Fall Camping

Something we have really enjoyed is taking a fall camping/fishing trip on the
Skagit River to Howard Miller Steelhead Park.

This year we camped with Brandi and Chris, Anne and Allan and Jeff and Katie.

Avery brought her friend Emma and we all had a blast!

Their signs say it all!

The bigs had a blast on Aidan's motorized scooter....

Me too!

 

Mermaid!!!

 

 

Brandi even baked a Seahawk cake!!

YUM!

There were hours of tent games....

A glow stick show of course....

And FISHING!!!!

 

 

So fun to get away for the weekend!

Bow Hunting

Mark has always been curious about hunting, 

and finally decided this was the year he was going to give it a try.  

He spent a long weekend over in Spokane with my Dad.
Out on his property, he has a game camera that automatically takes pictures when animals go by.
He was sending Mark pictures before his trip over to show him the bucks that were visiting.

At one point the game cam caught a coyote....

 And when we were visiting this summer....it caught Charlie chasing a deer away.

Anyway....with the game cam pictures, they knew there were some nice bucks in the area.
Mark didn't want to just shoot anything...he was going to wait for a nice one!

This is the blind.....

This is the view from the blind.

The first evening there were a few does and a spike that they passed on.

 The next morning they were out in the blind at sun up! 
There were several deer that passed through and lots of turkeys!

At one point on the last day, there was a deer that had potential.
The worry was that the arrow may go through one and hit another.
Mark wasn't willing to take that chance.
So...this time....no big buck.

When he got home, he said that he was fine with it....even if he didn't get one.
He so enjoyed being able to sit in the blind and just be a part of nature.
Several times he commented on how cool it was to be able to see what happens in
nature when you're not there.

Bike Ridin'

We weren't quite ready to be done with summer.

Annalise and I decided to take a bike ride to Hovander and check out the kids' garden.  

Lots of cute characters this year!  

Plus...it was just fun to get out on the bikes after a very LONG first week of school!

First Day of School

Middle school.

Avery is starting middle school.

She's nervous, but mostly excited!

She and her friends are going to be walking to school each day.

It's earlier than she's used to, but to begin your day being social with friends is TOTALLY worth it!

(We'll see how long this enthusiasm lasts!)

Avery

First day of 6th Grade

Annalise

First day of 2nd Grade

And so begins another school year.....

And I get my own personal assistant in class!!!