This year was extra special with Mom & Dad living so close we could celebrate together. We enjoyed fireworks throughout the day at home, a country-side bike ride, BBQ, and ending the night with the fireworks display in downtown Bellingham.
Ada had fun lighting some easy smoke bombs this year. Ruby started to enjoy the noisier fireworks after putting on her ear protection 🙂
Ada is really into dinosaurs at the moment so that was her birthday theme. She told me what she wanted on her cake and even helped decorate a little bit. She loves LEGO, the Jurassic Park movies, and dinosaurs so her party was a mash-up of everything. Ada invited a couple new friends to join in the celebration and I think everyone had a nice time. We played games (pin the LEGO person), ate cake and opened presents. God has blessed Ada with some good friends to spend time with throughout the year. She has been a blessing to us and we love watching her grow and change into a sweet, smart, and caring young lady.
Our first week in California also included lots of cousin time! The kids tried swimming in the pool (too cold, brrr!), floated in the hot tub, jumped on the trampoline, played with their furry cousin Brick, explored Pennypickles Workshop, played at a park, ate poke, made treats, and relaxed by the fire with smores. Whew! We fit it all in 🙂
We spent Thanksgiving with the Friesen side this year. The first week was filled with family fun and cousin time. The second week we surprised the girls with four days at Disneyland with Grampa & Gramma. We thoroughly enjoyed our two week vacation and always look forward to our next time together.
Our first couple of days included a stop at my favorite Cabazon dinosaurs and seeing the beautiful fall colors up at Oak Glen.
Â
Another fun year at our neighbor’s family pumpkin patch. The weather was beautiful and we enjoyed the company of our longtime friends, Jessica, Owen and Henry. The girls also enjoyed carving their pumpkins and dressing up as Elsa & Anna for Halloween 🙂
Another fun adventure with our van crew. The kids enjoyed petting goats, finding pretty birds, and eating ice cream 🙂
Ada loves water and looks forward to her lessons every summer. We signed her up with her good friend Owen for her 2 week class and they had a blast. Ruby enjoyed the kiddie pool and will get to start her lessons next year. At the end of summer, Ada participated in the country club’s swim meet. She won 1st place in both of her races!
One of our many summer adventures was a visit to a lesser known zoo on the outskirts of Seattle. We rode down with a group of friends and had a really fun time seeing the animals and getting to hand-feed a few of them.
At the end of June, Matt, Cherise and the boys flew up for a week long visit and we had so much fun! It had been a couple years since our last time all together which is just too long. All five kids slept in the same room which was great and challenging all at the same time (a lot of trekking up the stairs to get them to go to sleep) 🙂
We traveled all over the place. We visited Fairhaven, played at Mindport, went to the movies, sledded on Mt. Baker, played at the creek in Lynden, and crossed the Capilano Suspension Bridge in North Vancouver. I really did not want our time to end and neither did the kids. Until next time 🙂
This past spring, Ada took a semester of ballet classes followed by a big summer production in June. She performed as a cute dancing tree in a Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland, and Peter Pan story-line mash up. All the kids did a fantastic job showing off their talents and skills.
La Casa Blanca 