July 1st - Friends time! Making cake pops, facials, bottles to throw in the lake, paddle boarding, rocks for the firepit.
July 2nd - Hosted a high school Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse movie, with popcorn and s'mores night.
July 3rd - Lowest tide day! Saw all sorts of sea creatures, gooey ducks, moon snails and even an octopus! Dada surprised us with the circus that evening.
July 4th - Kivi got 3rd place in the Steilacoom race! We all get dressed up for the parade. Pioneers, princesses, 2 Spidermen and a crazy Elvis with a fro. Dada cooks up the gooey ducks. Later the whole family comes for wake surfing, dinner and fireworks.
July 5th - More wake surfing and fun with uncles on cell phones. Dada bought the boys a circus tent!
July 6th - Family Olympics! Nonnie put the games together and was the referee. The Blue team won this year!
July 7-13 Jasper and Nathaniel didn't go to Black Lake Bible Camp and instead had their own camp at our house. Every day we did an activity, they did a job for me outside, decorated the basement where they slept, and they got to go to the camp store (Dollar Tree) and spend $5 each!
July 8th - Mini golf, Hike and rock climbing day!
July 9th - Sand for the firepit. Circus themed room decor, free Chickfilla, and Defy Tacoma.
July 10 - 11th - Dada's Birthday! He took Jasper, Nathaniel and I with him to a work conference in Poulsbo. The boys and I biked all over and down to the shops, where we did a Where's Waldo scavenger hunt, ate delicious pastries, found an awesome game shop, Battlegrounds Cafe, where we played all new games while eating pizza and Italian sodas, went to an aquarium and swam in the hot tub at the hotel. The boys played Minecraft and ate Taco Bell while we went out to dinner for Peter's birthday.
July 12th - Race Day at the Go Cart track.
July 13th - Jasper and Berg enter the Lego contest themed, "Circus" and Jasper got 2nd place and a huge Lego prize at the Fort Steilacoom Summerfest. That night the Kivi and I met Shari and Grace to see the hot air balloons there.
July 14th - Kivi's 14th Birthday!! We celebrated her by having tons of her friends join us for an amazing race, which was super hard at Fort Steilacoom. We had so many stations set up and only half the teams made it through 1/3 of them! It was hot! Eben's team won gift cards to the movies. We had snacks and drinks and all sorts of cream pies! That night we roasted s'more around our new firepit and all the kids practiced their swing dancing. Eben and Kivi have been going swing dancing with the Adams and friends from church.
Kivi, you are amazing! You are loving and you are loved. You basically run our family. You are responsible, knowledgable and well above your years. You love your friends and really love that you can be involved in high school youth group now even though you just finished your sophomore year. You are a fast runner. This will be your second year on the Lakes Team. You are into swing dancing right now, which is fun for Mama, too! You are still going strong on your Trek Bible memory work and Bible reading daily. You love to wakeboard and now wake surf with Dada too. You love your little brothers and including them in whatever you are doing. We love to watch you grow, Sweet Pea! We love to see you love others and follow your Jesus! Happy Star Birthday, 14 on the 14th!! We love you, Kivi!
July 15th - Kivi is one of only 200 who gets accepted to attend Mary Bridges Nurse Camp. That evening we go rafting down the Green River! I drop her off every morning at 8am at the hospital until the 19th.
July 16th - Middle School Lake Day at our house.
July 18th - Peter and Chris' birthday dinner at the Cliff House.
July 19th - building the firepit, steps and hauling more sand. Kivi's week of Nurse Camp is complete!
July 21st- July 23rd - Rainbow Falls Camp! Our own little family camp is so much fun with friends! The kids love setting up tents, hammock land, playing games, swimming in the falls, attack friend's faces with Sharpie night, community meals, hang competition, frisbrew, cornhole, stargazing, smashface and swing dancing night!
July 27th - Eben drives with Dada!
July 28th - Little boys in their favorite snack eating spot on the front swing overlooking the garden. Dada and Mama take Jasper, Opal and Berg on a special trip to Spokane through August 1st.
July 29th - Dada brought us along because he had to go to a work conference, but the AirBnB fit 5 people, so I took the kids for adventures during the day while Dada went to the conference. We brought our bikes and rode all around paths and bridges and waterfalls and parks. It was so beautiful! We ate breakfast at the same place every morning because their pastries were amazing! Then we'd bike around and play. This day we also biked to a Goodwill outlet and found Opal some shoes then found a frozen yogurt shop that had games we could play. Berg guessed the exact weight of his and got it for free. That night with Dada we went to Spaghetti Factory, rode on a scooter track and learned all about the Hydropower plant got "Turbine Energy"! We also got ice cream and listened to an orchestra play over the water while eating our take out dinner and watching fireworks. It was a full day!
Also July 28th - August 3 - Eben and Kivi serve at the Duckabush. Weeding, building, moving large rocks, lots of gardening, games, devotions, storytime, campfires, crafts and friends.
July 30th - Mama took the kids to the Mobius Kid's Museum, we ate from food trucks for lunch, fed the trash goat and Mama and Dada both took just Berg and rode our bikes along the Centennial Trail to Hello Sugar, a cute donut shop and played games.
July 31st - In the morning we biked the 15 minutes to Hello Sugar again, but this time with Opal and Jasper and bought two boxes of donuts. Opal had had enough of riding bikes by day three and because that was our only travel option she opted to stay in the condo and play Minecraft. I took the boys on the longest bike ride yet to see an abandoned mansion whose gardens were restored and then even further up some steep hills to one of my now favorite parks, Manito Park. I was in heaven. We ate lunch at a little outdoor cafe, strolled all along the gardens and kept finding nooks of living treasures! Rose gardens, perennial gardens, formal annual gardens, fountains, playgrounds, ponds. Love! Peter came at the end of his conference day to pick us up because we had biked for so long to get there! We showed him all around the gardens, played in the spray park and are ice cream in the park. For dinner, we found a fun sit on the floor Japanese restaurant.
