Puyallup Fair

We went to the Puyallup Fair again this year. We had a blast!

Doug took the day off to come with us.

We learned that sheep can have more than 2 horns.

Seahawks collection

We watched a comedy juggling show.

The kids each got to choose about 3 rides. Coleman's first ride was this bear ride.

Mackenzie and Coleman rode this dragon roller coaster.

They all went in the mirror fun house. They ran into the mirrors a few times.

Jackson rode this one.

He's the boy in the blue shirt and green shorts.

Mackenzie and Coleman both played this fishing game. They were guaranteed a prize.

They both chose frogs as their prize.

Jordan rode this one. I always call it the Music Express because it reminds me of Music Express at Lagoon, but it's not actually called that.

They all rode the Tilt A Whirl as their last ride. There was enough for Coleman to ride it too even though he had already used all his tickets. We though I would be able to ride it too, but we didn't have quiet enough tickets for it. The other kids tried to pressure Coleman into letting me ride, but I told him he could ride.

Next we went to the petting zoo. Coleman even started petting the animals right away. He usually takes awhile to warm up to the idea.

Mackenzie and Coleman rode the tractor bikes. Jackson and Jordan were too tall this year.

Mackenzie

Next we went to the pioneer area.

The last thing we did was eat elephant ears and dole whip and we looked at the cute piglets.

Solar Eclipse

We drove down to Madras, OR to watch the solar eclipse. Doug bought our hotel reservations in Redmond, OR 2 years ago. We drove down Saturday and hung out at the hotel on Sunday. Monday morning we got up super early, like 5:00, and drove to Madras. Alli and Konrad had drove down Sunday night and slept in their van in an empty lot. We met them there and waited until the eclipse around 10:30 am. I took the kids to the bathroom at Safeway and the line was so long. It took probably about 20 minutes to get through it. But we were just happy there was a bathroom :) 

Everyone kept checking the sun through Doug's telescope and our eclipse glasses. It was cool to see the moon slowly cover the sun, especially since it you couldn't tell at all outside until it was covered. It got a little darker and colder before totality, but was still pretty light.

The kids played Star Wars Monopoly in the Crabtree's van.  

The space between Jordan's eyes was a little swollen. 

Doug bought some welding goggles.

Kenzie made this cute picture of the sun being covered by the moon.

This was what totality looked like. It was really cool to see the light coming around the moon. I think it was from the sun's atmosphere, but I could be wrong. It wasn't as dark as I expected it to be. The kids were so excited as soon as it happened. And all around everyone was cheering, which was fun. It was a great experience. 

The 13 hour drive (that should have been 5-6 hours) wasn't as great of an experience.  It took us about 5 hours to go a couple miles. And the whole time we had to drive so slow. Konrad and Alli got home about 3-4 hours before us. They went a different way at the beginning and must have got ahead of the bad traffic. The kids luckily did really great in the car, it just felt like the drive would never end. Every time we checked our arrival time on Google Maps it was later and later. Around the 10th or 11th hour, I started to wonder if it was really worth it. Doug never doubted though. He was still so happy from seeing the eclipse. We finally arrived home at midnight.

Tennis Lessons

The kids took tennis lessons in August. (Jackson also did them in September, since he's not playing soccer.) They all loved it!

Coleman

Jackson. The instructor was surprised to hear that Jack's never had tennis lessons before and he has a lot of talent.

Mackenzie

Coleman

Kenzie

Jackson

Jordan

Mackenzie and Coleman with Coach Steve.

Jordan

Jackson

Terracotta Warriors

We went to the Science Center to see the Terracotta Warriors exhibit. The kids and I met friends there and Doug met us there in the late afternoon.

It was so warm and sunny. We ate lunch outside at the fountain and the kids got pretty wet.

It was really cool to see all these statues that are so old.

This was showing us how it's easier to make things using a mold rather than designing each one individually. The Terracotta Warriors were created with molds.

These ones are just replicas. This is what the warriors looked like when they were buried.

The Kids

Coleman says "oh dear" a lot. It's so cute.

Jackson calls potato skins crusts.

At Jackson's first baseball game (back in May) Coleman was talking to one of the other kid's dad about video games. He told the guy we have screen that we pull down that makes the tv better. (meaning the projector screen) He told the man that we can't touch the screen and the man said that's good Coleman knows that. Coleman then said "Your kids would probably touch it."

Way back when we went to Disneyland last fall, Jordan liked telling a joke that goes like this: Do you know what's odd to me? Numbers that are divisible by 2. Coleman likes this joke too, but he would say "numbers that are invisible by 2."

Coleman loves numbers and often says things like "a baby wouldn't know that 1+1 is 2"

Coleman says concluding instead of including. For example,  he said his middle finger is his middle finger concluding his thumb.

One day we were saying things we were thankful for for every letter of the alphabet. For n Coleman told Jackson he should say names. I asked him why he's thankful for names and he said "because without names I'd just call Jackson man."

One night when I went to check on Jordan before I went to sleep I found him in his room wearing night vision goggles crocheting. :)

Fun at the Crabtrees

We love having family who lives on the lake!

Alli

Kenzie loves playing with Alli!

Jordan

Konrad diving in.