Shaw's Super Summer Sabbatical

(there's so many words that begin with 'S' that alliteration is a cinch)

Saturday afternoon July 14th we made our way out of town ... as per usual we were behind schedule and it was too late to swim by the time we arrived in Couer d'Alene to spend the night in the horrible room reserved for us in hell; aka: Motel6. 1 queen size bed and not nearly enough room for the 6 of us! Needless to say we will not be staying in Motel6 ever again!

We arrived in Blackfoot before the sun went down on Jacob's birthday and were so excited to celebrate with him!

Monday thru Thursday were VERY relaxing and enjoyable days playing in the sunshine on the Bonzai water slide (the one that we picked up at Wal*mart in Smelterville, ID for the Cook's to replace the one that was chewed by the neighbor's dog!); working on the playhouse build project; swinging, slides and football at Jensen's Grove; trips to Wal*mart after the kids went to bed and we even went on a double date - left the babies asleep and kids with a babysitter! Don't even worry, there were 5 kids under 7 years old and 2 babies!!

Friday was spent at Bear Lake, we drove into Utah - barely. The sand was nice and the water was BEAUTIFUL!

Saturday was the much anticipated horseback riding day! We packed our stuff to head out of town and then drove up to Archer to Garth's house! They had planned a dinner and everything! We rode for a good hour or so in the side yard - enclosed for safety! Andy had the ride of his life ... He nearly found out why they named that horse Buck!

It was GREAT fun! We love the Cooks and look forward to seeing them more!

(by the way - we stayed in Ontario, OR at the SleepInn there and will TOTALLY do that again! 2 queen size beds AND a crib, with a swimming pool to boot!)

we love blackfoot, idaho!!

We spent our summer vacation in Blackfoot, ID with our great friends/family the Cooks! JennyCook took good care of us and we had SO much fun! (Here are some pics - more details to follow)

are you freaking kidding me?!

So ... as you know we have our house on the market and we are also in contract to purchase another home - which is NOT contingent on selling our current home. While we've been out of town our house has been in prestine show quality with a few visitors but still no offers. This is a little disstressing to me and to make matters worse our next door neighbors home is also on the market ... they listed 5 days after us ... at a MUCH lower price because it's 200 sqft smaller and in 'needs fixing' condition.

BUT this is what we came home to ...

it's sitting RIGHT across the street in front of our house!!


Mind you ... it's previous home was inside our neighbor's garage ... the ones that are now STI (which means they have an offer Subject To Inspection) - ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME!?!?

did you get the biggest bang for your buck?

The 4th of July was a blast (pun intended)!!
Seattle is having it's best 4th of July week in a century!!
For us the holiday started at the 27th Annual Everett 4th Ward 4th of July Pancake and Egg Breakfast, then to Kayak Point with the Farrar Family and friends. On this sizzling hot 80-ish degree day we lathered our fair-skinned crew with sunscreen and headed to the water. Andy took each of the kids on a kayak ride and then took a ride by himself. We ate, chatted, dug in the sand and played all day!! The tide was out and there were a ton of teeny-tiny crab all over! Abi was having such fun digging and finding baby crab that she didn't notice that the shells in the sand were ripping her fingertips to shreds - until one cut on her middle finger got deep enough to bleed and the salt water hit it! Ouch!
We headed home about 5:30. We stopped by Alfy's for a pizza for dinner, but everybody fell asleep in the air conditioned car on the way home! (I took full advantage of the opportunity to have a shower!!)
The heat woke them before I was finished and they all came trooping in the house with their sandy feet and bodies needing to be hosed off in the shower. After everyone was cleaned up we ate our now not-so-hot half-cheese-half-pepperoni pizza and then piled back into the van to go get some LastMinuteHalfPricedDiscounted Fireworks. We arrived at the tent and the guy told Andy that the prices marked were not true ... everything was $1 - we could have packages that were marked $5 and $10 for a buck ... and then he gave us a box and said "Go ahead and fill it up, and I'll give it to you for $20. I don't care if stuff is hanging out the top ... "

As luck would have it ... we had decided that $20 was our limit ... we started loading up on what ever we could get our hands on. We went to the register checked out and vowed to be loyal cutomers and return next year! We figure we got over $300 worth of every kind of exploding, noise-making, spark spraying, bomb throwing firework there was!
We came home and lit fireworks off out in the street for almost 3 solid hours ... we decided to spare our ears and not light anymore 'whistling petes' and we got bored of the confetti poppers ... so we have a bunch for the New Year! Our neighbor down the road brought us a box with fire crackers and about 18 bombs (you know the ones that shoot up in the air and the explode in a beautiful array of color and sometimes crackle - those are my faves).

We finished up at about 11pm and it took us about 20 minutes to do a quick clean up with a broom, dustpan and many hands! All in all it was a great time had by all! Although Andy confessed later that he was starting to get bored of lighting them! I like to go to firework shows but was out-voted!! We hope the kids got their fill of lighting fireworks - when we get into our new house we will be inside the city limits and not allowed to light them in our yard! Maybe I'll get to see a show set to music next year!!