Grandpa & Grandma Ryan

 Grandpa and Grandma came to visit for a couple of days.  The kids begged to be taken to Grandpa's park, Lincoln Park in west Seattle.  They have a super fun zip line, with a line of children waiting for their turn!  Sydney has her eyes shut as she is about to hit the stopper and go flinging all over the place.  You do need to hang on tight. 

 Down below the park is the sound.  The kids had fun throwing rocks into the water and a nice walk along the shore.  At the end of the path is an outdoor public pool that has sea water in it.  My dad remembers going swimming there when he was a kid, a long time ago!

 Another day we took them to see Snoqualmie Falls and to hike the trail down to the base of the waterfall... the path was closed!  Can you believe it?  They are doing some hydro-something updates until next year!  It sure was pretty though!

First Day of School 2011

 Taylor is a freshman and made the high school soccer team!

 Sydney is a sixth grader in middle school and loves it!

 Running for the bus.  My kids have trained the bus drivers to stop in front of our house!  How convienient!

 Bryant being Bryant, would not pose for me in front of the little tree in our front yard.  This is the best of what I got of him.  That is his teacher Ms. Wylie and his new friend Adam.  And this is what he looked like as I left the classroom!  Ha!  At least he let go of me.  On the second day of school, I told him mom's couldn't enter the classroom and he'd have to go in on his own, and he did!  What a big boy I have, no more baby!

Cousin Time II

 Baby boy P. who was born at 10 lbs.  Poor mommy!  Isn't he adorably chubby?  It was his birth, a baptism and family together in one place that brought us to Walla Walla.

 The girls came up with this: "Do you like waffles?  Yah, we like waffles.  Do you like pancakes?  Yah, we like pancakes.  Do you like french toast?  Yah, we like french toast.  Doot, Doota doot can't wait to get a mouthful!"  I think they found it on utube.  They would yell it as loud as they could!  Then they would laugh hysterically!  They thought they were so funny as you can tell!

 We had a "fire" to roast marshmallows in and birthday cake for Aunt K.

 My sister M. took us to their property.  It is beautiful!  They have only cleared the land and will build a cabin soon.  It was so quiet and peaceful, but deadly!  This is where I was stung by a bee.  Man, that hurt!  Read earlier post regarding the stung hand.

 While we were in town, the Sweets baseball team had a playoff game.  They lost 13-3, sad to watch, but the hometown showed up with pride!  Here is cousin T., cousin J. and Bryant waiting to get the pitcher to sign cousin T's baseball that another player had handed to him earlier. They waited so patiently while he talked to those guys. The team was comprised of community college players just getting some more play time before school started.  They even had groupies!  You should have seen the ladies and how they were dressed to kill.  Too funny as these guys won't likely make it to the MLB, since they are already playing at the community college level.  But hush, they obviously don't know that!  he he!  Go Walla Walla Sweets!

Cousin time

 Leave it to my kids to introduce younger cousins to UTube... sorry.

 We went to one of my favorite parks in Walla Walla, Pioneer Park.  After we ate our picnic some of the kids played soccer.  Bryant actually kicked his own eye!  How does one do that????  I don't know, but he did and boy did he cry for awhile!  Poor baby.  Rolling down the hill was so much fun, and they rolled and rolled for a long time! 

 Here is cousin E. getting plowed by cousin M... ouch!  He rolled right over her.

 Cousin L. kept wanting me to take his photo while he rolled down the hill, over and over again!

 Grandpa with all 15 grandkids, minus ten pound new baby cousin P, who was at home with his momma and Grandma.  I love my family! 

Stupid Bee!

I was in eastern Washington this past week and was stung by a bee on my left hand pinkie.  It hurt so bad, more than I ever thought it would for about two hours!  Then slowly my hand began to swell and itch!  I went to the doctor's office once my whole hand puffed up and he put me on steroids to help with the swelling.  My hand is finally back to normal four days later!  Good thing I took my ring off right away!

Ross Lake, Washington

Ross Lake is so beautiful!  You actually cross the Canadian boarder and head east then back south into Washington state.  The lake was clear and gorgeous, surrounded by these huge mountain peaks!    They are all looking at a waterfall in this photo.  There is a campground at the top of the lake, but we boated down the lake to our campsite.  Some people canoed to their sites, crazy!

Everyone caught fish!

Sydney in the boat bored or cold or tired...not sure which, but look at those eyes!  Below she is on the suspension bridge we hiked to, it was less than a mile from our site.  We checked out a lot of sites around the lake and decided we need a boat dock and found some with great swimming areas for next year.

This was at the edge of the lake and in the morning time it was swarming with these tiny black bugs that ate Syd and I up!  We didn't sit by the water after that.  This was our camp site looking towards the lake.  Notice the bear box in the center... we saw three black bears and had a deer come almost into our site, then heard some loud rustling while hiking (I didn't look to see what it was because I really didn't want to see a bear at all, and we just walked really fast then ran back to camp!).

There was wood everywhere and it was dry and perfect for firewood.  It was also the perfect bouncy toy for the kids!

Winthrop, Washington

Last week we met up with our friends to camp near Winthrop, Washington.  Winthrop, itself is a super cute little town.  Like an old western movie town, with the wooden boardwalk in front of the store fronts.  This was a waterfall that was a short hike from our camp site.

Taylor and her friend R. floated the Methow river with their fathers and even caught some fish.  They had a great time.  Todd only brought one pontoon boat and so Tay just sat on the back of his boat, which was just fine with her... he did all the work.

While the men were off fishing we found this really nice spot on the river where a smaller river joined the Methow.  We played in the smaller one where the girls made a pool and dunked themselves into the icy water.  I think Sydney and A. are about to go under and R. is already under the water.  CrAzY!!!

On our last day while the Dads were fishing, we took the kids to the lake.  The kids had fun playing in the water, sunning and playing in the dirt.  I later talked to a local guy and he said that this lake we went to was where all the tourists went, as it was near a campground.  Next time we'll be going to Patterson Lake, it is way cleaner and a natural lake.  The lake we went to was man made from a diverted creek, it was really dirty and I did not go in.