Every year I jump through a lot of hoops to get a picture of the boys with Santa. I may have even bribed one of my sons one year. But it means a lot to me to be able to look at these pictures now and see how our family has grown over the years. I have hope next year that we can do it again.
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
I found this in our coffee hot chocolate table the other day. It’s a good thing that Santa is able to predict the future and was one step ahead of Marcus. Let’s just hope he doesn’t change his mind again.
But she paid dearly for it. She stood in the slowest line in the world in heels, in the cold for this. After being the best kid in the line, Marcus stuffed a bunch of candy in his mouth right before he got on Santa’s lap. Then he insisted on smiling like he did for his school pictures. Why do pictures have to be so hard?
Santa told him he needed to make his mom happy so he finally finished his candy and she got a good picture of Marcus and Travis.
By then Nathan was out of there. There were cute girls from school down there and he was totally embarrassed. He told his mom that she only had two more years of this with him. Mom feels kind of sad about that.
I know they are expensive, but I have to buy them every year.
My High School Boy
My Middle School Boy
My Grade School Boy
(Hopefully he won’t smile like that next year)
Some day when they get married or something I will make a collage of all their school pictures so everyone will see how dorky cute they were.
Alternative title- “Wake Me Up When September October Ends”
(The alternative title of this post doesn’t really have anything to do with this post, but I like it.)
I have been meaning to post on this blog for a while, but I have a good excuse.
I bought an iPhone.
I have been too busy checking Facebook, playing '”Phase 10”, “Where’s My Water?”, “Cut the Rope” and other important things to be on the computer much. I may not have the voice mail on my new phone set up, but I am always using my iPhone.
So I got some catching up to do, so here I go.
Summer finally showed up sometime in early August
We took the ferry over to Squium one day,
and we went to the Olympic Game Farm.
We fed a lot of different animals (homemade) bread.
We went to my new niece Stephanie’s blessing. We also thought about moving to South King County, but that would mean selling our house on Whidbey Island and then I would have to change my blog’s title so it’s a no go for now.
On August 10th, Travis had his cast finally removed. Happy Day!
Travis, Marcus, and I went to the Island County Fair.
We said goodbye to our 14 year old Ford Windstar and bought a new Toyota Sienna (no picture yet, but it is light grey and I love it).
I killed another houseplant.
Nathan turned 16, and had a coed party in our backyard where the lawn didn’t get watered all Summer.
I got a body transplant.
Back to School! Nathan is in 10th grade, Travis is in 6th grade, and Marcus is in 2nd grade.
We did lots of Scout stuff.
I even did two weekends of Wood Badge training. I broke down and bought Scout pants. I think that will be another post though.
Travis started playing the trombone in band.
Nathan did cross country.
Yeah! I am almost caught up!
It always seems like Summer goes too fast and yet so slow for me.
Travis had to have his arm reset on June 28th. He took it very well.
By the middle of July his hand was looking gross.
SCOUT CAMPS
After going to Cub Camp for all his life as a Tag-a-long, Marcus finally attended as a Cub Scout.
Nathan helped out on the BB gun range and Travis helped me with the Tiger Cubs.
Marcus loved seeing his big brother.
Marcus’ favorite stations were archery,
and BB’s of course.
The weekend after Cub Camp, Travis attended 11 year-old Scout Camp. I don’t have any pictures of it, but he had a great time.
The next week Nathan attended Scout Camp.
Every day the older Scouts got to do high adventure things like climb this vertical obstacle course.
The whole family had fun at Scout camps.
