It's my birthday!

WHAT AN AMAZING DAY!! I am so blessed! The day started off with a beautiful card from my each of my incredible children. Atira made me a picture frame that is so lovely. Scott had already bought me a GPS system, we picked it out the day before...it is so cool. Just before we headed out the door my sweet friend came zipping by to drop off a warm batch of cinnamon rolls, can you believe it???? Who does that? Good friends who are a gift from God, that's who. We drove off to Edmonds to go on the Meadowdale Beach Hike.  A most beautiful hike, gorgeous surroundings and when you reach the end of the trail it opens up to the beach. It is a like a special gift when you have arrived. While we went we had brought with us the coordinates for our first geocaching experience. SUCH FUN! This one was not super easy as you had to decipher some clues, do a little mathematics and then receive the next coordinates. It was great! We ended up making a mistake, but down at the beach we found the clue we needed and SUCCESS! We did it! We had the right coordinates, we headed back to the trail and searched for about 10 minutes and found our cache! WOWY! Jordan picked out a French coin from the box and Atira snagged a beautiful bookmark and a travel bug. We of course left some new trinkets for the next person to find. We signed the book and headed out! After a quick stop by Scott's work we were on our way home! Once home we started preparing for our evenings event, a sukkah party. We invited some friends to come and celebrate God's feast day and it was such an incredible joy! Several friends came, sang and danced with us, read scriptures and of course ate, ate, ate! We sat out by the fire pit reading the bible, discussing scripture and sharing with one another...my favorite times. The kids wore glow sticks, ran amuck and had a fabulous time! I am so thankful to have had such an incredible and memorable birthday.

Happy Camper moments

WE DID IT! We finally camped! And WE SURVIVED!!! (Or, I survived) Actually, I really enjoyed myself. We had a wonderful first night, we went on a long hike down and around the beach. It was an incredibly mild weather day, we actually got too warm! There was very little breeze, which did not help us with the kites we brought. We enjoyed our night by the fire, we played games, talked and just had a wonderful time. We woke up in the morning to birds singing and shortly after we were up our good friends and former pastor Carl and his wife Hank came and shared a bagel breakfast with us. What a joy! I tried my hand at cooking over an open fire and I found I could do it! We enjoyed a wonderful chicken dinner with fresh biscuits baked over the coleman camp stove. Breakfast was bagels with our friends and then a bit later we cooked some eggs and potatoes over the fire, another success! We saw an incredible sunset and so many beautiful views. I cannot wait to get back there someday!

A day at the locks

This here picture is evidence that I do go on adventures with my family - do you see it? Do you see my hand waving there in the shadow on Atira's pants? See, I am not just the family photographer, I am an active card carrying member! Now I have proof. (Ok, when I took this picture, Scott had not yet taken the above picture of me with the family, I was planning on using this for real drama....drat him, he foiled my plans.)

This has been an incredible week! Scott took the week off because it is the festival of Sukkot. We have had many incredible adventures, camping, hiking, spending time in our sukkah, and on this day we went to the Ballard Locks. Beautiful! The kids really enjoyed seeing how this works...too bad the salmon were done for the day. We didn't see a single one! It was still a wonderful time together. We ended this day having dinner at PF Changs. The kids loved it, and we knew we already did.

Sukkot 2009

WOO HOO! My favorite time of year! We built our sukkah, it is so pretty, and we have enjoyed some nice family time in there. We decided to be very adventurous and by a tent as well, so we put that up in the backyard next to our sukkah. Our first night of sukkot we slept in the tent (with a heater on) and enjoyed an evening by the fire. It was very memorable. I am so thankful Scott thought of putting the heater in though, it made the night quite pleasant.

Baseball moments

It was a fun night! We were invited out to a baseball game with our family! We enjoyed a fabulous view, and the nosebleed was FREE!!! :) Naw, really it was great. Good time with family, who could ask for more? Oh, me. I forgot we also had REAL kettle corn, OH YUM! And that was a perfect topper to a memorable evening.