School Portraits 2012

Bryce was over the portraits before they even started this a.m. So he rolled in the mud at the park after we took 3 shots! Grrrrr. Needless to say-he will be having retakes (and a haircut) soon.

Vintage Desk Makeover

I found this antique desk on the Seattle Craigslist & Mike's parents were kind enough to pick it up for me AND deliver it to me in Seattle last month.
It has sat on my back porch ever since-just waiting for me to have time to jazz it up. This weekend I finally found the time.
I started sanding the top and realized I needed a "before" picture-so here it is....kinda

During...

After!

Memorial Weekend 2012

This year we invited our friends The Webers to come camping with us for our first camping trip of the season-Memorial Weekend. We had more than enough room for both families in our camper! :) The 2 queen beds, 1 king and 1 double really worked out great for 9 people and 2 doggies!

We took them up to our favorite spot in Teanaway. They agreed that it was quite breathtakingly beautiful. As soon as we arrived-the guys worked on building a fire-with a little help from Pinecone/needle collectors Brynlee & Bryce,

while Laurel worked with the kids to make homemade Rootbeer!

YUMMMMMMM! We couldn't get enough!

Taryn & Shadyn were obsessed with the doggies and were rarely without them!

Messy faces were QUITE common :)

Love this one....

Todd taught his oldest-Taryn-how to use an ax :)

We quickly discovered that things weren't working well in the camper-which was odd. Everything was in tip top shape when we had used it for our sleepover in the front yard a month ago????? The water was the first thing to not work. We could hear the pump working but no water coming out. Strange. Then the fridge started beeping and would not run on gas. Again-odd. But also BAD. That meant the refrigerator full of items would spoil because we didn't bring ice to put in the regular ol' cooler!!!! YIKES! So we thought & thought about what to do. Mike looked at all pipes, etc and discovered no visible problems.  My first plan was to send Mike to Cle-Elum 12 miles away for bags of ice before places started to close for the night-an attempt to save the cold items. We checked the battery meter and it was VERY low, which is when I thought maybe the water isn't working because the battery wasn't giving the pump enough juice-even though we could hear it turning. After hooking the truck up to the electricity of the camper-everything ran fine again and so it was determine to be a bad battery. Whew! Though-still not good, it could be worse. Still-we couldn't leave the truck on all night to charge the batteries! Then I thought/hoped that my friend Jerica was camping at their typical site 5 miles away from us. She has a generator with her camper & might let us borrow it to charge things enough to get through the night. With no cell service it was a shot in the dark but....

Sure enough-Mike headed to CleElum for ice and on the way there he passed Jerica's Tahoe on its way to the other campground! Stopping there on the way back with ice (which he got just in case :) ) he swung by for the generator. Jerica saved the day!!!! Thank you Jer!

Todd loves photography like we do, but alas-he is a Canon fan. Boooooo. Just kidding. Anywho-he spent a little time teaching Taryn the basics. 

The kids all roasted s'mores before bed. This year we have about 8 bags of different kinds of marshmallows that Nana has sent to us from various stores down in San Diego. Thanks MOM! :)

The Webers have really jazzed up s'mores roasters they found at Cabelas-they telescope & rotisserie for you! Amazing. We will be looking for those this summer thank you!

Her face says it all-she can't stand s'mores. She's the "I'll just burn the marshmallow, drop it into the fire &  devour the chocolate please" kind of kid. Brynlee was the same way. ha ha ha

Three snuggled up bugs in a rug.

The Webers brought headlamps for all the kids so they could play tag around the campsite after dark & we could see them by counting the lights flashing around us! Awesome idea!

Rootbeer and M&M's are a thing of the past for breakfast I guess. We've moved on to Pepsi & olives????? Our actual breakfast was made by the Webers-yummers Sourdough Pancakes, sausages & strawberries! I do NOT like Sourdough anything, so I was apprehensive, however-I am pleased to say these were GOOOOOOOOD! They were a little heavier & tasted more like flavorful crepes! YUM! Apparently something they had while at Canon Beach this spring & looked up the recipe for. One I will be adding to our files soon :)

After skipping rocks & wading through the glacier melt/river, it was time to head home. Just a quick trip this time, but something we'll be doing again soon-with better batteries on the camper next time. :) And maybe we'll be saving for a generator too?!