Christmas 2007

We had a good Christmas holiday or should I say three Christmas celebrations. We celebrated with the Kraxberger family on Saturday, the Smith family on Christmas Eve, and Kelly's family on Christmas Day . We even had snow fall on Christmas Day. Christmas morning the boys found that Santa had left them Star Wars toys. Later they unwrapped a "family" gift of a Nintendo Wii and Super Mario Galaxy game. Below is a picture of the boys modeling the football pajamas they got. Hope everyone else had a wonderful holiday too.

NFL Pajamas!!!

Drew's 4th Birthday

Yesterday, after going to Garrett's first basketball game of the season, we came home to celebrate Drew's 4th birthday. Several friends came and celebrated with us. The kids played outside with their Star Wars masks on a cold, clear December day. Kelly put a lot of effort into making a R2-D2 cake for Drew and it turned out great. Drew easily blew out the candles. He opened up his presents with great delight and had a blast. He was so exhausted from all the fun, that he fell asleep on the couch next to his brother around 6pm. We had to wake him up when some friends came to visit him in the evening. To see some pictures, click on the picture below.

Drew's 4th Birthday

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Listening to: Bruce Springsteen - Radio Nowhere
via FoxyTunes

Happy Halloween

The boys had fun on Halloween. They are very into Star Wars right now. Garrett was Jango Fett and Drew was a Clone Trooper. They walked around the neighborhood together in a "mob" with 6 other neighbor kids. Their pumpkin buckets were pretty full when they returned to the house. Then they convinced Kelly to take them to a Harvest Festival at a local church and came back from there with even more candy. Drew had so much fun that on Thursday night he asked when it was going to be Halloween again. Since the kids are so into Star Wars, I carved the pumpkins with two Star Wars characters they chose. One was Jango Fett and the other was Darth Maul. This year, the boys were not afraid to touch the inside of the pumpkins and actually helped get the seeds out of both of them. You can click on the picture below for more photos from Halloween.

Halloween 2007

Preschool

Drew started preschool on September 12th. He goes in the mornings Monday through Thursday. He loves going to school. His favorite part is snack time and singing songs. Kelly enjoys being able to run errands in the mornings with no kids in tow. Below are a couple of pictures from Drew's first day of preschool.

Football Saturday

Our Saturday was filled with football. Garrett's flag football team had a Jamboree in the morning. The first game started at 9am and we had be there at 8:30. His team, the Irish, played in three back to back half hour mini-games. The kids were a little tired by the last game. We left the jamboree after his last game around 11am. After going home and eating lunch, we left for Qwest Field between 12:30 and 1pm to watch the WSU Cougars play the San Diego State University Aztecs. We parked between 1:30 and 2pm and went to the Pre-Game rally in the Events Center next to the stadium. The kids saw Butch and got their picture with him (see below). They also played in some football air structures, threw the football, and kicked it too. We enjoyed a great Cougar game. It didn't start out great, but the Cougs controlled the game after the first quarter. The Aztecs scored 10 points in the first quarter and then didn't score again until the fourth quarter. We didn't hear a peep out of some Aztecs fans sitting near us after the first quarter. The Cougar quarterback set a school record for completions in a game at 38. He finished the day with 469 yards and 5 touchdowns. The final score was WSU 45, SDSU 17. We got home around 9pm and the kids had fallen asleep on the way home (see below). It was a long, but good day filled with football.

Garrett making a tackle in one of his games yesterday. He is #21 and the second player to the left closest to the camera when the video begins.

The kids with Butch

Kevin and the kids at the WSU game

Tired out kids after a long day of football

First day of second grade

Garrett started second grade today. Yesterday was orientation, so he met his teacher and some of his other classmates. Drew will start preschool in a week.

Olympic National Park

We spent the first week in August exploring the north and northwest area of Olympic National Park. We spent six nights camping at Fairholm Campground at the west end of Lake Crescent. Each day we drove to a different area and went hiking. We visited the Sol Duc River valley, Hurricane Ridge, the South Fork of the Hoh, the Elwha River valley, and the Lake Crescent area. We had a great time and were lucky to have great weather the whole week. Below are links to some pictures we took.

Olympic Peninsula trip

Lover's Lane Loop Trail - Sol Duc Valley

Hurricane Ridge / Hurricane Hill

South Fork of the Hoh Trail

Geyser Valley Loop - Elwha River Valley

Marymere Falls