What I Did This Summer

So apparently, I blog like I diet.   "I am going to be better this week.  I am going to commit to it.  Oooooh, what's that?  A brownie? OK, tomorrow I will start."    

So, no witty daily, or weekly, or even monthly updates on the Blackham family. But I can at least commit to finishing this one measly post about what we did this summer.  It'll be epic, but you can pretend it was written all summer and just read a little at a time.  And of course you'll read all of it--what if you don't and I say something snide about you and you miss it??  Or maybe you don't care and you'll just scan thru and look at the pictures because this is a pretty gratuitous post.  

June 13 school got out and we headed out of Portland for Seattle to stay with Kolby while we continued to wait for our house to sell.  We stayed in downtown Bellevue where we could walk to shopping, restaurants, parks,  and Lake Washington beaches.  I got up and ran thru the Bellevue skyrises most mornings before Kolby went to work.  The girls took swimming lessons at the pool in our building.  Kolby went to work and enjoyed coming home to his family.  And he actually got to unpack his suitcase for a few weeks.

Lake Washington

Swim lessons

We had lots of guests in that 1200 sq foot apartment--The Nellies with their three kids, the Krivens girls, Jen and her kids came for a few days while Anthony studied for the bar, Jeff came with Emma and Charlotte for the 4th of July while Sara was in England.  

And with all those guests we explored our new city.  We visited the Space Needle, the Aquarium, Pacific Science Center, children's museum, Pike's Place, Snoqualmie Falls, and spent lots and lots of time at the beach.

Lunch w/ the Nelsons and Burlingames

Aquarium w/ Krivens kids

Pike Place w/ Burrell kids

Pacific Science Center

Snoqualmie Falls

4th of July at Downtown Bellevue Park

Seattle Center w/ Emma and Charlotte

By far, my favorite thing about Seattle is the water.  Everywhere you look, there is water surrounded by gorgeous fir trees.  Lake Sammamish, Lake Washington, the Puget Sound.  And there is no other way to describe Seattle on a sunny day than "Sparkly."  It is breathtaking.

The girls and I went to the beach almost every (sunny) day.  Bellevue has beautiful beaches on Lake Washington, with playgrounds and sand and grass and flowers. We met Nancy and the girls at Chism beach, and played at their neighborhood beach a few times too.  Both girls jumped off their high-dive into the lake!  We also explored a few beaches on Lake Sammamish, one that is just down the hill from our new house.  Our favorite spot was a beach called Timberlake Park (picture in a previous post of the hike in to that beach), down at the South end of Lake Sammamish.  It's the only beach Gabby can go to with us, and she'll swim for hours with the girls riding on her back like she's a dolphin.  I'll have to lift her back into the car because she's too exhausted to move by the time we get done.  Or at least that's what she says.

We also drove around neighborhoods for a while most days trying to decide where we wanted to live.  I'd drive until the girls started screaming, and then we'd find a park where we could play and eat lunch.

Kolby and I took the girls to the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle to see Josh Ritter in concert.  He's one of our favorite singers, and it was fun to hear the girls singing along with him.  Here's a picture of him.  Let's pretend he's our friend.

Mid-July the girls and I flew to Utah to visit family.  Jodi miscarried her baby girl, Emerson,  a couple of weeks earlier, so we went to hug and love and grieve with Jodi.   Sadly, Kolby's aunt, Paula, was in the last days of her battle with breast cancer, so we also spent time at the hospital saying goodbye to her, and crying lots with Kolby's family.  She passed away about a week later, so Kolby flew home for her funeral. 

Despite the sadness, it was also probably the best trip I've had back to Utah.  We packed in so much fun.  We went to the cabin for a couple of days with my parents and siblings.  I loved watching the girls explore the property with their cousins like I did as a kid--they took multiple trips every day to the old deserted cabin I was always fascinated with.  They rode 4-wheelers with Grandma and Grandpa, shot the guns with their cousins, and the highlight of the trip was Madeline catching a horny toad which was in the process of being eaten by a snake!  All three (the snake, the toad, and Madeline) survived the encounter, which is rare.  Usually Madeline loves her critters to death.  But it was the toad's lucky day--she saved him from the snake, and he didn't die from her excessive affection either.

We also went to Classic Waterslides in Utah, swam at Clay and Court's pool, went up Big Cottonwood Canyon for a weenie-roast with the Blackham clan, and played lots and lots and lots.  

I forgot to take my camera.  So no pictures of Utah until I bum some off my mom and sister-in-laws.

Madeline and my nephew Aidan

After our trip to Utah, we got an offer on our house.  What a relief in this housing market (88 days on the market)!  We headed back to Portland to get ready to move.  Kolby was traveling lots thru all of this--NYC, Paris, Berlin, Cologne, Salt Lake, Seattle, and Portland.  The girls loved being back in Portland, having the Brown boys and Lauren next door to play with.  They played for hours every day in our backyard, which was definitely bittersweet for all of us.

Madeline turned 8, so we had a big birthday/going away party for her with the Reptile Man. She was in heaven, of course.  

The girls did Willowbrook Art Camp and Amelia did soccer camp while we were in Portland.  I might have to plan for some time in Portland next summer so they can do the art camp again--what a great set-up. 

Amelia and her best bud, Ethan 

We closed on our house, and had the easiest move ever with professional packers and movers.  I literally read a book (Breaking Dawn) while my house was packed up.   Thank you, Microsoft.

Isn't Bill Gates cute circa 1983?

Kristin and Nellie threw us a going away party before we left.  I wasn't sure I wanted to go.  I was so sad to be saying goodbye to all the wonderful friends we've made in Portland over the last eight years.  They have been our Portland family.  But it was good.  It was fun to see everyone, and we know we'll still see them.  Seattle is only 3 hours away, and we'll be back and forth lots.

Then we headed back up to Seattle on the 12th of August.  Actually, Redmond.  We had two weeks before we could move into our house, and we were in a different corporate apartment this time.  And it was kinda yucky.  It was a very typical crowded apartment complex in suburbia.  And it was either blistering hot, or a torrential downpour the whole time we were in that dark apartment with views of the parking lot.  Luckily, it was only temporary.  The girls made friends with 4 or 5 little girls in the complex, and they had a great time playing beauty shop at the playground and swimming at the pool.

As a family, we booked a whale-watching trip on the Victoria Clipper for our last Sunday before the move.  It was amazing--the Puget Sound is so beautiful, and the San Juan Islands were really breathtaking, even in the rain.  We saw a couple of Minke whales, and had lunch in Friday Harbor.   We will definitely be booking a house in the San Juan's next summer.

And finally we moved into our house!  We spent the last week of summer unpacking and painting the girls rooms, going to Target and Ikea for organizing stuff.  It was great to finally be settling in!

Jeff and Sarah came up for Labor Day weekend and we had a very relaxing weekend unwinding with them before school started.

Except school didn't start.  The teachers went on strike the day school was supposed to start, and a week later, it is still summer and I'm still the cruise director.   Back to the lake, back to the parks (we ride our bikes/scooters back and forth between the school playground and the neighborhood park). I'm hopeful that school will start later this week.

So that's what I did this summer.  Although there are no pictures to prove that I was actually there.  Because I'm always the one behind the camera.  Except for this one time when the kids got me with my camera phone outside of Safeway...