Owen's recent interests

"Driving" the mini. We'll see if he's still excited to drive Mom's minivan when he gets his license.


Putting his diapers in his diaper pail. He insists on this and becomes quite frustrated when the diaper "disappears".

Partners in Crime

This is what I discovered a few minutes after telling Tatum I wouldn't turn on the TV for her. As you can see, this girl sometimes will not take no for an answer. Typically, wherever Tatum is, Owen is right on her heals. He desperately wants to keep up with his sis, but I think he'll have to wait awhile before he can keep up with those long legs of hers. Tatum and Owen have been playing together really well. In the last pic, Scott caught them snuggling on the couch watching a movie while we were up making dinner...I love it!

We Did It!

This morning, Scott and I, along with Rachel, Justin, and our friends Logan & Kate completed our very first triathlon! We participated in the Chelan Man Tri-a-Tri, a non-competitive tri with a 400 meter swim, 13 mile bike, and 5K run. We all had a great time and are already discussing our next triathlon. I absolutely loved this challenge and was so glad I decided to stick with it...in the few months before the race I continually thought about backing out (mostly because of my non-existent training). I wasn't as prepared as I should have been, but I figure that gives me a little room for improvement the next time around.

Speebidah Fourth of July

Speebidah and the 4th of July are practically synonymous with one another. Speebidah, an Indian expression for "Place of Happy Children" is a private beach community located on the Tulalip Indian Reservation. Scott's Grandpa and Grandma Powlesland purchased a "beach home" there in the early 50's, and it has been a spectacular place for family gatherings and celebrations ever since. The Fourth of July tradition at Speebidah goes back to 1947. Today's celebration is based on years of deep-rooted tradition. We always anxiously await the Speebidah 4th of July Schedule (it involves several days) which includes several popular events such as the parade, cake walk, dance, strawberry social, fishing derby, quilt raffle (I'm determined to win this raffle once in my lifetime)....and the list goes on and on. This year the parade theme was "show your spirit". We dressed Tate up as a Husky cheerleader and Owen as a Seahawk. Tatum did a wonderful job of shaking her pom-poms and shouting out "Go Huskies"! The day was very fun, but exhausting. Both kids fell asleep in our arms on the deck shorty after the fireworks began. I have no idea how they slept with the huge fireworks display exploding in the sky right above us.

Owen's First Haircut

After receiving several comments about Owen's increasingly crazy hair-do, I decided it was finally time to cut off those baby locks. The at-home haircut required a joint effort. I did the holding and distracting while my mom did the cutting. The end result was very nice short haircut...so short that now it practically stands straight up. It's a great no maintenance hair-cut for summer, unlike his sister's curls that can take more than 10 minutes to just get the knots out. Here is a before and after photo. No more comb-over or side-wings...hooray!