Grateful

I have a lot of things to be grateful for. But yesterday was a 'special' day. Here's the run down...we have guests staying with us who were gone for the day visiting other family. Jeremy was also gone. So just me and the kids. I decided to be a good mom and take them to Dash Point to play at the beach. It took me an hour to get everyone ready, and 30 minutes to drive out there only to find that the main parking lot next to the beach was closed for an event. The ranger told me I could park in a different parking lot and take a trail down.

At this point my mom alarm went off. I told him I was alone with 4 little kids and wondered if I could make it down the trail. He said yes. I then asked if I would be able to make it down the trail with a wagon. (The wagon had all our essentials.) He said it was a bit steep with a few stairs but he thought I could do it.

Great! We parked. I strapped the baby into the front pack and off we went. The first set of stairs was traversed with little trouble. Then the trail got narrower and steeper. OK, I thought we can do this. Then there were more stairs and curves and steepness and narrowness. By now I can't turn the wagon around, I can't go back and I can't move forward. I've got a four month old on me, a wagon pushing me down the hill, a two year old who keeps slipping, and two very cooperative girls that aren't complaining. I start to wonder which of us is going over the edge first.

The only option I had - keep going.

This is when I start to get grateful. Grateful for people coming up the trail, sensing and seeing my distress and helping me get the wagon down more steps and around steep corners. One woman tied up her dog and helped me down the most difficult part. I thanked them all profusely.

By now I'm sweating and fighting back tears.

The next dilemma, how do I get back to the car? I can't make it up the trail with the wagon.

As much as I hated it...I was going to have to call for help. I got the kids set up on the beach and went to find my cell phone...somewhere.. in my bag...it has to be there right? Wrong. That's when the tears finally came.

And when I found the cell phone.

I called my in-laws and tried to be brave but started to cry when I explained what happened. The kids played for an hour or so and then my mother and father-in-law rescued me.

I am grateful for the random strangers who came to my aid. And I'm grateful for my in-laws who, not once, mentioned that maybe I shouldn't have tried to go down a trail with 4 kids and a wagon.  Even though they had to be thinking it because I sure was.

Family Reunion - Ocean Shores



Bandit our friendly raccoon




Family reunion at Ocean Shores! We had a great house on a canal, complete with a theater room, which made watching Galaxy Quest all that much more awesome. We got our traditional matching shirts. Lime green for the ladies and kelly green for the fellas.  



Don't let the picture deceive you it was 65 degrees and the water was cold!



 The weather was not great. Very typical of our summer thus far, rainy and cold. But my brother's kids hadn't been to the ocean before and a little cold weather wasn't going to stop them.

Riding back to the house.

Family reunions are always full of craziness and I love it! My favorite this year - when I had a panic attack because I thought I had a tick in my hair. I was scratching my head and felt something hard and lumpy. I couldn't get it out and I was terrified to look in the mirror to see if it actually was a tick. So what did I do? Called for my mommy of course. My sister-in-law Holly thought I'd lost my mind because she wanted to help but I couldn't even tell her what was wrong. Alas I found my mom and she checked it. Not a tick. A booger. Saved by the Booger I tell ya because if it had been a tick I would have lost all composure. Never was there a mother more greatful for her child's booger in her hair.

What a smirk.

That's pretty much the face he had on the entire reunion.

Mom and Madilyn

Can't wait till next year!

Family Time



Jer and Garrett feeding the budgies.



My big brother and his gorgeous family came to stay with us. It was awesome, exhausting chaos. So much fun. So many kids. 9 between our two families.


Mariner's Game





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The guys took the 4 older girls to a Mariners game, to which Emma wrote in her journal "I went with dad to a baseball game. It was boring but I dealt with it."



The Magnificent Seven

 Great trip to the zoo.



Stroller Babies



Craziness I tell you!

My favorite, although I was completely against it to start with, a zip line in our back yard. It might have been a good thing my mom wasn't there for this part.

Come back soon Parsons family!

Last Day

1st day of 2nd grade

Last day of 2nd grade

 School is out at last. Look at that girl. Madilyn has grown up so much in the last school year. She is becoming a self-sufficient, confident, and highly creative little girl. I cried on the last day of school. Not because I was sad that I would now have 4 kids at home all day but because my little girl is growing up. With every passing school year it feels like she needs me less and less. Sometimes that's great but sometimes it makes me sad. No matter how big or smart she gets she'll always be my little girl who used to tell me 'I miss you when you gone.'