Old friends.

Zane and I had the opportunity to hang out with one my best friends from college Chad and his wife and their two kids today. It was the first time Chad's met Zane! We had a great time just letting the kids get to know each other and play together. It was fun for Chad and I to catch up to, I haven't seen him in over a year.

Zane & Nyah playing in the "pool" Chad built!




Zane & Merek getting introduced!


Chad and I and our kiddos!

Trying to beat the heat.

I just love his little gut in this picture!!

Saturday.

Josh had to work today, so I took my friend Trina too the Sounders Game! She was so excited to go and I was excited to take her! It was a great game, smokin' hot sunshine glaring down on us, game tied at 0, but still fun to watch.



This evening my cousin Kendall, her husband Casey and their two girls Kaylin (5) and Makena (2) came over for dinner and a visit. They all live in Idaho now and we rarely see them (last time was Zane's birthday last October), so it was fun to catch up. I cannot believe how big the girls are getting! Zane wasn't feeling too good tonight, so went to bed early before I was able to snap a picture of him with his two cousins (I'm so mad that). Here are a couple pictures minus the little man :(

J-O-B for Josh

Josh lost his job at the end of last month and if anyone has paid attention to anything going on in the world in the last year it is that our economy sucks and the unemployment rate is astronomical right now. Basically this was not the best time to lose one's job and have to try and find another one! Well, 4 weeks from the day he lost his job he started at his new job!!! Josh is the newest technician at the Northwest Mini dealership in Fife!! The best part about this new job so far is that it is only a 10-15 minute commute for him against traffic! Guess who's in charge of making dinner from now on...haha!!! He really enjoyed his first day on the job and seems to think he'll really like it there. I'm so thankful that things worked out the way they did, although it was a really hard month financially for us, it was worth it in the end if he is happy where he works!

Here are a couple pictures from our celebration dinner tonight (thanks to a gift certificate)!

Ocean Shores 2009.

We just got home from our annual trip to Ocean Shores! We have been so lucky to have a co-worker of mine lend us their beach house every year for the past 4 years. Its funny to look back on the first year we went to where we are now. It started out with 6-10 adults and this year it was 6 adults and 4 kids! We were blessed with BEAUTIFUL weather this year. If any of you have ever been to the coast you know that you can never count on the weather, always need to be prepared for wind, rain and gray skies. This year it was at least 70 degrees everyday and blue skies most of the time! The fog would come in and out, but as soon as it cleared it was blue skies and not a cloud to be seen!

As always I took way too many pictures...here are just a few of my favorites:

This is Zane right before he fell into the water there...oops!


Here he is cuddling up after getting his cold wet pants/shoes off!


Running wild at the beach!


My beautiful family.


Having fun in the sand!


Zane playing with his buddy David at the beach!


All of the kiddos.


For a fun comparison; here is Zane at the ocean last year when he was 7 mos old...


and Zane today at 20 mos old!

Beautiful Brooklyn!

I cannot rave enough about my new favorite children's photographer Sylvia; she has such a knaack for capturing the most beautiful shots and candid moments! Here is Zane's little girlfriend (and my best friend's daughter) Brooklyn. I always knew she was beautiful, but these pictures (especially the first one) really show her beauty, the second one is just freakin' adorable!! Enjoy!

Please remember the next time you are in need of photos for your little ones to check Sylvia out!

NKOTB Round 2 or is it Round 4?!

Yep, you read the title right...I did go to another New Kids on the Block concert last night! It was my 2nd in my adult life and my 4th overall! I just can't get enough of these guys (and thankfully I have some friends that can't either). I'm not sure what it is, but maybe its the fact that when we go to these shows we turn into screaming little 12 year old girls again and its like any care/worry/responsibility we had in the world is gone...its just like freedom for a few hours! Although, its pretty cool that we are old enough to drink at the shows now (I'm not sure the even sold alcohol at concerts when we were kids).

Last night's show was at the White River Amphitheatre and other than the traffic trying to get out of the parking lot (imagine the Gorge, but 10 times worse), it was a great night and a great venue! It helped that we had 15th row (thanks Andrea for scoring those)!

For those of you who are done laughing and mocking me, here are a few pics for your enjoyment!




Homeboy here was sitting next to us and to say he was a big fan is an understatement. This guy new every dance move and every word to every song. He was so fun to sit next to and hilarious to watch.









No, we did not make these signs ourselves; some other crazed fan did and passed them out to the entire crowd...

Yum-o!

Josh made whip cream the other night for our ice cream sundae's and Zane hopped right up on his stool and started to dig in. There was no coaxing, the kid just knew what to do...he loves this stuff (but who doesn't?!)!!

Happy 4th of July!

Its a scorcher of a day here in Seattle today! I love it!! This morning we took Zane to another splash park, I love these places! A free water park, who can beat that! No, there are no fancy slides, but there are fancy metal pieces that spit out water at you...what more could you want on a hot day!! Zane is getting a little more brave with them, he still only likes to get wet when its under his terms and not when he just happens to be standing under a water feature when it decides to spit water! We've been to 2 of these parks so far this summer and I plan on checking out more of them!







After nap-time today (yes, we all took a nap in this household today), we headed into Burien to watch the parade! It was pretty fun...not as many floats as I was hoping for, but I guess its not the Torchlight parade! It was pretty hot sitting out there in the sun, but it was well worth it! As you can tell from the picture below, Josh was really enjoying himself! Haha!

EMP.

Thursday night we took Zane to EMP to see the Jim Henson's Muppet Exhibit. The exhibit was pretty cool, it was neat to see the "real" muppets in person. We were not allowed to take pictures of the muppets in their protective little boxes, but trust me that we saw them and that they were very neat! I had never been to EMP before, so it was pretty neet to walk around and see all of the memorbilia. I think Josh and Zane's favorite part was where you could play the instruments yourself! Just case not all of you know, EMP is free the 1st Thursday of every month!

Splash!

Zane is home with daddy today, what a fun treat...too bad mom has to work! Josh took Zane to a park in Tacoma that has a splashpad and to my surprise I guess he loved it! Apparently he was not enjoying himself (as the picture below shows) with water dumped on his head by surprise...I don't think I'd like that either though!