August Adventures

Our month of August was filled with swimming lessons, soccer camp, and playing near the sound before the school year begun. The boys both took swimming lessons at Lakes High School and we were so glad that it was indoors because there were many days of light sprinkling and overcast, cool mornings. They had such a good experience and were both swimming on their own and jumping off the diving board by the end of the summer.

A n d r e w - finally mastered his fear of the water!



P e t e r - realized that he could swim 10 feet and is quite the little fish.

During our last session of swimming lessons the boys were involved in their yearly British Soccer Camp held at our Elementary School. Thank goodness it was close to home. They both learned some good skills and had a blast. Since Peter is still five he was put in the smaller soccer group with the four and five year olds. They don't break into teams and play real games but work on ball skills and such. After one of his hour and a half sessions his coach noticed that he was waiting with me as we were watching Andrew play. He asked Peter if he wanted to play with one of the younger teams. Pete felt so special and loved all the attention he recieved from a couple of the coaches. They were so nice to explain rules of the game that he had not understood yet. They gave him high fives and really spent some time helping him learn and have fun. We will definitely be doing this camp again next year. The British guys are really good with the kids!

10 Fabulous Years

How is it possible that 10 years has already passed? I have such fond memories of our wedding day and how great it was to have so many of our family members in the temple with us. One of the fondest moments happened right before we got married. I had just put on my wedding dress and was waiting in the lobby outside of the dressing rooms for Mike. I saw him come towards me and I think at that moment we both felt something eternal--that we were meant to be together forever. When you are newly married it is hard to imagine that you could be more in love than you are during those first moments and years of marriage. I can honestly say that with each passing year I grow more in love with Mike. Every year for us just gets better and better. I can't imagine my life without him. He has always loved me for who I am but has always challenged me to become the person my Heavenly Father wants me to become. This is one of the things I love most about Mike. He has helped me to branch out of my comfort zone to become someone that can shine even when life seems dark. He has the best sense of humor and can turn any bad situation into a good one. Thank you Mike for 10 great years of marriage! You are my whole world--I will always love you!

Victoria . Day 1

After our camping adventure we headed over to Victoria, BC by ferry from Port Angeles. The kids always enjoy riding the ferry and love to stand outside no matter how cold it may be. We left really early in the morning and so the ride over to Victoria was a little chilly. Mike took the boys out for a couple of minutes and then they would come back in to warm up. I was content to sit with the girls and stay warm. When we arrived in Victoria we were all a bit hungry and so we decided to park our cars and find a nice little deli for lunch. We parked in the Empress Hotel parking garage. I have to recommend doing this because it was relatively inexpensive and really convienient to everything downtown. We walked along and found a really good deli called Sam's Deli. The sandwiches were not cheap but they were really good.



After lunch we headed over to the beautiful Parliament Building. The kids enjoyed playing near the fountain last time we were there. This time we decided to go and see what the inside of the building looked like. Here are some pictures of the inside.


the assembly hall



the architecture

I really enjoyed seeing the beautiful archways and the stained glass windows. The kids were only interested for a short time so we decided to head across the street to the Royal British History Museum. We went and saw the Dinosaur IMAX and then took a look at the rest of the museum. We were just there a year ago and they had this cool Titanic Exhibit. This year they had something else that we weren't interested in seeing. However, the other permanent exhibits are so much fun and we could literally spend a couple of hours there. After we finished with the museum we headed over to our hotel which was only a couple of miles outside of the downtown area.





We stayed at a really quaint place called the English Inn and Resort. I felt like I was at a minature Butchart Gardens. The Inn was a little older with some modest updates. There were gardens and flowers everywhere. We stayed in the Royal Prince Albert's suite. It was on the top floor just up an old staircase off of the second floor. The kids just thought that was the coolest thing to be staying up there. It almost felt like we were on a hidden floor. For dinner that night we ate at the restaurant off of the main foyer. It was a fancy restaurant and not really a place to take kids...but we did anyway. It was interesting to try and get our already tired children to use their good manners. We were a little frustrated trying to entertain our children and thought we might go crazy until our food finally came. It was FABULOUS. Mike and I both ate duck with some sort of fancy cheese crepe things and carmelized onions in the shape of flowers. It really was out of this world. That pretty much made up for all the stress with the kids. We all slept well and woke up the next morning to a great continental breakfast and a walk around the gardens.


A sitting area right outside the inn with some beautiful flowers and some old fashioned outside fire places.


Red Chrysanthemum--one of my new favorite flowers.


Blue Hydrangeas--another favorite


What a ham!


Mike under a really cool archway. Mike loves stone archways!


Grandpa Al and Grandma Lorene

Victoria . Day 2

After a super relaxing morning we headed over to Butchart Gardens for some more flower viewing. Butchart Gardens can be summed up in one word--WOW!! This place makes me want to have my own flower garden.


The boys plus Abby


Abby and Mike


Our day just wouldn't be complete without ice-cream cones


Purple Impatiens

A pink Crocosmia with an excited bumblebee

A beautiful Redwood

Another Redwood

The Japanese Gardens -our boys favorite spot

After walking around the gardens for the better part of the afternoon we headed back over to downtown Victoria to catch our ferry. We parked our car in the ferry line and walked along the waterfront one more time before we had to be back to our car for Customs.

Our ferry ride home was significantly warmer than the ride to Victoria. The weather couldn't have been better while we were in Victoria. On the ferry the boys and Mike had so much fun running around the ferry while taking video of the different parts of the ferry. The kids liked looking down in the water and it didn't take long for the boys to start spitting in the water...boys will be boys I guess!

Camping at Mt. Rainier

Our family loves camping. I guess you can say that it is a tradition to go at least once every summer. Even with a new baby we were prepared to camp and have some fun. We are really not that crazy because Abigail is such a good baby and a good sleeper. We took Mike's dad and his wife with us and the extra help was very much appreciated. It was so great to be able to spend some time with them up in the mountains that we love. This was the first time we had been back to Rainier since our summit climb last year. Camping was a blast. We found the perfect camp site for our boys. It was nestled between two little hills...the perfect spot to feel like you are not right next to another camp site. The boys stayed busy running up and down the hills and finding different paths that wrapped around many other neighboring camp sites. They were so busy running around and having fun that I hardly have any pictures of them in our campground. The boys even joined the Ranger for some fun activities and completed some assignments to become Junion Rangers and recieve a cool Junior Ranger badge. Receiving that badge was probably the highlight of the trip for them.

Emma tagged along with the boys for a bit and then stayed to watch the little chipmunks that kept running through our little campground. We put little pieces of bread out for them and waited for them to come and steal them away. Abigail was content just being bundled up. It was quite warm while we were there and so the nightime was not that bad. Of course we don't totally rough it when we camp with the kids. We have a great big tent with three separate rooms and we bring a mattress for us to sleep on. Really, what fun is it to sleep on the hard ground anyways!!! The boys got new sleeping bags for the trip that have a fun game attached to the top of their bags. We divided the main section of the tent from one of the smaller rooms and the smaller section special just for the boys. They just loved that. Emma slept on our mattress with us and Abigail slept in her carseat. Everyone slept through the night and I only had to wake up once at 4am to feed Abigail. Of course I never do sleep well when we are camping even though the set up couldn't have been better this time. All in all it was a successful night. We woke up the next morning to our usual pancake breakfast and then headed up to Paradise for a hike up the mountain.

It was such a beautiful day to be hiking on the mountain. This was the first time we have been back to Rainier since our summit climb last year. I am always in awe at the beauty and grandeur of Mt. Rainier. I see this mountain very differently now after having been to the top and being able to see the different parts of the moutain along the way. We saw many different groups with their packs making their way up to Camp Muir and beyond. It brought back such good memories of our journey. That was the first time that I thought maybe I would want to do it again sometime in the future.

We were surprised by how much snow there was so low on the moutain. We really didn't have to hike very far to reach the big patches of snow. The kids had a blast sliding around and getting wet. It was a good thing it was so warm that day.

By the end of our hike we were all pretty tired and in desparate need of something sweet...well maybe that is just me talking. We ended our hike with a nice cold ice-cream cone--another tradition we started last year! We hope to make it back up to Rainier once more before the season ends!