Lake Wenatchee

We took a quick trip to Lake Wenatchee for some camping. We really enjoyed it. Our campsite was nice, and the lake was perfect.

The water in the lake was extremely refreshing and it has a really smooth sandy bottom, so no owies on our feet.

Our camping experience was pretty good, even though we didn't have pillows. The first night I used Hyrums diaper bag as my pillow and the last night I used a sleeping bag cover and stuffed it with rolled clothes and towels.

We did the usual smores at night before bed time. We roasted hot dogs over the fire for our first dinner, and one night we grilled marinade stake right on top of the fire.... yumm!

We spent preactically all day swimming at the lake. Showers cost $1 for 3min. So we didn't really shower.. I've never been camping at a pace that charged for showers.

The boys, Elijah, Jayden and Hyrum

Ricky and Hyrum.

He was sooo tired. this was failed nap attempt 1.

lunch!

putting aloe on the sunburns

Jayden posing for Elijah

the awesome Lake

just finished swimming

I made a 5min phone call to our boss as we were pulling out of our camp and these two were already knocked out asleep within those 5minutes.

Jaliba & the Kumareh Band

Jaliba- The king of Kora. Kora is an instrument that has a harp like/guitar like sound. Kora is an original instrument from West Africa in the country called The Gambia.

Outside of Rickys full time jobs, he and his Gambian friend Moe have their own little 'business' on the side. There is a huge African/Gambian community/association here in WA. Moe and Ricky get hired from people throughout the african/gambian community to do home remodeling, flooring, building decks, putting up fences, gates, hanging lights and chandeliers. If there is something to be built or fixed, they call up Moe and Ricky. Through this Ricky has had the oportunity to really get to know more about the Gambian and African culture and has made lots of friends.

Any who, the Gambian association flew over Jaliba and his band straight from Gambia to preform here in the Seattle area. Ricky and I got tickets and went to the event. It was quite the culture shock. But I enjoyed going to the event and seeing how things are done in other cultures.  They have a bucket on the front of the stage and if the audience likes the song they go up to the stage and stand there and throw money into the bucket, OR they get up on stage and throw money onto the preformers.

These two woman singers are BOTH of Jalibas wives.

A woman got on stage and showered Jaliba with Monday, wiped his sweat with dollar bills and stuck money to his face.

In Gambian concerts people are allowed to get up on stage whenever they want, dance with the preformers throw money at the preformers. Some people would even talk to Jaliba in the middle of his preformance and he would just smile and keep playing until he could respond to them.

I have lots of videos of the concert that I will post later

Summer 2010

Hyrum has been lucky to have his cousin Elijah stay with us for this last part of the summer. We have been going to the water park, doing lots of swimming, swinging and bike riding.

Six year old Cousin Jayden came and stayed with us for a week during this time and Hyrum and Jayden had a good time with each other.

this was after a long day of water park fun and swimming. the boys cooked some Turkey dogs for dinner.

The boys LOVE these round swings at Discovery Park/Les Gove in Auburn. I think we went and played there every day for a week.

Two Days of Summer

So, we finally had a couple of really nice weather days this week. Hyrum and I took advantage of it and played outside on the park. He loves swinging!

Our friends Stacy and Bud got Hyrum an early birthday present that he can enjoy over the summer. They decided to give it to him now because by the time his birthday gets here in September the weather will start getting bad. (not that it's not bad already with all of the rain and it's still cool out when its cloudy and rainy)

I just had to take pictures of Hyrum on his new bike. He is soo cute on it. This bike is really neat. It has a parent handle bar so that we can stroll him around. When the parent handle bar is on, you get to steer the bike and everything. Once the little ones legs are long enough and strong enough you can easily take the parent handle bar off and it becomes a regular tricycle that he can ride on his own.

Hyrum loves the bike.! He put his helmet on and off all day around the house, waiting for the time to go ride comes around.

Last night he rode his bike around for about 15min, then we played on the playground for about 25/30min.. he never wants to stop swinging. He is quite the outdoors little boy.!

Weeee!

Memorial Day weekend, was wet and rainy as usual here in the great NorthWest. We wanted to go to the Seattle folk life Festival that weekend but I didn't want to have Hyrum out in the wet rain for that many hours.

So to get out of the house and do something, we ended up at the Family Fun Center in Tukwila. They have a few outdoor rides and activities to do and have a huge indoor arcade and laser tag.

Of course, the big hit if the days was the go carts. Marvin loved being able to 'drive' for his first time. Ricky was able to convince the guy running the go carts to let Hyrum ride as his passanger.

Hyrum absolutley LOVED it. In the video below he has the biggest smile on his face. So cute. Thought I'd share. enjoy.



Untitled from Laurie Leiser on Vimeo.


Ricky and Marvin decided to ride this ride that swing you back and forth and goes higher and higher throughout the ride. I recorded it.. Marvin got kudos after getting off. I refused to ride it.

When Marvin and Ricky walked out of the gate Marvin had a single tear smeared across his face. He said that he "got something in his eye." haha. totally not the case. But he was brave and did it!

CAUTION: This video will most likely make you dizzy!



Scary Ride. from Laurie Leiser on Vimeo.