Cousins!!

Saturday, July 20

DH's brothers' families arrived on Saturday and the kids spent some time watching a movie together and eating outside on the deck!

MJ is 3!!

Friday, July 19

One problem with summer birthdays is that there is a good chance that we will be out of town for them...  This year we left for Washington right after Blondie's birthday which meant that we would be gone for MJ's birthday.  We just had a small family party for her at DH's parents' house.  She got some little My Little Pony figures which she absolutely loved (and still plays with them all the time) and she got a Pinkie Pie shirt which she also loved.  I'm not sure why we don't have any pictures of her opening her gifts, but apparently we don't...  Here are a few pictures of her with her cake and throughout the day.  (I can't believe my baby is 3!!)

MJ talk

MJ is quite the chatterbox lately. When she is in a good mood she will just talk and talk and talk - and about just about anything!

My favorite though is when she starts out a sentence with, "When I was a little girl...." or "When I was younger..."

Trip to Washington - Part 1

Wednesday, July 17 - Thursday, July 18

We took a drive up to Washington to visit DH's parents & family.  We stayed a couple of days with his parents and then met up with his siblings & their families for a couple of days in Mossyrock, WA where we had a reunion a couple of years ago.  So here is a brief overview of our trip:

Wednesday we made the all-day drive and arrived around dinner time.

Thursday we decided to drive back to the waterfall that we missed out on last year - the Upper Latourell Falls.  We drove to the starting point of the trail where the lower falls are and then hiked up to the upper falls.  It was a beautiful day with perfect weather!  Afterwards we drove to one of the other falls to eat a picnic lunch.  We then let the kids play for a little in the water at Horsetail Falls.

This is a picture of the Lower Latourell Falls.  The parking lot is down at the lower falls and then you have to hike a little over a mile up to get to the upper falls (it is about a 2 1/2 mile loop).

One of the only pictures with DH in it from this day...  We tried a couple of family shots but the sun always seemed to be in the wrong position and so we didn't end up keeping any of them.

MJ looking at a slug - it was huge...

I loved these huge leaves!  I took a picture with my hand in it for perspective.

The Upper Latourell Falls - the water falls down one direction, hits a rock and then falls down the rest of the way.  It was very pretty and peaceful up there - definitely one of the paths less traveled.

The lower half of the upper falls.

There was a little bit of a hill we could climb up to get closer to the falls.  Unfortunately it was very wet and quite slippery and by the time we got everyone up here MJ and Kay were both in tears because they had fallen and hurt themselves...

Playing in the water at Horsetail Falls.

Rock hopping

MJ was soaked by the time we headed back to the car so I ended up taking off her skirt before I put her in her car seat and she just rode back to the house in her diaper.

Then later that evening after dinner we walked to a park in the neighborhood and let the kids play for a little while there.  Even Grandma N got in on the fun!