80s Dance Party

I have CRAZY friends.  They are always talking me into doing CRAZY things with them, most recently dressing up like a CRAZY person!  I dug through my dress-up box and pulled out the two most 80-ish things I could find to go to Kendra's 80s Dance/Birthday Party.  

Here's how I left the house:

Then I stopped by Mariann's house.  Mariann has a HUGE dress-up box.  Here's how I left her house:

She dragged me to Safeway looking like this.  We actually walked through the store, buying snacks for the party.  Several people gave us weird looks, and one lady told us we looked fabulous.  I was a little worried Mariann might get invited to the wrong kind of party...

Kendra was very  happy that we dressed up!  

We've been talking about this party for a long time.  Her birthday is one day after mine, although she's several years younger...but we've wanted to have a joint birthday party and this was our last chance since she's moving in a few weeks.  We had a great time laughing and talking, listening to her groovy 80s mix tapes (on her ipod) and dancing with the Xbox Dance Central.  She created a bracket for a dance-off, double elimination style.  I danced twice and got beat both times!  But there were some pretty smooth moves from the other ladies, as witnessed below:

Kendra vs. Chantal

Mariann vs. Anna

Michele vs. Kendra

Carlyn vs. Gretchen

and the big dance off for the championship...Mariann vs. Kendra!  

They had to dance against each other a total of three times, they're both so good!  

And the winner is...

Mariann!  

We're sad that Kendra is moving and won't be here to challenge Mariann for the title.  

It was a totally gnarly party!  Thanks, Kendra!

Baby Jane

My friends exert a lot of peer pressure, but there's no way they're talking me into their latest craze:  having babies! Three out of four isn't bad, right?  75%, that's a passing grade! The next baby to come from my family will have to come from one of my children, and that better not be for another 10 years or so!

Jane Margaret Brooks, born on Mother's Day!  Isn't she beautiful?

Mariko's 2nd Birthday

Tif and Tad had a bar-be-que to celebrate Mariko's 2nd birthday.  It was a gorgeous day and we had a great time playing in their yard. 

Jillian and Ryota

Nate bravely provided entertainment for the boys!

He finally got smart and rolled over...

Nate's such a good sport!

I guess the kids didn't see Kylie laying down!

Tif made the adorable Elmo cake and Oscar cupcakes! 

Make a wish!

She's such a dainty eater...

especially compared to Landon!

Ponies

I love that my sister, Corey, is teaching Jillian how to ride a horse!  She took Jillian and Hyrum on a trail ride last weekend.  They went up behind my parents' house to Gazzam Lake, and on the way passed this cute farm. Hyrum is doing a great job learning to ride, too.  Jillian said that on the way back, Hyrum got tired, so he closed his eyes and took a little nap!  Good thing Jenna and Cisco are such sweet ponies!  Jenna will follow Cisco wherever he goes, so she didn't mind that Hyrum took a break and wasn't guiding him.

 

Indianola Beach

We've had a string of beautiful Saturdays this month.  This weekend, instead of working in the yard like we usually do, I wanted to go do something fun with the family.  I've heard about the fantastic beach in Indianola, so we decided to see for ourselves.  We drove about 20 minutes to get to Indianola, found a parking space (with difficulty...there's not much public parking) walked to the beach entrance, and were greeted with this:

Huh? And people think Bainbridge Islanders are snooty?  

We decided to walk down their extremely long dock while we debated what to do.

This is the view from the end:

 A beautiful, panoramic view of the Olympics,

the Agate Pass Bridge,

a cute little boy,

Mt. Rainier:

and a gorgeous couple:

At first we thought we would try to sneak on the beach and pretend like we belonged there.  But when we got to the stairs leading down to the water, we heard people greeting each other: "Hi Patty!  Hi Joe!  How's the grandkids? Great! How did your grandma's knee replacement surgery go?"  These people all knew each other and we weren't up for trying to fake them out!  We decided to go to Old Man Beach in Suquamish instead.  When we got there, the beach was empty.  No cars in the parking lot, no people anywhere to be seen.  At first we wondered if there had been some kind of   sewage spill or something, but we didn't smell anything bad, so we settled in.

A little while later, we were buzzed by a really low flying airplane. It was a small, open pit plane and he circled around us several times, flying over the bridge and down close to the water.  What a fun (but kind of scary) way to see the area!  The pilot waved at us before heading off to explore more. He probably got a better look at the Indianola beach than we did.  But we always enjoy Old Man beach, and at least we're welcome there!

Moving the Yawn

When Ben was little and he saw Brad out mowing, he would say, "Dad's moving the yawn."  I can't believe he's big enough to "move the yawn" himself!  We have two "movers" so he and Brad "moved" together last week on a sunny evening.

Free-bees

The other day I was looking out the kitchen window and noticed that one of our apple trees was covered with bees.  I was pretty excited that the many blossoms were getting pollinated and went out to take a closer look.  It wasn't pollination going on, it was a swarm forming!  This was even more exciting, since our hive died this spring and a swarm is a way to get FREE bees!  (Buying a new hive can cost almost $100.)  I called Brad and asked him what I should do, and he said I could try to get it down if I wanted to.  So I put on the suit, set up the box beneath the tree, climbed up the ladder and clipped the branch.  As soon as I moved it, all the bees dropped off and flew up higher in the tree.  We decided to wait until later in the evening when they had calmed down a bit, and Brad tried again.

The swarm...not huge, but a decent size.

Very carefully clip the branch...

carry it over to the box...

and set it in...

and the bees have a new home!

Here's the ladies sending out pheromones to attract their way-ward sisters.

Hopefully the queen will like her new home and start laying some eggs!