We went on a trip to Seattle the first week in August. We went camping at Greyland Beach State Park with our friends the LeDosquets and the Nielsons. Unfortunately, I don't think we have any pictures of camping. We had a great day in Seattle on August 4th on Gavin's birthday. We went up the Space Needle for the first time and found out that Rob, the Space Needle, and Me are all the same age! Our pictures are mostly from our day in Seattle. We also went to the Tacoma Museum of Glass and we had a great time at Lake Wilderness with the Roundy's and the Ballards!

Another of our adventures on a tank of gas was to Shoshone Falls. We also went to visit one of my roommates from college who lives near there. We had a picnic in the park and had a fun time.

On Mother's Day weekend, Jake and I stopped by Bear World because Mom's were half price! It was really neat. There are a lot of bears and even cute little cubs. I also found out that Jake is a lot better at using my camera than I am. He taught me how to zoom! He took most of these pictures.

This summer I read an article about having fun on a tank of gas so we decided to go a couple of places. The first place we went was to Craters of the Moon to see the wildflowers that grow in the spring. Mack, Terri, and Janet Smith went with us. We did have an issue with trying to find a picnic table at lunch time and had to eat in the car, but we had a great time and saw some cool flowers!

Trip to Vegas

We had some time to use in a time share trial, so we headed for Vegas for a four day weekend in January. Here are some of the pictures! This is at Hoover Dam. Gavin's girlfriend Kaylyn met us in Las Vegas, she is in the pictures with us at Hoover Dam.

Jacob's Salmon

Our home teacher took Jacob salmon fishing back in October. Here are the Salmon he caught!

Christmas in Idaho

We had a great time visiting family in Idaho. We thought it was really cold though!

Here are pictures of the family and Grandpa and Grandma Hamblin's house!

We went on a camping trip Monday through Wednesday. Monday we went to a camp at Sequim (pronounced withouth the e). It had a lodge and a big kitchen and cabins for each family. Gavin and his friend slept in the lodge. It was also along the Strait of Juan De Fuca. When the tide went out there were tons of starfish and crabs. It was very cool. The next day we ate at "The Three Crabs" on Dungenesse Spit. We headed for Salt Creek Recreation area which had a beautiful beach. The boys had fun skim boarding and playing in the sand. The water was very cold. It was fun to look at the tide pools there the next day too. We went on a hike on the way home in Olympia National Park we thought to see a waterfall, but there wasn't really one there.

Summertime

We are having a cold, wet week in August. We went on vacation to Idaho and forgot to take the camera. We are going to Sequim on Monday and will try to remember the camera then. Robbie is working for King County Elections and playing soccer. Jacob is bored! Gavin is gone all the time with his friends! We do have a ward salmon barbeque tonight! It looks like it might be cold and wet but we will brave the cold for salmon cooked on the grill!

Happy Anniversary

Well, I've had this blog for a couple of months and I guess I realize I have nothing much to say. My kids are older and don't really do cute things! My life is fairly boring it's mostly the same old thing over and over again. Jacob did ask me the other day what I want to be when I grow up. I says he wants to be a policeman because they have tazers and pepper spray. (He heard a policeman talk at cubscouts and he was really good.) Today is our anniversary! We have been married for 22 years! Rob is taking the day off and we are going to spend the day together and then go to Bellevue to a nice hotel tonight. We plan to go to the temple this afternoon which is also in Bellevue, it is not far from home, but it will still be fun! Robbie made the varsity soccer team. He has played one game so far. He almost scored the first goal of the season, but missed it by inches. He did receive the first yellow card of the season. I guess that is something to remember!

Robbie has been accepted to BYU-Hawaii for fall. He is very excited. We visited the campus while we were in Hawaii and he was very sure that was where he wanted to go. It is a long ways away but will be a great experience for him.

White Christmas

I am still trying to figure out exactly how to do this. Sorry for the sideways pictures. We returned to Seattle in time to see the snow left from they most snow they've had in ten years! The boys didn't miss much school because they had a late start every day and no school Thursday and Friday. There was no early morning seminary all week! The pictures are from playing in the snow on Christmas day.

Hawaii Continued

I remembered what we did on Wednesday. We went to the swap meet! We spent a long time there shopping and trying different fruits and things. The boys felt like they got great deals and spent all their money and found Christmas presents for everyone on their lists! Later we went to Waikiki beach and that is where we first tried snorkeling. We saw some angel fish. It was overcast so we went back to the pool and hottub. It rained while we were in the hottub and pool. That night we walked around shopping again and went and bought cookies from the guy who started Famous Amos cookies and then lost the naming rights somehow. His name is Wally Amos and we met him and bought cookies.

I somehow posted before I was ready. Anyway, on Friday we went snorkeling at Hanama Bay. This was a little scary for me. I am not a great swimmer. Robbie also didn't like it that much. He swallowed a lot of salt water. Gavin and Jacob were naturals. Jacob could float all day. I think the boys should have been grateful for all of those swimming lessons I made them take! We went from there back to Kailua or something like that and rented sea kayaks, something I have always wanted to do. I thought that was really fun! Gavin didn't like it very much. The kayak kept hitting him when he tried to go in the water. I think he didn't watch the video very closely. We decided to go out for a nice dinner that evening. We went to a fancy restaurant with an aquarium. The food was really good. We had a coupon but forgot to mention it so we ordered the chef's special which included soup or salad and a dessert, then the coupon was no good, so it was an expensive dinner but we enjoyed it. The soup was cream of asparagus with crab meat and it was delicious! Robbie thought the food was the best he'd ever tasted! He especially loved the salmon dip the served with the bread and his seafood fetuchinni. He saved a lot to eat another day since he has shrunk his stomach not eating to stay at weight for wrestling. It was fun.

Saturday we got to spend the day with my cousin and his family. We went snorkeling again at Shark's cove. We enjoyed this more than Hanama Bay. It was way less crowded and rocks instead of coral so you weren't afraid you would get cut. There was also a lot of shallow water for the kids to play in and build sand castles and Jacob had a friend to play with. We went to Matsimotos for shaved ice and then to the dole plantation to see how pineapples grow. We didn't do the tour. We went back to David's house for dinner and a movie. It was lots of fun. Every day I thought was the best day yet.

The next day we went to church. I loved the historic tabernacle in Honolulu. It is the most beautiful church building I have seen. I also loved that they had decorated the library for Christmas. We learned a little bit of the history of the building from a couple we talked to outside who are also from the Seattle area originally. It was dedicated in July of 1941. When Pearl Harbor was bombed, shells fell all over that area, but none hit the church grounds or building. They building is white with a beautiful rectangle of water in the front and a mosaic of Christ. The inside was also beautiful and had great acoustics. Wow, Hawaiins have beautiful voices! We were lucky to be there for their Christmas program. I thoroughly enjoyed it. We went from there to Pearl Harbor. That was also fascinating. I realized how much I don't know, I need to read a book about it. Then we hiked to a waterfall even though I had on high heeled sandels and Robbie and Gavin had on flip flops. It was the only way we could get the boys to hike, when they were captive in the car! I hike pretty well even in sandals! It was a really nice day. Like I said, every day was the best!

Monday we went back to the North Shore. Robbie wanted to check out BYU Hawaii once more and make his face known to the admissions director which he did. We also went to the temple visitors center where we got the great picture posted earlier. We then went to Waimai Bay after picking up my cousin's son so he could play with Jacob. Robbie and Gavin jumped off large rocks into the bay. There were decent waves so Jacob and Andrew had fun boogie boarding. We had to rush back to Waikiki because we had tickets to Cirque D'Hawaii. This was also a really great show. I thought it was amazing!

Tuesday we had to come back to Seattle and the snow that everyone had been dealing with.