Fun at the Fair

Last week was the Northwest Washington Fair in Lynden. We went Wednesday afternoon after Kyle got home from work. Grandma Tara came with us and we met up with Auntie Kim, Elias, Malachi and Mallory. We walked around looking at some of the animals and then grabbed some dinner. They had advertised horse jumping at the equestrian center and I was super excited to see it so we made sure to be in the right spot at the right time. Unfortunately they were running behind so we sat around eagerly waiting for half an hour...then it finally started and it was Dressage and not the jumping that I was expecting. I'm sure for those who understand dressage it would have been very interesting but it was a bit of a disappointment for us and we only stayed for the first person!

Not quite sure what's happening here...

From there we headed over to the rides. The kids each chose one ride to go one and they had so much fun! Their faces were amazing to watch and they all wanted to go on more than one ride!!

I had promised the girls that we could get dessert at the fair so we ended our evening with some ice cream! Kyle and I each had a Moowich (an ice cream sandwich made with chocolate chip cookies and vanilla ice cream) and the girls shared a huge bowl of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream. It was way more ice cream than any of us needed...but we all finished it with no problem! 

Happy Anniversary to us!

Our anniversary is today, but Kyle is off celebrating with some of his groomsmen. He's out in Idaho viewing the solar eclipse with a group of friends...so we made sure to celebrate before he left!

We dropped the girls off with Grandpa and Grandma and headed out to hike the Pine and Cedar Lake trail. He had done it a few weeks prior the girls while I was working, but they hadn't made it all the way to the lake and he wanted to try it again. It was a pretty steep hike so I was super impressed that the girls had hiked as much as they did! It was perfect hiking weather, even a bit chilly with a few raindrops at times, but overall quite nice. We even ran a bit of it!

After our hike, we brought Shelby home and then went out to eat...I love sushi so when we go out to eat, we usually get sushi and today was no exception! After a leisurely late lunch/early dinner, we stopped at Fred Meyer (Kyle wanted to find a fidget spinner!) and then made our way back to my parents. It's always so nice to get to hang out with just the two of us. It's amazing how easy it is to have a conversation when you're not interrupted a million times!

Bayview State Park Family Camping Trip

We have tried to go camping each summer with my side of the family. Last year we went to Bayview State Park and it rained so hard we spent quite a bit of our time at the Children's Museum at the local mall, so we decided to give it another try this year. Everyone else had the same idea and the campground was packed but the weather was perfect and we had a great time! (This camping trip was actually the last weekend of July...it's just taken me awhile to get the pictures up on the blog! Thanks Ben for the majority of the pics!)

Things got off to a rough start when we realized that we had packed the wrong tent...we had our 5-man tent (that I didn't even know we owned!) instead of our 8-man tent. To call it a 5-man tent is a bit deceiving...there was no way that all 5 of us (plus Shelby!) were going to fit in it! Thankfully, Ben and and Kelsey have a huge tent, Thane and Kim had some extra space in their trailer and Mom and Dad didn't mind sleeping in the back of their Highlander. The end result was that Kyle, Lydia and Shelby slept in our tent while Annaliese, Haleigh and I slept in Kelsey's tent the first night and then Annaliese moved over to the trailer the second night. I'm pretty sure Mom and Dad probably had the best night of sleep out of us all!! 

We took turns cooking meals and when we weren't eating, we were busy hiking, biking, playing badminton or hanging out down by the water! Kyle and Annaliese biked more than 12 miles!

  

It is so fun to watch all of the kids play together and to listen in on their conversations! They love being with one another and it is so special that they have the opportunity to spend so much time together!