Tree house update.

A couple weekends ago, Rod helped me put on the Trex decking, and then we put up the 4"x4" posts to hold up the cantilevered part of the roof. I picked up the post six months or so ago from the steel place down the street. They are stenciled with "Alaska Copper & Brass," pretty cool! I took a 1/2" router to them to round off the edges.

Tonight I put cedar siding up on the door-side of the tree house. One side to go!





Libby came out to visit when I finished.

In the car

Two Sundays ago, we took little Libby into see the doctor. She had a little ear infection and was super cranky. While Kricket and Libby were in the doc's office, Abby and I hung out in the car.

School pictures!

Abby and Libby recently had school pictures taken at their daycare. They did a great job. Here are the results.


Their class picture.

Abby the beautician!

I took Abby to get her hair trimmed on Saturday. Later that day, our friends Heather and Justin brought their girls, Emma and Carly over to play and have dinner. Abby decided that she and Emma needed to do a little beauty salon work of their own...with a tiny pair of scissor typically used for nose or ear hair. Here is what Abby's hair looked like when she finished.

In case you're wondering, Emma had bangs when she arrived at our house.

Luckily, since Abby wears her hair up most of the time, you can't really tell...usually. Emma wasn't so lucky.

I considered getting mad, but my mom reminded me that I only have bangs on half my forehead in my kindergarten school pictures due to my own beauty school endeavors.

Summer fun!

We had several days last week (ok, three, but it felt like more) where the temperature was in the mid to high 90s. So, we brought out the wading pool and set it up on the deck. Popsicles and wading pools...does it get better than that?!

The girls put so many toys in the pool that there was barely room for them.

Yum, blue popsicle.





We had to drag Libby out of the pool kicking and screaming for bedtime that night.

Camping at Big Eddy!

We love camping! We haven't been since last summer and couldn't wait to go this year. The girls love anything that involves lots of dirt and Bill loves anything that involves fire, so camping is a win/win for everyone...well, except maybe me, but I like being somewhere that forces me to slow down and relax. On Friday, July 2nd (my birthday), we loaded up the kids and the gear and headed out to the Big Eddy Campground in Columbia County. We hadn't been out there in a couple of years, due to it being flooded in 2008, but with some minor improvements, there was very little that had changed. Here is Bill getting everything set up.

One of the things that we love about Big Eddy is the playground that is a big hit with the kids and can keep them all entertained for hours. Libby spend a lot of time on the Rockin' Squirrel, just as Abby did when we camped there in 2007.

Daria playing tetherball. She's great at it and totally kicked my butt.

Elisa on the slide.

Abby on the slide. Despite the fact that it never got over 63 degrees the whole weekend, she and Elisa refused to wear warm clothing.

The Rockin' horse.

Libby climbing the slide. That child has no fear, which makes me very nervous sometimes.


Libby's big jump!


Yay, dirt!
It tastes good too.

Getting ready for the spaghetti feed, courtesy of the Waibel family. We had the great time with everyone. It was our first camping trip with the Waibels (Rod, Angela, and Zack) , the Shiachs (Mike, Keri, and Daniel), and the Wilsons (Chuck and Daria). We camp almost every year with the Gonzales family (Jen, Pat, Breanna, and Elisa) and Dave Carner and they all keep coming back for more! They are so brave! Kat and Eric Logue couldn't make it this year, because they just sold their house and had to get everything out of it (yay!), but they did bring Kiera and come up for the day on the 4th.



We all love spaghetti!


Uh oh, spaghetti-0's.

The Rockin' squirrel again.

Frisbie!



Whee!

Queen of the tree stump.

The best (and biggest) camp stove ever.

Making breakfast.

Zack, Libby, Daria, Elisa, and Abby.

Getting ready to go home.

This was so much fun! I can't wait to do it again.

4th of July camping trip

This is just the teaser, Kricket or I will get the full report posted up soon. We spent the weekend at the Big Eddy county park outside of Vernonia, OR.

We were last there in July of 2007. Without any further ado,here are some pics of Abby and Libby!

July 22, 2007, Abby on the rocking chipmunk:



July 4, 2010, Libby on the rocking chipmunk:


-Bill