Vacation - part II

Kids got to play in the backyard of Auntie J's house. She bought a slip and slide and then, of course, there was a hose...

After everyone got dried off, we hung around in the chill out lounge...

Lounging.

Our family visit to Califiona

We drove down to California to visit family. Grandpa took the kids to the zoo...

Fi got to feed the giraffe!

Who knew they had purple tongues??
And then there are the flamingos, a family favorite.

Picture of mama.

Tia! Tia was visiting from Spain, taking pictures of the kids in front of her parent's house. This is one of the pics that ended up on our 2012 Christmas card.

August work on the yard.

G surveying the work/damage he has created. :)

Beach dinners

We love to go down to the beach and have a picnic dinner. Summers are short around here, and we love to soak up as much summer as we can.

Raised beds are in!

We built the raised beds, and then had a couple yards of soil delivered to fill them in. G and I worked to move the soil from the driveway to the beds - and the kids joined in to help. Fi was loading up her beach pail with soil and carrying it over to the raised beds, and even O was helping to fill up buckets.
The planter by the walkway is about 6' by 15'...

And the planter by the house is about 5' by 25'. 

This will give us lots of room for planting! G is showing Fi how to plant sunflower seeds. 

A beach party

We were down at the beach for a friend's birthday party, and I caught these pics of my sweet girl:

Such a sweet girl.

Still working on the yard...

G is working on the front yard - making progress.

June is a lovely time in Seattle, everything is nice and green.

And when O woke up from his nap, he was just so darn cute I couldn't handle it: