Washington D.C./Virginia/New York Part 1

Warning: Posts of vacation pictures to follow : )
We had a fantastic time going to visit the Parkers and taking in the sights on the East Coast. It was a wonderful experience for our family!Ready for take off!

We flew in to Virginia at midnight so as soon as we got a little rest and recovery, we headed into D.C. to get right to the sights. There was some sort of festival going on in the mall so it was fun to come right in and see all kinds of things going on.
We headed to the Museum of American History. Some of our favorites were Dorothy's shoes from the Wizard of Oz, the original flag that inspired The Star-Spangled Banner (no pics allowed), the History of War exhibit and of course, Kermit the Frog.


>Jared planned from the beginning to wear his Bomber garb and get his picture taken with the "Bomber shirt" for the Manhattan Project exhibit.
We toured the capitol building next. The rotunda was beautiful.
This was one of my favorite murals. Our guide told us the story of the artist depicting that Thomas Jefferson and John Adams weren't always friendly and this particular version of this famous painting has him stepping on his toe to illustrate that.
We then headed up to the top of the Washington Monument. The views were incredible.

They Clean Up Nicely

Just a couple of candids of the kids ready for church on a beautiful Sunday morning.

We sure love them!

Happy 9th Megan!

We had great weather for Megan's swimming party at Grandma and Grandpa's house. Lots of girls and sunshine made for a fun afternoon!
The next day Megan had even more excitement because the Fuhr family came to town for the weekend which meant a double birthday party for Megan and Jordan. She was excited for double the fun!
Bradley loves Uncle Kevin!
Each girl got to pick what they wanted for their birthday cake. Jordan picked pumpkin pie and Megan wanted mud pie.

Happy 9th and10th, Megan and Jordan!
(side note: hopefully this will be the last picture of our red brick colored walls we inherited when we moved in our home two years ago--color change after we get back from vacation!!)

We Love To Hike Badger Mountain!

School's Out!

Although I had three kids in three different schools this year Meg was the only one who was willing to let me shadow her a little on the last day of school. Amanda and Jared had plans the entire day, none of which included their mother coming along OR taking pictures. So, I started the morning with a last day of school bus stop party. Bradley and I took donuts to the bus stop.After school Megan had a few friends over to hit the waterslide.
Then, it was off to her softball tournament to end the season. They did well on Friday and had to play Saturday. The weather was FINALLY nice and we enjoyed watching them play.

Summer I am ready for you!

The Big Surprise

As we prepped for our trip to Waitts Lake this year the kids didn't think that the Parkers would be able to come all the way here from Virginia and miss school for a long weekend. Little did they know that my parents and grandparents started something that has been a tradition for about 30 years; it is so meaningful for our family to go each year and especially now that we've made so many fun memories with our children over the years. That alone couldn't keep the Parkers away but we did decide to try and pull off a little surprise. We didn't tell the kids they were coming and got them all up to Spokane a little earlier than usual this year. Part of my job prior to pulling off the surprise was to make sure we had an adequate amount of puppy chow on hand for the whole crew. We're up to six batches now--it's ridiculous!We had Lauren, Megan and Amanda meet up with us at Azteca while the Parkers hid behind their menus. The reaction was well worth all it took to get everyone up there a little early!! Poor girls were so shocked but happy, I promise!
We had fun at the White Elephant (our favorite store to stop at before the lake and also where they surprised Jared and Conner the next day).
We had so much fun together!
Enjoyed spending time with my aunt and uncle, my cousin and her kids.
Caught lots of fish!
Jared even finished up his fishing merit badge while we were there.
Nate paid the kids a dollar to run in the COLD lake and swim to the dock--they were an easy sell. The weather was unusually cold but not real rainy so we felt lucky to still be able to enjoy the outdoors.
Out came the water balloon launcher. Several hundred feet of awesomeness. I do think we scared some boaters but it was fun.
We played massive amounts of baseball.
We were so glad to have that weekend with my sister and her family. We love them and really enjoyed our time with them. Thanks for making the trip, guys!

Oh May Oh My!

There's a lot to love about the month of May! For starters, Jared hit his first "official" home run (over the fence as opposed to in the park)! Here's two terrible pictures of the team running out to celebrate him as he ran home but they are all this over-excited mom could shoot at the time. Forgive my terrible photography skills and just envision it being really cool! : )

Mother's Day was very fun. Nate did a great job of getting the kids up very early since we have 9:00 church and they always make a delicious breakfast in bed. I love the coupons, cards, pictures and hugs and kisses. It is nice to be spoiled and I am thankful that I am a mother to four wonderful kids.
Megan started fastpitch softball and loves it. I am happy about that! All this ball playing prompted me to "come out of retirement" and I got nudged into playing a little rec ball myself. It has been fun and the games are late Monday nights so not too much of an impact on the family.
Happy birthday to me! Having Mother's Day and my birthday the same week is pretty cool. I felt loved by family and friends who were great to give birthday wishes, take me to lunch, out to dessert and all kinds of fun stuff. Shhh! Don't tell anyone but next year is a big one!
Probably better than a home run is seeing the little league boys host the Challenger Games. This happens twice a season for the Majors teams where they get the opportunity to host a community game and they are paired with a disabled player. The boys are so great with them and they have a lot of fun.
This is Jared with Kyle, the person he worked with for the second Challenger game.
And I can't post without showing the latest Bradley antics. I had to get a mask put on Megan's batting helmet while out doing errands the other day. Bradley was so in love with the idea of wearing this helmet that he insisted on wearing it everywhere we went. I had to go to the post office of course.