Gangstas - Generation II

Who Knew?!?!

Who knew that filling the dog's water dish was so splashy that it required special equipment to get the job done right?

Chiawana High School Cheer Camp

Our best friends daughter is a freshman a the new high school in Pasco - Chiawana. She is on the cheer squad and invited our kids to participate in their cheer camp fundraiser. Even the boys went and they had a great time. They practiced for a few hours in the morning, then came back to the school to perform at the boys varsity basketball game halftime. Here are the kids (Andrews head!) waiting in the bleachers:

Andrew with his stunt partner - Hailey:


Jessica & Andrew



Andrew's "stunt" - the pre-K kids did a cheer while sitting on the girls' shoulders - Andrew and Hailey are 3rd from the left.

Nat's cheer - she is to the right on the girl in white pants.

Kaylee & Colten's cheer - Kaylee on the right in gray pants and Colten is in the middle back doing a stunt with Jessica & Courtney.

The kids all had such a great day! Thanks to the Chiawana Cheerleaders and their coaches for a job well done!

Thanksgiving @ Fort Worden

This year for Thanksgiving we drove over to my sisters house in Oak Harbor. Our friends John, Coren & Jessica came as well and Monte John & Jessica spent a good deal of the weekend SCUBA diving. They made several dives on Thursday morning at the Keystone ferry landing in Coupeville and dove off a boat near the San Juan Islands on Saturday. On Friday morning we packed up the kids and a couple of nephews (Ethan, Cayden & Keaton) and rode the Keystone ferry over to Port Townsend. We were only 100 miles from Forks, but I couldn't convince anyone to take me there for a Twilight Tour :( Party Poopers they are! We had a really great time discovering Fort Worden instead!

Here is the crew on the ferry (back to front - left to right):

Keaton, Cayden, Jessica

Natalie, Kaylee, Andrew

Ethan & Colten

The Gray, Estes & Cosper Bunch:

Stacy, Keaton, Monte, Cayden

Natalie, Andrew, Kaylee

Colten & Ethan (Are you seeing a pattern with these two?)

After playing a bit at the fort, we went into Port Townsend for some lunch. We ended up at Nifty Fifty (or something like that). It was an old fashioned soda fountain shop. There was even a big juke box and mini ones at the tables. I think we spent a good $5 alone on those. We had greasy burgers and fries and root beer. It was really good!

These two cousins were inseparable that day. They had such a great time!



After lunch we headed back to the fort to play on the beach . . . it was pretty cold out as the sun was starting to set . . but they all still had to chase the waves. Luckily no one got caught!!

I love this picture of Keaton - it was really dark in the fort and I was glad to get decent lighting for once.

Pre-school Halloween

The Kiddie Korner preschool kids had an open house where they wore their Halloween costumes and sang some songs. They all were sooo cute! I had videoed Andrew on stage, but the next morning we discovered that I had taped the wrong Batman! OOPS! It seemed to be the most popular costume this year as there were about 8 of them in the bunch. So much for my being able to pick my own kid out of a crowd. Wonder how I would do as a police witness and a line-up?!? LOL

This is Andrew with his AWESOME teacher, Liz Elliot.The KK kids also went out toYellow Rose Nursery for a haunted forest, a "hay ride", games and a plant in a pumpkin activity. We invited out friend Ethan to join the trip.


The "hay ride" - Ha Ha Ha!

Andrew tossing gourds . . .

Gangsta party

At the end of September my sister Sarah asked me to sing with her at church for their Primary program. We did a pretty good job, and had a really fun weekend - minus Colten getting sick. That weekend also happened to fall on her friends birthday and each year she has a themed party. She has in the past done a pirate party and a 50's/Grease party. This year she picked "gangsta" as her theme so we went to the local thrift store and purchased pants that were at least 5 sizes too big. We also bought bandannas and HUGE hoop earrings to complete the look and had a friends teenage daughter do our make-up. All-in-all I'd say we look pretty good! We only scared a few people when we had to run to the gas station for ice! Me & Sarah

Sarah and her hubby - Dan

For my 2 readers . . .

I've been seriously neglecting our blog for the past few months, and this week I'm determined to get it back up to par . . or at least as close as I can get it to par ;) There will be lots of pictures and silly antics by the kids. I know, I know, you are just waiting on the egde of your seats - ha ha ha! Look back often . . .

PS I will be dating the posts as they actually took place, so scroll down to see my new posts!

Labor Day Weekend Camp-Out post 1

For Labor Day weekend this year we went camping with my (Stacy's) family to the beautiful Orcas Island. It was a looong journey - 5 1/2 hours in the car (not including stops), a 2 hour wait at the docks, a 1 1/2 hour ferry ride, then another 30 minutes to the campsite! The views though were amazing, the company friendly ( Ü ) and the weather mostly cooperated.

This is the view from the highest point on Orcas. We are looking North and slighty East - the thin dark sliver of land in the middle right is Canada. Me and my sister Sarah/Cati at the top of the island. She takes good pictures - I do not.

This is Andrew waving at us from the tower at the aforementioned highest point on Orcas.

Natalie, Colten, Me and Andrew - did I mention that these pictures are all taken on the highest point of Orcas?

Natalie and Aunt Sarah/Cati - always being silly!

Monte and Kaylee did not go on our trip this year - Monte was working and Kaylee chose to stay home to try out for the volleyball team at school.

Labor Day Weekend Camp-Out - Misc. post

I had just a few random pictures of our trip that didn't need their own posts, so I put them all into this one.

On our way to the ferry terminal, we stopped at a rest area that is near Smokey Point - north of Marysville. We only stopped to get pictures with this GIANT arborvitae. The tree is dead - it had a fire in the trunk some time ago but it is still standing! Someone stabilized it with beams so that tourists, like ourselves, could have our pictures taken with it. Here we are at the San Juan/Victoria Ferry Terminal in Anacortes, WA. We just sat around and waited for the ferry. This is Brady, Natalie, Andrew, my bro-in-law Jonathan and my sister Cheri.
When we finally got to our campsite it was around 4 in the afternoon. We quickly organized the campsite, set up tents, and the cooking/eating area shelters. Colten went right to work in our tent making everyone's beds and organizing it. He was quite the little housekeeper in our tent - he made our beds every day and made sure everyone's clothes were put away!

Ahhh Andrew loved the woods.




On our last full day there, we drove to this place that usually has tons of deer that are tame. We only got to see 2 because it was drizzling, and one wouldn't even come near us. But the other one ate carrots right out of our mouths! Only Natalie, Koby and I were brave enough to try it, but I only got a picture of Nat doing it. Isn't that crazy?!?!?!

Labor day Weekend Camp-Out fishing post

We did some fishing while we were on our camp-out. Here is a picture of one of the lakes we went to. It was so serene and peaceful here. Brady-man caught the first fish - it was HUGE! Not! My boys' hands are covering it all up.
And poor Ethan - he fell completely into the lake. This kid had all the bad luck on this trip - he fell into this lake, fell into another one, got a fish hook caught in his neck and fell down the hill behind our campsite. He was fine after all his injuries, but was ready to go home.


My sister cut up that fish that Brady caught and had a little fun with it - enjoy!

Nickleback 2009

We got to go to the Nickleback concert a the Gorge again this year! We went for the first time in 2007 and had so much fun we did it again. Playing with Nicleback was Hinder, Papa Roach and Saving Abel. We ran into our friends Annie & Devin from Prosser - they ended up sitting by us. And we also saw some of our friends (Mary & Ron) from when we lived in Othello!

The Gorge is a great place to have a concert - the view is breath taking and the natural amphitheater gives it such a great sound.

Here is the sun setting: The Hinder stage
Monte man


Our friends - the Petty's - their sign says "We miss you Dale!". It was taken for Dale while he was at boot camp in Texas.

first day of school!

School started early this year for Prosser - August 25! This year Natalie is in Mrs. Rose's 4th grade class, Kaylee is in 7th grade and Colten is in Mrs. Fortune's 1st grade class. Andrew was not yet awake that morning, so he is not pictured :) but he is in Pre-school at Kiddie Korner with Liz Elliot as his teacher.

Baby shower invites

My great neighbor had a shower for her daughter over labor day weekend, so I helped her make these cute invites:

Andrew's 5th Birthday

It's hard for me to believe that my baby is 5!! Where did all that time go? Next year he will go to kindergarten .. I'm not really sure how I'm going to handle that day! Blowin' out the candles!

This is a bug fruit basket that Monte carved for him - he saw it in a magazine and really wanted one.


He also wanted these baseball cupcakes - I think they turned out pretty good.



Andrew got 2 pairs of goggles for his birthday (they came as a 2 pack) so he shared with Colten and they had a rockin' time with them in the tub!

Natalie's Birthday

Natalie's 9th Birthday was a lot of fun this year. It fell on a Monday and since it was in the summer we surprised her by picking up her 2 best friends (Genevieve H & Eliza B) for a sleepover! We also had our friends the Giles' over and some cousins too. She chose Mud Pie for her "cake" Sooo yummy!!

Here she is with her new Webkinz pet - a monkey. she named him Funky Monkey. and a super cute picture with Kali & Jacob: