Photos: Brownies and Halo

Mali makes brownies to sell at tomorrow's garage sale. Andrew and his posse play Halo.

Kirk Picnic

We had a great time at the Kirk Picnic!
Here's some photos.

Mali holding her youngest cousin, Cooper:


Andrew and Mali with their famous cousins:


Grandma Lil:

Kirk Picnic - Susan's photos

Here are a few of Susan's photos from Sunday's Kirk Picnic in Bremerton on Oyster Bay.

Mali at Horse Camp

Here's Mali at Canyonview on her horse, Justice. Susy took this when she and Nancy picked the kids up from camp on the last day.

Vacation!

Okay, I've been away awhile, and my two loyal readers have missed me - Hi Irene and Melissa!
Vacation is good: Andrew and I each caught a fish at Sekiu. Mali had a good time with Grandma Sue, and Tuesday she went with Grandma to Denny and Wendy's and met up with Mary and Ashley to babysit Conner, Cooper, and Alex.
Last night we went to the Mariner game and watched them beat the Red Sox 6 - 0 in an exciting game.
Mali and I tried going up the creek in the kayaks as the tide came out and that didn't work too well. The next day we went earlier so we could put in upstream and we pretty much coasted in to Grandpa's dock. This morning Dad and I kayaked to Glen Cove, and tonight Andrew and I went all the way upstream at high tide to the fish ladder at the salmon hatchery. Here's an interesting article on kayaking around Carn Inlet and Henderson Bay, (where we are,) including a trip to Cutts Island, known as Deadman Island to the kids (and others).

CanyonView Horse Camp

Hannah takes my picture while I'm dropping Mali off at camp in Silverton Monday morning:

Here's Mali, Zoë, and Natalie posing with their assistant counseler. You can just make out a horse in the barn behind them. The assistant counseler is in high school, the other one is college-age. There's two counselers and 8 campers in each cabin. The cabins here are actually all inside a large building, surrounding a large room that serves as the cafeteria, living room, meeting place. For more photos, click on the one below.

I'm leaving now for 9 days in Washington: one day of work, and then a week of vacation. WooHoo! The kids are taking the train up on Saturday to meet me.

Championship Swim Meet

We left for the swim meet at 7:00, and returned at 3:30 after a stop for ice cream. It was a long day, and we're very proud of our kids. First, they remembered their swimsuits! (Poor Natalie...) Then, Andrew won his 100m backstroke AND the 50m Butterfly. Mali swam the 100m IM, which was very impressive. Here's a photo of her poised to start her 50m freestyle. She won her heat, and took 4th overall!

Andrew and Kyle, waiting in the bullpen for the start of the medley relay.

Saturday without soccer

Mali and I went to the driving range (golf) before Susy or Andrew woke up. Afterwards we stopped at the library, and discoverd the Beaverton Farmer's Market, where Mali got some lemonade and a cookie and we sampled lots of goodies. I came home with peaches - I should have bought more!
Andrew had Kyle over all day. I played some games with them (Halo, Risk, Settlers) between various yardwork tasks. I finally flattened the mole mounds and mowed the backyard. New mole mounds appeared even before evening!
Susy took Mali to buy horse stuff (boots, helmet) to prepare for camp next week - our little baby is going away!!!!
Then we ditched the kids and went to Alana's for dinner and to listen to a spiel for some new bakeware made from a flexible fiberglass and silicon mix. We bought a few items.

I am up in the middle of the night, now waiting for my allergy medicine to start working. Late night surfing led me to discover two-year-old photo's of my children in a strange foreign FotoLog. Here's another, at Zoë's house.
We miss Maiara!

Soccer tournament over at last

We are finally done with soccer! Well, CQT's at least. Andrew's and Mali's teams will each be playing in the lowest Classic leagues, which will probably be the most fun for them. Andrew's last game was the Poi Dog's best - a 2-1 loss, with Matias scoring our only goal, and almost getting a second with a crazy drifting shot that banged off the upper left corner of the goal.
Mali's team needed to win by two goals to make next weekend's tournament for a spot in the Premier league, but they only won by one. Instead she will be swimming on Sunday at the Championship meet.
In other news, both kids read a TON, since there was some travelling, and down time when they weren't playing. Mali read From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, and Andrew finished a couple of books, including The Lightning Thief. I was too busy driving to read much.

Here's a photo from Sunday, at home after the last soccer game. More photos from Pacific Beach on the other side.

Soccer!

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We are back from a great time at Pacific Beach with all the kid's NorthWest cousins, uncles, aunts, and grandparents. The weather was surprisingly great, and the water was not ridiculously cold.
Here's a photo of Conner. Click it to go to Flickr and see the rest of them.