Summer has begun! Wow we are busy!

Audriana and her school buddy, Jodi Brandt

Oh boy....Sofia has given up her smaller bike for Audriana's old big(ger) bike! She can barely touch the ground, so she takes off from the curb where she can touch. She looks so small on that big bike....scares me a bit, but I know she is just growing up and doing all the things that she should be doing. My baby is growing up way too fast!

A Friday night at Riverfront Park!Clock Tower and cute kids!

Everett, Audriana and Sofia on the Ferris Wheel

Sofia and Kendra on the Spider....and on the Dragon roller coaster!

Our kids being sweet and silly.... Having fun with the Lunds!

I love this totem pole -- it's on Canada Island in the Park. I'm pretty sure it's been here since Expo '74.

I made all the kids give me a "woot woot" to prove to me how excited they were to be at the park! Ha!

The Spokane River is running so fast! It is a site to behold!

Sofia and Gwenyth Gustofson. She's been such a sweet friend of Sofia's from Montessori Central. We will miss her when she moves with her family to Colorado this summer.

Now....INDIANS BASEBALL!

The ballpark had a fun clinic for kids this afternoon from 3:30 - 5:30pm. The kids were able to go down on the field and run some drills with the Spokane Indians team. There were probably 150 elementary school kids there, and the ballpark did a fabulous job of seperating them all into groups and moving them throughout all the drills. They were able to run the bases, practice pitching and catching, thowing, and of course, hitting the ball!

After it was over, the kids were given a baseball and a poster and then were invited to visit with some of the team and get their autographs!

Audriana met up with her friend Jodi Brandt from her class at school.

Audriana loved it! This was a first for her...she's never played baseball, so this little clinic gave her a good introduction to the game!

Afterwards, we all stayed for a bit of the Indians game. The girls were so exhausted that we only stayed for a couple of hours. Then back home to get the girls in the tub (they were so filthy!) and into bed. Audriana had St. Steven's Basketball camp the next day and Sofia had Lutherhaven camp. They've had a fantastic 1st week of summer so far!

Riding bikes....Basketball Camp....Lutherhaven camp....Spokane Indians Baseball Clinic.....oh my!

Happy Father's Day to the BEST dad!

Not every wonderful husband makes a wonderful father -- but my husband does! The girls and I are so lucky to have Martin - he gets super high marks in both of those categories! There are many things that I believe make a great father...and Martin can just about check off every single one of those things! I am so proud of him and feel so grateful of the life and memories that he is shaping for our girls. As a stay at home dad, his job is a busy one! He gets breakfast on the table each morning, makes school lunches every day, ensures homework and piano practicing is done, makes the beds, cleans the kitchen, starts laundry, drives the girls to school, picks them up, drives them to soccer practice, piano lessons, Kindermusik, and back home again. He makes them healthy snacks and organic meals, won't let them eat fast food, finds time to stop at parks during the week, rides bikes with them, jumps on the trampoline with them, let's them turn the family room furniture upside down to mae cook forts, paints with them, gardens with them, plays music and drums with them,......oh my gosh, I could go on and on....he does so much more! I am lucky knowing that our girls are with him throughout each day -- safe and sound and having a blast.

Jay makes 80 look SO good!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JAY!

What a party! What a day! We didn't mind that it poured rain all afternoon...we were there to celebrate 80 years of Jay! So fitting was the western theme and everyone had a good time dressing the part. The dj played classic country tunes, and the grandkids even did a fun line dance to the Boot Scootin' Boogie! Elizabeth and her husband Steven catered the event and filled us all up with some awesome grub -- ribs, chicken, corn on the cob, potato salad and corn bread! Yum! Lisa, LaNae and mom did a fantastic job with all the decorations -- wagon wheels, hay bales, photos of Jay throughout his life, and even a jail house!

Look at this cake! Jays favorite cake is actually the Maple Bar, so they gathered up 80 Maple Bars and lit 80 candles, and had the small grandkids help grandpa blow them all out! What a task!

The Sandbergs!

Our family -- western style!

Sofia can swim! All by herself! No floaties! Yahoo!

A birthday meeting in Missoula for Maria's 9th birthday!

Since the Bennett's moved last August, things have not been the same for our sweet girls. Audriana and Maria's friendship has spanned most of their lives. With her 9th birthday approaching, Joye and I hatched a little plan for all of us to meet up in Missoula for a little weekend getaway. We were really looking forward to the trip. So, with our bags packed, birthday gifts wrapped, and 2 very excited little girls, we drove the 3 hours to Missoula this past Sunday morning June 12th. We arrived around noon and the Bennett's arrived shortly after. Their trip from Emigrant is about 4.5 hours. Our rooms were not yet ready at the Missoula Courtyard, so we met the Bennett's at Subway for lunch. The girls were so excited to see each other!

After lunch, we checked into the hotel and then got directions to a nice park in downtown Missoula. The girls rode the carousel a couple of times, played on the giant play structure, and basically just ran around and laughed a lot. The weather cooperated and was quite nice the entire afternoon!
The park was located on the Clark Fork river, which was running so fast and was so full -- Missoula has been on the news lately because this river is flooding many homes near Missoula!

After playing, we treated the girls to a little ice cream from the Cold Stone ice cream truck. yummy!

After playing at the park and having ice cream, the girls were ready to head back to the hotel for some swimming. They had a great time.....

...but the most exciting news about all the swimming that they did was that Sofia learned how to swim all by herself! No floaties! She really took off and within 30 minutes, she was literally swimming around the entire pool -- from the shallow end, to the deep end, and back! We couldn't believe it! She is a strong swimmer -- kicking very well, and naturally moving her arms in the breast stroke and the crawl! There are so many new things that Sofia is mastering right now -- we are so proud of her!

Here is our little 5 year old Sofia swimming!

These girls have been swimming together since they were 3! This time they both learned how to do backwards somersaults in the water and they both worked on their diving. Nice job girls!

Here is a great shot of our dear friends, the Bennett's. Sid, Maria and Joye. We love you guys! Maria turns 9 in a few days and even though they have moved 8 hours away, we felt so lucky to still be able to meet up with her to celebrate her special day! Happy Birthday Maria!

Maria brought such a special gift for Audriana to open. It was a gift to celebrate her First Holy Communion.....she opened it and put it on immediately. Look how proud she looks with her beautiful new Sacred Heart necklace!

Marissa's HS Graduation Party!

Marissa Wilhite's HS graduation celebration! Thank you so Patty and Chad for hosting such a wonderful party to help celebrate Marissa. She is graduating from Ferris with an AA from Spokane Community College. She is also an accomplished musician (seriously, one of the best piano players I have ever heard!), and she was just accepted to Pacific Luthern University! WOW...what a great role model she is for Audriana and Sofia! Thanks Marissa!
My sister and my cousins -- Patty and Diane. We are missing Colleen! And Bryan -- he was here today, but this was a "girls" picture!

Aunt Virginia is Marissa's grandma -- we were so glad that she was able to be here today!

Patty and Chad, Aunt Virginia, Marissa and Uncle Bill

Sofia's Montessori Year End Picnic at Comstock

Sofia has really enjoyed her year with Mrs. Pipella at Montessori Central. She is reading, folks!....and not even in kindergarten until next Fall. We are so happy that she will be returning to Dawn's school next September as a kindergartner! yah Sofia!

This year's kindergartner class. Sophia Grace, Hannah, Danny, Aster and Addy! Nice job on the singing, kids!


Here is the entire class getting ready to sing some wonderful songs that they have been working on for a long time. It was a great concert in the park.....and the weather was nice, too!

Artfest 2011!

Artfest is held each June in Brown's Addition (Coeur d'Alene Park). Tons of artists convene and sell their work, plus music and lots of fun things for the kiddos! We brought Addy with us and had a great day. The weather was fabulous, too!
The 3 girls in front of some cool "bug" art....it was a creepy dung beatle made out of steel.

Martin making our first purchase.....local honey! Yum!

Relaxing and listening to some cool music.....

Daddy and Audriana

Mommy and Sofia
FACE PAINTING WAS FUN!

Audriana's gecko...or is it a dragon/monster? Nobody knows....

I couldn't resist putting this picture up on the blog.....after we got home from Artfest, we went over to the Lunds and had dinner. It was just us girls. Martin had gone back down to Elkfest to hear more music, and Denise's husband Todd took Everett to to see some car racing up in Airway Heights. We made hamburgers, and snacked on veggies and crackers and hummus. As you can see by the picture above, our angels had a silly and fun time together!