little house on the westside

Mariner's game

Since Chad took Abby to see Thomas, I took Jamie to see a Mariner's game. We had some pretty good seats on the first level. I tried to take him to the playground, but he wanted to go back to our seats. Jamie was much more interested in the game this time, he kept asking questions about the rules and how they play and what the score was. Unfortunately, the Mariner's lost (6-1) and by the end of it, Jamie was rooting for the White Sox :)

Dancing during the 7th inning stretch:

Day out with Thomas

This year, Chad decided to take just Abby to the Day out with Thomas event. Last year we all went but Jamie is beginning to think that Thomas is "stupid" and not nearly as cool as superheros. So Abby and daddy got to have a great date going out to eat first, then going to the event and riding Thomas the train. Chad said Abby insisted that they also go to the gift shop and get a souvenir (typical girl wants to go shopping - LOL!). She picked out a photo album and when she got home we printed a bunch of pictures for her and now she has her own Thomas scrapbook!

3rd and 4th of July

New cousins!

We started out with our annual family BBQ with Chad's family. Megan hosted it this year at her house and Selvis did a great job cooking! The kids loved cupcakes I made for dessert:

Next we headed to the boat to watch the fireworks on Liberty Bay. Since my parents boat is no longer moored at Poulsbo, we watched from a spot we picked out in the southern part of the bay. We anchored and spent the night there on the boat.

On the 4th of July we went to my parents house for a lakeside picnic. It wasn't all that warm but the kids still had fun swimming and playing with the fireworks that evening.

the lovely VioletAnn:

Houston mini train

Outside of the Houston zoo there is an awesome park with a mini-train running through it. The train actually takes 20 minutes to do a full loop and stops 2 or 3 times along the way. After we ate lunch at the slider's place, I took the 3 older kiddos to go on the train. They all sat on the same bench and had a great time, it was really cute!

the rest of Houston

The kids loved to play outside, especially in the evening when it wasn't quite so hot. Jamie and Abby both thought Sydney's little playground was super cool.

One night, Jason set up the pools and the slip-n-slide for the pool party that Carrie was having the next day for her playgroup. The kids had a blast filling up the pool and playing in it. They loved going down the slide or just jumping from the top of the slide into the pool. They also had a fun time trying out the slip-n-slide, but since all of Houston is pretty much flat (or all of Texas for that matter), there was no hill to put the slip-n-slide on. However, the next day when it was 100 degrees, the slip-n-slide was the most refreshing since it had water coming out the hose while the other pools had already warmed up since the night before! I remember just standing at the end of the slide with my feet in the sprinkler!