Uncle Isaac

Braedyn got to spend a lot of time with his Uncle Isaac on this trip to Iowa.

Helping gather the hay at that farm


Hanging with Isaac and his girlfriend Jana at the wedding.




We're not sure what was happening here. Although it looks like they're trying to strangle Braedyn, we think someone must have actually thought that life vest was going to keep him safe....

Papa Perry

The trip to Iowa was chock full of time with family. Here Braedyn helps Papa Perry with his trumpet practice



And gets some practice of his own driving...

Wedding

The main reason for this trip back to Iowa was to go to the wedding of Talisha's cousin Erin. The wedding was in Quincy, Illinois so everyone drove down from Iowa for a weekend over the 4th of July.

 
 
 

Grandma

Braedyn got really attached to Mema on this trip and preferred her over mommy most of the time. He got the constant attention and loving spoiling that grandmas are famous for, there may have even been some sugary treats involved... Now that Braedyn is back home he still talks about his Mema all the time and is anxiously awaiting his next chance to see her.

Iowa

Talisha and Braedyn headed out to Iowa to see family and go to a wedding this past week. Braedyn had a blast hanging out with MeMa and Papa and Uncle Isaac. Of course no trip to Iowa would be complete without the requisite tractor rides out at the farm. Braedyn has so much fun out at the farm. This time he even got to drive the tractor into a tree!




Hanging out with Great Grandma

Deja Vu

It was a little more than a year and a half ago that we told everyone that we had decided to pick up our lives in Colorado and move to Washington state. Michael had taken a job with Microsoft and we would be selling out home in Colorado and moving to the rainy Pacific Northwest. We found a home we absolutely loved in Redmond, WA and Michael had found a job that he has come to love as well in the Connected Systems Division of MS. In our time living here we've watched Braedyn grow from a baby into a little boy who loves being around people, loves to talk, run, jump off of anything, throw rocks, sticks, dirt or anything else, read, sleep, get dirty, and just about anything else little boys like to do. Believe it or not, Dori is still with us here as well. She's found her favorite little spots in our house here and has even started to find where the sun shines in the windows now that it is summer here.

But with all the good things that we've found here in the greater Seattle area we just don't feel like this is where we want to settle our lives down. We started talking about where we would like to live longer term and pictures of the beach were what came to our minds. Just talking this through seemed to fling doors wide open... An amazing career opportunity presented itself to Michael in a group at Microsoft. The group recently acquired a small startup company based near Santa Barbara, CA and they were looking for people with Michael's skill set. We orignially wanted to wait a year or two longer, but things just seemed to fall into place and God seemed to be leading us in this direction.

Aug. 4th is Michael's start date with the new group. We plan to make the move to the town of Carpinteria, CA at the end of August. There is a lot to be done in this short time including selling yet another house and arranging everything else. Thanks so much for those who have been praying for us as we made this difficult decision. We'll greatly miss all the friends we've made here, but you're all welcome to come visit! We will certainly keep everyone posted on what is happening with the move, come back to our blog regularly to see pictures of the process...




Some interesting reading about Carpinteria:

• http://carpinteriacitybeachcam.com/
• http://carpinteria.com/
• Best Downtowns: Vacation Cities
• http://adecn.com/

remodeling

We always seem to have a couple home projects going at any given time. With our house here in Redmond we've been painting and replacing moulding. Recently, Michael decided to replace the doors in the master bath and closet with some pocket doors. These two rooms are a little bit smaller and the swing style doors took up an extrodianry amount of room. The goal of this project was to install pocket doors that worked better than the cheap pocket doors we all know about that are constantly falling off the track, and also to install them without completly demolishing the wall. I found a company that does some high quality track kits for pocket doors, Johnson Hardware. And then I began the project like any good homeowner... by going to Home Depot and buying a bunch of power tools! I then ripped out half of the drywall (one side of the wall) and installed the new pocket doors, then drywalled over it, textured and painted, put up new trim and was all done. Well it only took me a couple months to complete, but it's now done and it turned out quite well I must say. And all just in time to put the house up on the market and sell all of my handy work. There's nothing like selling your house to force you to get all of your projects done quickly.




 
 

4th of July

Well Michael was left at home by the rest of the family for the week preceeding the 4th. I got lots of work done around the house in preparation for putting it on the market to sell which is a good thing, but it was a little boring being at home alone and I kind of miss my family... I went out one night to the cinema to see Wall-E since I can never talk Talisha into seeing Pixar, animated movies. That was pretty good.


Then, Arye, a guy from work invited me to come down to his boat at the Elliot Bay Marina in Seattle for the 4th of July fireworks with his family and another guy from work, Will, and his family. That was a great place to watch the fireworks. We sat around his big sailboat and grilled hamburgers and watched all the excitement happening at the marina and then kicked back to watch the fireworks shot off over Seattle. I even climbed up into the crows nest for the display!

Volunteer Park

It was another hot day in Seattle so we decided to check out another park that has a wading pool. This time we went to the second largest Seattle Parks wading pool located at Volunteer Park on Capitol Hill.

 

Green Lake Wading Pool

With the Seattle temps in the low 90's we took advantage of the wading pool at Green Lake Park in Seattle. Braedyn hasn't been real interested in water lately so we weren't sure how long we'd hang out, but this kid had some major fun there. The hard part was getting him to take a break to eat some lunch and then getting him to leave. We ended up spending a few hours there along with about a hundred other kids. Braedyn barely left the water and had so much fun it should be illeagle.

 
 
 
 

Green Lake Park

We headed over to Seattle on Saturday for a visit to Green Lake Park. It was a pretty hot day so the promise of a lake and a wading pool was too much to pass up. Braedyn and daddo threw some rocks into the lake for awhile while mommy went to some of the shops across the street and then we headed to the wading pool.

 
 

More Zoo

Some shots of Braedyn wandering around the zoo. He was really excited about the monkeys and the elephants!

Woodland Park Zoo

Michael took Friday off and we headed to the zoo in the morning. It was a perfect day to be outside. We saw lots of animals and did a lot of walking and then found a little river to throw some rocks in and eat lunch by.