Holiday Season 2023 recap in photos

Another wonderful and magical holiday season is in the books!  This year was especially fun because we got to share the holidays with Ollie. Santa even left some fun things for him under the tree too.  ;) Here is a recap in photos:

Molbaks with Nana & Pops (and Ollie!) 
Sadly this was the last year as Molbaks is now closed. :(

Christmas Tree Farm

Santa Visit with Grandparents

Santa Train

Nutcracker

Christmas Cookies with Cousins

Christmas Eve

Christmas Day

A few other holiday traditions and events happened as well that I didn't have photos for such as James' and my annual trip to Bainbridge Island to do our Christmas shopping, driving around with the boys in their Pjs looking at Christmas lights in the neighborhood, get togethers with girlfriends for Megs, wrapping Christmas gifts late into the nights, and a relaxing winter break as a family after the holidays.

These holiday traditions are fully ingrained now as I think we've done most all of them since the boys were born or were very little. And these traditions never get boring and are still just as special. Every year we ask the boys if they still want to do these things and they emphatically say yes. I think they are very foundational memories for their childhoods.  And how special that grandparents and aunties/uncles and cousins are involved in many of them too.  And now it's fun to bring Ollie along to many of them! 

And now we're moving into 2024.  Can't wait to see what the year brings!

Cameron's 9th Birthday

We celebrated Cameron's 9th birthday in a more unique way than usual this year.  Instead of a large birthday party with lots of friends, my good friend Amy who is Vander's mom suggested that we take Vander, Warner and Cameron (who are all good friends and who all have a birthday in early September) to Great Wolf Lodge for a weekend. We have never been to Great Wolf Lodge so we jumped at the chance!  And what a great weekend!  Cam of course had a blast with his buddies playing on the waterslides and in the big wave pool and eating all the junk food. They stayed up late laughing and talking in their own little bunk room in the hotel room.  And Cam was really brave and even did the ropes course all by himself!  He actually overcame a lot of fears over the weekend because water slides make him nervous.  He did great and it was a really really fun weekend!

We can't believe Cameron is 9 now and going into 3rd grade! The time is flying by! But what an amazing kid he is and brings so much joy to our family. 

Here are some things we want to remember about Cameron at 9 years old:

• Actually many of the aspects I mentioned in Cameron at 8 years old are still very true today. He is still our big feeler and we really love that about him because we think it is so healthy that he shows his emotion and expresses emotion. He is getting better and better every year at managing his emotions in a healthy way as well. He is also still really into art, sports, video games, friends, etc. 
• As I mentioned last year, he had a challenging experience in 2nd grade with a tough kid in his class. He also had a challenging time in 1st grade with the same kid being in his class. This year he has a new teacher and a new classroom environment and so far it's been such a breath of fresh air. Cameron feels so calm and comforted in his new classroom environment. His teacher is very encouraging and understanding and he has great friends in his class as well.  We are so grateful that so far it seems he'll have a much better school experience this year. Can't wait to see how it all plays out!
• This year he skied in the winter, played Little League baseball in the spring and will play soccer again this fall. I think he also wants to try rec basketball in the winter. He is still very active and coordinated and just thrives so much in sports. It's really fun to watch him and cheer him on.
• Right now Cameron's good friends are Vander, Warner, Willa, Bella, Lilly, Ellis, and Torin. 
• Cameron still has a very strong bond with his brother. He misses him so far this fall as Nathan is now off to middle school and goes to school way earlier. I don't think I'm as fun in the morning as having his brother around. So that's been an adjustment. But they still love to do things together and have such a strong bond in their similar interests.  We'll see how things evolve this year with Nathan being in middle school. 
• Cameron's favorite activity is art and he continues to amaze us with his talented art abilities. He was invited to the school district art show again this year for the second time in a row!
• It's been especially great to observe Cameron with Ollie. He is so good with our puppy. Which is so interesting because before he had a pretty strong fear of dogs. But he spends time with Ollie, plays with him, helps take care of him. He bonds with him in his own special way. And now his fear of dogs has pretty much gone away! 
• Cameron really is such a great kid and such a pleasure to be around. He's kind, polite and respectful, but also is fun and silly.  I just feel so lucky to be his mom and can't wait to see all the growth and things he experiences in year 9!

Summer 2023 Highlights

Summer 2023 was a bit of a unique summer for us because we actually were home and low key more than usual.  The biggest highlight was we got a new puppy in June named Ollie!  More on that in a future post.  He was unable to be out and about a lot the first few weeks of summer until he got his full shots, so we spent a lot of time at home getting to know him, doing puppy training, taking short walks close to home and getting used to life with a puppy.  Even though we stayed closer to home, we were still able to do a couple fun trips and made some wonderful memories.  

Winthrop

Even though our anniversary isn't technically in summer, I still wanted to document the fun anniversary trip James and I took to Winthrop, WA in May. Winthrop has been on our desired trip list for awhile especially because James has always told he me he wants to retire out in the Methow Valley.  So of course I had to check this area out. How beautiful!  I can't believe it took me so long to get up to the northern Cascades area.  We had a gorgeous drive up along the North Cascades Hwy.  And stayed in a cute little bed and breakfast place that had individual cabins.  We brought out mountain bikes and explored a couple of the numerous amazing trails in the area.  We explored town and even saw a little bit of the annual town rodeo event. It was relaxing and naturally beautiful and it was a really great time--especially because it was kind of our "puppy moon" too to relax and enjoy each other before the busy-ness of getting a puppy.

What a cute cowboy!

James' Golf Trip with the Guys

James traveled to Lake Chelan with Jesse, Brandon and Carter to do a weekend of golfing including at one of his most favorite courses--Gamble Sands. They played 36 holes of golf in one day! :o   Such a great time for him with amazing friends.

5th Grade Graduation

I can't believe it, but Nathan is officially graduated from elementary school! He is off to middle school next year. They did a fun celebration on the last day of school where all the 5th graders walked through the school one last time and all the other kids clapped and cheered for them. Then they came out the main entrance and all us parents were waiting there to cheer them on. It made me cry! Can't believe he's getting so old! 

Camping with Spauldings & Antis' at Lake Kachess

Our annual camping trip looked a bit different this year because we weren't quite ready to bring Ollie with us on such a physically intense trip. Plus we didn't want to expose him to too much not being full vaccinated.  So I decided to stay home with Ollie and James took the boys up on the camping trip. I did bring Ollie up for one day though to visit everyone and he got his first water experience in the Lake Kachess. So fun to watch his reaction. And the boys and family had a great time. Although I think James will be happy for me to be back next year as it's a lot of work for one person!

Seattle Day

We ended up cancelling our annual trip to Chelan because we didn't feel ready to leave Ollie at home with grandparents and the place we planned to stay couldn't take pets. We were so sad to miss out on one of our favorite summer traditions!  To make up for it we did a day in Seattle as a family instead and the Spauldings watched Ollie for us. It was a beautiful day and we explored Pike Place Market, went to Elliott Bay Bookstore, toured the Smith Tower (which we had never done before!) and ate dinner at Madison Park. It was such a great day filled with many of our favorite activities

Annual Idaho Trip with Friends

Luckily we did not miss our annual trip to Priest Lake at Stevenson's property with all our wonderful friends. And we got to bring Ollie with us! He did such a great job for his first trip which involved a lot of driving (6 hours each way) and camping in a tent for 3 nights. He was a little nervous with the other dogs that were there, but otherwise did great and it was fun to expose him to everything. And of course we had an amazing time with our friends as always--going on the boat, cooking food, laying and talking on the dock, kids playing in the water, celebrating birthdays, singing by the fire at night, etc. It's one of  my most favorite weekends of summer and I hope we continue to do it for many more years.

Hysterectomy

The not so fun part of the summer was that I had to get a hysterectomy at the end of August. I had a fast growing fibroid in my uterus that my doctor was nervous about so she suggested I do a partial hysterectomy (only remove my uterus, cervix and fallopian tubes and leave my ovaries) to remove the fibroid and take away the risk of more growing in the future. It was actually a very smooth procedure and not too bad of a recovery. It was kind of nice to have forced rest for a couple weeks. Not the ideal finale to the summer, but at least I didn't miss out on anything major. Thankful for my doctor that it all went as expected.

All in all a great summer and lots of fun stuff to look back on. With the biggest highlight of course being our new puppy!