How sweet it is.....

Love love LOVE visits from my family. Siblings make me happy:) I try to tell my kids that now and they are pretty certain I'm certifiably nuts because to them sisters are just a giant pain in the arse. But I keep telling them the day will come when your siblings are your best friends! I used to stress a little when company was coming and make sure my house was clean and fresh baking was available and full cupboards of food but lately I've taken it down a notch....or two or three. I'm so happy they're coming I don't really care what their surroundings look like...after all, don't they say 'love conquers all?'

 

Lots of refreshments and scrabble and laughs over very strange things:)

Ouch!!

One day I was out in the back yard and I heard a distant crying. I didn't pay much attention other than to think that it was kinda strange that I could hear a kid crying all the way by our house since we have no really close neighbors. As a minute or two passed I thought, 'man that poor kid is really upset!' for some reason it didn't even cross my mind that it could be one of my own kids! Then all of a sudden my brain kicked in and I thought..."wait a minute, where's Tyler?" Just at that time Kendra came walking out of the house and I asked her to check on Tyler...Suddenly she came running back around the house "mom Tyler needs you bad!"  The poor kid decided to swing up on the goalie net and it flipped over and landed on his face. Pinning him underneath!  Thankfully no stitches, just a little blood and a very shook up little man:(

Hoefakker family camp

Every other year we try to arrange a Hoefakker camping trip. It's getting harder and harder to do. There are starting to be a lot of different families with a lot of different tastes. Some want to upgrade and some want to actually do camping! The more rustic the better. Some like water sports some want to be able to hike or motorbike. It really is getting tough and I'm not sure how much longer we'll be able to keep doing it. I hope people can continue to compromise and these camping trips can continue for several years yet!! This year we went to Orondo River park. It was up by Wenatchee. A little interesting as it was along side a fairly busy road. And the water was a little colder than some are used to since it was a river. However, there  was no complaints about the lake being too small as you could boat for miles and miles in the same direction! We had a vast array of weather. Unfortunately the poor tenters ended up having to pack it in one during a wind/rain storm and head for a hotel. My goal for the 2015 trip is to find a place with cabins and rv and tent sites! A slight challenge:)

While we were there is was our wedding anniversary. It was on one of the windy rainy days and we decided to kill some time by heading to the local hobby lobby. While there I received a text from Bob who was wondering around in a different corner of the store than I was.....

Nobody ever claimed he was normal.

Summer visitors:)

There are many many things I hate about living so far away from all of our family. But the one thing I love is that when you do get to see them they stay for awhile and you really get some time to hang out! Ken & Evelyn and kids came down. They never stay very long and they generally only spend a night or two here and then a night or two at the hotel in Sunnyside. It's always a lot of fun to have them come down and visit:) Plus.... it sure doesn't hurt that Evelyn cooks while she's here!! :) I didn't get very many pictures while they were down here though:(

I had given Tyler a hair cut so we decided to give Ken one too while we were at it. Katie decided she better learn how to do it!

Not sure what we were all looking at here but it must have been good!!

The Jungle Apocolypse

Back in April I was feeling all Martha Stewart meets Pioneer Woman and thought it would be a good idea to take a perfectly good piece of goat head infested pasture and turn it into a garden. Tilled the soil about 500 times, hauled in approximately 612 loads of horse manure. Planted my seeds indoors, carefully tended them like a newborn child, and gently transferred them into my richly fertilized s...oil after the last frost. In the evenings I would escape to my little patch of nature and carefully tend to the delicate little seedlings finding great joy and satisfaction in watching them sprout 2 inches over night. Now it's 100+ stinkin degrees, and every time I try to untangle the serious twisted mass of overgrown jungle apocalypse I instigated I end up feeling like Cruella de'Ville with a raging case of PMS. And yet, I fear next spring I'll think it's a great idea to do it all over again.

Independence Day!!!

This year we celebrated the 4th of July small town style. I miss going up to Lynden to spend the fourth with my family but with the kids work and practice schedules and Bobs summer time craziness it just doesn't usually work to leave town so we try to make the best of it. We started the day by going to the Prosser 4th of July parade which is basically made up of kids who decorate their bikes. It's very cute!

Brandi babysat the day before for the Blairs and so she helped Luke & Aiden decorate their wagon for the parade

Afterwards we headed down to the park for some games...Tyler and Aiden were a little competitive at the gunnysack races!

Kendra started out great but then her gracefulness just got the best of her:)

Our plan was to go enjoy the fireworks at the stadium that night but that didn't work out so well. When they do the city fireworks display they have to have a firetruck on standby....unfortunately there were so many other wildfires going on that day that there was not a firefighter to spare so the fireworks had to be postponed until the next night.

Frequent flyer miles...

If only the hospital here would give frequent flyer miles we would all be on a plane bound for Jamaica!! Between all of Ashley's injuries and ailments and Tylers health issues we've seen more than our fair share of the inside of a waiting room. Ashley woke up the day of Graduation with a very swollen eye. Of course she was a little upset at the timing since she had several friends graduating that day and several graduation parties to attend! Thankfully it was a sunglasses kind of day:)