Aunt Becca!

I have lots of summer highlites that I hope to get posted over the next week or so, but Andrew prompted one post that I needed to do sooner than later!

For whatever reason, he was talking about Christmas, and that he was excited about it but it wasn't here yet. When Mark asked him why he was excited, he said

Because Aunt Becca will be home from college for Christmas!

As you may or may not yet know, my parents were re-married on July 23rd. (I'll post pictures another time)! One of the many added benefits was that we got to see a lot of my "little" sister Rebecca! She spent a week with us and helped out with our VBS, and came down for a few days before she had to leave for school. We even were able to go rafting once with friends from church. Needless to say, we all enjoyed having her around, and even though it's hard to have her off at school (Cascade College), at least we know where her home base is for now! And her departure for school was the final impetus to get me blogging!

Wishing for snow?

The boys' choice of activity outside today cracked me up...they took the plastic slide off the jungle gym and instead used it as a sled!

...fishing!

We've been slow on the uptake of fishing...we've only been out a handful of times in the six years we've lived here. But Andrew had wanted, and consequently earned through doing chores, a new fishing pole. So we planned to go fishing as part of our weekend camping, esp. as the pinks were running.

We joined the dozens of anglers lining the banks of the river, and attempted to teach Andrew to cast. Unfortunately, his reel got tangled beyond fixing and use after just a few tries. But, he was just as happy pretending with a big stick he found, and Jacob enjoyed using his rod with no line on it!

We came home with three fish...Mark caught two, and Wendy's first one ever in Alaska (and almost twice the size of either of Mark's fish)! :)

Camping and...

Despite the rain that has been pretty steady for weeks now, we had this past weekend carved out for going camping. God was good...we had sunshine for two critical points of the weekend: setting up camp, and going fishing! We went to Hope (about 45 mins. from here), because it's a beautiful place that we haven't had much chance to explore. The boys had a blast...picking wild raspberries, roasting marshmallows, running around the tent till late into the night!

Finally blogging!

Ever since Eric started their family blog, I've wanted to start one for us...it's simply a great way to keep long-distance friends and family up-to-date on our lives. Somehow we seem to have alot of you in the "long-distance" category. And, for being a mom that desperately wants to be journaling and scrapbooking all about her kids, but just doesn't find the time, its the perfect fill-in.
So, feel free to join us on our day-to-day memories and moments. Can't guarantee that I'll post daily, but I will certainly try!