Summer catch up

I've neglected the blog long enough. We had a busy fun summer. It feels kind of good to have a schedule now. The kids birthdays are coming up so I thought I better get caught up so I will be able to move on.

This summer we took lots oftrips to the zoo, spenttime in Utah and lake Powell with family, went to the beach, Washington DC, Massanutten (a 4 season resort), and spent lots of time on the lake. We had our fair share of natural disasters too, earthquakes and hurricanes. One would think that after spending 4 years in Los Angelesand 1 1/2 years in Chile, I would be calm during an earthquake but I have to admit that I wastotallycaught off guard by the earthquake that took place this summer. It wasn't a big earthquake and thankfully didn't do any damage to our area but it was loud and shook our house and I ran to make sure the kids were okay. I had never heard of an earthquake in this area anddidn't know thatwe live near a pretty big fault line. Next time I'll be ready.

Hurricane Irene also came through our area.Jared decided that we would go on a mini-vacation instead of sticking around, which turned out to be a great idea because we had no power and no generator for a few days. We spent that time at Massanutten resort. If you live on east coast I guess it's a pretty great place to go. We've been a couple of times but we talked to people there who came all theway from NY and New Jersey. They have a ski slope, down hill tubing year round and an indoor/outdoor waterpark open all year round. When we came back home to survey the damage we were happyand felt very grateful that only one tree fell (away from the house).

Utah was fun this year as it is every year. We spent time at Lake Powell with the Catten family doing lots of fun things:

paddleboarding

fishing

tubing and spending time with cousins

wakeboarding

and hiking.

I ran the Deseret News marathon with my sister. Itwas such a great experience that we want to run another one if anyone wants to join us.

It was so fun to see old friends.

Caleb got to meet Great Grandma Whatcott

And we met our newest niece and nephew/cousins. They were born the day before we left. Here they are less than 24 hours old.

The Norfolk harbor fest was so fun. They had pirate ships as Sam calls old-looking boats, patrol boats, lots of fun activities and great music. Green River Ordinance and Matt Nathanson performed one night. The best part, it was all free.

The kids love the Metro Richmond Zoo. They love feeding the giraffes

birds.

We love spending time on the lake. I tried wake surfing for the first time and I love it. I now think I know why people like to surf.

You might be wondering if Jared is wakeboarding, who is driving the boat...I am and I still freak out every time I drive it.

Well this pretty much sums up our summer. Yay, now I can move on to first days of school, soccer games and soon birthdays. Caleb will be 2 and Sam 5 too soon.