Visit with the Kidds

And by "visit with the Kidds", I mean Jason's brother and his family. We were so excited to have Uncle David, Aunt Julie, and Dawson come visit us last month. We only get to see them one or two times a year so it's always extra exciting when they come and stay. We went to Wild Waves, Alki, the boys went motorcycle riding, and we just had fun hanging out.

Wild Waves

This was our third annual summer trip to Wild Waves and it's always one of my kids favorite memories of the summer. It's become a bit of a tradition to go once during the summer and this year was extra fun because we got to go with the Mendenhalls, the Munks, and Dave, Julie, and Dawson. Here are some of my favorite pictures from the day. It made me smile to go through them again and a little sad too knowing that summer is already over. What happened?!?

David loved controlling his "space ship" all by himself.






I think it's safe to say that Dawson loves rides. I can't think of one that he didn't love!

I must admit that this is one of my favorite things to do. I love rides and this year was extra fun because Ethan and Audrey are now tall enough to go on every ride. Ethan is becoming just like me because there is no ride that he will not try. In fact, at the end of the day he exclaimed that he "conquered the park!"... meaning he went on every ride there. Audrey still wasn't sure about the upside down rollercoaster, but I'm hoping that next year she'll be ready to give it a whirl. She did attempt the other big roller coaster and loved it!

Here we are on the teacups. They wanted me to spin it as fast as I could... the whole time. And then when it was over, we did it again!




Tommy and Audrey finally realizing that the little kiddie rides aren't as fun as they used to be. No... not really. We actually told them to pose for this shot.

The kangaroo hop was pretty exciting for Uncle David.

Who doesn't love to ride the ferris wheel?

On your marks... get set... GO!

David's first attempt going down by himself. Everytime we would get to the bottom, he would scream... "Let's go again!"

Aunt Julie and Dawson

I love how Blake has his arms stretched out trying to achieve maximum speed.

David was pretty stoked to recieve all the cheers for coming in first place.

This one cracks me up... it looks like David and Blake are a little worried that Dawson got away from them and is cruising at full speed.

But as you can see, Dawson loved the big slide.

And look what David found!... yep.. another train. And, of course, he rode this thing countless times. Aunt Julie rode on it with David and Dawson like five times while some of us went off to try some of the roller coasters. She said after a while it put them in a daze and they just chilled the whole time and since there were no lines they didn't even have to get off and reboard.

David and Dawson taking a leisurely drive together.

We didn't take a whole lot of pictures in the water park area for obvious reasons, but here are a few we snapped in the little kid area. And oh my heck!!!... that water is COLD. It is the coldest water in the entire park! After spending a short time here, the water at the rest of the park actually felt quite warm.

Meagan getting her first taste of the freezing kiddie water.

David yelled "hooray... weee... this is fun" all the way down the slide and acted like he was having the time of his life until we got to the end and were getting out and I asked him if he wanted to go again, at which point he burst into tears and said, NO! Well... um.... okay. Guess the DARK slide was not to his liking.

Grandma was so sweet to take Brody for the day so that Maria and Eric could enjoy the park with the older kids, but we did get to see Brody at the very end when Grandma dropped him off. Unfortunately he couldn't go on any of the rides... (not until he can walk). Next year Brody!... You're gonna love it!

The ugliest fish alive!!!.... Seriously.

Alki
We thought it would be fun to drive down to Seattle and take a ferry boat ride, but by the time we got down there, parked, and ate a quick bite, we had missed the ferry. But there were no tears... we headed over to Alki instead and it was beautiful and the kids had fun just playing in the sand and throwing rocks in the water.

yeah... umm.. I don't know who this is but I thought it made a sweet picture.

Riding
The guys went riding one morning and it was Ethan's first time invited to go along with the guys. He was excited to wear all the new gear that dad bought him and it was a good thing too because he crashed once, but came out with no scrapes or bruises.

We also had fun just hanging out at home playing Wii, BBQing, playing on our crazy street, and just relaxing. David had so much fun having a little buddy around and he kept asking me everyday if Dawson was going to stay and sleep at our house again. He was disappointed when he woke up Sunday morning to find him gone.

Dawson really enjoyed the blackberries from the crazy blackberry bushes trying to attack our backyard.

Until next year....