Life on the Lake

Some random pictures from the past week:

We went on a family walk on Sunday.  Camryn was comparing her bear ears to the other bears ears.

 Half of the state of Washington is on fire right now.  I feel so bad for that half of the state.  We get some hazy days here b/c of all the smoke.  This night was one of those days.  The sun was bright orange behind the haze.  It was pretty.

 Cam likes to ride the jet ski:

 The girls like to feed the ducks, but this time the ducks decided to chase them on land.  The girls DID NOT like that.  I had to swat them with a towel to get them back in the water.  It was pretty funny.

 And this one is just too cute...I love watching the effort it takes to get her arms under her head like that.  It's pretty funny.  She has it figured out now.  She sits up, puts them behind her head, and then slowly lays down.  It's funny how such simple things have to be learned. Stuff I would never think about.

Last Sunday our Stake had some boundary changes.  Every ward in the stake was affected.  We attended a Stake Meeting at 10:00 to see what the changes would be.  We are now in the North Lake Tapps Ward, as opposed to the Lake Tapps Ward.

North Lake Tapps Ward:

 The took about 1/4 of our ward (our ward used to cover the entire lake) and added them to parts of 3 more wards, and that ward is now the Lake Tapps Ward.

Because we are in the "new" ward in the stake.  We currently only have a Bishopric.  Every other calling is empty.  I have an appointment on Sunday to see what my new calling will be.  I have been in a stake calling for the past year, so it will be interesting to be back in a ward calling.  I'm just hoping it will be one where I will get to meet some new people and make some friends.  Change is hard guys.  Really hard.

Out of the entire stake, only 1 ward will have normal church this coming Sunday, everyone else just has sacrament meeting.  Only 2 wards had mutual this week.

Poor Sam, who turned 12 back on July 30th, has yet to attend her own YW's (she did go to YW's twice in Hawaii, but she went with Kimber to Miamaids) or a mutual activity.  She will get to go to her first activity next week (which will actually be a stake wide activity) and hopefully her own YW's at church the following Sunday.

Crazy times!  It was so odd sitting there and not even knowing the names of the other wards in the stake, or where they are located.  I didn't even know where people in my ward lived and spent most of my time at the Stake Meeting going through lds tools to see where people lived (I only know like 10 names (if that!!!) in our ward to see if they were staying with us or leaving us.  I still have no clue really...I do know that one of the families that has been super friendly to us is staying in the Lake Tapps ward, not in our ward anymore.  We are sad about that.  Luckily, we will still see them around at seminary and school.

This week has been orientation for both Kimber and Sam.  Getting schedules and lockers and stuff.  Not nearly as fun when you don't have anyone to compare schedules with.  I guess Kimber does have a few people to check in with.

Kimber also tried out for the volleyball team at Sumner, but didn't make it, unfortunately.  We will find her somewhere else to play though.

Most of the area goes back to school this coming Monday, but we don't start until after Labor Day, the 9th, so we still have another week and a 1/2 of summer.  Crazy!!!  Bring it on though.  We will enjoy every minute of it.

I'm a little nervous for the girls to go to school.  I'm not sure what I will do with my time.  Starting to regret this not teaching preschool decision I made.  Oh well, I'm sure Cam and I will come up with something to do.

Another Fun Summer Day

Monday night, Samantha slept over at Kayla's and Alexia stayed at our house.  

Tuesday morning the girls wanted to go to Legendary Doughnuts, so we did.  Camryn walked in the door and yelled "I want a pink one!!!"  

So she got one:

 Then we headed to Covington to pick up Sam/drop off Alexia and then swim at the Liechty's.  Love these ladies.  So sad that none of us are in the same ward anymore...I miss seeing them weekly.  We all moved to new houses, the Baumgartner's first, then the Liechty's, and then us.  Luckily we will stay friends even with more distance between us.

 That night we tried to go back to school shopping.  I refuse to take Camryn with us, so we have to go sometime Konrad is home to watch her.  We were about 1/2 way to the mall when Konrad's car alerted me "tire pressure very low, pull over slowly and safely".  I had driven before with the message "tire pressure low", but this very low part was different.  Kimber called Konrad to see if we had to take this seriously or not.  He told us to drive to Discount Tires (which was right across from the mall) and check out the tire (there isn't a spare tire in the Tesla, so if we get a flat we have to tow it...if I could get to discount tire we could just leave it over night and avoid the towing fee).  If it was fine, we could go shopping, if it was flat he would have to come and pick us up (Camryn needed to go to bed so he had to get us before bedtime).  The car handled totally fine the whole drive there, but  when I made the turn into the parking lot, I could tell something was wrong.  Sure enough, we had a flat.  We tried to take a picture to document our ruined shopping adventure.  These girls crack me up!

Fun with Friends

When we moved from Covington there so many people we wanted to have over to see our new house.  All the sudden, summer is ending and we hadn't had many people over.  That's what being gone for 6 weeks of the summer will do.

On Monday I invited some friends over to play.  It was fun.  So good to see some familiar faces and to catch up with everyone.

Quite a few people!

 Lucy and Camryn:

 Hallie, Kimber, and Jenni:

 Haden.

 Kayla and Samantha were out on the paddle board for a long time:

 Eli, Genevieve, Alexia, Hannah, and Allison

 Aleisa (Chloe) and Tami:

 Ryan:

 Kimber being like Ryan:

Crabtree Family BBQ

Ken's siblings were all in town, dealing with some stuff about Grandma Crabtree's house (getting it ready to sell...so they were going through all of her belongings) so we invited them over for a BBQ the day after we got home from Hawaii.

It was nice to see Konrad's aunts and uncles that we rarely see (even the set that live here) as well as one of his cousins and his family.

It was Great Grandpa Crabtree's birthday that day (August 22nd). He would have been 97.  We had a birthday cake and sang to him.  Great Grandma wasn't too sure about all the candles and didn't want to blow them out.  Luckily the great-grands jumped in to help.  Great Grandma seemed to love watching the boats on the lake.  I'm hoping Ken and Sara will bring her back here a few more times to sit and enjoy the view.

 Konrad had went to the cabin on Lake Cushman the weekend after he came home from Hawaii to get the jet ski.  The girls, and Konrad's cousins girls, were so excited to ride it.  The all loved it.

While it is definitely colder, it was nice to go from the ocean to the lake.  Leaving vacation to come home to this, isn't too bad.

Hawaii Day 28 -- Hukilau

Our plans for the last full day in Hawaii were going to be Hukilau followed by Pipeline.  Unfortunately the weather had other plans for us.  We were able to enjoy Hukilau, but ended up getting rained on and we attempted to switch to Pipeline, but the rain just kept on coming down.  Hard.  Not just a cute little Hawaiian sprinkle that helps cool you off.  No, it was the yucky, soaks everything, drip down your face kind of rain.

Luckily we got in a couple hours at Hukilau before it hit so I got some more fun pictures:

 Allison built Camryn a sand chair:

 Sam and Grandpa riding the waves:

 Now Allison is in there too:

 Kimber was trying to convince Cam to go swimming with her.  I don't think it worked.

 Kimber hanging out in a big hole:

 This looked so funny.  2 little white blonde heads just barely sticking out of the sand:

After attempting to go to Pipeline (making a stop at Ted's Bakery for donuts on the way) we just came home.  These two played with the ball in the rain for a bit (waiting for showers to be available in the house)

My parents and I went to dinner that night, leaving the girls at home to eat chicken nuggets and noodles.  We tried to go to Kahuku Grill, to get more yummy coconut macadamia nut shrimp, but they were all out.  Instead we went back to Pounders at the PCC.  I got a Shrimp Po' Boy.  It was huge.  I couldn't even finish all of the shrimp.

 This is how much sand came out of 3 cars (Dances, Kenyons, and ours) after a month in Hawaii.  We've had problems returning rental cars with too much sand in them before, so we make sure to vacuum them out now so we don't get huge fines.

 These next few pictures were from our last morning in Hawaii.  That would be Day 29 I guess, but no need for a whole new post.

Allison enjoying a nice comfy couch bed:

 We realized we hadn't taken a picture with the Hukilau sign so we made a quick stop on our way to the airport.

 When I dropped off the car the attendant asked if I knew about the big old scratch.  I hadn't noticed it until then.  Looks like someone keyed us at some point.

I was a little nervous about the whole rental car drop off, shuttle to the airport, and making it through the airport without Konrad to help with it all, but we survived.  I needed to get gas before dropping it off, but wanted to find the place first, then figured I'd find a gas station.  In the end the car rental return place was on a dead end/one way street, with no way to turn around.  So I had to pay their gas fees.  Luckily, I only needed like 4 or 5 gallons.

Our checked luggage was too heavy, so we had to do the awesome transfer 10 pounds of crap to our carry-ons.  That was fun.

Then I had thought to take the tripod out of my camera bag (it always shows up as some scary weapon in the security x-ray), but wasn't very smart when I put it in another carry on instead of the checked luggage.  Lame.  So not only did it hold us up at security, but they had to open a suitcase that I had had to sit on to get to close :)  The security lady was pretty strong though, she didn't have to sit on it to close it!

After that we were smooth sailing. Grabbed one last souvenir, for a friend of Sam's, also grabbed some lunch and we were on our way.  The plane ride was uneventful and I was able to read most of it while Cam used Samantha's kindle to watch cartoons.  So grateful for Sam who is so un-selfish.  Always willing to share!

The month in Hawaii was amazing.  I only have good things to say about it.  It was beautiful, the company was fantastic, the house worked great (even though I had many sleepless night leading up to the trip b/c I thought it was going to be way too small for all of us), my kids were entertained the whole time, we got to play tons of games, eat lots of food, and most of all just enjoy being together.  I love my family and am so grateful we have the opportunity to do this.  It's a rare thing for 4 different families to be able to make something like this happen for an entire month.  We are blessed!

Thanks Mom and Dad for making this happen!

Hawaii Day 27 -- Hukilau

Today was the last day for both the Kenyon's and Dance's.  We went to Hukilau and Matsumotos. 

Richard took Allison, Kenna, Jack, Jordan, and Kenzie on a walk to the beach.  They walked to Temple Beach and then walked along the shore to Hukilau.

My camera gets all foggy the first time I pull it out each morning.  So annoying!

 Camryn was excited to see Allison coming down the beach and ran to get her:

 There was a turtle swimming out there today, everyone you see here was trying to go find him to watch him underwater.  No one every made it to him, hopefully they had fun trying :)

After the beach we came home for lunch, hung around the house for a bit, and then headed to Haliewa for some Matsumoto's one last time (this trip of course :)).  The Kenyon's headed straight to the airport from there.  We said our goodbyes, even cried a bit, and wished them well.  So sad that they live so far away....

 We walked a few stores and Cam tried on this hat.  The duck face came out as soon as she put it on.  Too funny.

After shopping I stopped at the Kahuku Grill and picked up some coconut-macadamia nut shrimp.  Seriously so yummy. 

 

We also went back to the PCC to do some shopping and then stopped at the grocery store for some ice cream :)