 Several weeks ago, we rented a VRBO in Bremerton for a few days with the Hendricks side of the family. The house was lovely, with lots of space to play, a big kitchen, and just a short distance from Wildcat Lake. The drive down was just under 4 hours, but went quickly and included a ferry ride (which always makes things better!) 

"Make a silly face"

We took turns cooking dinner, had good snacks, watched some of the Track and Field and Gymnastics Olympic Trials, and played a lot of pickleball, croquet, and other games. 

All the kids slept in this room, each in their own little place.

The weather wasn't great for swimming, but we did make it to the lake twice. Nobody lasted in the water for very long, and I don't have any pictures to prove it!

One morning we did a nearby hike up to a waterfall. 

Annaliese and Elias

 We also fit in a few family pictures. I completely forgot that this was the plan, so we were quite fortunate that our normal wardrobe fit the theme!

The grandkids

Grandpa and Grandma

Thane, Kim, Elias, and Malachi

Ben, Kelsey, Mallory, and Owen

The whole family

Mallory

We brought along my new espresso machine (we found it last week at a garage sale for $5) and Mom brought hers, so we made ourselves fun drinks everyday, ate way too many snacks (Kelsey was in charge of the snacks and she did not let us down!!) and had a very relaxing time. 

We ended the trip with a walk around Port Townsend while we waited for our ferry and had an uneventful drive home (that means we didn't see any whales while on the ferry.)