Since I have been missing from the blog most of the summer and have not really posted any pictures of our summer I thought that summarizing the events and then posting pictures as time allowed would be the best option.
If I had to write a back to school essay it would contain the following events:
*Memorial Day weekend: drive 5 1/2 hours to Homer for a great camping weekend and our first ever halibut fishing excursion.
Lesson's learned on this trip... Phoenix gets car sick from long car rides and fast food. We will never leave on time for a camping trip because even when we are organized and stuff seems to be going smoothly... our kids turn on the car lights and the battery dies. Where did we put those jumper cables again?
* Kira's Backyard Carnival birthday party: June 2, 2007. Kira had her birthday party with friends from school and church. It was great fun and a huge success with the kids. We spent most of week prior to the party preparing for the event. Games and fun included: duck pond fishing, bean bag toss, foam disk shooting, sugar cookie decorating (thank you Devon for staying up until midnight with me Thursday to bake cookies),
goodie bag decorating, face painting (thanks to Morie being willing to apply his artistic skills to children's' faces), a bounce house (thank you to Nicole for letting us borrow this), and a special appearance by Boomer (thank you Paul for sweating a little longer for the sake of the kids). Several more thanks are in order because everyone who stayed here was helping with something... grilling and other food, gluing magnets back on ducks, helping organize bag and cookie decorations, monitoring the number of kids in the bounce house, taking a list of kids wanting faces painted. Patrick's creativity and "go-get-em" put most of the games together.
*The following week we spent cleaning up from the party and getting ready for our family vacation to Hawaii.
* June 9-29 we were in Hawaii on the Islands of Kauai and Oahu. This trip included visiting a new beach everyday with snorkeling and playing in the waves, going to the pool at the condos where we stayed, zip lining across a valley, tubing down an irrigation canal through and old sugar plantation, visiting the Kauai Museum, going to a water park, shark diving, hiking the
Napali coast and swimming at a waterfall 4 miles in, visiting with friends who had moved there about a year ago. A very busy vacation, but totally memorable and the kids slept well every night.
* July 4 we relaxed in the morning, but the outdoors was calling to us in the afternoon. Although it was raining, we drove out to
Thunderbird falls to hike the trail. Phoenix fell asleep and we had not brought the
Kelty kids backpack because he would have ran and played on the trails had he been awake. Patrick took Kira up to the falls despite the rain.
*Two play dates with friends from school. This was a time for the kids to see each other since they missed each other from school and for us as parents to get to know one another.
*Val's wedding shower. Although I did not host it here, I helped
Christy with some of the party preparations and food.
*Japanese summer festival at Kincaid park. We all dressed up in our
Yukatas (summer kimono- for girls) and
Hapi coat (celebration coat- for boys) and ventured out to Kincaid for a summer celebration. We enjoyed food, play time,
Taiko drumming performance, and a Japanese dance (which they were willing to teach some of the more brave souls).
*Bible camp. For Senior Week at Bible camp, I was blessed with the opportunity to be a counselor. Patrick had the kids at home since he was unable to take time off of work to go this year. While I was at camp, Kira lost her first tooth, lost her second tooth, and climbed Flat Top for the first time completely using all of her own power. Daddy power was reserved for carrying Phoenix.
*One day to rest and recover from camp and one day to pack for IL/MO. Fortunately, I have a husband who loves me so much that he washed all my laundry the day I recovered from camp so that I could pack with ease for the next trip.
*Flying out Monday night for Chicago, I finally got to sleep again on Tuesday night. Our whirlwind trip to the Midwest included a family and friends BBQ, visiting my grandparents old and new homes, dinner with my dad's dad, a
canoeing trip, a water park twice (due to the insane heat of 95 degrees with a heat index of 108), a wedding, getting to see new houses of family members, and saving the best for last... getting to meet my 2 new nieces and seeing Christina's pregnant belly with my third niece on the way.
*Patrick finished scraping the wall paper in the kitchen (the hard stuff that I couldn't do... like behind the refrigerator and stove and above the cabinets), patched the drywall, textured the walls in the kitchen and painted it all a beautiful new shade called "high plateau."
*Valerie and Hayden were married Saturday with a beautiful wedding that matched their personalities perfectly.
*Back to school shopping has been completed and school begins on the 22
nd of this month. I begin working again on the 15
th and then we will have a sense of everyday routine and normalcy returning to our lives.
Add to this the stuff of everyday life (guard duty once a month, getting weed and feed on the lawn, regular car maintenance, mowing the lawn, softball games on Monday nights, Bible class on Wednesday nights and worship services on Sundays) and now you have a picture of what our summer has been like. Pictures of all or most of our events will eventually make it to the website, but for now only the story has been told and your imagination will have to fill you in on the pictures for now.
Riddle: How many times does it take to get three kids to jump into the water at the same time AND get a picture of it?
The kids relentlessly flipped each other off of this floaty plane. Half of the time they fell off of the plane before anyone could get to them. Kira has her "seriously trying to hang on" face for this picture.
We are standing at the top of the zip line course. The view was amazing, but our excitement was at its peak thinking about seeing the valley while speeding across the cable.
Looking up the valley to the tower where we started (right side of picture), it sure was a beautiful ride.
This was the final zipline ending us at a "wateringhole" for a picnic lunch and some time swimming. Unfortunately, the swimming was limited because of high waters; it had rained for several days before our trip and it mad the water high, swift, and dangerous.
After flying all night, picking up the rental car, playing at the beach while waiting for our condo to be ready, and swimming in the condo pool, Kira was exhausted. She fell asleep smack in the middle of Morie and Christy's living room floor. (Our condo was not cleaned and ready for us to occupy it, so the Mahugh's opened their condo to us.)
The fun, smart, beautiful girl who is the reason for the party.
Patrick designed our ticket booth to collect the "ticket for admission" which was a golden invitations designed and produced by Patrick.
Devon, Tasha, and Kayla ready to help the kids decorate the 50-100 cookies that Devon and I made Thursday night until midnight.
Paul and Devon posed for a moment. I think that this was the only time during the party that they were not helping us to make this party so great. The bounce house (lent to us by Kira's friend Amanda) was a huge hit and a tiring factor since we loaded them up with sugar on the cookies and gave them cupcakes.
Boomer made an appearance to the joy of all the kids but a few who were frightened.
Morie painted the kids' faces using what we thought were these great face painting crayons. Lesson learned: face paints don't work as planned when in a cold environment.
Savanna, Mitchell, and Marcus are enjoying fishing (with fishing poles that Patrick made) for ducks in the duck pond.
River is throwing a beanbag (that Patrick made)at the toss board (that Patrick made.)
We all enjoyed the products of the grill as Scott cooked, and Lori gave him direction. 
Kira was opening her gifts and I am writing down what she got. Notice our very different attire here. It was an unusually cold June day. I could see my breath, and here you see Kira as the truly Alaskan girl in shorts and a short sleeved shirt. 
