Ohh what a summer

Well, it has been quite a while since I have posted. Things have been so busy!! We had a great time visiting my family in Montana. Arianna had a great time playing with her cousins. We first went to Billings to stay at my sister Rhonda's house for a couple of days. LeOrla was there with her boys and Taunya lives in Billings as well so we were all able to visit. On Monday the 30th, we all drove over to Fort Benton to meet up with my parents. We were going on a float down the Missouri the next day. The float trip was great. It had been like 100 degrees on Monday, but tuesday it was probably in the 70s and overcast for part of the day. That made it much more bearable to be out on a canoe. We had a lot of fun. Ethan was even pretty good - he slept for probably about 1/2 the trip which was wonderful for us. We saw several bald eagles, tons of pelicans, deer, etc. It was also nice because my dad did most of his work for the BLM on this part of the river so we were able to see the different sites he worked on to develop like camping sites and Decision Point where Lewis and Clark made the decision on which river to follow.

After the river trip we went back to Lewistown for the rest of the trip. I took Michael floating down Spring Creek for the first time. Before he went he wasn't overly excited, but he had fun once he did it. We also went with Rhonda, LeOrla, Wyatt, and Dalton. We just had a nice relaxing time at home and spent the 4th of July there. Then on Saturday we headed back home. Ethan did very well on the long drives. He isn't the best rider for long trips, but all things considered he did well and Arianna always does fine on road trips.

Ethan started at the daycare where Arianna attended on the 7th. He has done wonderful!! No biting so far!! They keep them very busy there, so I think that helps a lot. We also had another Parents Night Out at their school on the 11th - which was Michael's birthday - so we were able to go out for a quiet dinner and have some quiet time.

This last weekend we had planned to go to Portland, but the kids were really burned out from road trips and we have a few coming up in the next weekends so we decided to stay home. It was a very productive weekend. Michael got the sprinkler system all finished up so now we can get our yard back in shape with new bark, gravel, etc. We also had a fun time going to some u-pick farms. On Saturday we went to a blueberry farm and picked some. Due to the weather in previous months the blueberries are a little late so they were not very sweet yet. We then went to Remlinger Farms to get some raspberries. We got some, but they bushes were very picked over so the ones left were not as ripe as needed. So on Sunday we were to a different farm - Biringer Farms. The raspberries were wonderful there. Ummm Yummy. They also had strawberries that are sooo sweet. We have been snacking on them every day. We made blueberry pancakes with the blueberries.

This weekend we are going camping at Ocean City State Park near Ocean Shores. We are excited to go - Arianna has not been before and she is so excited to make smores over a real campfire.

The weekend of the 26th we are going to the Microsoft company picnic. Luckily Michael's mom is going to be here that weekend so she is going to watch Ethan for us, so we can just take Arianna and have fun with her.

We are now working on cleaning up Arianna's playroom so that we can add Ethan's toys in. We are putting up a gate around her Art table so that she doesn't have to put away all of her art things that are dangerous for Ethan and then they can share the rest of the space. Right now we had a gate so that Ethan could not get to the playroom and we had his toys in our living room. Now that he is older and likes to play with the play kitchen, etc we want to move his things in there and start condensing. We are also going to be taking down his crib in his room. He sleeps in the full bed in there - he moved around to much for the crib and always would wake up a lot. He sleeps better in the bed. So after the crib is out we can move some toys up there too.

Well need to get going. This is my day home alone and I need to get cleaning!