A night out with my daughters....

On Wednesday night, Amanda, Samantha and I had a girl's night out. We got all dressed up and started our evening by going to dinner at a restaurant called The Claim Jumper. This is a place the girls have been wanting to go to for a long time. As a matter of fact, Amanda gave me a gift card for my birthday so that I could take her there. Hmmm.....is that how it's suppose to work???? Anyway, after dinner we drove to Seattle to see The Phantom of the Opera. It was an amazing performance. It was especially nice to take my girls out for an evening of "girl" time.

Beach Clean-up

Checking in and getting our garbage bags and gloves.

We drove to the "end" of the beach where the jetty is and climbed on the rocks for awhile. I loved watching (and taking pictures) of the water splashing onto the rocks.


Playing football on the beach.

This is a group photo of all the jeeps that were there. (I believe there were 38 jeeps all lined up.)

This last weekend there was a 10 mile beach clean-up, so we joined a group of people (from the Jeep Forum online) and went to Ocean Shores to participate. We all met in Tacoma and drove to Ocean Shores as a group. Once we got there, we checked in, were given garbage bags and gloves and were told which stretch of the beach we were assigned to. After picking up trash for a couple hours, we drove back to the check-in area and were served lunch. After that we went back to the beach and played around for the rest of the afternoon.

The Puyallup Fair

This pumpkin weighs a little over 1000 pounds.

Every year we have to see this guy's comedy show at least once, if not more. He juggles various things and is just hilarious to watch and listen to.

Every year we go to the Puyallup Fair, which is our county fair. We looked at some animals, (ok - A LOT of animals), ate our favorite county fair foods (corn dogs, kettle corn, ice cream and lemonade....what a combo that is....) and just had a great time hanging out. We invited Hannah and Alyx to come with us, so the girls went off on their own to go on a few rides while I wandered around the buildings with arts and crafts displays, the veggie and fruit displays and all the wierd/goofy stuff that people/companies try to sell. All-in-all it was a GREAT day!

Happy 14th Birthday Sam!

Five of Sam's friends from church/school came over to the house last night to help celebrate her 14th birthday. They each painted a little wooden box to take home, ate hot dogs, chips and cupcakes, played on the trampoline and just hung out talking and giggling until 11:00 at night. We have been fortunate this week to have awesome weather. They spent all evening outside in the backyard. By about 10:00, it was starting to get a bit chilly, so they took some blankets outside and continued laughing and having a great time. Since her actual birthday is tomorrow, we'll have our family "party" tomorrow night. Dinner will be her favorite food (seafood), she'll open presents from us and then we'll all play board games.

Back to school....

It's 4:30 a.m. and the alarm is ringing. It's 5:30 a.m. and I'm driving to the church to drop Amanda off for Seminary. Yup - summer must be over and another year of school is yet again in session. Even though Amanda is in 11th Grade and Samantha is the 8th Grade this year, I still insist on taking pictures of them on the first day of school. (With a lot of protesting on their part.) When I left for work, the girls were still getting ready for school, so I had to take a picture of them that night. Oh well....close enough. So far they both like all their teachers (they actually started on Tuesday, the 2nd). One of Amanda's classes is French, which she absolutely LOVES. Andy's mom speaks French, so she's looking forward to talking to her in her language. One of Sam's classes is Leadership and she'll be working on the school yearbook. She's looking forward to taking pictures at the different activities.

Labor Day Weekend

Waiting for the truck to get there.

Andy and Don have known each other for over 20 years.

This totem pole is made of motorcycle parts.

YEAH! The truck got there Saturday morning.

This last weekend some friends of ours from California came up here to help their son and his fiance' move to Seattle. They stayed with us Thursday night and then we all went to Seattle the next day to help move everything into their apartment......only the truck didn't show up. After a "discussion" on the phone with the moving company, they said the truck would be there at 8:00 the next morning. Since we had nothing to move, we all went to the pier to walk around and look into the shops. It was fun to spend time with each other...especially since it had been almost 9 years that we'd seen each other.