Summer has been a whirlwind and it's almost Jake's Birthday! Yeah!

Hey there everyone;

It's been a crazy busy summer with everything happening all at once! I've really got my eyes set on the countdown to back to school now though!!! I'm nervously looking forward to the new adventure our family will be going on this year with the boys in their new school. I'm really hoping that it'll be a great change for us and the boys will really enjoy it! Of course, I have my Mommy worries like any other Mommy about them meeting new friends and such...I am a little nervous about them not being in a Christian school anymore, but Cathe reassures me that this school is great too, so I'm counting on that recommendation! The boys are so excited, because we went back to school shopping and I let them pick all brand new everythings...pencils and markers and erasers and sharpeners and backpacks and and and and.....can you say guilt shopping? LOL

Jacob is doing his countdown to his birthday party right now! He has one celebration this weekend with Todd's family, and then his real birthday on the 29th with my family (and celebrating Dad's b'day too!) and then his friend's party on the 30th. He gives me the cutest little countdown every single morning when he wakes up! He's totally excited! He also lost another tooth the other day too...he's growing up faster than I can handle...he didn't stay little like Joshua did...Josh was still little at 5, not Jake man...he's more like he's 10 already! He is so funny....he really thinks he's much older than he really is!

We are also taking the boys on a real vacation this weekend too....our vacation plans kept getting screwed up this year for one reason or another, so we decided to pack them up and take them to Toronto to celebrate going back to school/end of summer. We're really excited about it, I think the boys will have a blast....we're even going to take them on the subway...I know, sounds lame to you and I, but I bet the boys go nuts over it! LOL

Luke is doing well...he's got a terrible summer cold right now, but on the bright side, he's walking a little bit more each day....still not walking solid...he looks more like a drunken sailor, but it sure is cute!

Hope everyone enjoys the remainder of their summer and I'll post some new pics of the boys soon!

Lucas is walking! At least a little anyway!

Hey there!

Well...camp certainly has overcome our lives this summer! Much more than I think either Todd or I ever thought it would! It's fun for the most part, but sure is a lot of work! I don't know how Gwen ever did it full time! That's 6 full time jobs far as I can see!!! The staff is absolutely wonderful this year (as all years) and I'm soooo thrilled to meet two wonderful brothers, Rick Walsh (summer director) and Jeff Walsh (chef). It's going very well up there! It's been a real team effort needed. The various committee members have really worked hard this year to be sure that the families and children notice very little change while we make our transition to Theresa as full time director in November. Todd is soooo excited to be able to work with Theresa and is really looking forward to seeing what she decides to do with Camp Kintail in the future. It's exciting, but darn, a lot of work! I'll be happy to see Christmas come this year I think! LOL

So I have some really exciting news to share! Lucas has decided to not only take his first little piddly steps at camp in June, but he took 6 - 8 little steps on his own this past week at Sprouts camp! It was toooo cute! The staff went nuts! Cheering him on and clapping for him! He felt like a genuine celebrity!!! LOL I think it's awefully cute now, but as I was reminded, he's easier to deal with and lots slower when he's still crawling! So, I'm not sure when he'll walk full out, but for now, this is really adorable! He still much prefers to crawl, for now anyway! LOL

Joshua went off to Explorers Camp the 3rd week of summer vacation and he really enjoyed that! He loved being there by himself, all but one day he said he cried because he missed us! I'm glad he did at least a little....makes me feel better that he still "needs" me! Joshua and Jacob went to Sprouts this year (actually just this week, Sun - Wed) and we were able to bring Ben and Matthew and Josh R. along with us this summer! I was sooooo thrilled that Cathe and Karleen were willing to send them! They all had such a great time! It was crazy! I kept checking on them, but sure enough....they were just fine the entire time! They has the time of their lives! It was tooo funny that Ben started a whole new tradition on one of the songs at campfire! It will forever be remembered by the staff! LOL

I am back up to camp for Family camp this weekend, but will be done our camps after that. I might go up at least for a couple more days of Music and Drama camp and Todd is staying for day camp too....so it's not officially over quite yet!

Anyway....it's getting late, so I'm going to go! Hope this finds everyone having a happy and healthy summer!

Lots of love!
Kim and the family
xxoo

Our new family picture!

Hey everyone:

I'm not updating this as often as I should I know, but this family picture was just taken on the weekend and I just love it! So I thought I'd share it with you! Hope you enjoy it too!

Not a lot happening new with us. The summer is coming fast, evidence of that is that work for Camp Kintail is getting busier and busier. Good thing is we love it and it's not that hard to do. The boys are playing soccer now and loving that. They play every Tuesday night (when we're not rained out) and they are really enjoying themselves. Luke is doing well too...he's had a little sickness here and there, but overall, he's doing just great.

Oh I guess the biggest news this week is that Todd has now officially gone back to school to finish his degree. He's nervously anticipating that too. Mostly just looking forward to it being over with and done.

Anyway...hope you all have a great week and hopefully I'll be on here again soon to post some more pictures!

Our pictures from North Carolina!

Our Trip to North Carolina!

Hi All....well Luke and I just returned from our amazing trip out to Wilmington, North Carolina to meet the girls from our board called the "No Drama Mamas", we all have babies in June, 2006. We've become so close that we decided to finally meet each other. It was so much fun! So many of these ladies were exactly what I expected them to be! So sweet and totally my friends! It was the most surreal feeling though...I felt like I have known these women forever and that I've known these babies since birth! It was amazing. We post pictures to each other all the time, and we totally share everything, so I'm sure that's why! It was way too cool to meet them all and I thank Todd for making it possible! He gave me this trip as a thank you gift to the last three months and I'm forever grateful for that! It truly was an amazing trip!


I have a whole bunch of pictures to show you, I hope you enjoy them. Luke was just an absolute angel on the trip, with the exception of the fact that he didn't "want" to smile for many pictures, the little bugger!!! He was playing with these babies like they were his best pals! It was totally amazing!

The first day that Luke and I were down there, we just drove around Cary, NC and tried to find Nan and Papa's restaurant. That was cool. We have some pictures of that too. Then we were tired, so we made the two hour drive down to Wilmington (which is right on the coast near Myrtle Beach). Fortunately because of our problems at the airport, Lukey was wiped out and slept the whole drive. We got settled into our hotel room around 10pm and went to bed to rest up for the weekend.

We got up the next morning and had a great time getting together all the little presents we brought for the Mommies and Babies we were about to meet. We had to borrow a big garbage bag to get the elephants out to Julie's house! LOL We loaded up the rental car and headed out to explore Wilmington...that is one gorgeous, but easy to get lost in little city! LOL Julie had directed me to a discount fabric store and to be honest, I thought I had died and gone to heaven, this place was HUGE! It was so cool. They had so much fabric it was crazy! I was able to really take my time in there because Luke was napping! Yeah! Then we headed over to Walmart to get some diapers and baby food.

Well...about 3pm we were back at the hotel just getting freshened up and there was a knock at the door and it was Krystie and her family and Leeanna and hers! It was so lovely meeting them! I had talked with them on the board and on the phone for so long, that it was fabulous to finally meet them.

Then we all caravaned (and totally got lost) over to Julie's house, where we met Julie, Jamie, Mariah, Janet and Christy and their babies. Some of the girls had their hubbies with them and some of their older kids too. It was so nice to meet them all. Julie threw us a seriously impressive Southern Barbeque! She had real southern chicken and hush puppies, which Luke loved! And something called 'BARBEQUE'...well apparently down there that means "pulled pork with barbeque sauce" LOL....our differences in cultures was so fun! They had a heck of a time trying to explain that to me! LOL

Anyway, the next day we went out to Wright Beach and sat on the beach visiting and having a blast watching the babies play in the sand. Mariah, who is a Photographer by profession, offered to do a photo shoot of all our families and babies. I love the pictures, they turned out fabulously!

Then that night we went to a restaurant called "On the Border"...that was interesting. It was a mexican restaurant and it was so overwhelming, I couldn't decide what to have. I ended up wiht a fajaita and it was great! Then because we didn't want to stop our visit...we camped out on their front yard for a while! LOL I think the staff thought we were nuts, but we got the best pictures there! We took some of the Mommies and babies all together and the babies with the Daddies! That was fun!

Anyway...all in all...it was a fantastic trip and I'm so glad I had the opportunity to go and meet my new friends!

Back home again!

Well everyone! We're back home again. We arrived back home on Sunday night and Grandma was there to pick us all up! Thanks Mom, we sure do appreciate all the help you have been over this past few months! We love you so much!! Even if Jakey calls you "Grammy"!!! LOL

The trip was fantastic. The second week was just as cool and exciting as the first. We did go to everything I told you we'd do, with the exception of Mt. Rainier...we were recommended that perhaps we skip that, as they had a really bad storm there with a bunch of flooding and there was roads closed all over the place still...so we just decided to skip it! It wouldn't have been that interesting for the boys anyway...so instead we spent time at Snoqualmie Falls and up in North Bend (the town where the show "Twin Peaks" was based from.)

We really did have a fantastic time! I know the boys really miss Todd even more now since we spent so much time with him. I certainly do! I honestly can not wait for all this to be over with. I'm so proud of Todd for doing what he did with his dedication to this program and I'm thrilled that he continues to further his education and his career! I can just honestly say...I hope we never have to spend that much time apart again in the near future! It's too hard on all of us! In the end, it was worth it for sure, but I'll be honest and say, I'm thrilled he's home in 2 weeks!!! LOL

Well...I'm going to fish through some pictures over the next little while...I'll post more from our trip shortly! Just wanted to let you all know we were home safely!

Lots of Love:
Kim (& the boys)
xxoo

P.S. Lukey learned how to crawl this week btw!!! Real crawling!! It's way too cute!!!

We are having a BLAST!!!

This is Pike's Market, this is where the Flying Fish were. This man is from the US Coast Guard, he was at the Science Museum and he was teaching the boys how to survive if they fell in the cold waters of the Artic! (cuz they might need to know that! LOL)
Welcome to my favourite part of the Science Center...the Grossology Exibit! It was hysterical watching these boys go nuts over all the "gross" things the body does! They certainly did a great job with this display! The boys learned so much! Very cute and even more funny!
We all stood inside this guy's nose, we tickled the sides and he "sneezed" us out! (you could actually feel the air blowing you out!)
These are my three little toots! In this experiment you could make different sounds of toots! Kinda funny, but way gross!
The two boys "built" a house together with plastic walls and nuts and bolts at the Children's Museum!
This was the boys at Pike's in the Turkish Delight Store! Luke and I in the "Fun Forest" at the base of the Space Needle.
Daddy and Luke in the Dinosaur section of the Science Center.


All three boys had me paint their faces at the Children's Museum. Jake was a pirate and the guy working there also made him a felt eye patch to go with it. Luke barely "allowed" me to paint an animal face on him, and Joshua, for the very first time allowed me to paint his face and arms with a space theme. He had a whole solar system up and down his arms and astronauts on his face.


Jake, the pirate on his ship and Joshua rock climbing at the Children's Museum.

The rest of these pics are all from the Children's Museum. They had such a good time there. We spent hours there!

Hi Everyone:

I know I said I'd update lots, but apparently I didn't account for the fact that I'd be this darn busy all the time! Sorry about that! However, we've been busy, busy, busy! We're having a great time!

So far we have been to: The Experience Music Project (a place that is a museum dedicated to music, mostly pop/rock, based on Jimmy Hendrix, lots of guitars and such, but the big draw to this museum is the Sound Lab the kids got to play in. They played real guitars, drums, keyboards and even "mixed" their own songs. They enjoyed it.), Pike's Public Market (wow, that place is huge and absolutely amazing! We have been there twice now and didn't expect to love it quite this much! Josh was very happy because he got some fresh made Turkish Delight there! We discovered a new bakery delicacy there as well...Piroshkys...man those are amazing! Yummy! Not to mention the flying fish! Man, we wish you were here to see that Nan and Papa, it was so cool!), the Sci-Fi Museum (which I lovingly nick named "Geeks-R-Us"....Todd and Josh really liked this one, lots of Star Trek and Star Wars...Jakey liked the very few ET things he saw.), the Space Needle was very cool too (seems so small when you compare it to the CN tower, 1/3 it's height), the Children's Museum (this was waaaayyy too cute! We spent over 5 hours there! It was the best, the kids painted their faces, played imagination in the travelling Bob the Builder section, and travelled from country to country exploring all the differences in the different places, it was way cute! We really enjoyed this visit!), we have also been to the carnival called "Fun Forest" downtown (there are rides there and everything you'd seen in a typical carnival type place).

We have one week left until we are back home and back to school. The agenda has a tonne of things on it still like: a boat tour of Elliot Bay, the Woodland Zoo, the Seattle Aquarium, the Museum of Flight, Snoqualmie Falls and Mt. Rainier as well. Lots and lots to do. So much more than I ever expected Seattle would have to offer! It's been a great vacation so far and I'm sure we'll love the rest too!

The boys all say Hi to everyone and miss you all! Hope you are all enjoying your March Break (if you are getting one of course!)

Love you all!

Kim and the boys

xxoo