4th of July

Jeff, his brother, brother-in-law, Dad and cousin all went golfing 18 holes on the 4th. I headed to Blaine with my mom, steve, and brother Jared and his family. We heard there was going to be a parade. I was assuming it would be a tiny parade that lasted about 3 minutes, but there were sooooo many people there! We had to walk for I swear like 2 miles before we could find a place we could shove ourselves in to sit. I realized it was the first parade I had brought my girls to. They seemed to enjoy themselves, especially since they threw out candy:) 

Grandma Sylvia and Cheyenne

 Berkeley and I and you can see Rachel and Nathaniel beside us:

 The whole family (besides that kid in the angry birds shirt, he is not from our group):

 Berkeley had like 3 suckers I think:

 After the parade, we went swimming in my mom's pool. It was fun for the girls, my mom and brother. Rachel and I got in our swimsuits and sunbathed, while Steve worked on the pool as usual.

 I LOVE this picture of Cheyenne and Aubrielle. Like, I want to frame it.

 Jeff's parents threw this awesome 4th of July BBQ as usual! It was so fun! Their neighbors literally spend thousands and thousands of dollars on fireworks so I'm not even kidding when I say it was as good as any city's fireworks I've ever seen. And they lasted like 2 hours, by the end it was almost annoying how many there were! They were pretty sweet though. 

The slide was a big hit: Berkeley, Nathaniel and Aubrielle

 Jeff and Jared (my brother) playing the Slesk frisbee game:

 Jeff and Berks:

 Jeff (& Berks) with his adorable grandparents, Janet and Bill:

 It was so much fun and I love being in Washington for the 4th of July!!

The next day Madesyn was giving Cheyenne and Berkeley rides on the lawn mower... they LOVED it!! Cheyenne asked me if Daddy could buy us a bigger lawn so Madesyn could drive her around on it. So funny!

Bennum Cousins!

Cheyenne was in heaven the entire trip getting love from her grandparents and getting to play with all of her COUSINS!! She is so blessed to have so many GIRL cousins too! She just adores all of her cousins:)

Sleepover at Grandma Connie's and Grandpa Frank's!

Haley (8) and Hannah (5 or 6?)

 Berkeley fell asleep and Haley was just holding her like this, it was so sweet!

 LUKE! Funniest kid ever.

 Jeff with his brother, Bobby and cousin Tyler:

 Kyla, Cheyenne and Berks

 Ice cream party!! 

L to R: Haley, Madesyn, Luke, Berkeley, Kyla, Cheyenne, Hannah

 Jeff played the dark game with the girls and Cheyenne got so scared she was crying. She had to help Jeff be the monster. Her face was so serious and intense when she was trying to be the monster, it was the funniest thing ever. I never could capture a good picture of it though. Anyway, here are all the scary monsters!!

 Jeff got a lot of flack from his dad about his unkempt long hair... he was trying to grow it out to see how long it could get. He cut it right after we got home.

 Grandma Connie in the background:)

Kyla, Cheyenne, Madison and Berkeley watching tv

While we were there we also got to go to Madison's 12th? Birthday party I think (or maybe it was 13, I can't remember)... anyway, it was fun and I'm glad we got to be there for her special day. 

High School Reunion

So, the reason I went home in June like I did, was to go to my 10 year high school reunion. Note to self: never come before the 4th of July again, way too cold... future trips: July-September! Anyway, I was really excited to go to my reunion to see everyone again. I loved high school and I haven't seen barely anyone since I graduated, so I was so excited to see everyone again and I guess I just thought it would be like old times! Usually when I meet up with friends I haven't seen in a long time, it feels like you just saw the person yesterday. Like when I met up with Christine a few days before the reunion, that is what it was like. Our reunion was a potluck at a park on a rainy day. It was at 2 pm and you were supposed to bring your kids. Well, most people aren't married or don't have kids yet, so there weren't many kids there, but if I could use one word to describe the whole thing for me it would be awkward. Everyone was nice and I didn't feel like anyone was trying to impress anyone or anything like that, but after the initial excitement of seeing someone you were excited to see, I just felt like the conversations felt so forced. Or, you would be talking to someone and someone new would come in and be excited to see you and or the other person and your conversation would be interrupted... it was just awkward. Jeff and Cheyenne and Berkeley played by the water the whole time, and I kept looking at them thinking, I want to go hang out with them. We stayed for about an hour and a half, but I was kind of bored, so finally I just decided to go. The picture is of a few of my friends who I was really excited to see. It was really great to catch up with Laura, the one in the white right next to me, I pretty much mostly talked to her the whole time. Anyway, I am glad I went, because I would have felt like I missed out if I didn't go, but I don't plan on attending any more in the future! 

In other news, we bought a new car:

Haha, just kidding! I wish!

My step-dad, Steve, just bought this awesome BMW convertible. My mom drove it over to Jeff's parents house to give me my purse that I left at her house, so Jeff and I had to get a picture in it and took it for a quick little cruise:) 

Christine Reunion!!

So one of the big reasons I went home was for my 10 year high school Reunion. I was so bummed that my best friend from Sehome was not planning on coming!! I always try to meet up with her and her family when I come home anyway, but it is always so hard since we already have to divide our time between 3 families and we usually don't have a car to drive around once we get there. Christine lives in Seattle, so I wanted to go out with her and her boyfriend, Dylan and Jeff and I. Unfortunately, because of Jeff's near death experience (slightly exaggerating, but really), his flight landed that night instead of the night before, so I was a third wheel!! I had so much fun catching up with Christine and getting to know Dylan. The only part I didn't like was that there wasn't enough time, I still had so much I wanted to talk about. They are seriously adorable together and I am so happy that Christine found a little match so wonderful for her. To help you get a picture of Christine, she is adorable, all the boys love her, she is so so so nice to everyone, classy, so generous, so thoughtful, and so much fun! I just love this girl and wish we didn't live on opposite sides of the country!

Brian's Birthday Party

It was my brother Brian's birthday while we were home and he lives in Auburn (near Seattle), so we drove up there and stayed for a couple nights. It was perfect timing because his birthday party was the night that Jeff was supposed to arrive. Jeff had this huge fiasco with his plane where he thought he was going to die... anyway, long story short, we are glad the plane didn't crash and he ended up not getting home until the next night. On the plus side, we get two free round trip tickets, but we have to use them before June 27 and since we don't have family near, we can't really go anywhere because we have no one to watch our kids... we will have to see what to use those for. 

Anyway, the girls had so much fun playing with their cousins! They have so many awesome toys at their house, my girls were in heaven:) It is always fun to have a lot of our family together at the same time. My other brother, Jared and his family just moved from Texas into the same neighborhood as Brian and family. I am excited for them to be so close. 

Alcomer's Track Meet

I was so excited to take my girls to the alcomer's track meet when I went home. I used to do these every week when I grew up. You just pay a few bucks per kid and then they have races and field events divided by age group and your kids can participate in the meet. Adults can participate as well, but the adult events are later when it is really cold out so we just had the kids do it. It was so much fun and brought back so many memories. If it wasn't freezing, it would have been even better. We were going to go again when Jeff got there the next week, but it was even colder and raining, so we decided that would be pretty miserable for us. Cheyenne loves to race, but she gets really mad when she doesn't win. I kept envisioning her stopping before the finish line and throwing a tantrum saying "I wanted to win!" So I kept telling her to go her fastest and try her best, but sometimes we don't win and that is okay. She totally loved it and didn't want to leave! She definitely wasn't the fastest there, but it just made me so happy seeing her enjoy something that has brought me so much joy. Berkeley was hilarious and ran with her thumb in her mouth the entire time, but she still had fun. My grandma lives right by the track so she was so sweet to come and support! I remember she would come to most of my meets and games and stuff when they were in town, so it was just fun to have her there:)

The Country Life

Visiting my Mom was so much fun! One of the first days, she watched the kids and let me take her car and drive around town. It is always fun to cruise around Bellingham and the memories come flooding back. I went to my favorite Deals Only store and stocked up on Chewy Granola Bars for only 50 cents a box along with some other treats... I wish we had that store here. I went to some of my other favorite spots and then headed home. My mom also made her amazing BBQd salmon. Last time when I came in September we had the salmon with a full meal from her garden, but since it was only June, we bought the corn at the grocery store and just used her potatoes. It is so cute how parents are so proud of their kids. Sometimes it is almost embarrassing how she introduces me to so many people and I am thinking mom they don't care who I am or where I am from or all about my kids or life story... but it is so sweet, so I just let her go on and give the people an apologetic look:) My mom is such a wonderful Grandmother, all the grandkids adore her, especially my girls. They had so much fun chasing around her cat too, until he bit and scratched them and then they would scream with terror anytime he entered the same room as them. By the end of the trip, though, they were right back to following him around again. My mom also has the most amazing property. Well, it was actually my step-dad's, but she moved out there with him when they got married just over ten years ago. My mom has remodeled almost the entire house, so it is just so cute. They have a lot of acres that they let people keep their cows in, then they have a huge front and backyard, my mom has a giant garden. They have this really cool old barn that Steve keeps all his cars and parts in and runs a little auto parts business out of it too, I think. They have an in ground pool and there is this beautiful giant Willow tree with a fence behind it that is perfectly broken. It is so nice just to sit out there and enjoy the scenery. I didn't like it much for the 6 months that I lived there in high school and when I came home from school in the summers because it was SO far from town, but the rooms are gigantic so that made up for it! And now, I don't care as much about that. In fact, it is super convenient because she lives only minutes from Jeff's parents house. 

 We went shopping together and both had some great finds! I found this blue sweater which I LOVE!!

Bellingham Farmers Market

On Saturday we hit up the Bham Farmers Market. It was fun to walk around, but I never buy anything at those things, because they are always overpriced. I almost bought some cinnamon roasted almonds though and probably should have! mmmm.... I also stopped by my favorite Great Harvest Bread to buy a loaf of my favorite kind, but they didn't have it anymore, so I got cinnamon bread instead. 

 My mom bought the girls balloon animals in an attempt to keep them entertained, and I thought they would love them, but they were totally over them in about 5 minutes. Noted to never get those again. We met my Grandma and Howard at Olive Garden at my request. I was so excited to see them, but I couldn't believe how expensive Olive Garden was! I need to remember to never go there again. It was lunch, but they had dinner prices since it was a Saturday and every meal was like $15-$20. I was kind of embarrassed, because of course my Grandma wanted to pay, but it was so expensive I felt bad for suggesting it. The girls were very well behaved though and our waiter was fabulous. It was a fun day:)

Campfires

So I completely forgot how freezing it is in Washington in June!! I knew I needed to bring warmer clothes, but I should have brought my winter clothes, because it was the same temperature there as it is here in the winter. The one good thing about this was that we sat around the fire a lot:) We made tin foil dinners, roasted hot dogs, made s'mores and chatted the night away a few different nights. I LOVE sitting in the cool, crisp air by a fire eating and talking. It is one of the best things in life in my opinion:) Berkeley was so cute because she just sat in this chair by the fire for like at least an hour and ate her entire plate of food plus refills. I think she must have been cold and hungry:)

 Breakfast with Grandpa Steve the next day: