4th of July

This years 4th of July was a little cold and damp! After all of these years I have begun to realize that summer does not start until after the 4th of July. But this year its obviously that it was longer than a month for summer to kick in... or some of us are still waiting for it! We spend the evening at Scott's Dad's house with with great friends and family. Kaityln showing her true patriotic colors



Kaitlyn, cousin Bailey and Brayden.

Like she is really that heavy.. lanky maybe..

All the kids

( kate,charlie,brayden Bailey and Kaitlyn)

Camping 101 AKA (girls camping trip)

It all started out on a girls night out dinner when one too many drinks were had and a camping trip discussion was brought up and we all thought how great it would be for all 6 of us girls take all 12 (yes 12) of the kids on a camping trip without the husbands.. (what the hell were we thinking)

So the idea was born..... Well MY idea of the way the trip was going to go was that we were going to go to a nice KOA campground. Showers, grass, running water etc.. especially since myself and one other person has really ever camped before.. when I found out that were were staying at a camp ground with NO running water, NO bathrooms or showers and NO electricity I was shocked and a little worried myself. When I told Scott about our grand idea his exact words were" Good luck with that" laughing might I add. We get everything organized. Erika booked the camp sites and were ready to roll... this is when I got alittle more nervous. I told the girls I picked up the Starbucks viva packets for coffee in the AM and one of them asked me how was I going to boil water for it.. I looked at her and said "do you think we are hunting for our food too" we have a stove and BBQ ... we can BOIL the water" I began to wonder what we were in for.

We met at the school and with 6 SUV's packed full to the brim, 13 kids,13 bikes,1 BBQ,1 stove and propane to last us for a month and firewood that lasted us 1 night. We looked as tho were were camping for a week,when were were only staying 2 nights(if we make it 2 nights)
So we head off to Lake kachesse.. close by just in case we have to leave in the middle of the night.
We head to our destination far in the wood and got to our site in the middle of the friggin woods.. The tents went up pretty fast except for this dumb 2 man tent that took us an hour to figure out. How is it that three 8 man tents and two 4 man go up in 10 mins and it takes over an hour to get a dumb 2 man tent up... The fire is set and the Margarita's are being made..(strong ones might I add....thanks Kirsten) We are all pretty impressed with ourselves.
The funniest thing was when I showed Kaitlyn where the outhouse was and she looked at me like I was crazy.. she said that she was not going to go in there "that's disgusting" were her words. I told her her only other option was to go in the woods. she looked as me like I was crazy.. so she goes in the outhouse with her nose plugged.. I don't think I have ever seen somebody pee so fast.. Well I might have her beat and I took her nose plug idea for myself... It is pretty gross.I so wished I had a picture of it...
All of the crap!

One of the 2 camp sites. Trying to figure out the dumb thing!

I need a friggin Beer look!

The crew getting ready to shower.... or swim

If she had some meat on her bones it probably wouldn't be so cold!

Poor Kailtyn!

Mountain biking to the beach!

Hiking to the beach!

Keeping the fire going.. we picked the wrong month to go! next year it will be after the 4th of July.. it was cold.

Quin hangin out

This is a typical Kaitlyn look!

Tyler and max

Sue and Erika and Michelle after a couple of Kirsten Margaritas! lol

Max, Kaitlyn and Jack.

" the gang"

( minus,the olsen's who had to leave early)

Fall city Falcons and hoopfest 2010

For those of you who have not heard of the Spokane hoopfest here is the definition. Spokane hoopfest is the largest 3 on 3 street court competition on the planet..Hello! It was insane on how big it was and so overwhelming when getting there and looking at all of these courts set up side by side street after street bridge after bridge.. All of the downtown streets of Spokane were shut down. With that being said I was freaking out to what we were in for and thinking we were in over our heads "AGAIN"

If you read my other post from the March madness tournament the boys had prior to this I was wondering if this was going to be another replay of there last competition. It was not pretty.It really took a toll on the kids confidence. But the only way to bring their confidence up is to have them get back into the game.. (maybe not the largest game in the world) But this is what they were working towards for 4 months.. So bring it on!

Being at an event that was that big it was pretty amazing how coordinated it all was. All the games were always at the same court and were on time and I swear it was 90 degree's and we had the best Court. The only place with shade. They had 3 games the first day. 2 if they won their first game. Their first game they WON along with the second... we were all amazed.. It was such a great feeling for them and us to watch their confidence grow game by game. By the end of the first day they were all pretty jazzed and we the parents we all pretty surprised. (not that we thought our kids sucked or anything) but the whole west Seattle torm we really had to wonder if we were one of those parents that were just blind when it came to your kids) lol

I am trying to remember how this all went I believe the second day was the semi finals and since they won the previous day they were in the winners bracket so they didn't have to fight there was up. They lost their first game which put them in the losing bracket so they had to win the following 2 games to get into the final. The next game they won in a over time( which was a nail bitter) and lost to the Yakima bulldogs which meant they made it to the final game but had to beat the Yakima bulldogs (twice) in order to win the championship. It was a close game and they played their ,hearts out. But in the end they fell short.. 2nd place in a tournament as big ad this one, was a winner in my book... out of 18 teams ! Way to represent Fall City Falcons

This was the boys routine everyday before each game. Dribbling the ball the whole way down the river to their court,but they always had to stop at the same statue to take the same picture ....everyday..everytime . (I swear it was 3 times a day)

"The team and their fan club! "(not by choice)





Checkin out the competition.

Going over plays with Coach Patterson

Wondering again if this was going to be a replay of the west seattle hoopfest beatin. aka(whoop ass)

There would never be a proper game if Brayden didn't get hurt. Go figure! He plays with his heart and full body!

Just a bloody nose and a fat lip nothing that Mom can't fix.

Game on!

All in all.. They had an unbelievable experience. From a small team in Fall city and taking 2nd place. We were as proud as they were..

Brayden Holt finalist = 2nd place @ hoopfest 2010
"His moment"

"Look out boy's.....she's a comin!"

Kaitlyn took her first dirt bike ride a couple of weeks ago... It did have training wheels....But boy once she was on it, you couldn't get her off it... We need to get some pink on her so the boy's will realize what there up against..

So determined!

Mariner's Little league Day!

Both the kids teams went to the Safeco Little league day parade. (I don't know how I got so lucky to have had both of the kids teams choose the same day and same time to meet!) They all had such a great time,but boy does that make a long day. We got to the field around 11:00, walk the field and try to pass the time until the game starts at 1:00....That's allot of time to pass for twenty 6 and 7 year old's. It was like trying to heard a bunch of cats ... but with little voices asking"can we get this, can we get that. How much longer until the game starts and finally ...is it almost over, how many more inning" geesh.....like I said "it was a long day" ohhh and Scott so conveniently had a motor cross ride that day....I need to get "me" one of those hobbies!

I seriously do not know what I am going to do with these two. Quin and Kailtyn have been best buddies for the last 3 years.. They are too cute! I do hope they will always be good friends...

They know how to entertain one another "for sure!"

Some of the boy's from Brayden's team

Tyler,Kailtyn and Claire.

Even know Tyler is older,I think he likes the attention from the girls. He kept on walking down and just got tormented by them. But kept coming back for more..

Kailtyn's Poetry Reading

Kaitlyn had her Kindergarten Poetry reading at school a couple of months ago and I have to say I was quite proud. Each child had to write a poem of their choice and present it in front of the class on a stage that was built for them (I wish I had a picture of that.)... SOO cute! Here is Kailtyn poem.

MY MOM.

I love my Mom.

My Mom is sweet.

My Mom is nice.

My Mom rocks!

My Mom's hair is soft as silk.

I love my Mom.

As you can tell she definitely won't be writing for hallmark any time soon, but I love when her inner sweetness comes out...especially when it's towards me...

Quin,Jake (which his poem was about Quin!) and Kaitlyn

Daddy and Kaitlyn!!

May madness 3 on 3 hoopfest

Well, were do I even begin....... The boys love Basketball and we decided to take it up a notch and enter them in the Spokane hoop fest in June. For the past 2 months they have been training once a week for 2 hours learning plays,screens and what ever else they do in basketball.(keep in mind they are also doing baseball right now 2 days a week) There was a local tournament in W Seattle this past weekend and we thought it would be a good practice tournament to see kind of where they stood with the other competitors.....Well, was that ever interesting or what some may say"an eye opening experience"
First off, when Mr Patterson(their coach) asked them what they wanted as a team name a couple of weeks ago they all kind of agreed on (the heat) and the second choice was just(Fall city) well, the parents kind of thought it would be cool to represent the city their school was in so we went with their team name being "fall City heat" First thing I learned.... Listen to your kids..they know what a cool team name is...and in this tournament with our skills... we looked like we were the local farm team...One of the refs even asked what the hell do we do in Fall city.
When we entered the gym the boys where wide eyed and I think some of them were looking at us and thinking "what the hell are you trying to do to me! I am in 2nd grade for God sake" And I think in our defense we as parents were praying this wasn't going to scar them for life.... Watching these other teams play was pretty incredible.To give you a better idea who these other teams were: Rainer beach (Hello, these kids eat,sleep and live basketball. They do this 7 days a week all year long) I think white center, and to try to be politically correct there were some other "Caucasian" kids there too. Other than us..

I think the boys are sizing up the players and praying .

This is there 2nd game against Rainer Beach. After a really rough 1st game they did pretty well against them.... it was like 15 to 33 or something like that.... But it could have been worse. I just couldn't post the picture of their 4 th player.. it was the little brother that was 4yrs old and about 3 feet tall. They just threw him in now and then during free throw shots. But come on...really?

The look of pure defeat is the best way to describe this one.... or in adult terms "what the hell just happened" Being a parent watching your child play through this was the longest 20 mins of our life. I was wondering which one of us was going to have a full on heart attack first...

I have to say,considering they are not use to losing like this. After the initial shock and disappointment and a couple of tears they rebounded (no pun intended) pretty fast with a great sense of accomplishment and a "thank God this is over with".

After losing the first 3 game they actually won there 4th game. One of the players was a girl that was an unbelievable player. She had been on the news about how well her skills were.if that paints a better picture.BUT they did win by 2 points and a win is a win... They didn't even realize that they got to play another game and when they did, you would have thought they had won the whole thing. There were high fives all over the place jumping around. Which made the whole experience worth it.

All in all, I feel it was an amazing learning experience for them. There is a big world out there full of wining,losing,disappointment and pure joy. But at the end of the day as I told Brayden "it not about winning every game. Its about learning what you did right and wrong and how you played as a team. Did you support eachor,help one another and have a good time through it all." That is what is going to caring them farther in life. Learning this at a young age maybe hard but it can only get better and easier from here... at least that is what I am telling myself...I hope to God it works...

Baseball,Baseball and More BASEBALL!

I don't know how families with more than 2 kids do it. Having both kids in sports at the same time is very demanding.. we either have baseball games 4 or 5 days a night or double headers (4 friggin hours) 2 to 3 days a night. I don't know which one I prefer. All in all the kids are really enjoying the sport. Its been so fun watch Kaitlyn. She definitely has a "natural" ability with any sport she tries.. it just comes so easy for her.... and she always has this huge smile on her face when doing it. Don't get me wrong Brayden is good as well.. But he has to try a bit harder... and sometimes there are smiles and sometimes "NOT"... we are still working on the whole sportsmanship stuff with him. "win or lose, its about how we play the game as a team,and having fun while we do so" is our motto. But he sure puts his whole heart into the game. Ya gotta have the "pink" bat and belt...

She definitely blends in with the boys.

All of these boys have been playing on the same team for 3 years now. Its been so fun to watch there progress and friendships grow...

A day at the beach...Laguna Beach that is...

A day at the beach. After spending 2 days at the park,we decided to take a day off and relax. We started off going to Newport beach and worked our way to Laguna and ended at Huntington.. It was an amazing day of just playing in the sand,me reading in the sun and all of us just hanging out. I "love" being in the sun... just give me a towel,book and some sun and I am one happy girl... See I can be a simple girl....right! I swear she could play in the sand all day long!

Ok, I can't figure out how to rotate the dumb pic.I am still learning this stupid "blog"stuff..

I love this picture!