our chuck-e-cheese-o-rama.

today i met up with a bunch of girlfriends and their kiddos to hang out at chuck e. cheese....a great way to kill an afternoon, i must say! we were proabably there a good 4+ hours.....


sam rollin' with his homie chuck e. (whom he kept calling "mickey mouse" LOL)


hamster much?


our lil' gamer girlz :)


aw, dimi offered to play air hockey with sam.....


but then he ditched her halfway through the game and his bro had to fill in for him.


sam goes for a ride in the jeep.....


while gabby chooses a more "eco-friendly" ride. (as the creepy clock stares on...)


our whole gang together! thanks ladies for the fun afternoon!

little girl's monogram purse.

i had a request for a little girl's purse recently, here is what i came up with. i am pretty happy with the end result, i just winged it really. i used a couple different fat quarters i had laying around, and ironed on some fleece interfacing to give the purse body. put a felt applique monogram on the front and some ribbon embellishment around the top of the bag. it has a magnetic snap closure. i hope the recipient enjoys it as much as i did making it!





thanks for looking!

lavender fest.

tomorrow nathan is leaving for another week to washington D.C. for some work stuff....so today he wanted a "family day". we decided to drive up to sequim for their annual lavender festival. my mom met us partway up there and then we all drove together. the morning started out foggy and cool, but by the time we got up to sequim the fog had burned off, the sun was out and it was warmin' up nicely. we started out at the street festival, where there were tons of booths of arts and crafts and lavender-related items for sale. my mom and i probably could've killed a lot more time on this part, but nathan and the kids were bored and whiny so we had to (try to) hurry along. then we sat on the lawn and had a bite for lunch....my mom and i shared a *yummy* crepe from J' Aime Les Crepes (artichokes, spinach, garlic, provolone cheese, pinenuts and lemon-herb sauce, YUM!) then we considered buying the bus passes to go to all the different lavender farms, but we were too cheap in the end to shell out the $10 a piece, and nathan said we would just drive to a couple of the farms ourselves. so we hop in the truck and get to one of the farms, and turns out you need the $10 festival button to get in. damn. foiled again. as we pile back into the truck and start driving, i find a lavender farm in the brochure that isn't one on the farm tour, so we headed out to graysmarsh farms. besides lavender, they had all kinds of u-pick berries. can you say "strawberry-stained-shirts-and-hands"?


the lavender ladies. please, please....do not let this be me in 30 years. LOL


graysmarsh farm. note: bubba-keg full of beer in nathan's hand.


the littlest berry-picker. we put 'em to work young.


the middle berry-picker.


the biggest berry-picker.


yeah yeah....spare me the jokes about being mexican and this being our natural habitat. ha.






grammy, showing him how to get the good berries.


YUM!


me and mom.

thanks for looking!

salsbury point county park.

today we went up to salsbury point park. i'd never been there before, but i kept hearing great reviews of it so we tried it out. i was not disappointed....it was a beautiful setting, right on the hood canal, with a fantastic view of the bridge. it was immaculately clean (even the bathrooms!) and there were lots of grassy areas, picnic tables, and then the beach, of course.....my friend wendy met us up there with her 2 children and the kids all played and had a grand ol' time. and while we were sitting out on the beach, a submarine happened to be going out to sea and we got to see the bridge open up so it could pass through, which all the kids thoroughly enjoyed.


swinger sam :)


climber katie


awesome austin ;)


missy testing out the water




sam would've been happy throwing rocks into the water all.day.long. lucky for us there was a never-ending supply.


happy little sea star!


katie and logan working very hard on, well, something. i'm not quite sure what.


working on another creation. notice the small-model replica in the foreground LOL


kay and a little friend she made.


austin, standing in a ginormous hole he dug.


nathan dropping austin into the hole :)


tugboat that was alongside the submarine.


missy sat here veeery patiently while kaylee decorated her with seashells LOL


kaylee gettin' in some missy-lovin'


michele &hearts 's nathan

thanks for looking!

north beach.

today we went up to port townsend to go to my mom's company picnic with her. it was at north beach, which we had never been to before. if you hike a ways on down supposedly you'll get to glass beach, but we were unable to make it all the way there before the tide started coming in and we had to head back to avoid getting stranded. i did, however, find *some* sea glass as we attempted walking there. here are some pics from the day...


grammy teaching sam the finer points of croquet.


my lil' tree-climber!


my big tree-climber! sam wanted uppy.


sam playing in the grass. this was probably when he was busy crapping his pants. ah, i LOVE potty-training!


me and my clan on the beach!


grammy and her babies &hearts


me and nathan


some sea glass we found.

thanks for looking!

scenic beach.

just a short drive from bremerton is scenic beach state park. we drove out there yesterday in an attempt to beat the heat, on a day that it was actually warm enough to swim here and not freeze your patootie off. i like scenic beach because the water is super clear and pretty and there's not a lot of yucky slimy stuff in the water. the down side is that you really have to plan your time there, or you get stranded on a stretch of beach when the tide comes in and have to wade through the water all the way back to the stairs going down to the beach (as was our case yesterday :)


hi, my name is austin, and i need a haircut. and a pair of shorts that doesn't show my skivvies. (but otherwise i think it's a pretty cute pic of him :)


getting used to the chilly water.


not happy about daddy walking away from him.


playing with bubby.


looking for treasures down there.






constructing crab homes.


this is the farmer's tan and beard you get after 2 weeks of backpacking in the wilderness.

thanks for looking!