Monday, August 16, 2010

Summer

Summer has finally arrived in the Pacific Northwest. We have had some truly hot days in the last couple of weeks, things are finally starting to grow in the garden (although most things probably don't have time to mature now before the season is over!), and we've been having some summer fun.
The first true sign of summer was the celebration of AdventureDad's birthday. He amazingly had the day off, so we had the requisite cake and icecream, opened some great presents, and went to the zoo. AdventureGirl really enjoyed this zoo visit, especially because she got to see the twin baby Sumatran tigers. The were rough-housing with their mom and each-other, and were quite entertaining. She also took a lot of runs down the "otter slide" all by herself! (Big deal for Mommy, no big thing for AG!)
I had a chance to catch up with some very good friends from various parts of the world, both on the same day last week. Shan is currently stationed in Florida, but is on her way to Japan. We haven't seen each-other in person for a couple of years, and now barring a much-anticipated but fairly unlikely AdventureFamily trip to Japan, we probably won't see each-other again for another few years. She has a baby that is only 2 weeks younger than AdventureBaby, so we see some great playdates in our future. The Duffs were also in town from Germany, and AdventureGirl was more than thrilled to be reunited with her friend Nali from Germany. Baby K has also grown up enough that they all had a great time playing together. It was so fun to see how quickly AdventureGirl and Nali decided that they were going to be friends again, and of course they were both old enough now to communicate much more effectively. There are some cute pics of the kids in the slide show, but I am HORRIBLE at remembering to take pictures, and I failed to get a reunion picture of either V or Duff. Sigh.
The other big happening is that AdventureDad got his tractor. We of course will need one eventually to do the things that we want to do on our place in Walla Walla, and when a local estate sale had a couple "oldy but goodies" for unbeatable prices he just couldn't contain himself anymore. So, he now has a great restoration project to look forward to, and in the meantime it's very useable, although we sure have a lot to learn!

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