Puyallup Fair Round 2

Yesterday, our family met our friends the Lewis family at the Puyallup Fair for a full day of rides, animals, games, food and more. We started out with the rides. This car ride was a favorite of Alexis and Siah last year.
They've grown so much in the past year-
Sam sat back and had a snack while the older kids got to ride the rides-

Dump truck ride-

Airplane ride- Alexis really wanted to do this one. She was just barely tall enough (her hat wasn't pulled all the way down so I think that added some height). She did it all by herself.

Siah's choice- motorcycles

By this point, the little girls were getting a little bored. Next year they'll be able to go on the rides too.

Alexis' first roller coaster ride-

Since our first trip to the fair 2 weeks ago, Alexis has been looking forward to riding a sheep. Yesterday, we let her do it. It is called Mutton Bustin'- it's basically the same idea as bull riding but it is for kids under 6 years old and under 60 pounds. The goal is to ride the sheep for 6 seconds. She was excited all day. She was last in line to go and stood in line with her padded vest and helmet and was excited the whole time. The second the man called her name to ride, though, she freaked out. Even if she had not gotten scared, we don't think they would have let her ride on her own. She was just too small. Here's her 0.5 second ride.

Showing off her ribbon- everyone's a winner!

The little boy who won rode his sheep all the way to the fence on the other end! You can find videos on you tube of kids riding longer than Lex- it's pretty cool.

After torturing her on the sheep we finally took her back to the ponies (which she loved riding) to wrap up our day at the fair.

Go Mariner's!

On Sunday (can you believe that...we're finally caught up!) we went to the Mariner's game with Grandma & Grandpa King. Every year, they take Mommy & Daddy to a game. Pete, Uncle Steve and Lori also caught the game with us.

Here we are showing off our sweet new M's caps that Mommy & Daddy got us at the game. They say "M is for Mariners." On a side note, according to Alexis M is also for Ba (her name for Michelle). She won't be confused at all when she goes to school. On Friday, we had lunch and played at the park with Mommy's friend from her old work Crystal & her son Gavin. Alexis and Gavin are less than 10 weeks apart & Mommy and Crystal were pregnant together at work. What great memories!

Opening day of the Puyallup Fair

Mommy was brave and decided to take the girls to the Puyallup Fair on opening day. For those of you not from around here, the Puyallup Fair is one of the top 10 largest fairs in the world. On opening day, there is a parade down the streets of Puyallup leading to the fair. Not a surprise, we were pretty late to the parade, but we did catch the end and then followed the crowd into the fair.

First stop- snack break-
Next, we checked out the barn full of dogs. You wouldn't think dogs would be that exciting since we have 2 of our own but the girls loved them. Here's Alexis petting a St. Bernard.

The mini-horses were one of their favorites-

The highlight of the day (at least for Alexis) was riding a pony all by herself. She has been known to freak out on carousels so I was unsure how she'd handle a real horse all by herself. She loved it!!!

More to come from the fair...we are going back with the Lewis family on Friday.

More trips to the zoo

The beginning of September brought us great weather, so we took full advantage and visited the zoo a few times within about a week and a half.

First we took Pete (Great-Grandma Doris). The next visit was with Michelle. Alexis and Ba had a hard time getting back to the car-

On our last trip, we took Anissa. Mommy forgot to take pictures this time. Only one picture of this orangutan right up against the glass.

Summer Update Part 3

At the end of August, we went on 2 camping trips. Daddy wasn't able to come on either trip with us. He was busy fishing for salmon in the Puget Sound.

Trip #1- Ross Lake:
Ross Lake is Mommy's favorite place to go camping. It is on the Washington/Canada border in the North Cascades. You can only get to the campsites by boat or by hiking so it's very secluded- we take a boat.

Sam on the boat ride in-
The weather was awesome! Alexis went swimming (in the freezing cold lake) with her life jacket on and was able to swim without anyone holding onto her.
Sami crashed out in the boat-What a view!!

Our favorite part of camping? Playing in the dirt!

All the digging in the dirt wiped the girls out-

Sam & Papa Bob-

Mommy & Alexis this year-

Mommy & Alexis on Lex's first trip to Ross Lake-

Boat ride back-

Well, there is some hiking involved...back up to the parking lot. Thanks to Uncle Jeff for carrying Alexis most of the way!

Trip #2- Salt Water State Park:

We showed off our camping skills to Jen Cruze. We drove only about 5 minutes to Salt Water State Park (unlike the 5 hours it took us to get to Ross Lake). Although we were so close from home, we had a great time camping.

We took a hike to the beach and played in the sand for a while before dinner on Friday- Sami loves to eat the sand-

Friday night it started to rain & it didn't stop raining until Saturday morning. Sam had to be contained in her chair to keep her out of the mud.

Sitting around the fire-

Mommy didn't think we would need a reservation for camping...she was wrong! We only got to camp Friday night so we headed to the beach at Redondo to play a little more on Saturday afternoon.

Some shots of Sam:

At the end of August Sam still wasn't walking but she continued to amaze us with the other things she could do. She couldn't walk but she found a way to climb up onto Lex's trike.

Sam loves to feed herself now. What a mess! Here she is enjoying Auntie Darlene's baked beans.

Cannon Beach 2009

Every year since Grandma Kris was pregnant with Mommy, our family has been taking a vacation to Cannon Beach, OR. It is a big family vacation- Great-Grandma (AKA Pete- named by Alexis) and her whole family come to the beach.

This year, as you will see from the pictures, Sam's new wagon was a huge hit. Who knew sitting in a wagon could be so entertaining?!Who let Ba drive???

Our friend's the Shoemaker's also come to Cannon Beach. They stay down the beach a bit, so here we are taking a ride down to there house. Almost as entertaining as the wagon- Jeff's bike.

Put the two together- what fun!

Mommy & Daddy got to have a day off and they went salmon fishing with Uncle John. It was a lot of fun- despite Mommy getting sea sick & losing most of the fish that bit her hook before they got to the boat. Here are all the fish.Tickle torture! Well, I don't know if you can call it torture. If you listen close, Alexis says "oh there it is" when Auntie Diana stops tickling for a minute- pointing out her toes. It is her way of asking for more.

What a mess- Down at Haystack Rock with Auntie Stacy & Uncle Steve- Having fun at the park in town- Lunch break-

Nap time- something is wrong with this picture. The one who is supposed to be napping is awake and the one putting her to sleep is napping.

On another walk to the Shoemaker's, we passed this sea lion on the beach. Although it doesn't look too good in this picture, after resting on the beach for a while it did get up and go back into the ocean.

The sea lion didn't seem to impress the girls who had fallen asleep in the wagon. They kept on napping instead of checking out the commotion.

An attempt for a family photo- this one will not be on our Christmas cards this year!

We didn't have very good weather this year, so when the sun came out at the end of the week, we headed to the beach. We didn't stay long, though. It was so windy we were getting pelted with sand.

On the last night, everyone had gone home except Pete, Mommy and the girls. It was a beautiful sunset that night.