Summer Outings

 Here are some of the fun summer outings that we have done in the past few months that I haven't blogged about yet. We love summer and we love that Nate gets off at 10 on Fridays so that we have another day in our weekend to go on an adventure.

One fun adventure in July was walking around Deep Lake in Nolte State Park with Nona. I had never been there before and it is a nice walk around the lake and the lake is very pretty. We found lots of different bugs, found some berries to eat, and Paige and I put our feet in the water.

 Another thing in July was Covington Days and they have a parade to start it off. We have gone every year for the past few years. Nate has to work during it and helps set it up. This year he helped block off roads with cones and they even let him watch it with us.

 All her candy that she collected. She loves going to parades and has the wave down.

 Then the end of July we got to go to a Seattle Storm game. It is the WNBA team for Seattle and Paige got us free tickets for reading 500 minutes so far this summer. We loved it! It was so much fun. We started our evening off with doing some thrift shopping and then some Dicks for dinner before heading to the game. They were handing out the noise makers when we walked in and Paige loved them and loved using them to clap and make noise throughout the entire game. This game also happened to be a teddy bear toss. Nate got a fox from the thrift store a few days before that she could throw onto the court. All the teddy bears and stuffed animals collected go to paramedics, firefighters, police, etc that they give to children when they are responding to an emergency. We were pretty far up and for our section we got to walk down to the court and Paige got to run on the court and throw it in the big pile. She loved it and thought it was so cool to go on the court. Another fun thing was that Nate caught a T-shirt. Before the game he said that he was going to catch one and we weren't sure they were going to throw any but they did it at the very end. One flew right over my head and would have hit me in the head if I stood up. Nate tried to lean over and catch it and asked me why I didn't stand up and then one came flying by him and he caught it!

 A nice weekend in August we went to Auburn to check out some new parks. One park had a vip line and a playground. Paige loved the zip line and went on it over and over. Nate even went on it and was too big for it and ended up dragging on the ground and I laughed the entire time watching. Then we went down to the river and found some little minnows and skipped some rocks. Then we went to another park. We crossed the river on a big bridge and happened across this other park which was a lot of fun but by this time it was too hot and so we will have to come back and enjoy it on a cooler day.

 This past week Paige and I went to Oregon on Sunday and stayed the night at Mike and Christy's. We went with Anna and Margaret and Robert and Christy came up from Eugene. Paige loved spending the evening following Lylia around and playing with her and her friend. We enjoyed a nice dinner and the adults stayed up late talking. The next day we all went to the Street of Dreams. I have gone once before and this year was Paige's first year and she loved it. She loved seeing all the fun decorations, loved to try out some of the furniture, loved the huge showers, and especially loved the two houses that had swimming pools. It was so much fun to have her as my little companion.

 She really liked this dog wash that was in one of the garages.

 She wanted a picture by this for Nate. Go Seahawks!

 She was "blowing" the candle out of the cake decoration.

 Both Paige and I loved this decorated shelves corner.

 Huge walk in showers and huge tubs in all the houses.

 Paige really loved this bunk bed.

 An atrium in one of the houses.

 This was her favorite bedroom and the only bedroom that was decorated for a little girl. It had a craft area, a little reading tent area, and was decorated so cute and Paige loved everything about it.

 We then went to Red Tomatoes for a late lunch which has a buffet which was perfect for everyone to get exactly what they wanted. Paige loved her tiny little ice cream cone.

 It was a busy morning and Paige fell asleep as soon as we got in the car.

 Before heading back to Washington we stopped at the Grotto. It is a Catholic worship area. It has beautiful gardens, and statues of Christ and things throughout his life, and this beautiful church.

 Paige wanted to throw a penny in the fountain and found a rose petal to put her penny on.

 The labyrinth maze

 One of the many statues- it was a very beautiful and peaceful place to walk around for a couple of hours before driving home.

 Then this past week we went to a Mariners game. One of the pitchers won 6 games in a row so we all got 6 dollar tickets. 

 Paige loved getting some cotton candy and spending some time practicing her baseball skills in the kids corner. One of the later innings got exciting and we got two home run and they lit some fireworks for the home runs. Paige didn't expect it and loved it and kept wanting them to get more home run. Too bad they didn't since they ended up losing. I have never been to a Mariners game where they have won so I guess I am just bad luck.

 Even though they lost it was still really fun to go to.

 This past weekend we went to Tacoma for another adventure. We went to some thrift stores, Chick-fil-a for lunch and then we walked on the Sound. We walked on a pier and saw thousands of little fish.

 Then we walked on the beach and saw a seal in the water and Paige collected lots of rocks and seashells. It was a fun little outing and it is always beautiful to walk by the water.