Frankie

Jared has been at Boy Scout Camp all week. We have really missed him. In fact, Micah missed him so much that he created a substitute brother.

I'm not kidding. Meet Frankie.

To make the situation weirder, Micah convinced Adana that this big red water balloon is her new brother. She was missing her abi (big brother) A LOT, so she quickly transferred her affection to the balloon. (Dang, I'm going to go broke paying for the therapy for these kids some day.)

They even had Frankie sleep in Jared's bed (until I realized that Frankie seems to have a bed-wetting problem).

We can't wait for Jared to come home tomorrow!

Camping at Scenic Beach

The kids & I just got back from spending a couple days camping at a great local state park. Scenic Beach is a beautiful, forested, clean campground on Hood Canal. Since it was mid-week (when most dads are working - Thanks Dads!), we did a moms/kids camping trip. We had 7 moms camping overnight, and 3 more came to spend the day with us on Wednesday.

A lotta moms = a WHOLE LOTTA kids. (These are just a few that I caught playing a game of Kick the Can and I forced them to pose for a picture. We had at least twice this many.) Fortunately, the campground was virtually empty, so I don't think our boisterous group disturbed many people.

This is why I love my job! Supervising kids playing on a playground (or at the beach) is what I do best. :-) (Right Jessica!?)

But don't start thinking that I don't WORK at my job. I'm on the job 24-7, making sure my kids don't fall out of trees,

or drown in the ocean,

or get hypothermia,

or fall off cliffs.

And I've got to make sure they are standing IN FRONT of their friends before they throw rocks in the water.

I've also got to be adept at bandaging owies and giving lots of hugs & kisses.

Not to mention the stress of keeping kids out of the campfire, trying to get them to eat something healthy and monitoring how many marshmallows they eat so we don't have to deal with tummy aches all night. (Check out Adana. She was wiped out after a long day. The lights are on, but nobody's home.)

And at the end of the day, I have to gently get 4 dirty, sleeping kids tucked into their sleeping bags

so that the moms can enjoy a few minutes of peace (and the left-over s'mores) around the campfire. (Check out that awesome s'more! The secret: Keebler Fudge Stripe Cookies. Oh yeah! Those looked sooooo yummy. Sometimes it is almost criminal that I don't eat sugar anymore.)

Then, when we get home, I've got to clean out the car, wash all the laundry, scrub down the kids,

while they crash on the couch.

I LOVE my job! And I can't wait for our next camping trip!

July tomatoes

I won't be making home-grown salsa anytime soon, but the garden is coming along nicely. This is my first harvest of the season (well, not counting the 4 or 5 green tomatoes that Adana "harvested" for me a few weeks ago. Grrr . . .)

Off to Scout Camp

Here's Jared - 5:00a.m. - heading off to his first year at Boy Scout Camp.

He's so excited. And I'm excited for him. I know he'll have a blast.

But we sure do miss him already. Micah misses his best friend (seriously, he just doesn't know what to do with himself when Jared's not around.) And Adana is really missing her Abi.

5 more sleeps until he's home. In the meantime, I'm going to re-read this hilarious blog post by DeNae. She always manages to nail things perfectly.

Oh Say, Can You See . . .

There is nothing better than a small-town 4th of July.

Micah, Emma & Adana - walking up to the parade.


Watching the parade - white picket fence in the background - you can't get much more American than this! :-)

Micah skated with the Bainbridge Island Roller Hockey League. They looked HOT - and I'm not just talking about how bad they were sweating. These kids are awesome skaters!

You know you're watching a Bainbridge Island parade when these are the goodies that are thrown out to the crowd. I'm not sure what the plant starts are, but Adana made us hurry home to plant them with her marigolds. And a garlic bulb? Just what every kid wants! We also got reusable grocery totes, bottles of sun screen, and bars of soap. And, of course, about 10 pounds of candy.

While we were walking downtown, this group was in front of us. Adana pulled my head down to hers and whispered in my ear, "They're blubs!" That's her word for anyone who bugs her. I don't know why she was bugged, but I thought it was hilarious.

Micah really got in the spirit of the day. He used washable marker. He then proceeded to get in a major water gun fight with some of the cute girls in our neighborhood, so his flag was soon dripping down his face.

This picture is lousy, but it was the only one I was able to get before my battery died. The kids in our neighborhood do a parade every 4th of July. It's another great tradition that makes us love living here. (That's Micah leading the pack on his roller blades.)

After the neighborhood parade, we went over to a friend's house for a BBQ. I don't even like to think about how much soda my kids drank. Bleck. But I love this shot of Adana and her best little friend, Timmy.

The dads. Don't be fooled. These 3 may look benign, but they are trouble makers! And you should've seen them JUMP when a couple bottle rockets went bizerk and started flying around underneath their chairs later in the evening. :-)

There was a firework free-for-all in the cul-de-sac that evening. It was horrible. I hate unsupervised, uncontrolled fireworks. I think I developed an ulcer trying to keep Adana from getting blown up.

If I had may way, the only fireworks allowed would be smoke bombs, snakes, and sparklers. And maybe a couple of those parachute blasters for a bit of excitement.

Of course, even a sparkler can be dangerous when Adana gets ahold of it, as my friend Gayle discovered. She was so sweet to just sit on the curb all evening and light sparklers - one after the other - for Adana, to keep her out of the way of the bigger stuff.

We ended the day by walking down to Eagle Harbor to watch the HUGE fireworks display over the water. I didn't get any pictures of that, but here is a cute one of 3 of my sun-kissed, sweaty, tired kids as they waited for the show to begin.

I hope you all had a wonderful, safe Independence Day. And I hope you had the chance to stop and think about how very fortunate we are to live in this great nation. God bless America!

Fay Bainbridge

You might as well get used to these beach posts, 'cuz we plan on spending a heckuva lotta time at the beach this summer.

Today, Nathan actually got to go with us. It was great to just hang out at the beach as a family. I love that the kids are each other's best friends and play so well together.

This rare shot actually contains ALL 4 KIDS. Of course, I couldn't get all 4 kids looking up. Or smiling. Or even facing the same direction.

My Mount Rainier Warriors. Can you see the mountain (faintly) in the background? A boy's childhood can't get much better than this.

Here's proof that, yes, Nathan does get to hang out with us occassionally. Beach days are good for hard-working dads too.

My mighty warrior girl. She can do anything her big brothers can do.

I just love this shot. It shows what I'm talking about when I say THIS is the way kids should spend their summers. No TV, no video games . . . just stick them on a beach and let them go.

Old Man Beach

Yesterday, we met up with some friends at a great new beach. Well, the beach isn't new, but it was new to us. It's just off the island, an easy 15 minute drive from our house. It overlooks Agate Pass, so there isn't really any surf, which made it perfect for little 3-year olds to play in the water.

Biggest plus to this beach: it has bathrooms & a water spigot for after a day of getting buried in the sand. No more itchy butt on the car ride home! Yeah!


The weather was a perfect 80 degrees, with just the slightest breeze. I love feeling the contrast of the HOT, dry sand on top and the COOL, wet sand underneath.

Here are some of the big kids working on the never-ending project of restructuring the beach. I wish my house were like a beach. No matter how much they dig, no matter how many shells/dead crabs/clumps of seaweed they drag up there, no matter how many mountains/castles/bridges they build in an afternoon . . . the tide just comes in and washes the slate clean for the next day.

The "moms" kickin' back on the beach chairs. ♪♪One of these moms is not like the others . . . ♪♪ :-)

After a long day at the beach - having swallowed just a bit too much salt water & sand - ready for a bath and then a nap in a nice, dark room.