(Written before the weekend. More on this weekend's fun will soon follow and hopefully some pictures!)
I can't remember what last I told you about. We have been very busy with fun stuff.
On August 5th me and the girls parked the tent trailer at Debbie and George's house for "Camp Gramma". We spent the night and went to the Skagit Valley Fair the next day. It was a hot day and we don't get those very often. We saw a couple shows and, of course, the horses!
That weekend we went back down to Arlington for the actual "Festival of the River". Mike ran his run and we stayed for the festival. They had an activity for the kids where they had to go get educational information from the booths and when they finished the task, they earned a nice book each. Then there were a few concerts and an Indian pow wow.
One afternoon we went to a play put on for the summer library program. We rode our bikes, but while we were out Anika's trailer broke! We were just getting her to ride her bike with no training wheels, so now she'll have no choice. I'll miss the trailer, but I guess it is a sign of how our family is growing up.
On Tuesday August 11th I had to take Kelby in to have her teeth pulled. Since we had left the trailer at Grandma's house, we spent the night there the night before and I was able to leave Anika and Tegan there for the day. Kelby was nervous for the surgery this time. She was still brave when she walked away from me to go off to sleep. I wasn't expecting her recovery to be that bad since her previous surgerys had been fairly easy. This was a hard one. Since they were working in her mouth, the oxygen tube went down her nose and she woke up with a sore throat. She woke up in the middle of the night in pain. I had Tylenol with Codine to give her and that helped. We had to keep up on that for the next full day and she couldn't each much but soup and jello. Then her mouth had other sores for awhile where she had been knicked. She had stitches that started coming out, but once I cut them out for her she was fine.
That week we had to take the car in to get something fixed, so we were without the car for a day. We had hair appointments that day so we took the opportunity to take the bus around town. That was one of our goals for the summer! We rode the bus over and got our hair done (all very cute!) Then we rode the bus again farther into the Burlington Mall. We went ont to lunch and then Kelby got her ears pierced! She has been wanting to do it forever. She had the money, so I said ok. She's been doing a great job of taking care of them. Tears came to my eyes when it happened just because she seems so grown up. Luckily they had two ladies on duty so they did both ears at the same time. The girls played at the Children's Museum after that until we rode the bus home again. It was a great Mommy-Daughter day. Now I just need to take each big girl out for an evening next week for school clothes shopping.
On Saturday we packed up and went off camping again. This time we went to Leavenworth, WA. This is another of my favorite tourist towns. It was VERY hot there... over 100 degrees. Thankfully we found a campsite right by a beautiful creek. Mike even caught some fish in it and he was happy.
The next day we went in to Leavenworth and paid to tube the Wenatchee river through town. It was an absolute blast. We left our car at the exit and they bussed us and our tubes and life jackets up river. We kept cool and had a lot of fun. The girls were nervous at first, but after a while they were just enjoying it. We stopped and played along the way and ate snacks.
On Monday morning Kelby caught her very first fish ever! She's been trying so hard for so long. Then later that day we got to do a little shopping in Leavenworth in all it's great touristy shops. When the girls were done they went geocaching with Dad...which we did a lot of that weekend too. I think we did about 25 caches that weekend! The girls are now earning fifty cents for every cache they find on their own.
When we were closing up camp, Mike went to do one more cache that would have been too hard for the girls. He was gone a long time, but I hadn't started worrying about him yet when he got back, but I should have! He had run into a rattlesnake! It wasn't too feisty at least and he even got it's picture (of course). Then it started raining on him while he was climbing up and down steep rocks! He was nervous, but made it back safely.
When we were leaving our campsite we had yet another adventure. We had to go up a hill, but the van started spinning before we got up. We had to back up, but the trailer kind of jacked where we couldn't go any farther. We had to unhook it, roll it back down the hill a little, hook it back up to the van, go backward down the hill, then gun it to get it back up! It took a while, but it worked.
On Tuesday this week I spent the day moving furniture around the girl's rooms. Our friends gave us their daughter's old loft bed, so I put Tegan's bed in Anika's room. Kelby's bunkbed in Tegan's room and the loft bed up in Kelby's room. Of course we did some cleaning along the way so it was a major project! Kelby's new bed even has a desk under it. Their rooms all look very nice now.
Now it is Friday and we are on our way back to Leavenworth! This time we are meeting some friends and it isn't supposed to be too hot. We are hoping to get the same campsite. After this there will only be Labor Day weekend before school starts. I can't believe it...but I have to say, I'm ready! We can still do more camping, but we'll probably only do one night at a time and stay closer to home.
I have still found some time in there to do some work for church though I wish I could have done even more. I have even been reading a bunch too! The girls have been having friends over as much as possible when we are home. It is almost annoying because they can barely handle not having someone over. I've created little monsters! Well, they are good little monsters anyway.
On our bike ride!
