Why I love Seattle in the summer.

Quest for the Best

On Saturday, Megan and her partner Chase participated in the Quest for the Best ballroom dance competition. They won 1st place in the newcomer division for Waltz and 2nd place for Cha-Cha. We are very proud of them. Here they are dancing their award-winning waltz.

Receiving their blue ribbons.

Boren Avenue

Have you ever wanted your own street?

This is ours. Right in downtown Seattle. Actually it was named for Carson Boren, one of the founders of Seattle. You can read about him here. He was originally from the midwest, Tennesse to be exact, but I don't know if we are related.

If you give a mouse a cookie. . .

. . . he's gonna make jam.

I'm convinced that mouse had ADD. Saturday we decided I should run Megan to Seattle for her dance competition, so Alex could finish installing a closet organizer in my bedroom closet. Apparently he had to run to Costco and noticed these lovely apricots and then decided he needed to make jam, so he cleaned the kitchen and yada yada. I'm not complaining about the jam. It is awesome. What I think is funny is that I was pretty sure he wouldn't have the closet organizer done, but I had no idea he would end up making jam. But you know, when you give Alex a mission, he's gonna wanna . . . . (Love ya, hun:))

Camping at Camp Nisqually

On Tuesday, Alex invited himself to our enrichment night. The theme was dutch oven cooking and being the avid cook, he just couldn't resist. He told everyone he was working security. (I think they might have bought it.) Anyway, of course after that, we had to dust off our dutch oven. Actually we had to grind all the rust off with a special drill bit and reseason it because we had neglected it far too long. We decided to test it out and invited two families from the ward to join us on our culinary adventure. Basically the whole purpose of the trip was to cook (and eat, of course.)


We decided on Camp Nisqually because it is close (only about half an hour away in good traffic) and the church owns it, so it is quiet. Also we got to sleep in these funky A-frames. Although the girls opted to sleep in a tent. You can see we rigged up some mosquito netting for our portion of the place. It worked pretty well--no bites. Wish I could say the air mattress worked as well.

The kids had a blast. They didn't appreciate our culinary inventions as much. They mostly ate hot dogs, s'mores and lots of junk food. By the time we got our cobblers, shepherd's pies, bacon, pancakes, breakfast casserole etc. etc. done, they weren't hungry anymore. Luckily a Samoan branch was having an Elder's Quorum camp out and were happy to take our leftovers off our hands. They also had the most beautiful singing voices. We, on the other hand, provided the service of being loud enough all night that they always knew where the camp was when they returned from the restroom. Always glad to be of service.

We also discovered a new place on this trip--Cabelas, outdoor store extraordinaire. They have a giant mountain in the middle of the store was tons of beautiful taxidermied animals and an aquarium underneath it. Plus the hugest supply of camping and hunting stuff you've ever seen. The best part was that no one looked twice at our obviously camping appearance when we showed up. We exercised restraint, but it could've been much worse.

Pioneer Park

After we exhausted our funds at the Go-kart place. (Which took about 1/2 hour), we bought the kids icee's (note the funky colored tongues) and let them run loose at Pioneer Park in Puyallup. As you can see in the last picture, the "kids" were all sizes.

The Need for Speed

Go Kart Racing
What Ultimate Boy Vacation would be complete without go-kart racing? The first go around Hunter passed, so Thomas got his seat. After watching the action, he decided he was up to the challenge. You can see him smiling in the driver's seat while Alex buckles him up. It didn't take 30 seconds for him to realize he wanted out. The last picture shows his reaction to the "extreme speed" of the track. (or maybe it was just Alex' driving. I have been known to have the same reaction at times. Love ya, hun.) Funny thing is that after he exited the vehicle, I asked him if he liked it and he said, "Yeh, that was fun."

The Museum of Flight

Mike and Alex took the kids to the Museum of Flight. They had a blast revisiting the Champlaign Fighter Museum, recently relocated from Falcon Field. Meanwhile Diana and I and the girls spent a leisurely afternoon reading, visiting the Pioneer Bookstore and Bakery and Pacific Fabrics and Crafts in Puyallup.