My favorite picture

Husband took this picture of Zoya and her new cousin Alana when we were out visiting the horses. I think it's so sweet!

More pictures from the Montana trip

www.flickr.com thickankles' Montana trip Aug 2007 photoset

I'm the delay fish

I think Amy's post was a not-so-subtle hint that I should post the pictures from Matt & Emily's wedding. In my own defense, I would like to submit that I did upload many of the pictures to flickr shortly after we got back, but I kept getting an error when I tried putting them on the blog. I gave up and have not gone back to try until today. I was attempting to be artistic with the fun features I just discovered on my camera, so the colors are a little different. I can't figure out how to put all of the pictures on here, but if you click the "view more of thickankles photos" at the bottom, you can access my flickr account and see more.

www.flickr.com thickankles' Matt, Emily and Alana's BIG DAY photoset

Mountain Loop Highway Hike

Yesterday we drove up the Mountain Loop Highway and went on two short hikes - one through an old growth cedar forest and the other to a great, isolated waterfall on the Sauk River, where we sat and enjoyed our lunch. It was such a fun day, even though our poor son came thisclose to DEATH (or so he thought. Why is communing with nature so traumatic for pre-teens??).

Dylan Dynamite

I finally figured out YouTube, my camera video stuff, and how to post it to my blog. I am proud.

This is Dylan's performance of the Napolean Dynamite dance at his school's talent show in June. I think he's so brave to have gotten up in front of so many people! He's such a crack-up!!

We're back!

No excuses for not posting, just LAZY and busy with summer! Here are pictures from the family reunion we had the first week of July. We had so much fun, aside from the 1-day plague that most of the kids got! I love getting to know my siblings as adults - our relationships are so different now from when we were growing up. Refreshingly, there's no fighting over clothes, or death threats with the vacuum cleaner (remember that Heidi?:)), or arguing over the bathroom. Instead, we've all grown to be really good friends, and I genuinely like the people that my sisters and brother have become. And those who have partners have chosen so well! Seems like all the spouses (and those soon to be, we hope) fit in so well.

So enough of the gushing, here are the pictures. These first ones are from our little hike to the twelve-headed monster cave that, alas, was not to be! The playground and walk through the trees was fun, though!

The girl cousins playing restaurant.

I love this picture of Dylan and Chloe!


At the Zoo...

Hippos are my favorite.


It's so hard to get everbody looking in the right direction!


I can't quite figure out what's going on with Max's pants in the background!

Blog-A-Thon

Bad, BAD Wendy for not keeping up again. I am ashamed. Here’s a quickie update of the events in our world over the last month:

Notice anything different about me?

One afternoon last month Zoya declared that she wanted to get her ears pierced. She’d mentioned it before, and after filling her in on how much it was going to hurt she was still determined, so we went off to the mall and got her poked. She LOVES her new look, and the primping has already begun (can’t WAIT till those teen years!). The picture doesn’t capture the earrings very well…she kept wanting to face the camera and I couldn’t get a good angle.

Spring Break in La Push

The Washington coast, with its stormy waters and rocky shores has become a favorite of ours for short getaways. For the second year in a row we headed to the quiet little enclave of La Push to spend a few days during spring break. La Push is a resort on the Quileute Native American Reservation that offers a quiet, gorgeous environment to relax in (and as a matter of principle, I like the fact that the money we spend there goes to the entire community rather than padding some CEO’s already plump pockets [oh brother, not another Wendy soapbox moment! My apologies.]). Our friend Mary joined us, and despite the fact that it rained the ENTIRE TIME (and when I say “entire,” I mean that it didn’t stop, to our knowledge, for even a few seconds!), we had a fabulous time.

These are pictures taken from the front porch of our cabin (used the zoom function – the water really isn’t that close).

This picture gives you an idea of what the rain was like. The turbulence in the puddle is caused by rain alone.

Mary and Zoya braved the elements to get a closer peak at the waves.

As you can see from the pictures, playing outside was not really an option, so we had to keep busy inside. Normally the kids (and Movakel and I, for that matter) would have gone CRAZY being cooped up for that long, but we didn’t seem to have any problem relaxing and finding things to do.

We slept. A LOT.

We played charades: Zoya’s a bear, Dylan’s a banana.

Mary is a street vendor in Mexico City selling tortillas (it was getting pretty brutal toward the end of the game)

The kids danced.

We cut Movakel’s hair (FINALLY! I like it so much better short. His students were calling him “Einstein.”)

And we slept some more…

Zoya did a little jig on the porch for us

We cooked Mexican breakfast under the watchful eye of, and directions from Mary (she is an AMAZING cook – one of those people who just throws stuff in a pan without a recipe and it comes out perfect).

And we slept some more (poor Movakel is recovering from many quarters of teaching 4-6 classes on 2 different campuses).

When it was time to head home, we had to drive through what used to be the driveway of the resort, but due to the rain (did I say it rained A LOT?), was “Lake La Push.”

Birthday Party and Visit with Family

My friend Amanda’s kids both had birthdays this month, so she threw a joint party. We drove down to Centralia for the event and had so much fun! It was great to see ‘Manda and her family – the boys are getting so big and are as cute as ever. Owen turned 4 and Miles is 1.

Here’s Miles with a GREAT giggle!

Owen gettin’ some love from his Gwamma.

So Paula (grandma) lives in Idaho, and to differentiate between his two grandmas, they started referring to Paula as “Gwamma Idaho,” which proved difficult for a very young Owen to say. He (and the rest of us now) calls her “Gwamma ‘Ho.” That just cracks me UP!

Miles with his cake. He doesn’t quite know what to do yet.

Owen blowing his candles out. That’s his girlfriend in the background.

After the birthday party we stopped in Tumwater to visit with Uncle Don and Aunt Alice (and Swede, of course).

Don took the kids for a ride (or two or three) on the riding lawn mower while Alice and I chatted.

Zoya played the drums…

…and Dylan got eaten by the monster pillow.

It was great to have a chance to visit with Don and Alice. I hope we can make more trips down there in the future!

Well, that’s about the extent of it. Until next month…