Summer Fun

Ok so I added these at the end, but they ended up at the top. This picture is funny and I always think of the saying...FOOT in MOUTH. Kolbie really and literally enjoys this as a pass time.

Big smiles for everyone. We are getting ready for a diaper change and bath and she thought Kai was being hilarious for some reason. He acts all sort of goofy around her so she will laugh at him, but if anyone else laughs at him now he gets terrible sensitive like they are making fun or some thing. Where he picked up this new found understanding of making fun and being aware I am not sure.

Kai really likes holding Kolbie and actually squeezing her. He loves to kiss and hug and then it turns into smothering and hoarding, so we usually have to be right by her when he is showing his affection. He did however, watch her fall right off the couch with out any attempt of catching her, but quickly informed us. This obviously was an ooops, where I knew she could roll over,b ut Sahaan did not realize she was scooting as well and would propel herself in any direction with out regard to what might happen.

This was in July right before we went to Chicago so I could have a picture to take with me while they were at grandpa and grandma's house.

SUMMER FUN!!! So this is probably one of the biggest blogs ever done, but I haven't done one in a while and we have been crazy busy. We have been to the beach, camping, Blue lake Park, Chicago, had a block party for our church and ranVBS all in 2 months time. So I will comment on each picture a little and just tell you a couple of things that have impacted me this summer.





This would be our trip to Newport beach for 2 days with the kids. Sahaan had a previous youth engagement so we went on day one and he drove in the early a.m. to meet us for the complete 2nd day and then we left on Friday a.m. We went to the Oregon Coast Aquarium and this was the "big " playground for the kids, but as you can see Kai enjoyed himself anyway. :)

Kolbie on the other hand, had enough and was pooped out and opted for a long nap. As she gets these conveniences of napping and eating when ever, where ever. Oh to have such a life of no worries....accuna matada right???

This was a really cool guy we met at the beach flying a kite right next to us with his wife and two girls and he let Kai take a stab at it...however we quickly learned to hang onto Kai so he wouldn't blow away with the kite was a necessity as we watched his heels slowly lift off the ground to where he was only standing on his tippy toes.

We saw the shark exhibit happening at the aquarium and Kai could not get enough of the "jaws of death" . We ended up getting him a shark shirt that glows in the dark and a shark tooth necklace which was so important to his little ego.

This picture is a little out of order, but oh well I guess Spidey-Hermie goes with the beach theme. This is our new hermit crab. We didn't set out originally to have him, but after 6 fish died in one week, we gave up and went with a crab. Since the purchase of the fish and crab we have had 4 more fish die, so now we have the crab, two fish and two frogs. Yes, you read me right, 2 frogs. Lets hope they all live a while now, as the kids have been desperately asking for a puppy which honestly just makes me tired to think about.

Back to the beach, Kai thought he would make a sand angel, I think the sand just felt so darn good that he wanted to roll around in it, but who can blame him when it is 75 and sunny.

Yes, you are all looking at SIR in the water with the kids. He is actually in the ocean....he'll do anything for his kids. Kai and Kolbie both thought it was a blast and didn't get intimidated or scared by the fast water swooping in around them and the fact that is was freezing. They both just got excited and splashed a little.

We got our picture together by one of the youth girls that came with us, to help me on the drive over with the two kids. She goes to UofW and was home still and really blessed us with her help, because I really needed the break away from our normal life, but still wasn't sure I could handle a 3 hour drive with two kids in the truck by myself and get them to the beach to play, fed and bed time. This trip really ended up being a great get away and enjoying for us to experience good family time and warm weather at the beach for once.

These are more pics from the aquarium, that japanese spider crab is a drawing on the wall of how large the crab will actually get when it is full grown. Yup that's right, full grown life size picture. The ones they had actually in the tanks were bigger than a watermelon walking around.

Here are a couple of the sharks that were swimming over us and around us in the tunnels. They were huge, as the picture doesn't do them any justice. Think bigger and longer than Sahaan and that is what we are talking about.

This was Kai's first castle of the 2 days. He was so proud and had his little transformers walking around it, going into great depths of how the "bad guys" got captured by the evil king and on and on and on. He built another one and it had a mote, brigdes and a flag on the top and he was I guess you could say the "engineer". He liked giving the orders to where we were to place the buckets of sand (he didn't like that job because the sand always broke apart) and had a whole strategy down pat.

Kolbie even got involved and touched the star fish and anenome and got very excited and squealed. Everyone of course awed at her cuteness and happiness toward the star fish.

This was a picture in Chicago at the ZOO. Yup dolphins. They were awesome, they did a whole show with tricks and jumps that were really cool. In this picture they are saying high to everyone before starting their act.


This was the little polar bear cub that was playing with his mom, and kept getting out of the water and then running and jumping off the cliff into his mom. Then they would cuddle and do it again.

Here is the dosile lion laying around for his nap. They were right out front though and looking around at us. It was gorgeous and looked so peaceful and yet so strong. I couldn't help but think of Asland off of the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe.

This picture got out of order, this is a youth event at blue lake park in Portland. We spent an entire Sunday afternoon out with the Jr High group, swimming, picnicing and paddle boating.

Back to Chicago. Here is the heart of down town and the "green river" floating right through. Remember the Fugitive with Tommy Lee Jones and Harrison Ford. Well here is the city and the river from the movie. The city was gorgeous, but socially and economically is really messed up. There are major racial divides between different communities, black/white and rich/poor. This is what we studied the entire week in Chicago at the university was racial justice, righteousness, and church unity and it's role in these things in the communities around us.

Here is real Chicago style pizza. It was aight', but I do prefer I guess the thin or regular crust kind vs. this. Doesn't look like the pizza from papa murphy's huh???

THE BEAN. That is what this art work downtown is called. It is like a gigantic mirrored jelly bean. It was pretty cool, but also kind of funny. The city has tons of great architecture and really cool designed buildings, outdoor amphitheaters and art pieces.

Here is us on the last night after our dinner. We had a great time, although I missed my babies terribly. We did meet people with in the covenant that we hadn't seen in a while, and I ran into a lot of people I knew either from grade school or we knew from college b-ball games Sahaan played in. It was wild but also reassuring that people we knew had grown up to be Christians and serving the Lord.

This was part of our youth group camping trip. We went up into washington this year, about and hour and a half away. Kai was a little piro the entire weekend always wanting to poke at the fire or add more pine cones or sticks. We had two sites this year (they were dinky) and so this fire pit we never lit, only the other one. Kai brought little castle men and played under the table in the dirt, as this was his castle and dungeon area. I am sure you can imagine the little dirt ball we brought home.

Kai went for a swim a couple of times, so here he is just trying out the water. It was kind of overcast at times so it wasn't terribly hot or anything, so getting used to the water took some time. The youth kids just jumped right in and swam for hours at a time.

Luckily they did have a playground and Sahaan and Kai of course had to compete for who could swing the highest. Kai I think just liked to watch Sahaan because he looked silly and was shaking the entire swingset that was supposed to have been deep into the ground.

This was a play set at blue lake park as I told you we went with the Jr High kids. And below is the girls paddle boating with one of the leaders. I had Kolbie so I didn't go on the boat at all. The day ended up being really hot and it was supposed to have been 70 and showers. Go figure.

Here are the last of the pictures. The kiddos. This was in August in the backyard.

Here is Kolbie doing one of her learned habits. Holding her feet and rolling over. She doesn't hold still for anything.....nothing literally. She thinks she is pretty funny all the time too. She also scrunches up her face and breathes through her nose really fast to laugh right now. Her true giggle comes out when you are tickling her though. We are having her pictures taken this week, so be looking for them soon. After this we are getting her ears pierced, I figured get it done now when she will never remember or mess with them.

Every thing goes into her mouth. If she can grab it then it goes in.

She is a very happy baby and smiley. She just had her 6 month appointment. She is 18lbs. 1 oz and 28 inches long. She has two teeth and is eating cereal and veggies and fruit for breakfast and dinner. Soon there will be a lunch as she is beginning to develope qutie the little appetite.

We hope you are all doing well and can't wait to see you. Keep us in your prayers as you all are in ours. We think of you often and love you all.

Love the MCKELVEY's