Summer Vacation - WACK 2007

We made it safely home from another great summer vacation with our fellow WACKers. You may be wondering why we call our summer vacation WACK. It was an acronym made up by my dear husband and stands for Water And Cooking with Kevin. Water because our vacations are always on the water and involve water sports. Cooking because we share the responsibilities of cooking all the meals and there is always plenty of food. Kevin is an imaginary character created mainly to make the acronym really cool but also so we would have someone to blame things on since we usually manage to have some minor mishap each year. The minor mishap for our family this year would be the stomach bug that hit Alaina the third day, Lila the last day, and Rylan as we made it back to Longview. (Thanks a lot Kevin). That minor mishap could not outweigh all the fun we had with our friends. Our week at a beautiful cabin in Donnelly, Idaho consisted of:

a nature hike and lots of bug catchingtime at the beach playing in the sand and splashing in the waterand relaxing at the cabin with friends.One thing that made this years WACK different from past years is that the kids now outnumber the adults. Everyone's having babies! It was great to meet all the newest additions to the families and watch them play together. It was a great week!

Random Shots

There isn't much point to this blog entry other than to share some cute pictures!

Let's go to the Beach!

We had a visit from John, Amy, and sweet cousin Grace this week. While they were here we took Uncle John out on the boat and pulled him around on the tube for awhile. He was a little sore the next day. The girls and Rylan and I hung out on the beach while the big boys played on the water. I really wanted to post a picture of John on the tube but both of the pictures I got were from pretty far away. So these pics of the beach bums will have to do!

Handmade with Love

My mom has started knitting again. She has been working on a sweater for Rylan for several months now. This last week she brought it up to us all completed. Its a beautiful soft blue and very warm and cozy. I had her make it large so Rylan can wear it for awhile. I remember my Grandma used to make me clothes when I was younger. It was always so special to wear them knowing my Grandma made them with love - just for me!

Garage - Phase 3

Had to post this pic of the garage at stage 3. The guys' goal was to get the building up with tar paper and they did it! Thank you Grandpa, Jim and Matt for all your help!

Garage - Phase 2

We have walls! Construction of the long awaited garage began on Saturday and here we are on Monday with 4 walls! Ryan, Jim (Ryan's brother-in-law) Dad Frank, and Matt (Ryan's nephew) have been laboring through the hot and now-a-little-cooler temperatures. This is what it looks like so far. Ryan's family is here with a group from their church to run a bible school program at our church. (Check out our church blog for some updates on that.) We are so thankful for their help both at our church home and our family's home!

Ahoy Mates!

Tuesday night we took our first boat ride of the summer. The temperature was in the mid nineties that day. After dinner we all piled into the boat and went out to the beach to cool off in the river. It was Rylan's first boat ride and he did very well. He could hardly move in his life jacket so he just sat there with his arms sticking out.