Last Summer Hurrah!

Our last camping trip of the summer was over to Spokane, WA. We enjoyed camping with nightly outdoor movie nights at the campground, back to school shopping and lake fun. Tim and and the kids made it a great birthday for me! Here a few highlights from the trip.Becky and Audrey tubing! Dad game them a good ride!

Grammy and Audrey during family dinner where we celebrated 3 birthdays (Aunt Dana, Lauren's friend,Colin and me)
Bella loved being near the lake, but not in the lake. We found out she can swim if she really had to!

Aunt Sandrine kayaking with Celeste. Here are some random car pictures...things get a little crazy after traveling too long!Becky trying to sleepNatty has no trouble sleeping!Sophia sleeping?...no way! Time to pose for the camera!Crossing the Gorge

distracted

I've been a way for a bit...getting comfortable with my birthday present...my new camera, which I have been LOVING! Thank you, Tim! It inspired me to bet back into my hobby, take some more artistic shots, and start another blog just with my photography that I think is somewhat worthy of having a blog of it's own. http://jolierodriguezphotography.blogspot.com/

I'm even going to forgo the school pictures this year and do it myself. We'll see how that turns out! But, Becky has been asking where the end of the summer lake pictures are...so I better get back to blogging so she can snag them and put them on her MySpace and Facebook. Here a couple first shots with my new camera...

Natty is a sport for letting me use her as my photo guinea pig

Bella's grown a bit, she is now 7 mos. old

Camp Newman

The middle of July, Audrey, Celeste, and Sophia joined their cousins, Elise and Margot for "Camp Newman" hosted by their Aunt Dana and Uncle Steven at the lake house near Spokane. Each day of the week was something new...cooking day, knitting day (where Gran came over to teach the girls how to knit), tubing day, etc. etc. They had so much fun, they can't wait for next year! Here are Elise and Audrey fishing with their matching bandanas.

Beading was a favorite activity. Here is Celeste showing off her handiwork.

At the end of the week, Oliver, Natty and I drove over to pick up the girls and bring them back to Seattle. We got to spend a few days and enjoyed the lake too! How did that kid in the middle get so big..poor Oliver, always surrounded by girls...it's his lot in life!

Sophia and Margot...this is one of the only times they weren't in the water!

Oliver and Natty hangin' out on the water.

Alisha's visit

I couldn't help but start with this sweet picture of Sydnee, our grandaughter, Alisha's daughter. She is such a sweetie! Alisha is so good at getting pictures taken of her kids, much better than I ever was or still am. Doesn't Sydnee look like her mom?! Alisha, Sydnee, and Kip (our newest grandchild) came to Seattle for a visit a few weeks ago from Idaho. They were in town to visit Alisha's grandmother and also spent a few days with us. I wish I had taken more pictures, but at least I got a few. We had a fun time hanging out, going to the Seattle Aquarium, and shopping at Ikea.

Aunt Natty with baby Kip...4 weeks old!

Natty, Sydnee and Kip. They played nonstop and everybody wanted to hold Kip. He must have felt like a football being handed off to everyone all day! We missed seeing Zeb, Katie, and Alisha's niece, Kayla. But, hopefully next time!

SWIMMING - THE END

After all the fun of the trip...one of the favorate things we did was SWIMMING! Yes, that is Dad in the water...quick take a picture, you won't see this much...I don't think the girls remembered the last time Dad swam with them. Natty became quite the little swimmer this summer. Her fear of the water from last summer had left!Hang in the there Audrey! Don't drown!How strong is Dad??? Can he do it???

TAAAAA DAAAAA!!!

High Desert Museum Bend, OR

During our stay in Sisters, we spent a lot of our time with Grandad and Grammy since they live so close in Redmond. One of the days we went to the High Desert Museum which was so much fun. HOT, but fun. We enjoyed the inside exhibits in the air conditioning a little more than being outside. But, the homestead exhibit outside was definitely worth the sweltering walk. Notice Becky is not in this picture. She opted to stay in the air conditioning.

The old Saw Mill. Several people dressed the part of homesteaders.

Daddy and Natty with the chickens....we do miss ours in Pennsylvania. Hopefully we'll be able to get more soon!

Whitewater on the McKenzie River

After we left Crater lake, we headed for Sisters, OR. We LOVED getting back to some camping civilization...water, sewer, electricty, and even internet. You can't even call our kind of camping, "camping!" We enjoyed spending some time with Grandad and Grammy! They were so wonderful to watch the little ones for us so us "big kids" could do a little whitewater rafting. Audrey was happy to have graduated to "big kid" status. As for Becky and Audrey...this was definitely their favorite part of our vacation. I wish we had more pictures of our rafting trip, but we were too busy paddling and staying in the boat (ask Becky about her "near miss with death!") We are defintely doing this again...but next time...bigger rapids!