Day +1203: All kinds of summer fun

Just a quick note to show off a bit of what we have been up to while up in Washington for the summer. We headed up the last week of July, camped with Keri's extended family in Southwest Washington for a weekend, stayed with Kari, Steve and Carmen for a few days, then headed up to San Juan Island to spend a weekend with Awais, Katy, Emma and Dylan at the summer home they recently purchased. I flew back to San Francisco for a week while Keri and the kids stayed at Auntie Teri's house.

This week we have been in Wenatchee at my parents' house. Kari, Steve and Carmen were here through Monday night, and Eric, Astrid and Philipp have been here the whole time. We had some family portraits taken on Monday, so we are looking forward to seeing those. Isaac loved watching Grandma Judy play the piano and organ at the church on Sunday, and he's been experimenting with Grandma Judy's piano all week. Mina has been playing with Philipp and Carmen and they have all been enjoying Grandma and Grandpa's big backyard and the warm weather here in Wenatchee. We've also been having all kinds of adventures including swimming, hiking and, believe it or not, rock climbing. Grandma and Grandpa took us down to one of their favorite rock climbing places near Vantage. The routes are part of the columnar basalt formations that are common to this area. Grandma and Grandpa took up rock climbing in their 60s to help them stay in shape, and Eric is a very serious climber. I suggested the outing because Mina loves to climb absolutely everything she can find, so I thought she might enjoy it. We all figured she would make it up a few feet, maybe 10 feet at the most, and then want to come down. You can see what actually happened here: http://picasaweb.google.com/arneolson/Summer2008Adventures. I won't spoil it other than to say that you absolutely have to see for yourself.

Hope everyone is enjoying their summer!