August!

August was a bitter sweet month, with summer ending and being packed full of events. Summer program ended and it was hard since it was my last one with all the kids. This summer seemed to go by so fast, mainly I think because time seemed to go by so slow while James was gone, that now that he is back it has seemed to just fly. We had a great group of kids this summer, which made the summer a blast.

My girls and I

Vincent, one very funny little boy, who became my shadow

Love this picture, Jordan, she is such a character

The kids practicing for their play

Love these girls, Lily and Lynn, summer wouldn't have been the same without them

My group monkey around at the zoo

UGM White Center, Summer Staff 2010

In August we also celebrated James and I getting married. It was great getting celebrate with all of our family and friends, especially since we will be leaving soon. The weather was beautiful like we hoped, the sun poured down on us at my aunt and uncle's farm. It was a fun day, and I am so thankful for everyone who helped me prepare for it all.

Beautiful backdrop, Mt Rainier

Thank you so much Candace for all your help!

Candace, Me and Fa'ana

I love these girls!

Another big event in August, was taking 8 high schoolers on a 20 mile backpacking trip. It was an adventure, many of them had no idea what to expect, and one we (Pat, Micah and I) had to talk into going. He complained about it the whole ride up, but ended up being the first one to finish and was really proud of himself. It was a tough 3 days but it was totally worth it, the kids were very encouraging to one another and helped keep moral up by singing Mulan songs up the mountain. I was definitely not in good shape for this one, I was in so much pain afterwords.

All of us on day one, before the pain set in

Linda and I, (our 3rd year in a row) we are missing our hiking buddy Keliah.



End of day one we were so happy to finally set up camp and be done hiking for the day.

Copper City, an old ghost town we stopped to check out along the way

Day two, swimming in the lake

The last day, we finally made it to the summit.

We were told many times that we had made it to the highest point, just to come around another bend to find

another trail ascending upwards. 

 We also did a family outing to the Circus, it was a blast. I hadn't been to the circus since I was little. There were so many great acts but my favorite were the little miniature donkeys, they were so cute.

Kenny, my nephew, sporting his circus hat.

August ended with the YES Foundation of White Center's

10 year Anniversary Luau.

Tammy and I giving our speeches

Got some beautiful flowers and words from Pat, since I was leaving. A very nice surprise.

Winery!

So while James was deployed him and his buddies planned a trip for the wives to a winery. After getting off work we drove about 3 hours to Outlook, Washington (wine country). By the time we got there it had gotten kind of late, but it was still beautiful out, the sun was just setting and the air was still warm. We made dinner, sat out on the back deck and watched a lightning storm. Since we were the last couple to get to the winery, the room in the guest house that we got was the "Champagne Room".

The next morning we woke up, James made an amazing breakfast and then we went wine tasting. We got to tour the winery and taste pretty much the whole selection of wine. I've never been a big fan of wine before, but we definitely found some wine the we enjoyed. All in all we had a great weekend it was a lot of fun to just get away and relax and not really have to worry about anything.

Every weekend is a busy weekend!

It's almost the weekend and looking at these next 6 weekends to come we're going to be very busy. Ever since James has gotten home from deployment we really haven't had much time to really relax, and it dosen't look like we'll have a non-busy weekend until we get to Hawaii. But thats ok, we want to spend as much time with everyone that we can before we have to leave. It seems like time was going by so slow just waiting for James to come home and now time feels like its going in fast forward.

Roller Skating with the Kids . . .

Like every week at summer camp we always go on a field trip, to a place that the kids don't usually get a chance to go to. Today we went to the Roller Rink. Which was so much fun... getting there on the other hand was a bit of a pain. We have over 70 kids that come to camp each day, and when we go on field trips we normally have two buses that come to transport us. While today none of the buses showed up which meant that we had to call the bus people and beg them to find us a bus. Luckily we were able to get one bus, we had to pack all of the kids onto the bus and we were off about and hour late. It all ended up being ok because by the time we got there and the kids got a chance to skate around and our session was over the kids were dead tired. I love going to the Roller Rink cause it just reminds me of going as a kid and skating with my friends. But I was so surprised that most of these kids didn't know how to skate at all. Many of them had just put their skates on and loosely tied them (thank God no one twisted their ankles). So I went around the rink a few times and then spent the rest of the time re-tieing the kid's skates. The kids were so tired that the bus ride home was pretty quiet and many of them had fallen asleep.

Family Dinner . . .

Family time! James decided to cook dinner tonight and invite everyone over. We have little over a month left in Seattle, so getting to spend time with family is pretty important. It's was to have everyone over and sit around and talk. James grilled some amazing stake and we made tacos. I'm going to miss getting to sit around and spend time with my family when we leave. I love them!

Alki Beach . . .

So after a long day of work and running around doing errands all day, James and I ended our day going for a walk down at Alki Beach. It was the first time since James has been back that we got to go down there. Alki has become such a special place for as, one of our first dates, where we spent our last night before James got deployed, and where we got engaged. It was nice to finally have some alone time together and to have it at such a special place.

Despicable Me in 3D!

James took me to see Despicable Me in 3D, what a cute movie. Didn't know what the movie was about before we got there, but it was funny and such a great movie with a happy ending!