Erin's last week at home

Erin had 5 days at home to get ready to move to Utah. We had LOTS of shopping to do, Erin had a list of friends to see, and we had a list of fun things to do as a family. The beach was on the "must do" list, so we spent a beautiful day in Oceanside.

Rick helped make a sand pyramid

Bryant fell asleep like this (and he was surprised to have a sunburn behind his knees)

Parker and Emmett dug for sand crabs - and they filled a whole bucket with them

With Parker turning 12, we were able to go to the temple with our whole family. We even did family names that I had found through ancestry.com. It was a great experience!

The last morning Erin was home, we had a family breakfast with her favorite breakfast food, ebelskivers

We decided to take all of Erin's stuff with us now so that when we she comes home in August, we won't have to worry about it. We filled the entire back of the van with the back seats down. That's a LOT of stuff!

Erin was lucky to be able to meet her soon to be roommate, Sarah. She was visiting with her family and the girls spent an evening seeing what college life would be like.
Leaving Erin was NOT fun. We miss her at home and can't wait until she comes home. At least we know she's in a great place with lots of family friends if she needs any support.

Washington

The last leg of our vacation was spent in Vancouver, Washington with the Reids. While we were there, we stayed at my parents brand new house less than half a mile away. The only bummer was - they weren't there. We were still able to enjoy their house and all of us had beds to sleep in - so nice! This part of vacation was cut a bit short because of Erin finding out she had to be in Provo to start a job. So we had a few fun days before heading back home.

On July 4th, we went to the Harmony Ward pancake breakfast. They had a flag raising, patriot songs, yummy breakfast, and a bike parade. After breakfast, the men went shopping for REAL fireworks (because they're legal in Washington - yippee), and Tiffany and I went food shopping. Then we loaded up the families and went to see the movie Cars 2 - it was great! Rick especially loved the Bond theme and that Mater was the main character. In the evening, we had a backyard picnic with lots of great food and then went down the street to the neighbors house to share in all the cool fireworks. The kids loved being able to do big fireworks. We can't even light sparklers in our town!

The fireworks lasted for about an hour and a half and they outlasted Natalie. She put herself to bed.

We were lucky to be able to see all of Rick's cousins (all 2 of them) and his only aunt and uncle. They met up at a park on the Columbia River for a picnic. It was wonderful to see them again, even if it was a short visit.

On our last day in Washington, Dave took off early from work so that we could take the boat out one last time. The boys especially enjoyed seeing how many 360's they could do in a row. Parker did 9!

Rick took a turn driving the boat since he couldn't do anything else.

Boating at Lake Billy Chinook

I think my kids' favorite part of our vacation was while we were boating. The Reid's were wonderful hosts on their boat. They had all the life jackets and toys that we needed to have a great time on the water. We spent 3 days boating at Lake Billy Chinook where we knee boarded, the boys wake boarded, and did lots of tubing!

I took TONS of pictures, so here are the highlights:

It took Bryant 6 or 7 tries to get up on the wake board, but once he did, he was loving it!

Parker took a bit more time to master getting up on the wake board - but he never gave up!

Knee boarding allowed for more tricks and the boys certainly tried lots of them!

Tubing was so much fun! With 4 people on it at a time, everyone got plenty of turns.






Thank you Reid family for sharing your boat with our family!