Here are the kiddies ready for the first day of school. (yes, a little late, but I'm catching up!) They looked so grown up and they were so excited to be 2nd & 3rd graders.

Enough pictures already! Let's go to school! (notice how both of my boys are dentist's dreams come true. Just like daddy, they have what I like to refer to as the muppet mouth. Ethan is only half-way open for this particular picture. Poor Alaina got my tiny mouth, but it never seems to stop either one of us from talking.)
When I was growing up, we would spend every fall with my Mom in the kitchen, canning. She would can everything from tomatoes, spaghetti sauce, to jams and jellies. But the things that she canned the most were peaches, pears and applesauce. We all would help out here and there (now that I have my own little 'helpers' I realize how little we must have done.) but Mom would work for weeks getting everything done. Once she was finished, she'd line us all up at the pantry and we would spend a moment admiring just how beautiful it all looked.

Every time I go home, it brings back good, tasty memories when we open one of Mom's applesauce bottles (or peaches or pears...). For some reason, canned fruit from the store just never tastes anything like the real thing.

Well. I'm 37 years old now. It was about time that I give canning a try for myself. I have to admit. The pears stressed me out. for some reason, I remember doing all the fun stuff with the canning (loading the jars, turning the applesauce crank) but I couldn't seem to recall all of the hard work that went before. Even fitting the pear halves into the bottles proved to be a challenge for me. My first bottle only ended up being half fruit and half syrup. I quickly gave up on the pretty halves and cut the pieces bite size, ensuring that I at least filled up each bottle with fruit. The fruit itself was very good. I've met a farmer here, just outside of our little town that sells a whole lot of organic fruit and veggies. He is extremely involved in the community and loves selling his food at an affordable price so that everyone can afford to feed their families organic food. He must be one of the last of his kind. Anyways, he sells his apples at two different prices. The big beautiful ones are about 60-80 cents a pound (can't remember exactly) but he sells what he calls his 'applesauce apples' at 40 cents a pound. These are apples with some scab on them (markings on the outside but perfectly beautiful on the inside.). I got myself 4 boxes for 20 bucks and ended up making 22 bottles, not including the giant bowls of applesauce that we all had, piping hot with vanilla ice-cream on top. (Another good memory from mom passed on...)

The kids liked turning the crank as much as I did.

And because I am my mother's daughter, I am now going to make you all sit for a moment and admire how beautiful it all looks.

OOoooooooh.
Aaawwwwwwww. So purty.
Here are some extra pictures of the kids goofing off. Austin.
Ethan. Rock on.
And a stolen moment watching Laina out with her Bella.
And last, but not least...Here I am on my big 37th with my favorite three kids in the whole wide world. Look at that fudgey-ice-cream cake that Robert got for me. I had one giant piece and baby had another. (we didn't want him to feel left out!)

This is a little blog dedicated to Austin. Again.

First, here is his rendition of recreational coloring.
No rainbows. No house. No family holding hands. A loading signal. For a child that is only ever allowed to use the computer to write on his blog...he always has computers on his mind.

A week before school started, Robert gave the boys a couple of short, short haircuts. This is really his time/money saving idea passively aimed at me. Robert figures that if he can cut the boy's hair short enough, it will be a good amount of time before I threaten to actually take them to a super-cut again. Anyways, Austin was ready. Then a few days later, I look over and notice that a big chunk of what was left of his hair, was missing. It didn't take much pressure to get Laina to confess as the impromptu stylist. Apparently, the idea was to cut a 'bolt' image into the side of Austin's head so he could be a little more like Bolt. They were both pretty proud of the attempt and only felt bad about it after we mentioned that now we had to cut Austin's hair even shorter before school started.


While getting the kids bags ready for school, I asked Austin if he wanted me to get him a water bottle in case he got thirsty. In a surprisingly adult tone he replied, "No thanks. You know, I used to be a drinking man. But now? Not really so much anymore." Well, I'm glad that phase of his life is already behind him. (and in elementary school, even.)

Betcha thought our summer activities were over? Well. Almost. School doesn't start here until the second week of September, and so we decided to go on one last fling to...Seattle. The kids had never been and we heard that the impossible was going to happen there. Sunny weather over Labor Day weekend. So we packed up and drove down.

We went to the Seattle Aquarium, which was fun (Monterey is still our all-time favorite, but this one wasn't bad.) My camera ran out of battery about 10 minutes in, so you get what you get.Yep. That's it. The aquarium is built directly on the Puget Sound, which means they just pump all their water in. We had fun the rest of the day, checking out the salmon run they had and the two huge octopi they had in a big, H shaped tank. We also ate salmon fish and chips which was pretty good.

The next day we found tickets to cruise out on the bay, ranging between 30 and 100 bucks per person. So we decided to get the same view from a $7 per person, 30 min. ferry ride to the island Bremerton. The kids had so much fun. It was sunny and pretty but pretty chilly out on the water.
Ethan loved being out on the ocean. He kept seeing orcas that would mysteriously disappear or turn into driftwood whenever we looked. The only thing Ethan didn't like was when they blew the horn. I think all three of the kids just about jumped out of their skin when they heard it. The island of Bremerton is tiny. We walked up pier and made our way to the local park. On our way we passed huge blackberry bushes and picked berries until our fingers were stained red. Once we got to the park (a sad little place) Robert took the kids on a couple of geocache hunts. We were able to walk up to the main strip within two minutes. After a little window shopping we found a good place to lunch and an even better place to eat ice-cream.

On our way back we had a beautiful view of Seattle.
We also had a beautiful view of Lainy.
For our last day, we went to the Space Needle. The kids had been dying to go ever since we arrived.
And here we are on the top.I wasn't quite sure what Austin was looking at here. I think he just didn't realize he was too short to get the telescope to point at the ground.
From there we went to Pike Place, the famous out-door market that takes up an entire, cobble stoned street. Robert, amazingly found a parking space right at the very top of the street. Most of the fish markets were closed since it was lunch time, but we did find one that was open. The kids weren't impressed.They lasted a whole minute before the smell made them want to go running back into the street. I thought it was pretty fun, though.
And to finish off our trip we headed a couple miles away to the society of wooden boats, which wasn't as impressive as the website claimed it to be. (One of Seattle's hidden gems, my foot.) However, we did rent a small paddle boat for an hour and the kids loved taking us out onto the lake. I have to admit, with the sail boats, and speed boats all around, it was a pretty amazing view. It is also very calming to be on a paddle boat. Especially when you don't have to do the paddling! Ethan and Laina were determined to keep us going for the majority of the time. Austin enjoyed pulling the rope to steer. I just sat on the back bench and enjoyed the ride. (Notice Rob and Austin with the same exact haircut :)
There must have been a water-plane tour of the city based on the lake because every ten minutes or so, a plane would land or take off very close to us.
Lainy and her Daddy.
All in all it was a very fun and relaxing visit to Seattle. After we took our boat back, we loaded up into the car and headed home. I guess summer vacation had to end sometime.