He's coming home!!

Ryan has been gone three weeks today! It's actually gone by much faster than I thought it would have. We are all excited for him to fly home on Thursday. Tomorrow we leave for a family reunion with my side of the family up at Deer Lake Resort. Ryan will fly into Spokane and catch the last day of the reunion with us.

Here's what we've been doing this week: Sunday afternoon craft. crayon rocks. put a smooth rock, any size, but we like bigger, in the oven for 15 minutes at 45o degrees. when they come out, start coloring them with crayons and the wax instantly melts, making cool designs. The kids loved this SO much!! also, peel the paper off your crayons beforehand. you'll go through a lot of crayons and only have so much "painting" time before your rock cools down.

the finished products

and then, because it was so much fun, the kids kept begging all week to do more. so we've done them about every other day and plan on doing more today, when Emily and Trent wake up from their naps. 9 AM church is rough on them in the summer! :) we've accumulated quite the little rock garden. I especially love Trent's USA flag.

went to Idylewood Beach Park for ward park day. Because of swimming lessons, this is the first ward park day we've been able to attend. It was about 60 degrees, and raining off and on, but I was determined to go because we need to make some friends!! Only 2 other families showed up, but hey--we met 2 new families in the ward, who are really nice. and the kids still had fun playing in the sand. definitely want to come back on a sunny day.

went raspberry picking with our neighbors. Noah, our neighbor, found a birds nest! and for anyone who was making fun of our strawberries from last week, the raspberries were huge and perfect! and so easy to pick. and who knew raspberry bushes were so tall?

15 pounds equals 2 batches of jam, 2 huge bags frozen in the freezer to save for later, and tons eaten this week on everything and anything. and Ryan, don't worry, I'm still planning on going back next week with you!

Also, went to the temple with my good friend Lori, (our old Tokyo neighbors) early Saturday morning while our kids were sleeping. This was the first time I've seen the Seattle temple. besides the tip of Angel Moroni from the freeway. The Seattle Temple is such a beautiful temple. Lori's husband is also in Tokyo packing up. Our movers come Monday, their movers come Tuesday. we joke that all our stuff will be on the boat together coming to Seattle.

and just had to post this picture as proof that for ONE DAY it was blue skies and temps reached 80 degrees, which felt SO hot here. we went swimming and the kids had huge super soaker fight outside with all the neighborhood kids. Hope everyone is having a great summer. We sure are!!

PS--is everyone ready for Disney Channel's Sizzlin Summer Sunday night of premieres? We are!! we're even having a little premiere party. popcorn and everything. the kids are huge fans of Wizards of Waverly Place and Goodluck Charlie. yeah!!