Firsts....

Today had three firsts...

First, Kevin is at a his first sleepover at Aden's house. He and Aden have been great friends since Kindergarten. Kevin rode the bus home with Aden (the second first) and when I called to check and see how he is doing, I was told the boys were having a terrific time.

The third first is that we took Kyle to Ipanema Brazilian Grill in downtown Seattle. This place has anywhere from 12-17 different meat type items that are served on skewers by passodores. We all left there STUFFED. This is not the place for vegetarians, it is a meat (beef) lovers paradise. They also serve lamb, buffalo, boar, chicken, turkey and grilled pineapple. Yum Yum.

Kyle at the middle of the meal before he had the tummy ache from too much food.

Kevin's First Real Soccer Game of the Season

Today Kevin had his first real game of the season. They play 4 on 4 at this age, 1 goalie and 3 field players and it has 25 minute halves. There are 7 boys on the team and they take turns coming in and out of the game. Today it was 75 degrees out and the boys got hot quickly.

Kevin played for about 10 minutes and then came out to "rest" and drink some water then he went right back in.
At the half, the first half goalie said he was tired of playing goalie and the coach asked who else wanted to play. Kevin volunteered and had a blast.
Kevin did a pretty good job. I guess the funniest part was watching Kevin throw the ball out over the heads of all the boys on the field and almost to the other goal. He had to learn not to throw quite so far and the boys on his team had to learn to run fast to the other side of the field if Kevin made the save and grabbed the ball.
Next week, Chris will be at the game and can take much better pictures with his camera. He can get the good action shots.

Kyle's Award

Friday Kyle brought this award home from school. He was recommended by one of his teachers. While he was in class, the vice-principal and the counselor came in, asked Kyle to come to the front of the class and made it sound to the class and Kyle that he was in BIG trouble but then they presented him with this certificate and told him one copy would go into his permanent school file, one would stay with his teacher and one came home.

We are very proud of him. He also was pretty excited.

Chris' Knee Surgery

On Monday Chris got his knee fixed. Chris injured his knee during our vacation to Alaska. Something about a moose? That and some scar tissue and old tear from an old injury meant that he had to have some arthroscopic surgery to try and clean things up.

For those of you into the the gritty details, he had two tears in his medial meniscus, an old tear in his lateral meniscus and a grade 2 tear of his MCL (medial collateral ligament) there was also a lot of scar tissue on his ACL from an old injury (likely the same time he tore the lateral meniscus). The Doctor wasn't sure if the ACL would need repair or not, fortunately she thinks its stable enough on its own. She did cleanup the meniscus tears as much as possible which should keep his knee from locking up on him. The MCL tear was already starting to heal and had not completely torn through so she decided to let it heal as repair would increase the healing time and require physical therapy.

Chris either being a little twisted or maybe a lot twisted, opted for a spinal anesthetic and remained awake through the surgery so that he could watch. Yuck!

This is Chris just a little while after surgery, wide awake and ready to go home other than a very numb left leg.

One of the tears on his meniscus as seen through the arthroscope.

Soccer Jamboree

Today Kevin had his soccer jamboree. They played three games. The first one was about 9:40 a.m. then he had his second and third back to back at 11:20 a.m. then 11:40 a.m. The boys were hot, sweaty and worn out by the time we took them home.

Here are some pictures. It's my first slide show so hopefully it works okay.

After the games we came home to watch the UW vs. BYU game. It was a great game and a heartbreaker for the Huskies but they did great and we're proud to call ourselves Husky fans!!

School is Back

Yes, it is that time of year where the boys go back to school. Kyle is in middle school and Kevin is still at his elementary school. We don't take first day of school pictures as it is "dorky" according to the boys. Kyle was extremely excited to go back as he has had such a boring summer (I think not, but the past 2 weeks have been pretty slow). Kevin was looking forward to seeing his buddies again.

I've started school again too as Kyle's social studies teacher decided that the parents should be assigned an essay to write about their child. It is due on Monday, yes, it actually has a due date. I've been practicing my penmanship as I have signed an incredible amount of paper as each class has a syllabus that both Kyle and I must sign. So I think I am ready to write my essay now. Smile.

Kevin has started soccer and has his jamboree on Saturday where he will play in three 20 minute games throughout the day. Kyle has been helping with practices and has decided to try out for the team at school as he has enjoyed learning the sport.

Scouts will start up soon as of course with the start of Scouts, we have our annual Scouting Popcorn Sales. Anyone interested in ordering popcorn??

Have a great week! We will update soon with photos.

Football is Here

Saturday we went to the Cougar Gridiron Classic. If you know us, we are NOT Cougar fans but Dawg fans but since the tickets were $2 each and we could watch a game at Qwest field, we went. It was actually fun. There was a lot of crimson and grey but if you look, you can see orange. That bit of orange was Oklahoma fans. Yes, there were actually Oklahoma fans and most of them sat in one section but there were some spread out the stands. They made lots of noise for such a small group.

Family Camping - More Leavenworth

Here are a couple of group photo of us in Leavenworth. Chris took this one from across the street. We always have fun with B & K and the boys just love them as little siblings. Every time they talk about wanting a little sister or brother, I just remind them they have B & K to play with any time they want.

A very nice man took this picture of all of us. B was not too thrilled about the picture and refused to turn around. Oh well, it's a good picture of the rest of us.

Family Camping - Leavenworth

We went into Leavenworth with Uncle Kevin and Aunt Kelli and B & K. We had lots of fun looking around the shops and eating ice cream. There is a hill that our boys love to roll down each time we go to Leavenworth and we introduced B & K to the hill. B loved it just as much as the boys.

Here's the 3 of them rolling down the hill.
B & Kevin running into each other. They just kept going on top of each other and down the hill. When they got to the bottom they both grinned.
K did not want to roll, she just watched. Isn't she too cute.

Family Camping - The Lake

If you're a family member and reading this you will know I'm the last to blog about the trip. It's that darn Facebook thing.

Anyway, earlier this month we went on a family camping trip that included a great-grandma, aunts, uncles and cousins. The boys had a blast. We had 6 sites and up to 35 people during our largest night. Part of the fun was playing in Lake Wenatchee. The lake was not super cold, in fact it had some warm areas and it was pretty shallow for about 70 feet or so. Uncle Craig and Pat found a rather large log and the boys (cousins) took turns climbing on top. They had so much fun.

Here is Kevin on the log.
Here is Kyle. Just as he stood up, the guys on the ends started to rotate it to see if Kyle could move his feet fast enough to stay on.

Mariner's Game

On August 2nd we went to a Mariner's Game. A friend of ours has season tickets and we bought her tickets for Saturday's game. We were lucky as Saturday was Season Ticket Holder Appreciation Night so we were able to go in early and watch the players warm up. Both Kyle and Kevin each were able to catch a batting practice ball to bring home. We also received some nice long sleeve Mariner's shirts for that wonderful weather we have from October to May each year.

It was also Mariner's Trading Card night and the boys traded with a bunch of people at the game to get 4 full sets of the 27 cards which included Aurthur Rhodes which had just been traded a few days before.

Sad to say they did lose 1 to 3 but they had a some great plays chasing down runners between 2nd and 3rd and the boys had a great time eating hot dogs, popcorn, pretzels, chocolate covered strawberries, peanuts and cotton candy.

Some of the players during batting practice.
Me watching the boys trying to catch the batting practice balls.
Kyle and Kevin not happy with us as we made them turn around and look at us instead of trying to get those fly balls.

It's Been A While

Okay...sorry it's been a while. Chris got me hooked on this thing called "Owned" in Facebook and I just keep looking at all the funny pictures people will post. I'll catch you up on the past 2 weeks over the next few days.

River Days Parade

Saturday the boys and I participated in the River Day's parade with Scouts. There were about 70 cub scouts in uniform along with the cub leaders in uniform. They marched in 4 rows with the American flags and Scout pack flags in front. Kyle and I held the banner that "contained" the parents with the wagons full of bottled water if the boys needed them.

It was about 1 mile of walking and it was fun. We will probably do it again next year.

Kevin waiting in his row.
Now that we are in our rows, lets sit down and wait for the to call us up. We were number 59 out of 88.
Kyle and I holding the banner getting ready to walk.

Leavenworth

Okay so it took me a couple of days to get to this but on Saturday we drove Lake Wenatchee to check out some camp sites then went to Leavenworth to walk around. It was about 95 degrees but the shops were cool. One of the many candy/chocolate stores had this bear chained to the bench for photo ops. We of course took advantage. We picked up some chocolate and brochures for things to do when we go camping then drove home. It was a very long but fun day.

Kevin and the bear.
We made Kyle sit there with a smile.
Aren't these flowers cool. Chris takes great pictures.

Scout Camp

Today I went to Scout Camp with Kevin. We had lots of fun. We started the day with Field Games. Today it was an obstacle course, here's Kevin hopping through the Frisbee minefield. He did so well.
At crafts Kevin decorated his felt piece with a green wolf and put orange crosses around it as a border.
Kevin at the archery range.
Kevin also shot three bulls eyes at the BB range, started his treasure chest in woods and made baked apples with cinnamon and sugar at the cooking station. Tomorrow is an exciting day with the egg launch. He has had a fun week.