Seattle, Rain?

We have had some crazy weather this year but this Sunday topped it off.  We had a full on cloud burst and sent the kids out to get their crazy-on.  We turned off the camera for the part where they slid in the grass in their undies....too funny.

Riding with Emily and Andrew

We had a busy weekend and opted for a boat ride, but Lucas got to go riding with Emily and Andrew.  Here is a good shot of them heading out on the trails. This was his first big ride after plenty of practice in the back yard.

Summer So Far

Our friends Jon and Becky Rands have always been kind and brave to invite us to their lake house in Sandpoint Idaho on Lake Pend O'Reille.  Once again a fantastic long weekend with friends, food and kickball! 

Britney has become a pretty good wakeboarder.  Not bad for a mother of 4 that only started a few years ago!

These are the girls jumping off the train tracks.  Britney is on the far left in her perfect pencil form, very little splash!

The boys decided to climb on top of the train bridge area which was about 6 feet higher than the tracks (around 30 feet total).  Jon Rands, Lauren Steiner, Me!

On our way out of town we stopped by "The Dive" and all rode the mechanical bull.  This is Lucas and Jack giving it all they've got!

Back from the Dead

Google (who apparently is supposed to "do no evil") recently migrated users like me to a new way of posting (I'll spare you the details).  Nevertheless, I was caught in a technology black hole for a few months and even when I was willing to update our blog I couldn't.  After a lazy Sunday on the back deck, reading various websites about how to fix my problem we are now back at http:\\blog.scottandbritney.com !  

Now onto the postings.  If you use a Feed Reader or have us bookmarked please update to the new address.  Blog on.

Ward Talent Show

YouTube - Ward Talent Show Baby
 

The ward talent show is always blog worthy. Here are the kids doing Aunt Katie proud by hitting it hard to some Justin Bieber. My personal favorite moment is Jack's robot and Gracie's smile.

Winter Wrap-Up

My blog posts seem to be coming quarterly now which is an indication of how much free time I really have and how much time we have spent in the Hospital.  Here is the scorecard for posterity sakes.

ER Visits: 4 (Britney twice with Chrohns, Lucas once for getting caught under the tractor trailer (not kidding), and Scott once for 5 stitches from a picture framing accident)

# of Days Hospitalized:  I think about 15 over 3 visits, all thanks to Britney and her Chrohns.

# of Prescriptions Filled: I lost track, I swear the pharmacist thinks we sell the stuff on the side.

$ Spent out of pocket: None, thank you Microsoft!

Here are a few posts to catch us up from the past few months.

We spent Thanksgiving in Georgia with Britney's family and had some good rest and fun.  The highlight for the kids was the rope swing at Dave and Andee's cabin.  The highlight for me was watching Britney's older sister Linzee try and pull her back and launch her on the rope swing :-).

Most of December Britney was recovering from an intestinal re-section, equivelant of fixing a bad section of sprinkler pipe for all you do-it-yourselfer's, so we did most of the Christmas traditions without her.  Here are the boys and I (not sure where Grace was?) waiting for the Santa Train.

The train ended up at an old train station where the kids got to meet Santa.  He was the real Santa, not the imposters they have at the mall and other commercial establishments.

I also just realized that we didn't take a single picture of Christmas Day, but we did get one shot a few days after while returning some stuff to the store. 
Parents will understand this, but sometimes you just have to pick your battles and on this particular day Charlie was adamant about wearing what you see below, and we gave up the fight.  Yes, we shopped the entire day like this and he was the happiest kid in Seattle.

Jack's new bed

Jack has always been a peculiar sleeper and once again he didn't fail to disapoint. I went in to tuck him in and at first glance thought he was missing......... until I looked up on the bookshelf.

More Lake Pend O'reille

Click on the picture of us at the top of Schweitzer Mountain to see the rest of the pictures from the trip. The lift ride to the top was the highlight for the kids, but not for our friend Lauren who dropped his camera from the lift on the way down :-(.

Lake Pend O'reille Treehouse

We did a family vacation to our friend's house on Lake Pend O'Reille (Sanpointe, ID). The weather was perfect and the accomodations were even better. They just bought the property next door to them and 'merged' the two lots. They inherited the most amazing tree house by buying the lot next door. Check this out, Brit and I stayed in it for a night while Becky took the kids :-).

I did a screen grab of an online book that the treehouse was featured in, the pictures don't do it justice but lets just say it was amazing.

Charlie and Chocolates

Britney got some chocoloates from a friend for her birthday and this is what we found the next day. He didn't care for the ones with nuts, good boy Charlie.

Hike to Twin Falls

I'm not sure if it is the fact that I have gotten older and have learned to appreciate nature more, or if our kids need to learn that there is more to life than the Disney Channel, but I love family hikes.

We did this hike (Twin Falls) with my Brother about a year ago and went again in August on a warm day. Charlie loved the river and the kids all were champion hikers.

The Yard

After spending nearly a year working on our back yard we reached a nearly completed status! We put in the beds, planted a garden, built a deck, etc. etc. It was WAAY more work than I had intended but we are really happy with how it turned out.

I used a PVC decking material that should be pretty low maintenance. No slivers for the kiddies!