Gig Harbor Washington July 1, 2008

Well we finally made it to gig Harbor. Yesterday was a long moving day and I won't get into the chaos of the slow movers. Actually the 2 guys that came were very good, they just needed 2 more guys to help. Needless to say we are now in our new house. We slept on the living room floor the first night. We woke up at 5am with the sun shining through the giant windows welcoming us to a beautiful new day.

We have a new pet for Erica since she can not have a dog. The deer live in the back yard without a care in the world.

Leavenworth Vacaation June 2008

As soon as the kids got out of school on the last day (June 13th) we packed up the van and headed to Leavenworth, Washington for vacation with Trent and Troy's families. We had a great week relaxing together. The kids loved playing with their cousins and having sleepovers every night. The adults had fun playing "Settlers of Catan" and "Puerto Rico" every evening into the wee hours night.

All the cousins at the local museum.

Museum at Cashmire, WA

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Touring the candy factory!

Megan and Erica climbing "Barny's Rubble" with Dad on belay.

Erica and Megan golfing. Josh and Mom at the putting course

Megan after combing out her hair. What more can I say?

We think she is beautiful!!!!

Hansel and Gretal - May 31, 2008

The weekend of the ballet performance of Hansel and Gretal was both fun and exhausting! It started on Thursday evening with Megan's school music concert. They call it the POPS Cafe' and served deserts and had several performances with the school band, choir and Jazz band. When we got home, Fred and Brenda had arrived from the airport to spend the weekend with us and see the ballet. Friday morning Heather enlisted the help of Fred and Brenda to finish packing up the moving POD. Then after lunch they helped move the props for the ballet performance over to the theatre. I am sure they were not expecting to do so much physical labor on their little trip. Friday at 5pm we started final dress rehearsal for the ballet. Josh,Grandma, and Grandpa Yost spent the evening together eating pizza and playing arcade games while the rest of us spent the evening at the theatre trying to work out the kinks. It was quite a long, frustrating experience. To top it off, Tracy's costume did not fit in any way shape or form (we won't go into the fact that it was the first time he finally got to try it on). To tell the truth I had my doubts about this performance actually coming together on time.

Saturday we got up early for Erica's last soccer game (which started at 6:50 AM!). Then we were off to the theater to get ready for the matinee performance of the ballet. Tracy still did not have a costume and he didn't know what he might end up wearing. I jumped in to help the seamstress literally pin the costumes onto several of the men folk dancers while she madly worked on salvaging Tracy's pants. Amazingly Tracy finally got his costume on about 15 minutes before we had to be on stage. They were a little tight, but if he was careful he might not rip out the back seam during his dance.

Looking back I still can not figure out how it all came together. The ballet turned out wonderful! It was fun to finally watch Megan perform the whole show and see how all the characters interacted with each other. Erica was the cutest bunny and Gum drop. It was very fun!! Tracy and I survived the folk dance and enjoyed sharing in the experience with Erica and Megan.

Megan (Hansel) getting ready for the show.

Erica (the bunny) and the Woodland animals.

Tracy and Heather after surviving our first ballet performance.

Erica (Gumdrop) and her Papa!

Triathlon

Tracy and I completed the Gater Grinder Triathlon on May 10th. It was my second year. I enjoyed it a lot more and was not quite so nervous. Tracy did a great job for his first time. He worked really hard at improving his swimming and I think he did a great job.

Tracy's swim time for 500 meters was 13 min 21 seconds.

His bike time for 12 miles was 46:45 min/sec., and his 5k run was 32:21 min/sec.

His overall time was 1:38:16 hr/min/sec.

Heather's times were:

swim 9:17 min/sec, bike 46:27 min/sec, run 39:07 min/sec

overall time 1:40:20 hr/min/sec

I added a few minutes from last year, but like I said, I had a lot more fun:)

Joshua's Activities

Josh turned 11 years old on April 4th. We had a wild party for him and his buddies at Safari Sam's. Here are a few pics of the party.

He also received his Arrow of light award in Cub Scouts and advanced to Boy Scouts. Josh is an awesome son and a very honest Boy Scout. We are very proud to be his parents.

Erica's spring activities

Erica has been just as busy as the rest of us. She is playing soccor, had a violin recital, and school music concert. She is also in the Hansel and Gretal ballet with Megan.

Here is a video of Erica singing her duet with her friend for the school music concert.

She also had fun at soccer. Her favorite position is goalie.

She also had a violin recital and did a great job. This is Erica with her violin teacher Anna Rapp. She is an amazaing woman and I hope I have as much energy and enthusiasm for life as she does when I am her age. She will definitly be somene we will miss when we move.

I will add a video of the recital when I get it downloaded to my computer.

We found a new house.

We are happy to announce we found a wonderful home in Gig Harbor. It is a few blocks from both the schools the kids will be attending and walking distance to Kopichuck State park for hiking and exploring. We went up last Friday for the home inspection and everything looks great. It was built in 1993, but totally remodeled last year. It has beautiful full length windows in the living room and kitchen that have a full view of Mt. Rainer(when the clouds are absent).


Here are a few pics.

This is the view of the living room as you walk in the front door.

This is the kitchen.

Here is the view of the basement great room as you come down the stairs. It has a bar area with a fridge and a sink. The office is the door you see in the middle of the picture.

The kids are most excited to have their own rooms.

Try this link for a video tour.

http://tours.tourfactory.com/tours/tour.asp?t=364554