First Mariners game...!

Well, even though the Seattle Mariners are at the very bottom of the MLB, we decided to take the twins to a game. They loved it! They especially loved wearing their M's hats, as well as eating all of the kettle corn we bought. A very nice lady gave us four tickets for free, right when Greg was trying to buy scalped tix for $40. So, aside from the $8 of parking, and the bag of kettle corn, it was a pretty cheap event!

The M's lost to my home town team of the Minnesota Twins. I am secretly a Twins fan in my heart of hearts, since I grew up a mere 10 miles from the Humphrey Metrodome... and I can still recite the starting lineup from the 1987 and 1991 World Series winning Twins team (while waving my Homer Hanky)...

Greta's Baby Dedication

We had a baby dedication for Greta in mid-July, and I am finally now just getting around to posting a video of it. This took place at our church, First Presbyterian Church of Bellevue. We chose a "life verse" for Greta out of the Bible - it is Ephesians 1:17-19. We also chose Greg's aunt and uncle, Jackie and Chuck Davidson, to be her godparents. We were also blessed to have many of our extended family in town for the event, including the Hicks family from southern California, aunt Christy from NYC, and Judy from Vancouver. It was a special day, and we had a fun dinner BBQ at our house that day as well.

We love you, precious sweet baby Greta!!

Ephesians 1:17-19 "I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe."

Family in town

I have a wonderful family, and I just love it when they are all in town visiting. This month we had my mom and stepdad Charlie out for a great visit. Then we had my nephew JJ in town from San Francisco for several days. Our kids love all of the extra attention and lovin'. JJ was especially fun for the kids, since he was really good with them, and did such a good job entertaining them all day long! Drew has a new idol, as you can see from the first two pics below.

My sister Kimmie with her son JJ

JJ and Greta were best of friends. Greta followed him around all day!

Charlie was best buds with little Gretty and she loved it!

Preschool, new backpacks, new pajamas...

I cannot believe my twins are about to start preschool. Every time I think about it, I get a little choked up, since my heart is just so sad that these little two are growing up. They are ready for preschool, and I know they will love it, but I just want to hold on them and squeeze them tight and never let them go!!

As part of the new school planning, they both have new backpacks which came in the mail today. I had to find one for Drew that had cars on it.. of course! And Hailey picked hers out, and she loves it. They both wore them around the house for about an hour, after stuffing all kinds of cars, animals, and dolls into them. Hailey even asked me to put on music for her so that she could dance with hers on... which she proceeded to do for 30 minutes straight! So cute!

They will attend First Presbyterian Church Preschool starting Sept 9. They will go from 9-11:30 on Tues and Thurs am. This is where we attend church, so the kids already know the buildings, etc. In fact, they have a brand new children's building which is fabulous. Pray for our family as we make this big transition!

Here are the kids in new pajamas.... Greta is sporting new jammies that our neighbor Marta gave us several months ago. And I just bought new jammies for the twins this week at my favorite kids' clothing store in Whistler (called Hatley). They are so great! Hailey kept trying to feed everyone the watermelons off her PJs. :)

Mama's Happy Hike

We just returned today from another wonderful week at Whistler! The highlight of the week for me was taking a lovely long afternoon of hiking, ALL BY MYSELF! Greg watched the kids for five hours, and I hopped on the chairlift to the top of both Whistler and Blackcomb. I was in heaven! I love hiking so much, and I just haven't done enough of it in the last three years, since the kiddos showed up.

I also finally got to ride the Peak 2 Peak Gondola for the first time. It is a relatively new gondola that connects the top of Whistler peak to the top of Blackcomb peak. It is the longest unsupported span gondola in the world, and at its highest point it is 1400 feet above ground! Eek! (Dad - this is not for you!) It is a huge benefit to skiers who want to ski on each of the two mountains in the same day, since it only takes 11 minutes to cross in the Peak 2 Peak. You can see pics of it below. It is truly an engineering marvel.

So, I did about an hour of hiking at the top of Whistler, and a longer ridge hike on Blackcomb, where I got to see lots of great glacier and peak views. It was 82 and sunny, and this mama couldn't have been happier!!

The Ballard Locks.... just like Goldilocks!

This morning I took the three kids to the Ballard Locks to watch the boats go through the locks and to watch the salmon go through the fish ladder. It was so great! Andrew and Hailey loved watching how the locks worked, and we sat for a long time watching the lock fill with water, then open to let the big yachts through into Lake Washington.

The fish ladder is one of my absolute favorite things in Seattle. It is an amazing feat of nature that these salmon jump up the 21 holding bins, to go up the 35 feet from Puget Sound into Lake Washington. We went during high tide (a must!), and so the fish were really jumping through the ladder. The highlight, of course, is watching the fish through the big underground windows. The person who loved it the most was Greta!

Andrew has been saying really funny things lately. Today's comment came when we were driving to the Locks, and I was telling the kids that they are called the "Ballard Locks." Andrew piped up loudly and said, "That is just like Goldilocks!!!" HA!

This one picture below was taken on 8-20 of last summer, when Greta was only a month old. This is the exact same bush as in the photos above. My, how times have changed in just one year!

Portland trip

This past weekend we hopped in the car and headed down to Portland, Oregon. We have great friends who live there, Mike and Kathleen Self, and their kids Maddie and Mason. Kathleen and I were roommates at college when we were at Wake Forest University, so we go way back!

The kids had a fabulous time, and we loved catching up with Mike and Kathleen. We enjoyed seeing their new house, doing a BBQ dinner, taking the kids to the water park, and visiting River West Church, where Mike is a pastor. We are so blessed by their friendship!

Here are a few pics of the fun!