Crazy fun month

It seems that August has just been one trip after another after another! We started the month by going to Spirit Lake, Idaho (in the panhandle) at Tad's mom's place. We played in the lake, went on a boat ride where we saw osprey hunting, their nest, and a Mama moose with her calf. That was cool. We also went canoeing and kayaking, and to "Silverwood", a fun amusement park. We all had fun.

The following weekend, we went to Dan & Jessica's again because David & Jana (with all 5 girlies) came to visit. That was great fun! We had campfires, went shopping, ate some more of Dan's amazing smoked ribs, and of course played Shanghai Rummy. I even won!

After that we hung out at home until Baby Carolyn and I flew to Boise on August
18th, then to Raleigh, NC with Mom & Herb on the 19th. We stayed there for the night, then drove down to their beach house in Myrtle Beach, SC. Amy & kids met us there and it was so busy busy and fun! It was a little bit diffucult to plan outings around Carolyn's nap schedule, so between that and the 3-hr time zone change, her sleep schedule was realy out of whack, which translated into really nasty nights. She only let me get a decent night's sleep once, and another time mom took her and let me go back to bed. Normally she sleeps 12 hours without a peep (yes I know I am VERY lucky). She's still not totally back to normal now, but doing much better.

We did lots of sight-seeing, and of course went to the beach a few times. Normally they like to go early in the morning or in the evening, but there was so much wind from whatever hurricane we were just on the outside of that it wasn't really enjoyable in the evenings. One day we went right in the middle of the day, and that was much better. The hurricane was causing a bit of a riptide so the surfers were staying pretty close to shore, and the waves were pretty harsh - not that that was enough to deter Andrew or me from bodysurfing. Baby had way too much fun at the beach. I will post pics later tonight.

Herb's son-in-law Ralph is the piano player and orchestrator-in-residence at the Carolina Opry, and he hooked Amy and me up with tickets, so we got to have a little girls night out, which we figured we hadn't done in like, 20 years. The show was wonderful - as good as I've seen in Las Vegas or anywhere! After that we did some last-minute souvenir shopping and then went out to Sonic for a fried ice cream blast and onion rings. Yum! Thanks again Mam for babysitting all the kids!

We left on the 26th, and lt me tell you it was intense. I got up at 5:30 Idaho time, finished packing and helping mom clean the house, then we made the drive to Raleigh, where we found out that due to a mechanical failure in a flight tower in Texas, our flight was delayed. It ended up being okay though because our connecting flight in Chicago was also delayed. We got to Boise just fine but Baby's car seat didn't, so we got a loaner. I got Carolyn down and went to bed at 1:30, so yeah, it was a 20 hour day. Gross. The next day they delivered the car seat just about an hour before I flew back to Seattle.

Craig's week was not quite eventful as mine, and he was very very VERY ready for us to come home. He was very sweet and tidied and vacuumed the whole apartment before he cam to get me, which was so nice. We spent the next couple of days relaxing, unpacking, recovering, and then this weekend we went to the fair on Friday. Then on Saturday Zach & Anna called us and offered us tickets to the rodeo with them, so we got to do that too! All in all, a very eventful August with LOTS of travel. I suppose it makes up for last August when we didn't do a whole lot besides prepare for the baby!