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These pictures are from a cheapy disposable camera, and you can tell! But at least we have something that recorded the trip

David has taken Tanner and Ashlyn on rafting trips in the past, and he decided this year was McKenzie’s turn. He talked me into going with them. I was scared crap-less… thanks to my dumb water fear. Everyone has that one fear, it seems. Spiders, Bridges, Heights, Fire, whatever… mine is WATER. And it sucks because my family is entirely made up of waterbugs. They love it. I gave in.. and decided I need to face my fear. I researched the rafting company we were using, Zoller’s (www.zooraft.com). I researched the river, The Klickitat. I spent lots of time on this LOL. From what I could tell, the chance of our raft flipping and me drowning were pretty slim. That was my main fear, falling out of the raft. About 5 minutes after we got started, I was 100% confident in our guide’s ability to keep us SAFE and IN THE BOAT, and I had a fantastic time. It was an all day adventure, included a yummy lunch about halfway through. We went with our friends, Mike & Angie and their daughter Lakyah.

My fear of water isn’t any different, but my fear of rafting has been faced and is quietly tucked away for now. McKenzie did great, she paddled like a champ and even though the water was COLD and we were constantly getting splashed, she didn’t complain at all.

I’m ready to go again, any time

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David and I took McKenzie and 3 of her friends to Long Beach for the day. Those girls are a trip! We visited the lighthouse, ate at Chico’s Pizza, rented beach bikes, went on the GoKarts, got goodies at the bakery, played at the arcade and visited some shops. We stopped by Cool Scoops on our drive home for dinner and ice cream. Very memorable birthday for Kenzie-girl, and we had a good time too

Coming out of hiding for a few minutes to post a Happy Birthday wish to my nephew Lane Happy 7th Birthday Lane! It’s been almost a full year since I’ve made my last post. That is sad!! I got a new computer earlier this year and lost all of my website editing software, so that was part of the problem. Figuring out how to still make posts, through a different program. Hard to teach an old cat new tricks But, I think I’ve got it!

Update from here… everyone is a year older… a little wiser… and a little busier… KT (our oldest) is getting ready to have her first baby, making David and I grandparents. Yipes. That’s hard to type still, but we are going to be the coolest grandparents on the planet, so once I realized that, it’s getting easier to come to grips with being a Grammy at 35 years old! She is due on the 8th and we are all excited to meet the little man. Everyone has their guess as to when he’s going to make his appearance. KT is doing great, no problems with her pregnancy and is excited to be a mommy. It’s a boy!! I’ll post pictures and more info when he’s born. Woohoo! Another generation being started. So hard to believe!

Will post more soon. I need to be better about posting, I feel terrible that I’ve let it go this long. Sorry family!

What a beautiful summery Saturday kind of day.
Perfect 78ish degrees…

We hit Farmer’s Market in Vancouver,
and the girls got shaved ice. Yum.

We then went to Barnes & Noble to turn in the girls Summer Reading Passports.

They each earned a free book. McKenzie picked out "39 Clues" from the list of options they provided. Our second copy LOL. Bailey picked "Puppy Place: Goldie". McKenzie had a $25 gift card to spend from her birthday. So, she also got "Fang". $17.99 for that book -ouch! Coming from the used bookstore/library shoppin’ mom. Especially when I get home and see it on Amazon for $10.79!! Blah to B&N! LOL. She’s been waiting for that book for awhile though, so to her — it was worth every penny!

Then we headed over to Toys R Us for Bailey to spend a $50 gift card she got for her birthday back in February. Took us long enough to get her there to use it - we are slackers! Bailey picked out a bike that was on sale for $49.99.

We bought it in Portland, so no sales tax, and she was so happy to put her Dora The Explorer 12″ bike to rest!! She went from 12″ to 18″. Hah! She’s a petite little thing, but had outgrown her old bike a good year ago. I was happy with her choice, because her other thought was a Club Penguin membership. Glad she bought something she can play with outside! I didn’t even have to put a bug in her ear about it either. Woot!

We stopped and visted Katelyn for a bit and then headed up to Longview (we traveled the SW Washington map today -ha!) We had a quick snack of Nachos while we were checking into some things there:

And, we FINALLY headed home so Bailey could spend some daylight hours with her new toy. She was asking to ride it at every stop in between.

Jeff Schroeder is back! Loved him on Big Brother 11 and last season’s Amazing Race. I hadn’t heard about this series Around The World For Free before, but apparently Jeff is taking over the 2nd season of it. It looks really good. It’s online only at cbs.com but definitely worth checking out. There are a few preview clips already up that you can watch. Jeff tweeted today that he leaves in a week to start the journey. I love his personality and am excited to see this thing play out for him!

Around the World For Free is a fully interactive online reality show. Jeff Schroeder attempts to travel around the world in 100 days … without a penny in his pocket. Where he’ll go and how he’ll get there have yet to be determined, but at least he won’t be alone. Fans can follow along on CBS.com every step of the way, offering tips, travel photos and even a helping hand. Sign up now for Around the World For Free updates.

I’ve been wanting to try this recipe for homemade play doh for awhile. Seems so easy and all the ingredients it calls for are things I always have available. The play doh tub has slowly dwindled the last year or so. Easy as pie to make my own. Also, non toxic and edible (though it wasn’t all that tasty, but neither is glue and kids seem to like that too LOL). At first I thought I was doing something wrong, but I stuck with it and it kind of turned into a big clump in the pan — pulled it off the burner and let it cool a second and kneaded it until it was EXACTLY like regular play doh. It’s actually a smoother consistency I think. The girls both gave it two thumbs up.

Here’s the recipe:

Easy Homemade Play Doh

1 c. Flour
1 c. Warm Water
2 tsp. Cream of Tartar
1 tsp. Vegetable Oil
1/8 c. Salt
Kool Aid Packet (for color)

Mix it all up, adding the kool aid last. Once it’s all mixed up together, throw it on the stovetop over medium heat. Keep stirring until it forms a glob in the bottom of the pan and is well blended. It becomes hard to stir at that point, takes about 3-5 minutes I’d say. It might look kind of clumpy at times, making you think you messed it up, but stick with it! It will be fine

Kenzie and I thought that the after product looked like a big piece of bubble gum

The girls decided to play “Chopped”
2 rounds of it. Easy for me.
I was the judge and could pick each of them as winners, making a tie.

Round 1:
Secret Ingredients:
Strawberries, Salmon, and Sour gummy bears.

Bailey’s first dish
(a salmon souffle with strawberry sauce and gummy bears)

McKenzie’s first dish:
(Salmon cakes in various shapes and a strawberry/sour gummies sauteed sauce)

Round 2: Desserts
Secret Ingredients: Watermelon, Bread, Cotton Candy (their choices)

Bailey’s Dish:
A cupcake with cotton candy and watermelon sauce.

McKenzie’s Dish
A fruit salad with bread pasta, and cotton candy cookies that say I <3 U Awh.

Good times my girlies. Check out Chopped on the Food Network if you haven’t seen it before. It is SO good!

The kids have been spending a lot of time lakeside so far this summer. They are becoming little fishies! Here are some pictures from our last trip on Sunday (The LaFaves joined us which was fun!)

We celebrated Lane’s 6th Birthday on Saturday at Plain Grandma’s house. He picked a Spongebob theme. Who doesn’t love Spongebob? He’s lucky to have such a talented mommy. She made a board with Spongebob on it that the kids were able to pin faces to, and then they cut a hole out to take pictures with their faces in. She served lunch (star shaped sandwiches and various salads) in sand pail buckets and made “crabby patties” out of cupcakes for dessert. Cute, cute.

My oldest two babies Katelyn and Tanner

Micah and Lane

Feed the animals!

Love this little girl’s freckles!!

Pin the face on Spongebob

Water balloon toss — quickly turned into a water balloon FIGHT!

Spongebob pics!

Picture of summer… picking Gramma’s berries in a swimsuit!

Such a cute pinata - getting ready to take a beating!

McKenzie trying to keep Airheads from Myndi

Little mini cupcakes cut in half and stuffed with frosting and a mint patty for the burger.

I bought Lane Star Wars boxers, he was trying to hide them LOL

Love this picture of my mom with Lane & Bailey:

McKenzie enjoying Katelyn’s kitty, Falston.
He was so playful and cute.

Bailey giving Shelby some love:

I could have held these cuties all day:

Bored? Get a quick entertainment fix by smashin’ some screaming beans. It gave Bailey and I chuckle Happy Friday ya’ll!

At first these may sound pretty nasty, but give it a few seconds and see if you warm up to the idea. Do you like dill pickles? I love them. If you don’t, just move on now — this post isn’t for you

If you do, I promise you will like pickle popsicles! I was browsing the web a few days ago and found the idea on a forum I was reading. Apparently, they have been mass marketed like a Mr. Freeze type of pop, but I have not seen them around here locally. No matter… I had what I needed to try my own at home.

Easy!

Okay. They aren’t the prettiest thing ever, but they don’t have to be.

They are actually a nice, refreshing sour type of treat. I think they’d be better if the juice was from a freshly squeezed pickle, but I’m just not sure how to go about pickle pressing??? This was good though! If you don’t like pickles… of course, don’t try it… but if you do, it’s quite interesting and fun to try!

How’s everyone enjoying our little heat wave?

It’s funny… I normally hate the hot weather. This year, I feel like there has been such a lack of sunshine that I was totally ready to go sweat to death outside! David and the kids went to Horseshoe Lake to play in the water yesterday. I had to work but met up with them later in the evening. The heat was refreshing! That seems so backwards for me. But, that’s what it felt like! Back to the A/C and being inside today though

Here’s some pictures I took yesterday of the kids. Can ya tell, they love the lake? I took quite a few of Bailey on her air mattress with the beachball. There was something about that scene that just made me smile. This was after her friend went home and she was just playing by herself. Somethin’ sweet about it!

We hit #15 on the Summer Bucket List — I didn’t get into the lake, but close enough!

Tanner developing his signature “Tan”

Bailey and her new little friend Cheyenne

McKenzie in all her glory

The pretty blue sky looking straight up from my chair

Who says girls don’t like to get dirty? Parker and Kenzie

Hah, these are the Bailey and air mattress pics… I will apologize now LOL

Carrie and Achmed

My handsome husband looks a little tuckered out