Homecoming Princess:-)

As promised, lots of Homecoming pics in this post! A few weekends back, Lynsey had her Homecoming dance and she had a lot of fun! We went to her friends house so they could all get ready together and then went to downtown Kirkland to take some photos. It was her friend Sofia's 16th birthday, hence the 16 balloons:-). 

Other than that, what have the last few weeks been full of . . . lots of volleyball, some lacrosse, hanging out with friends, enduring poor air quality but very nice temperatures! This is the warmest fall we have ever experienced, literally got to 33 degrees today! What! The smoke is hopefully clearing out this week. We did have a clear day on Tuesday and I went for a hike down in Cougar Mountain with my new friend Layla, that was a lot of fun. We got to the waterfall only to discover that it was dry! Oh well, still a pretty hike! 

This morning we had our annual family pictures. It went okay, although Adam didn't tolerate them as well as he has in the past. We will see if we get any good expressions from him. He was pretty anxious to get to the playground. I'm just happy it's over with, never a stress free experience!

This week has more volleyball and lacrosse and hopefully will be a little less busy. Nathan has half days at school because of conference week and then Friday all the kids are off school. Week by week we are making it through this school year!

 

Crazy September busyness!

September has been a bit of a doozy this year. So much going on, I've been having trouble keeping up with life for some reason! I think it's going to feel a bit like this through the month of October until volleyball and lacrosse both break for the season, so I'm just figuring out how to make it work. 

We took a little trip up to Richmond a few weekends ago, went up Saturday and came back Sunday. We had Nexus interviews for Brian and Lynsey on Sunday so we thought since we were so close to the border we might as well cross and enjoy Canada for a night! The kids had fun with the waterslide, Adam rode it several times and not just his customary two times. On Sunday morning, Lynsey and I picked up my niece Anya and took her out for breakfast which was fun. She is living in Richmond for a few months for some volleyball training. The Nexus interviews went well, both approved - yay!

This past weekend, Brian's parents were here to visit. We took it easy, not doing a whole lot. We did go out to Kirkland for dinner one night which was fun - it was a beautiful evening. We all went to Lynsey's volleyball game on Monday and they won! They left Tuesday morning after a lovely visit! 

I'm not sure if I've mentioned yet that we booked a short cruise out of LA for Spring Break, but we did. Yesterday we booked the flights for that and today we are working on hotels, it's all taking shape nicely! We will fly into the Burbank airport, stay in a hotel fairly close by, and spend Saturday at Universal Studios. Not 100% sure what we will do Sunday yet, have a few ideas. Our cruise departs Monday afternoon and comes back Friday morning. Fly out Saturday afternoon so we have some time Friday and Saturday morning, will probably take it pretty easy - maybe have some beach time.

While Brian's parents were here, they told us they would be willing to look after the kids in Calgary again next summer if we wanted to go on another vacation, Brian and I. Well we aren't ones to turn down these sorts of opportunities, so we booked flights to Lisbon for next summer! We will fly into Lisbon and fly out of Barcelona 9 days later. There was some drama last night because we had been looking at these flights and the Business Class flights were uncharacteristically cheap, like only about double the price of economy which is unheard of. We were watching this for a few days wondering when they would go up, but it's hard to pull the trigger on these sorts of trips, especially so far in advance. We confirmed dates with Brian's parents yesterday, and were looking at this specific flight that connected in Frankfurt. We decided to take an hour to think a bit about the times and whether we really wanted to fly out of Barcelona or if we should just fly out of Lisbon home as well. We got back to our computer not much more than an hour later, and a bunch of the flights we had been looking at had gone up in price - like WAY up! We panicked and tried a different option, thankfully there was still a pretty good option available for that lower price so we snatched it up. Phew! Right after we booked we looked and there was nothing available for that good price anymore, everything had gone up at least a thousand dollars a ticket, some even more. By this morning the difference was $2000. So relieved we got in at the lower price! How sickening to have that happen! I am a pretty decisive person so I don't like waiting to book flights once I find something I like, but it is 9 months away and such a big deal, it felt weird being impulsive about it! Thankfully Brian's parents are fully on board and we really can't see what would come up in the meantime, other than things that can ALWAYS come up even a month in advance of a trip, you just can't control everything in life. 

So that's an exciting development! A fun family vacation to look forward, and then a fun vacation for just Brian and I while the kids have some bonding time with Grandma and Grandpa! Frances was talking about maybe trying to get Steve and Andrea's kids out at the same time so they can get to know their cousins a bit more which sounds really cool, I hope that works out.

Homecoming is tonight so I am finishing up this post right before I am going to be needed to help Lynsey get ready. She has the cutest dress and she is ready to shine at Homecoming! She is going with a big group of friends and I hope she has the best time. Be prepared for the next post to have lots of HoCo pictures!