Family 4th!

cleaning clams with Aunt Christy

At Jamie's graduation party

Getting tickeled by Tata

For as long as I can remember excluding sometime in the 80's when I was a lot younger we have spent the 4th of July at our cabin on the Hood Canal. I decided to take a few much needed days off last week and Westyn and I headed to the canal a day before Troy to spend some time with my parents until the maddness began. We had several Baggo tournaments, several margaritas and I think we went through about 15 bottles of wine - this was spread out around many days and people though. Every night, especially the 4th, we were treated to a fireworks display unlike any you have ever seen. Up and down and across the canal we could see incredible fireworks, huge parties, bonfires where people were sure to be roasting Reeses Smores as this is the new thing - who said we were in a recession?? I can't believe how much people must have spent. One can't really explan the awesomeness of the canal on the 4th unless you have been there.

Lake Kachess with the Phipp's and crew

On another note, June was a crazy month packed full of fun get-togethers; my cousins's graduation, celebrating the birthday of a pretty cool guy at their amazing cabin/huge house at Lake Kachess, spending time with my Grandma who will start her bone marrow transplant at Fred Hutch in a few weeks and the list goes on. July is sure to be even better especially because I get to see some awesome people in a few days and celebrate Jen's 30th birthday with her. The only downfall of July is that my brother and his family leave for their 2-year Cornell journey at the end of the month and we will obviously miss him terribly - I think my Mom will begin having withdrawls....

Westyn in transforming into this little girl and is trying way to hard to grow up faster than she should and that I should allow. She refuses to have anybody feed her but herself and has had a pretty hefty diet these days. She literally gets a black eye, bruise, scrape every single day since she is so active but keeps on mobbing along so I can't hold her back. She is now walking up the stairs, not crawling but full blown walking and has her own special language that vaguely sounds like Chinese. Her vocabulary is pretty incredible and will mimmick anything that Troy and I say - even though it doesn't come out perfect she's still trying so hard.

As people may notice my posts are few and far between; time these days is pretty lacking and I haven't had 2 seconds to sit and write a post and post pictures which we all know is a pain in the a@#. Juggling all of my roles as a Mom, wife, career woman has proven to be quite challenging but I think I'm hanging in there as best as I can... without having to self-medicate...