Start of School

School started Monday for our Sophomore and 5th grader, can you believe it! They've had a good first few days. Ashlyn says this year will be much harder than last year and Colten's happy that his best bud Jason is finally in his class this year. Ashlyn will be practicing for Cross Country this year since her coach made it known that those who did, would be playing more basketball. I know she didn't like that, but I told her I didn't want to hear the complaints when she didn't get to play much because she didn't do cross country. Should be an interesting year!
We're pretty sure we won't be doing much fair-ing this year. It's just too hot. It'll still be in the 100's after dark probably. I can just imagine coming home dehydrated sweaty dusty gross, even more so than usual... probably won't do that this year. Also I can't imagine how hot the rides must be. Just opening the gate can burn your hand in this heat! Ugh! So ready for some not-100+ degree weather. It's soooo sad to see the trees and bushes dying from the drought. It's almost like fall around here, but not. John's trying to decide what to do with the cows. There's just nothing left for them to eat. Oh rain, please come back!

We Miss Washington!

It's just too darn hot and dry in Texas! But we managed to enjoy some nice cool dry days in Washington and now we're weanies!!! Too bad it didn't follow us back, but that's the breaks! We had a wonderful time. We hiked around Hurricane Ridgea a bit, had a snowball fight, ate grilled salmon and other yummy fresh seafood, celebrated Jill's 40th birthday, enjoyed picnic lunch at the awe-inspiring Cape Flattery, fished for salmon and caught one, visited Canada, and attended a Seattle Mariner's baseball game (a losing-streak-breaking win against the Oakland A's) in Seattle. All while not feeling any temperatures above say 75, wow!

Here's our multitude of pictures, enjoy!

https://picasaweb.google.com/dlynnb/WashingtonVacation2011?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCJ3Lh8C6_cTTUQ&feat=directlink

Just got back from Hurricane Ridge and lunch. Loved the views and had
snowball fights!

I noticed the picture didn't go through on my last post, so I'll just
post to Facebook from now on while we're here. Hopefully you can see
them there. I'll add pics here when we get back.

We got to Jill's at 3am Texas time and we were worn out! We had a good
flight and had a great view of the snow capped mountains as we landed
in Seattle. The weather is absolutely gorgeous, we were freezing on the ferry ride, ahhhhh!

D'Lynn

Sent from my iPhone 

Resemblance

I was scanning some old photos and couldn't help but notice quite a resemblance between Ashlyn & her (little bit younger) Omie B. Do you see it, too?

Camping

We have just returned from a great little short camping trip at the Dos Rios RV Park in Mason County with my mom & dad.  The park is pretty close to the Eckert bat cave so we planned to check it out while we were there. We had heard that the bat cave had it's maximum number of bats in the middle of July. When we went last October, there were hardly any left. It was amazing seeing all the bats and all the other critters that showed up to feast on the bats.

Other than that, there was a nice swimming hole that was pretty warm Friday evening, but was very refreshing Saturday morning after we had cloudy skies and a few sprinkles. Colten was also able to do a lot of fishing, but not too much catching. Unfortunately someone took our ice chest that had his worms in it while we were napping :(

Here are some pics from the weekend:

https://picasaweb.google.com/dlynnb/Camping?authuser=0&feat=directlink 

We are getting super excited about our trip to Washington, it's only 1 1/2 weeks away! The weather has been amazingly cool up there and we can't wait to get out of this heat and drought! I am going to try to update the blog while we we're there from my phone, so if there are some weird posts, you know why. I'm not sure how good it will do for blogging. 


We just realized that after we get back, there will only be 2 more weeks of summer left and then school starts. Another summer is flying by!!!

Mid-Summer Update

Can't believe how far behind I am on this, but it's been busy! Let me quickly catch you up:

Last weekend we celebrated Ashlyn's birthday twice! Friday night she had friends over and then Sunday we had family and friends over for fajitas. In between that we had bbq at 42 club and bbq at a friends for the 4th. Long weekend! We can't believe she's 15! John tried to get her her permit today (after we finally got the last formed signed), but when he grabbed the pile of papers he needed to bring along, her social security card fell off and so no permit yet. Maybe tomorrow. Then he gets to start teaching her how to drive, oh joy!

Here are some photos from Ashlyn's birthday parties: https://picasaweb.google.com/dlynnb/AshlynS15thBirthday?authuser=0&feat=directlink 
One funny thing, I made a 'dirt' cake for both parties and really freaked her friends out when I started digging into what looked like a potted plant after we sang happy birthday. She really thought there was something wrong with me. HAHAHAHA! Love to freak teenagers out :)

Colten went to Hermann Son's Camp a couple of weeks ago and had a great time. His favorite activities were Rocketry, Adventures in nature and Riflery. He made one good friend and asked many girls to dance at the camp dance.

I got a new car :) My old car had about 180000 miles on it and since we would be needing another vehicle eventually, we decided to keep it for Ashlyn and get me a new one. So now I am the proud owner of my very first new new car ever, a silver 2011 Chevy Equinox :)

I think that's about it on the big exciting things going on. One very sad thing is that my manager for the last 9 or so years passed away. He was only 50 years old and had pancreatic cancer. He has a 12 year old boy and a 9 year old girl. Please keep his family in your prayers. We are going to his memorial this weekend. I still can't believe he's gone. So far things are going OK with my new manager, I hope they stay that way. 


Also pray for rain! The beaver creek is no longer running across Loeffler Ln, sooooo sad!