Summer in July! Fun times!

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Here are 3 pretty awesome girls who have just graduated from thier 2 week swimming lesson program at Cannon Pool! Good job girls!

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We picked up Aunt Virginia tonight (just me and the girls, since Martin had practice), brought a picnic dinner (Subway!), and headed to Audubon Park to hear some live music and enjoy the evening. The girls had fun running through the splash pad and getting wet, and Aunt Virginia and I had a good time talking and chatting about her recent trip to Africa. She travels at least once a year with other Senior Citizens to wonderful and exotic places that most of us only dream of. She has been to Europe, Africa, Central America, and next year, she is planning China! She has many great stories!

The girls with Aunt Virginia

Cool shot!

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Washington Trust Box seats for the Spokane Indians game!

Kristi and her boss, Lisa, were able to get us into the Washington Trust Box seats at the Indians game tonight! It was so awesome. We had lots of room to move around, sit or stand, and we even had our own waitress who would bring the food we ordered right to us! We were really spoiled! Thanks Washington Trust for the seats tonight!
This was our 2nd Indians game of the season (the first was on July 4th) and we are really enjoying this great American pastime! It's a lot of fun being together as a family and creating some wonderful memories.

We had a lot of fun at the game!

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FUN AT THE MILL RIVER BEACH IN POST FALLS, ID!

Last summer my friend Kara introduced us to this awesome beach right on the Spokane River, close to C'dA. Well, this summer, we've made about 4 trips out there already. It's a quiet spot and doesn't have the crowds that many of the beaches have this time of year -- in fact, many times, we have been the only people there! The swimming area is just perfect for the kids...not too deep and has a great dock that Audriana loves to jump off of! We recently took our friends, the Lunds, out there with their kids, Everet, Kendra, and Addy. The Bennett's joined us to! I had a great time visiting with Todd and Denise, as well as Joye and Sid, and the kids had a ball!

Audriana and Everet had a great time soaking Todd with their squirt guns. What a trooper he was to play with them for so long (the kids didn't stop!).

Addy and Sofia became such good friends this year -- both go to Montessori Central!

Here is sweet Kendra!

Addy just relaxing.....

Maria taking a ride on her floaty!

Sofia having fun here -- she is up to something with that bucket -- watch out Todd!

Sofia, Kendra, and Maria soaking up the sun to warm up after getting out of the cold water!

Audriana had a good time with those flippers on her feet, jumping off the dock and swimming to shore!

The attackers! They shot water on anyone who got close enough to them!

Beautiful shots on a beautiful day!

Addy and Sofia found a very big piece of driftwood.

New kitchen floor

AFTER! :-)

BEFORE.....BELOW....YUCK.....

We finally changed out the old 15 year old laminate! Yah! We love the new floor!

Swimming Lessons 2010 Cannon Pool!

JULY 2010, CANNON POOL

READY TO SWIM! LET THEE SUMMER LESSONS BEGIN!

AUDRIANA LOVES THE BIG SLIDES!

Our Fantastic 4th of July Weekend!

Our long holiday weekend began on Friday night (after I got home from work). We had a quick dinner, then headed out to Fish Lake Trail for a walk. The girls decided they wanted to ride their bikes, so Martin hooked them onto the car and away we went. It was a beautiful evening with a cool breeze -- just perfect for us. The trail begins near the intersection of the Sunset Hwy, Interstate 90, and SR 195. We got to cross over the busy freeway and see Downtown Spokane from a new perspective.

Audriana is "showing off" her new new bike gloves that Dad just bought her.

An Alfaro Clasic pose........LOL!

Happy 4th of July! The girls began the day by helping me get the house clean, then they decided that they needed some decorations for the front door, so they got out their colors and began crafting. They also used the window crayons to write "Happy 4th of July" on the front windows.

We were all very excited because the Sandbergs were coming to dinner! The girls began asking "when are they going to be here?" at 8am and didn't stop until they arrived at 4pm!

The girls also decided to make 4th of July headbands for all the kids -- actually, Martin and I got one, too! Very cute. Here is a picture of Martin bbq-ing with his hat on. Sofia made this one and it has a firework on the front of it! Genius!

Here are Ryan and Audriana in their headbands.......best friends forever!Here is a cute shot of all the kids....together in their festive headbands.

After our bbq of Carne Asada, black beans, rice, and salad (YUMMY!), we decided to head down to Avista Stadium for the Indians game. We had decided a couple of days ago that we would take in the game on July 4th because they were going to be doing fireworks afterwards. How perfect -- a baseball game with the family, then firworks! Yah! No Riverfront Park craziness! What a great idea. But, as we found out, the best idea is that we purchased tickets online the day before -- we had no idea that the game would be sold out when Lisa, Scott and the boys got there to buy tickets. The only tickets they were selling was "standing room only" for $6. Not a bad price, but not fun with 3 kids. They made the decision to drive back home. The kids were dissappointed, but we promised that we would try to take in another game together before the summer ended. It was so nice of them to drive all the way from Ephrata to have the bbq with us! The kids had so much fun together, as usual. :-)

We took a quick shot of all the kids in front of the entrance before the Sandbergs left.

This was Martin's first Indians game!

We had so much fun, that we decided that this just might have to be a July 4th tradition. We will have to remember to make sure to buy our tickets early, though! By the way, the Indians won the game - 6 to 2! The game ended by 8:50 and the firworks began by 9pm. It was awesome! What a great way to end our weekend!

Happy Birthday USA!

Nature Camp week for Audriana and Sofia

Nature Camp with Liz Sinclair (a Montessori teacher) happens each summer and is held at the Finch Arboretum. Audriana and Maria participated last year, but Sofia was too young, so she couldn't. She was so excited to be able to join the big girls this summer (now that she is 4!). It is a M-Th camp and goes from 9am - 1:30. The girls bring their lunches and get to each at camp. The do fun things like tracking animals, learning about trees and plants, stream walking, looking at bird nests (this summer they got to see a hummingbird nest)! They also got to make homemade ice cream! The only thing the girls didn't like was when the week ended!
Here are the girls after they went through the sprinklers! The girl in the green shirt was Sofia's special friend for the week -- her name was Maya.

Maria, Audriana and Sofia -- after an afternoon of stream walking, "mudding up", and running through the huge sprinkers at Finch Arboretum! What fun!