Lake Chelan

I just got home from one of the best most relaxing vacations ever! Our generous friends Ryan and Rachel invited us, along with our friends Ty and Emily, to their family's lake house at Lake Chelan in Washington. No kids allowed! Our trip began with a thirteen and a half hour drive, getting us to our destination at about 2:00 a.m.

We were up at around 7:00 the next morning to give wake boarding a try, something that was new to both me and Andy, and we were successful our first trip out!

After that, our vacation becomes a blur of wake boarding, jet skiing, leisurely boat rides, relaxing on a raft, relaxing on the dock, relaxing on the lounge chair, you get the picture. Half way through our vacation Ryan's dad Rod and his wife Cindy came to stay with us. They definitely have perfected the roll of host and hostess and showed us a great time. One of my favorite moments was when Cindy came into the house with a case of Dr. Pepper under each arm and shouted out "Mormon beer run!". We were also provided with enough snacks to feed a small army. Another highlight was some amazing mini cupcakes we were introduced to. If you are ever in Chelan, make sure you go to Blenderz and order some (the strawberry and butterscotch were my favorites). About 70 cupcakes in a 48 hour period isn't horrible is it?

On our last day we competed in a triathlon we had been concocting the entire trip. Couples competed together and the loser had to take a late night swim in the cold water. Event one was a raft ride, using oars, around the far out buoy. Event two was a swim, with life jackets being used more like a diaper, around the close buoy followed by a hand-held run around the house, and then back around the buoy again. And the final event was to pull your partner in a raft, and let them pull you back. Needless to say, we were all regretting our event choices about half way through. Our muscles, already sore from wake boarding, almost couldn't get us through.

Unfortunately, Andy and I took second place, losing to Ty and Emily, however we are contesting Ty's entry onto his raft. If we would have been smart enough to award the winner a prize we probably would have put up more of a stink. Ryan and Rachel enjoyed the late night swim. We had such an amazing time and before we knew it, Sunday had come and it was time to go home. It was for sure worth the long drive and we are already plotting our trip for next year.

Emily*Ty*Rachel*Ryan*Andy*Gina

Thank you so much Rod and Cindy for allowing us to take over your beautiful vacation home!

Goodbye Lake Chelan, hope to see you soon!

the ups and downs of parenting

So, I had a really great parenting moment a couple days ago. Hopefully I don't get too graphic here, but I heard Dylan (now 18 months old) say "poop" from the other room. So I in turn said, "you have to poop?" and he said "yeah" and started walking towards the bathroom. I took him inside, sat him on the potty and told him to go for it. After a few seconds he said all done, but had actually done nothing. So, I showed him the empty potty and said that he wasn't done yet. I then asked if he wanted a book, and he did, so I got him some stimulating reading material. After about thirty seconds of pointing out apples, and keys, and TV's in his favorite book he actually pooped in the potty! I was so excited and made a big deal about it and even gave him a "cockily" (aka chocolate treat). So that was my parenting up. The down came about thirty minutes later when I left him alone with a bowl of oatmeal for about 5 minutes. This is what I came back into the kitchen to find.

You win some you lose some!

first day of school

It finally happened, that dreaded first day of first grade. Luckily, this day was only dreaded by me, not by Ethan. I had a lot of anxiety about Ethan being gone the whole day, and even got a little teary about it on a couple of occasions, so I was a little worried about how I was going to react on the actual day. I was in charge of carpool that week so I decided to let the boys ride their scooters to school while I ran with Hallie and Dylan in the stroller. Those boys are fast on those scooters and by the time we got to school I was hot and sweaty. There was a lot of commotion with all the first graders and their parents trying to figure out which line their child was supposed to stand in and before I knew it Mrs. Knowles came and led Ethan's class into the school. I didn't even have time to feel sad right then, although it hit me a little on the long walk back home. It was a long day so I baked cookies for his arrival home. I expected Ethan to have really missed me but when I picked up the car pool the first thing he did was ask if he could play with friends, and he didn't even want a cookie. I guess it was a much longer day for me than for him!

Ethan * Marshall * Easton