Heat Wave

Seattle had a major heat wave a couple weeks ago. It was absolutely, completely, utterly miserable!!! We tried to find things to do in the evening that didn't consist of sitting at home in our hot house. So we went out to dinner a lot, went to the sprinkler park, went to the mall and went to the beach. It cooled down to a nice 95 degrees when we were at the beach and believe me that was cool compared to our house that was 120 degrees inside.

Peachy

I took Maya to the Edmonds Farmers market a few weeks back. It was hotter than heck outside but we still had a nice time. I love this time of year for all of the fresh fruit and veggies. Here's my little peach enjoying a peach...

She's really diggin in! ha!

We love Mexican food....

and so does Maya...

Lavender Festival '09

This year we went "kids free" to the Lavender Festival. It was really hard for me to leave Maya but her and Dad had a ton of fun bonding. Me, Tay and Ma headed out to Sequim for the weekend and had an awesome time. We laughed, we laughed and we laughed some more. I swear that's all we did all weekend. It was so much fun and so relaxing. Again, I was horrible about taking pictures so this is all I have. This pretty much sums it up though...

"Come on guys let me get a picture of you....

......ha, Taya act normal.....

....alright someone turn down the wind....

...just forget it, I tried"

She's a picker

So those of you who know me well know that I'm a picker. I have always been like this and its only gotten worse since having Maya. I am constantly picking at her. I am the mom who will stick my fingernail up her nose and get that hard to reach boog. (I'm sure I just lost all my readers...all 10 of them. ha!) Well, truth be told, Maya is a picker too! When we were down in Vancouver she was running around bare feet at my Grandma's house and she stepped on a few lego's. She scrapped up her foot pretty good and now has a scab that she now likes to pick at. As I'm writing this I'm 1/2 laughing and 1/2 grossed out that I am actually admitting all of this to you but oh well. So for your viewing pleasure I caught her in the act.....

So determined

What Mom? You do it too! :)

Cousin Kayla

We came back just in time to see Cousin Kayla for dinner on Sunday night. We miss our family in Oklahoma SO much so it was nice to at least see one of the members of the family for a short while. We all went out to Spartas in Bothell. Maya was in heaven and was so excited to see her cousin.

I had a rough time getting a good picture of the two of them together

The two of them laughing together....so sweet!

The girls

Some much needed playing time with her cuz

My handsome man and his niece. He misses his niece and nephew SO MUCH!!! We need to visit really soon. ;)

Ladd Family Reunion 09

Sorry these took so long to post! And sorry for the fact that there are not more pictures!!! We went down to Vancouver for the annual Ladd Family Reunion. This year we decided to stay in a hotel since last year when we went down it was 110 degrees and we all melted in Gail and Dans house. It was fun to do something new this time. Vancouver has an awesome farmers market on Saturdays so we all went and checked it out. Just so happens that there was a gay pride festival going on down there too so that was interesting. DJ missed the conversation we all had about the gay pride festival so he thought that it was typical for Vancouver to have drag queens out and about on a Saturday. After the market we walked over to an antique car show they had going on a few blocks down. That was pretty cool too! We all went back to Gail and Dan's for a BBQ and some pool time. All the kids played together and had a total blast. I was having so much fun that I forgot to take a lot of pictures. OOPS! I'm sure my Uncle Dan will eventually have a few on his website that you can check out! :)
http://www.pbase.com/danielwickwire/life_in_snapshots

I love this picture! About 2 minutes before I snapped this I asked Preston if he was sleepy and of course he replied....no.
Preston with his Basketball Papa (Carrot in the background)

This was Maya on Saturday afternoon, totally wiped out!

My sweet niece, she is only 2 years old but always so put together.

Auntie Tay Tay with the girls

Baby Michael

Kat and Michael got into town last week and I snuck over to their hotel for a quick visit before we headed out of town. It was so good to catch up with Kat and hold her little man. I love him so much!!! Here are a few pictures from last Thursday....

Michael and his favorite Auntie :)

Last night Maya and I went over to Auntie Cami's house and all the girls came over for a visit. We all got to swoon over baby Michael. Maya was intrigued but also got jealous every time I was holding him. Here are a few pictures from last night courtesy of Auntie Jossie.....

Me and Mikey

Auntie Katrina and Maya

Auntie Jossie and Michael

Auntie Cami and Michael

The crazy toddler

Auntie Shirrae and Michael

Michael looking up at his Mama

Michael surrounded by all the ladies already!

Maya and Auntie Jossie - Maya LOVES her!

More Ocean Info/Pics I forgot

Last Thursday before we left DJ went and put together a ocean present for Maya. It was a sand bucket, shovel, Elmo kite, and paint so that we could paint sand dollars. He had it all wrapped for Maya when we got home on Thursday. He is the best Dad!

Here are a few pictures of the baby girl on our way out of town (before my camera died)......

Ocean Trip '09 ~ Part 1

For those of you who just want to see the pictures from the ocean:

We're on our way.....(She has crazy hair because we had the windows rolled down) ha!

Meeting Great Grandpa Miller for the first time

6:45 in the morning...on our way to the beach

Daddy and Maya on the beach

DJ trying to get Maya used to the beach

We were all so happy to be there

First Sand dollar of the trip

Playing around

Look no hands...

Great Grandma Miller and Maya getting some much needed cuddle time in before we left

This was Maya the entire way home!

My Man in his new Westport t-shirt driving us home

For those of you who want all the details:

Me, DJ and Maya took off for the weekend to Westport, WA on the coast. We had an AWESOME weekend together. It was our first family trip that we have taken since Maya was born. We took off on Friday afternoon around 12 and headed out to the beach. We got stuck in horrible traffic since everyone was going out there for the holiday weekend. Maya did pretty good on the way down but started to kind of lose it when we were heading into Aberdeen. Once we got into town we stopped at Wally World and picked up a few things that we had forgotten. We then headed to the house that we rented for the weekend. It was a sweet little house right in the heart of Westport. It was perfect for our family. We quickly unpacked the car and headed over to DJ's Grandparents house over in Grayland to say a quick "hi" before dinner. We visited with family for a little while and then headed back to Westport. We ordered take out from this great little Mexican restaurant called Sergios and had a lazy night at the house. After Maya fell asleep DJ and I sat out on the porch swing and had a glass of wine, played a few games and then laid in bed and looked at all of our visitor information that was left for us at the house.

On Saturday DJ and Maya woke up early and went and got us all coffee. I slept in a little, well if you call sleeping in 6:45. Since the tide was out and DJ was SO excited to be at the ocean we decided to head to the beach and collect some sand dollars. We found so many!!! We filled Maya's sand bucket full of sand dollars, shells and cool looking rocks. Maya was hesitant with everything. She was unsure of the sand, water, etc. The only thing she was sure of was that she wanted either Mama or Dada to hold her the entire time instead of walking the beach. After our walk on the beach we got back to the car and Maya fell asleep. DJ and I decided to drive out to Tokeland which is the next town over for another round of coffee and since it is an Indian reservation, DJ wanted to check out some fireworks. DJ got stocked up and we headed back to Westport to get some breakfast and to look in the shops. We also checked out the aquarium that DJ went to when he was a kid but it is currently under construction and had no animals in it. :( We went back to our house to get changed for the day and went back to the beach. DJ's grandparents live right by the water so we loaded up a little wagon with our beach gear and Maya and headed out. We hung out on the beach and relaxed. It was so peaceful! We then attemped to go back to the house and lay Maya down for an afternoon nap but it turned into watching a movie and having some quiet time before the big evening we had ahead of us. That evening we went back to DJ's grandparents for a BBQ and then went back to the beach for a great fireworks show. Maya was so exhausted by this point that her and I went for a walk down by the water and she fell asleep in my arms instantly. This is one of those moments that I will treasure for the rest of my life. My sweet baby asleep in my arms and walking the beach listening to the waves crash. At that moment I really couldn't ask for more. Maya ended up sleeping through most of the fireworks but woke up for the finale. She was a little scared of them at first but then warmed up.

On Sunday we went into town again to get some Westport gear before heading back home. Sorry for the detailed description of our weekend but it was SO much fun and my memory is so terrible that I don't want to forget a single second of our time at the beach. In September we are headed back to the coast for a weekend with my entire extended family so Part 2 of our Ocean trip will be then. Hope you all had a safe, wonderful, relaxing weekend with your family.