Three Weeks with Marcus

We had three short weeks with Marcus home from his mission before he left for BYU.  We played so hard!  We ended up spending the first couple days he was home with the Walker family.  Their son Jacob returned from Brazil the day before Marcus.  As soon as Marcus was released from being a missionary, we went to lunch at his favorite place, Q-Doba, then took him to see Jacob.  They were basically inseparable after that.  I think they both loved having someone else to help them navigate all the weird feelings of being home.  They worked out together, saw friends, got caught up on movies, and played hard.  They both spoke in sacrament meeting together (Marcus gave a great talk about how his mission was the best decision he'd ever made and how God is in the details of our lives) and we held a joint homecoming party at the Walker's house.  So many people showed up and there was a ton of good food and of course swimming on the lake.

Q-Doba and his first meal at "home"

We were on Lake Sammamish with the Walkers within few hours of Marcus' return.

The next day we were on Lake Washington watching the Blue Angels.  It's the best day of the year in Seattle.  Randy also managed to get pulled over not once but twice by the Coast Guard police.  Luckily we weren't given a ticket.  I think the cops were sure that a boat with 17 people in it must have some serious partying going on.  

The first of two police after they pulled us over

Dad and Kathy came for Marcus' homecoming talk

We squeezed in a temple trip after boating and before dinner and the homecoming party. 

The only picture of the homecoming party

Elder Snell, Marcus's bestie from Utah was serving here and got permission to hear Marcus speak

Marcus's first nap after the mission.  He was out cold for a few hours.

This is the bear rug that greeted him when he came home.  The boys love to accessorize him.

And this is the disaster area of my bedroom as Marcus unpacked and re-packed for college

These boys are besties and hung out whenever we weren't with Marcus

We played so hard that the only person willing to go to the Mariners game with Randy was Landon.  They had fun and the rest of us had fun not being there.  

Summer This and That

Summer is long gone and I can hardly remember all the things we did.  As school was ending I began to panic as I tried to figure out how I would entertain my children, or should I say how they would entertain themselves.  We've had so many of our friends move away in the past couple years that the summer was looking pretty borking and lonely.  But we made it through and of course, started out strong with schedules and job charts that were quickly disregarded like yesterday's trash.  We didn't do nearly as much boating as we wanted.  The weather was too cold!  And we didn't go anywhere because we save our traveling for winter/spring break.  But summer was great and I survived with minimal friends/play dates and adventuring with only two boys in tow.

weekly park day in Seattle and we were the only ones to show up

After about 4 years of broken doors in the bonus room, I finally bought, re-sized, and painted new doors.  There were multiple trips to Home Depot and to our friends house with actual tools to get this done.  Turns out those door frames aren't the standard size.  But they're done!

Cold summer weather meant lots of hot tubbing

Henry got to play some lacrosse for the first time

Ethan bought an Audi.  He worked hard and bought it (mostly) with his own money.  Not sure how he plans to pay for school but maybe he can charge people for rides in it?

Din Tai Fung with the Johnson's and Henry was in heaven.  Landon ate 23 dumplings!

Henry hanging out while the family did baptisms in the temple

Swimming as the sun sets on Pine Lake = heaven on earth

Henry having fun for once

Free Slurpee day!  Marcus did it right!

Despicable Me 4 - I took the Bishop's kids to the movie with us and tried to hit the $6 Movie Tuesday deal.  Long story short, no deal.  This lame movie cost me over $100.  But at least I scored a discount on popcorn and maxed out the number of times I could refill the bucket which made me feel a little better.

This is the second summer Parker has done DC Speed summer camp.  It's twice a week and the kids basically play recess games like dodgeball, kickball, and capture the flag.  Parker loves it and its not a ton of money either.  Major win!

Colorado Springs

This is me catching up on summer happenings.  One big event that will be forever seared into my brain was my first trip to Colorado.  Landon and Parker were both scheduled to play in a huge tournament there and since I have never been, I was the unlucky parent to go on this trip.  It was bad news from the start.  

Flights were insanely expensive.  Like we could've flown to Europe for the same price.  I tried to save money where I could and found us flights that arrived later than I would've preferred at 11:30pm.  Not great but to us it would feel like 10:30 so I figured it wouldn't be terrible.  I was so wrong!  Our flight left late and then landed late after circling around Denver twice.  Pretty sure we had a new pilot in training.  He was the worst.  And by the time we landed and got all our luggage at a baggage claim over a mile away, I was in a terrible mood.  Then we had to get a rental car.  And the line to pick it up was so slow and all the while the clock was ticking away and my boys were still awake and about to get no sleep before their games the next day.  We finally got our rental and drove 90 minutes to our hotel in Colorado Springs.  We arrived at 3am.  I think the last time I stayed up that late was my freshman year in college.  My contacts were glued to my eyeballs and I was just so thankful we made it to the hotel without any mishaps.  Luckily Landon and Parker slept in the car because Landon had to get up at 6:30am for his game.  Poor guy.  I literally prayed that both of us would be able to function on no sleep and it was a serious miracle because we did! 

The tournament was not great.  Are you noticing a theme with this trip?  There were teams from all across the country and the venue was enormous!  It was at the Air Force Academy and there were thirty fields.  It was massive!  Naturally the boys teams never played anywhere near each other so I walked back and forth in the hundred degree weather, trying to find them.  Yes, you heard that right.  There was a crazy heat advisory.  Gatorade was sold out at the grocery store, it was that bad.  We saw several players get loaded up into ambulances for heat exhaustion.  It was miserable.  But we persevered and lost a lot of games.  

 

That evening we managed to do a little sight seeing and we were pleasantly surprised with the red rock beauty of the Garden of the Gods.  We ate a delicious BBQ joint that someone recommended and the boys and I filled ourselves on brisket.  We slept great that night and were like a well-oiled machine as we packed up our stuff, got plenty of ice and water, and checked out of the hotel in record time to get to early games.  By the time Parker finished his last game I was so done with the sun and lacrosse.  I applied countless coats of sunblock and somehow managed to escape without a sunburn.

So much brisket!

hot and tired and ready for a shower at the hotel that we spent a total of like ten hours at

After all the games (and mostly losses) we raced off the fields to get to church so we could see missionary Megan.  I gave her the biggest hug! She isn't a hugger but she hugged me back so I knew she was happy to see us.  She is just so awesome and her companion was great fun too.  After church and pictures, we said our goodbyes and found a yummy place for lunch before checking out the Denver Temple.  Hooray for temples!  Then it was back to the airport and the end of the longest three days of my life.  I'm happily letting Randy take over all future lacrosse travel from here on out.