August

A few highlights from August:

Visit from the Malans: My sister Jessica and her family came up to visit from Portland the first weekend in August. It was a fun few days with our 6 boys + baby Avery (Camille stayed at our house for a couple nights while Bryce was out of town). Jess came up with the boys on Thursday, and we went to the Museum of Flight since it was their free night. It ended up raining all day Friday so some of our plans didn’t work out, but the boys had fun playing together and we did make it over to Gas Works Park in the evening. Saturday, we headed over to Alki Beach in the morning, went to a park in Bellevue to watch the air show that was part of Seafair, then that night went down to Spaghetti Factory on the waterfront for Shane’s birthday dinner.

 

     

Projects with Dad

Exploring Parks – We tried to take advantage of the great weather and visit some of the many parks near our house (and some just a little farther). Here are some of the adventures we had: Lassen Lake, Marymoor Park, and Robinswood Park

 

 

Picking Blackberries – We found a random blackberry growth along a greenbelt just a little ways from our house and I ventured off with the boys to pick some one day. It started sprinkling…then raining…as soon as we left, but we still had fun and ended up with a decent amount of blackberries. I came home and washed them, only to discover tons of little tiny (1/4 inch long) white worms in them. Yuck!! I tried a couple internet suggestions but ended up throwing them out – so disappointing!! At least we had fun picking them. And I’m not sure how Ryan got blackberry juice all over his forehead…

  

Swimming – Our friends have a little “beach” in their community that’s on Lake Sammamish – the boys had fun playing in the water and sand one warm afternoon.

 

Gig Harbor – We drove down to Gig Harbor to buy a rug we’d found on Craigslist (my new best friend) and decided to make a (half) day of it and explore the town. It was a cute small town with fun little shops in the downtown area and a pretty harbor. We wandered through some of the stores, let the boys pick out candy at the candy store, and got lunch before heading home. One difference in the boys’ personalities was evident in the candy store: Ryan looked at a couple different ones, then quickly told us what he wanted. Bennett walked around the store looking at every kind of candy 3 different times, told us what he wanted, and changed his mind 5 different times. Not sure if Bennett is more discretionary because of his age, or if he has my indecisive personality.

Bennett took this one – I purposely didn’t make it too big because I look kind of dorky, but I was impressed he got us both in the shot

Sailboat Races and Picnic at Gasworks Park – we met up with several friends at Gasworks Park for a picnic watching the Tuesday night sailboat race – I think it was the last one for the summer. It was fun to get together with our friends from BYU and you couldn’t ask for a better view!

Annual Morris Family Coast Trip {July 17-20}

We spent a fabulous 3 days camping and playing at Harris Beach in Brookings. So fun to be all together as a family, although we definitely missed Nate & Bryce (who had to work in Seattle), and Dave, Liz, and baby Olivia (the latter was born the day we left my parents’ house for the coast). The kids all did a little circus like my mom does at her preschool and loved it. They were pretty cute. This is the only picture I seem to have…

 not sure why the clown is so serious…

 

We went down to watch the sunset the first night we were there – we didn’t plan to get in the water, but Ryan was soaking and sandy within about 5 minutes.

Every morning, the adults hid a bunch of pennies. After finding all the pennies, the kids could buy little treats and toys at “grandma’s store”. The kids also all brought their scooters, which kept them pretty entertained at the campsite.

     

Davis, Kallie & Bennett getting water in their buckets for the sandcastle’s moat

These 3 little boys are all within about a year of each other. Not sure what mischief they were up to…

Jake took all the kids on an “adventure”

On the right – Ryan taking a nap with grandma. You can see his little feet poking out.

 

And a few pics Stacey took for us:

   

The boys weren’t very cooperative to pose for a picture at sunset. The picture on the right shows a little bit what it felt like to be camping at the beach without Nate. They did pretty well, but there were a few clingy/needy moments.

All the cousins (except for baby Olivia)