Yay, I think it works

A few shots of our summer party. The girls had a great time creating a "stash" behind our garden. What, you ask, was in the stash? Oh, just ALL the boys' nerf bullets, guns, and any and all balls they could find.

happy 100th to our house and happy back to school

Keeping Up

Until I can figure out how to attach photos(this has happened by luck a few times, but never consistently), I need to at least use prose to record our last days of summer and first days of school.

We had a great end of summer with a Back-to-School/100th birthday party for our house. It was also an excuse to show off our new kitchen. Over 25 adults and almost 25 kids ran around our yard, hung out by the fire, and had a great time living up those last moments of freedom.

While the boys were gearing up for their first day of school(meet and greets, etc), Brian and I also had to get ready for our own classes. He has a little more on his plate than I do. Although, we did have a fun surprise in that the 3 year old class was moved to the parsonage next to the church, so I hauled my fair share of furniture and boxes. Brian is assistant principal at Little Mountain Elementary this year, which, after three days, he is loving. Says he's learning exponentially daily.

Logan is back in the Challenge class with Professor Heffelfinger and Michael has Mrs. Wahlgren(who Logan had and we love). While Michael did tell me he had butterflies on the walk up to school the first day, there were no tears.... at least on the boys' part. I confess I was a bit blurry eyed on my way down the hill after the goodbye.

And my first day with the little bunnies was as predictable as ever. One screamer and the rest were just into playing and having fun. All in all, a great first week of school for all four of the king-hanrahans. And hopefully, there will be photos to prove it soon.

cousin games

Fourth of July this year was cool. As in "wear your fleece" cool. But we had Ed's family and Oma and Opa here, so we had fun depsite the un-July weather. We even got the courage up to light fireworks in the church parking lot across from our house(we never do this because it's illegal in town, but everyone else does, so we thought, why not?) Well, when the officer pulled up to kindly tell us it was a $170 fine, he couldn't really cite us as sounds of cracks and pops sung all around us. We politely told him we'd clean up, and he drove away to bust some real lawbreakers. Very exciting for this ho-hum family.

After and Before

The snowboarding pic is from last week when we went up to Mt. Baker(I'll post more pics when I get a chance). The new one is from yesterday after Logan's haircut. It was his idea, and half the town is in mourning, including his mother. But it was really bugging him having hair in his eyes. We're proud of him for doing what he wanted despite the entire neighborhood telling him to keep it long.

On our way to Whistle Lake one day.

We rode our bikes to Guemes Island for beach fun and dinner on our anniversary(11 years). Had a great meal at Anderson's and a super fun time skipping rocks through the channel. You can see Anacortes in the background.

Oh my... it's August, school's almost here, and I have just avoided this blog. Mostly because my computer is so slow I dread trying to download pictures. So, here are a few to keep things updated... which is much different from "upgraded"; hey, I have boys, so I know all about upgrades. My living room floor is covered with individual Lego pieces that simply cannot be put away because they are upgrades.

Camping at Lake Wenatchee

It is July now. The month of June was cold, cloudy and cold.. and cloudy. We did have two or three days of sun, but mostly, cold and cloudy. We had to find warmth. We headed east of the mountains where everyone from Western Washington goes to find sun. Armed with sunscreen and bug spray we filled our van with all the camping accoutrements possible and drove to Lake Wenatchee. And not two seconds after pitching our tent, we all ran down to the lake to get wet and bask in that elusive fireball in the sky.
Day 2: windy. This, to those who are crawling out from a rock, lowers any temperature, even if it is sunny out. So, we drove across a mountain pass to rid ourselves of fleece only to put the layers back on to protect ourselves from the elements. No, it did not rain. And, for the most part, the sun shone brightly and happily. But it was teasing us as its laughter created the highest winds imaginable. In fact, it was very similar to the Gorge at Hood River... you know, the world's wind-surfing capital.
Don't fret. We had a fantastic time, watching the waves, playing on drift wood, playing Battleship in the tent with flashlights, riding bikes, and warming ourselves by the fire(we did this a lot).