We intended on going to the waterpark for some cooling off, but we decided to get away from crowds and go to Birch Bay Beach. The cousins had fun splashing in the water.

This is another zoomed in picture!

Aubrey and I took the kids to Birch Bay Beach recently, it started out a hot sunny day and ended up an overcast afternoon. We had fun nevertheless. I've never been to a beach where you had to walk miles into the water just to get to swimming height! The boys are running out to the deeper water, but seem to have trouble finding it! This is actually a zoomed in shot! Seriously, they're probably actually a half mile into the water when this pic was taken!

Silly girls!

See the people to the far right of this pic? It's Aubrey and Genevieve out there only in ankle deep water! Cameron is the little figure in the middle of the pic, in only shin deep water! The tide goes way out and you can wade out for miles, so it seems! But when the tide comes in, it'll come all the way up the to where we parked, and it comes in fast!

Cameron styles in a new pair of goggles! Silly goon!

We took a walk along the waterfront town to an icecream shop and had an icecream, then on the way back we stopped the icecream man for more!



Austin gives his new body board a try now that the tide had come in.

Two 10 lb kings SEPT2008

Here's Jason's record salmon catch! She's a 28lb King Salmon! It was a nice reward for having to get up at 4am!

The king salmon is nearly as long as Cameron is tall! He was excited for Daddy!

Chloe watches from across the yard on her leash, she'd be all over the fish if she weren't on her runner! She doesn't quite look like the schnauzer she is because they shaved her legs and "skirt"!

Okay, whose head is on the chopping block? Actually, I was getting ready to take a picture of Cameron studying the teeth of the salmon when Daniel came up to the fish with a knife in preparation for the fillet job.

Buddy takes a sniff at the fish, we gave him a sample but he only looked at it, guess we'll have to smoke it for him!



Cameron intently watches the filleting, he was asking what all the parts were and trying to guess them himself, it was a good little science lesson for him!










Cameron asked Jason to give him the eyeball of the fish! Daniel and I were feeling a little grossed out and feeling the fish's pain!

He wasn't too thrilled with handling the eyeball once he got it! He's 100% boy!

38 lbs of salmon! We're going to smoke most of it

and you know what we'll be eating for dinner tonight!

We loaded up the grill and took it to the church for a Labor Day Picnic, it turned out to be an absolutely gorgeous day! Jason helped with the grillin and talked about the next fishin trip he'd take the guys on. We all set to playing games after the big feast, we had to work it all off before we fell asleep on a full stomach! Here's how the day progressed. . . . . .

What is a church picnic without volleyball? We did play a little volleyball, though one might want to call it organized chaos.

Batter, Batter, Swing! This is Benjamin Copeland and he's got form and determination! We older "kids" joined the younguns in their game of softball. It was fun! Everyone from the 4yr old to the 60+ year old got to hit the ball! There were no innings, outs, or runs, just a lot of fun hitting the ball and running the bases.

What do they say, creativity is bred out of necessity? Daniel was snacking on cashews from his baseball mit, a makeshift plate! He's a genius!

Meet Jadalyn Huckabee! She'll be the next soccer olympian! That's how young they start, isn't it?! Jadalyn knows how to pose!

Jerrick Huckabee organizes a game of football with the younger guys. Prior to this, Cameron walked right into a low pass and caught it directly between the eyes! His glasses shot straight up in the air and he did a somersault, landing on his shoulders with a very dazed look on his face! The surprising part was that he didn't make a sound, just dusted himself off and left wondering, "what in the world?!" Sorry, no pics of Cameron, he was incognito after that!

Daniel takes aim in his first game of horseshoes! He was actually pretty good! We had a great time at the Labor Day picnic, wish you could've been there!

Today was finally a decent sunny day, compeling us to come out of hibernation and do something outside! We spontaneously decided to take a hike into the local Skagit Oso mountain range. These are the falls that welcomed us as we started the incline on the one-way logger road to the top.We brought along our trail guide, "Buddy," he's always got to be in the front!












This was our view from the top, you could see for miles! The river down below is our Skagit River, it snakes its way throughout our valley and town. We found some neat things like waterfalls, huge stumps, toads, shopping cart, an old vehicle that had fallen from a cliff, flowers of all kinds, and green raspberrys and huckleberrys. Our whole purpose was to be outside, but also to come home with lots of huckleberries! No such luck, but it was fun to explore anyway.

Daniel was showing me his new find, a toad, when the toad decided to take a dive at the camera! I ended up with this cool action shot of the toad!

We were in search of huckleberries, but they weren't quite ready, maybe we'll check back in a month, if the bears haven't eaten them all! I was hoping to see a bear! Go figure, you hike into the mountains where the berries are and no bear, yet there was a bear spotted just a block from our house by a man walking his dog in a neighborhood! Where are the bears when you need them?!

The boys had great fun pitching large rocks into the pools are the base of this waterfall. Buddy, of course, had to go wading and then proceeded to shake it all off, getting us wet too!

We climbed this makeshift ladder into this little pool of water made by a cascading waterfall. It's hard to actually see it in these pictures, you'd have to be here!

We didn't pay attention to the "hiking shoes" that Cameron grabbed prior to leaving the house; he wore his water boots, that actually weren't waterproof, so we found! He ended up with blisters on both heels by the end of the day. So today at church he had to wear his crocs, least they matched the colors in his shirt! He's just an unpredictable one, but lots of fun!

Look-ee-here! It's a 15lb king salmon! Here's Jason's big catch for this season, so far; there's more fishing to be done! He filleted this one and smoked it! Its yummy! Anyone for smoked salmon? Jason had a regular business going last year, he had more orders than he could fill! What better way to make money than to do the thing you love to do and get paid to do it!

Anyone for Table Football?

For family night, I introduced the kids to an old fashioned favorite, table football! We used some "Happy Birthday" streamer for a touchdown line and played ball. Daniel and I played and then it was Cameron and I against Daniel and he still beat us!

Meet Josiah Gavey! He's one of six sons of my great friend, Rachel. He and his older brother Isaac love to follow Cameron around like he's some celebrity. I think he is three (I have a quite a few little boys to keep up with these days!) This picture shows a lot of his personality, he's a delightful little guy and his parents have done a great job with him. We were at a birthday party and he was sportin the hat his mom plunked on him before getting out of the car on this hot day! I love to take pictures of kids bein themselves, you catch their personalities!

We're learning soccer for free by an x-pro! I found a flyer advertising free soccer training by the pros, and then we met Jim the coach. He's volunteering his time 4-6hrs a day monday thru friday, until . . . . He must have the $$ to do it all for free, sure is nice of him. He wants to take the top 10 kids in training on an all expense paid trip to South America to compete against their teams, next year! We don't get to get in on that as we'll be moving overseas! But this is a great opportunity for the boys to get ahead before playing for the YMCA this fall. We feel so blessed to have Jim coaching the kids, he's really great with the kids.

Daniel goes for a high kick! He's got a powerhouse kick!

This truck was one of our favorites, he lived up to the name "Maniac" and drove like he had all the trucks in the world. You can see in this picture that he's already lost his door!