THE CHICKEN COOP IS ALMOST FINISHED

The interior is finished and our little chicks are happily roaming around their new backyard lair.  The exterior still  has some work, you know, the bells and whistles but here is a little sneak peek.

Chicka-chicka-boom-boom

Zelda and Rosie

Lily is constantly checking on her babies.

What started out as this...

has turned into all hands on deck.  Even Josh helped while he was visiting.  I was very thankful for his height.

Hopefully it will be finished in a week - it will all depend on this crazy rainy weather we've been having.  Once it's all fancy schmancy, I'll show you the final results.

PADDLE FOR LIFE

in Vancouver, Washington is a non-profit organization benefiting disabled veterans.  Today was their first fundraiser and we participated.

Some heats we won and some we lost.  Many races were incredibly close.  One race we won by 100th of a second!  One we lost by 1/2 a second.  Whether we won or lost a heat, we had a blast.

One of the last heats included a boat of disabled veteran paddlers and a boat of Air Force paddlers.  While they were getting out of the canoes, everyone grabbed their paddles and created a paddle arch for them to walk under.  It was moving and really cool to be a part of.

My awesome team mates.  We got 4th place in the boat of 10 paddlers mixed team category.

My favorite photo of the day I took.

We didn't have enough women for a boat of 20, so we combined with two other teams and created team Awesome Sauce.  We got first place in the all woman category.  (We were the only all women 20 boat - ha!)  We held our own against the mixed teams of 20 and gladly took our paddling bling.

Next year they are going to make it a two day event.  Can't wait!

PS - Photo credit for the racing photos and team photos goes to Larry.

JOSH IS VISITING THIS WEEKEND, SO WE TOOK HIM, THE WEE ONES AND THE DOGS TO THE BEACH

Unfortunately, the older boys had another engagement.  It would have been even better if they could have joined us also.  It's been quite rainy lately, but we had fabulous overcast and windy weather at the coast.  It was perfect!

We walked the rocks at low tide and found lots of sea life hanging out, the wee ones jumped waves, the wee-est stripped down to his skivvies, the pups got super wet and loved every minute of it, Larry and Josh got clam chowder from Mo's, we found a super cool drift wood fort, stopped in at Candyland, and got our fill of energizing sea air.  Wish it could have lasted longer and all of us could of been there.  It was wonderful.  

LEMAY - AMERICA'S CAR MUSEUM

in Tacoma is so cool!  To tell you the truth, I wasn't super excited about going but knew the man clan were going to love it.  What I didn't expect, was for me to love the LeMay Museum too.
It's a four story museum filled with American cars, history and technology.  There are also a few motorcycles, trucks, the Flintstone mobile from the movie and the best part is they have three race simulators.

While the man clan have car knowledge, I was loving the license plates, hood ornaments and Triumphs.

We have passed this museum a gazillion times on the way to Seattle.  It's next to the Tacoma Dome and most definitely worth the stop.

WHILE WE WERE IN TACOMA

we stayed at Hotel Murano and it was fabulous.  I loved the simple color, modern feel and subtle sense of whimsy the hotel had.  Not to mention, customer service was top notch.
The coolest thing about the hotel, was every floor was a mini art gallery for glass artists.  We went onto every floor to take a look and it was fun to see what impact the art had on the boys.  Some were okay, some were breathtaking and of course there were giggles when he hit an exhibit that was boobies.

PS - Much to our delight, we met up with SteviePoo for dinner and he was able to swing by the Dragon Boat Festival the following day.  Always a fun time when Steve's around.

We would definitely stay here again.  We loved it!