Seattle Again

On Sunday I (Caren) took Meadow and Logan for a special trip to Seattle, and to pick up auntie Christy and bring her home with us! We had big plans to go up the Space needle and a few other things. When we arrived, we went for dinner to Chuck E Cheese's. Here the kids are riding a video roller coaster, and you can see their faces on the screen.

Unfortunately, the next day I woke up very sick, and spent the day vomiting. (I'm sure you all wanted to know that.) So Christy took the kids to playgrounds and other fun things that they wanted to see, but not the Space Needle. We flew home the next day when I was finally feeling better. The kids took turns sitting by Christy on the plane.

Logan found lots of coins on the trip, and saved them up so he could buy a gumball! So here they're showing their gumballs in front of our jet "Tinkerbell" who flew us home. When we touched down on the runway, Logan patted the wall and said, "Good job Tinkerbell!" I thought that was cute.

The model on the ferry across to town.

That's about all the pictures I took. It was a nice little trip anyway.

A very technological evening

Tonight we made good use of modern technology. We were on speaker-phone on our home phone with my dad, who was on skype with Katie and William with his phone on speaker-phone, and we had Christy on speaker-phone on my new iPhone, and we were texting each other from Matthew's iPhone to Katie's cell phone and Williams cell phone, and talking about it. Then Matthew took a picture with his phone and sent it to my dad's blackberry. Unfortunately he didn't receive the picture in time to show it to Katie on skype, which was our hope, so here's the picture. Also, he and Christy were both watching a Mariners baseball game, and "ohh-ing" and "aahh!!-ing" at things at the same time.

Does this make sense? I suppose we could have all just written each other a letter and sent it in the mail!

Our Trip

Well, I had hoped this next post would be pictures of Barrow and me swimming in the Arctic Ocean, but alas, our flight to Fairbanks was full so we could not get on. We almost made it but the last 3 people booked on the flight came running to the gate at the last minute. It was a disappointment, but we decided to spend some time in Seattle instead. So, we took the new Light Rail to downtown Seattle. We shopped at Old Navy and Nike, then walked down to Pikes Place Market, which we didn't like much. Then we found the "gum wall". It's a wall along an alley that is covered with chewed gum! We weren't chewing any gum at the time, so we didn't add to it. Isn't it lovely? We decided we'd better not take the kids to see it because Brennen would surely pick some off and chew it!

Then we walked all the way to House of Hong in Chinatown, were we met up with Christy and her man Chris, and our friends Trista and John, for a huge, delicious dinner.We overnighted at Christy's, then returned home today. It was a nice little trip, kid free, but I missed the kids. I think Seattle is more fun with them. We will try for Barrow again at the end of the month hopefully!

4th of July

We had a fun day beginning with breakfast and an early service at church, then the parade and festivities in town! It was supposed to be really rainy today, but the sun came out instead!

Ashlen loved watching the parade.
The main highlight for the kids was all the candy they got from the parade, and afterward they had their first cotton candy too.
By the time we arrived at my parents house to spend the afternoon, they looked like this:

Sugar low, I guess!

Another special event happened today, Meadow lost her first tooth! (we think she must have swallowed it.) She was quite excited about it! This is a flag 'fruit pizza' we made.

After a nice dinner cooked by Matthew and fun visiting with friends, we went to see the fireworks. Logan only lasted a few minutes. This is on the drive home. Everyone fell asleep. (all the kids, that is!)
In the morning, Matthew and I are going to try to fly up to Barrow!!!!!!! I hope to finally swim in the Arctic ocean, and see the midnight sun! It will depend on space on the plane. One of the segments is full. We're just hoping a couple people don't show up for the flight so there's room for us, since we fly stand-by for freeeeee!

Old Yellercopter

Today we got to get up close to Grandpa John's big yellow helicopter. Well, the one he's using for the summer for Forest Service work. Brennen was happy that his Crocs matched it.

They even got to sit inside!

Ashlen enjoyed it too! Then away it went, off to Juneau for the weekend. Even from way back here the wind was strong, as you can see from Meadow's face!