Hello! We can’t believe that summer is coming to an end with only a few weeks left before Ariel starts preschool. We’ve had a great summer though & still have more to look forward to with our annual trip to Cascade coming up soon and other fun activities.
At the end of July, we attended Victoria’s birthday party. Her parents, Mark & Kendra, are good friends of ours. One of the gifts Victoria received was a box of pretend hair care products, so the girls immediately started using them on Kendra—so cute! We had a great time at the party! Here are a few photos:
We also had some time to make a few improvements in our yard. David extended our patio a bit by adding some cement blocks. We bought a fountain & potted a Japanese Maple tree to spruce up the area. The kids really like playing in the fountain.
And just a few days later, Chris, David’s dad, visited us from New Zealand & was able to be here for Ariel’s birthday. It was great seeing him but always hard to say goodbye! We wish we could see each other more often—and that goes for the Iowa family too! We miss all of you!
We did lots of things with Chris while he was here—went to a local candy shop, took a walk on the greenbelt, visited the zoo, went to our community pool, played at the park, got ice-cream at Goody’s, attended a concert at the Botanical Gardens & hung out in the backyard of course. And on one occasion, we went to Janeen’s house, where Nathan (David’s brother) pretended to be a dog to Ariel’s delight, and Dylan started copying him—so cute! Chris was also extremely helpful in putting together Ariel’s birthday gift, a dollhouse taller than her! David & Chris were up until nearly midnight putting that thing together. She loved it! Here are some photos from Chris’s visit:
We had such a great time at Ariel’s birthday—can’t believe she is already 4 years old! It started off a bit crazy, as the cake I had made her fell apart overnight because of my inexperience with cooling cakes. But everything worked out in the end; Janeen & Jill (David’s mom & aunt) came over and helped us fix the cake & get the decorations up on time. And my parents took Ariel during Dylan’s nap so we could get the house in order.
I ended up making a batch of cupcakes just in case, and all was well. They turned out really neat—I made a rainbow cake & cupcakes to go with Ariel’s rainbow theme. Ariel had a great time painting at her party & playing with everyone. Nana Janeen (David’s mom) made the blue dress in the photos, and we got her studio photos in that dress as well.
It was great having family & friends here to help celebrate. We really missed Maria & her family this year, but we were happy to have Kendra & Victoria here as well as Jess, Les & Adric, and our family friend, Steven. And without my sister, Ang, we wouldn’t have these photos to share! We were so grateful to have so much help from our family with the whole party, and it really turned out well. Here are the photos:
Luckily, it was a beautiful day for Ariel’s birthday party—hot, but clear. We’ve had a lot of smoke & haze in the air lately from all the surrounding forest fires as well as smaller grass fires in the area. Here are a few photos David took right outside his work:
We are really looking forward to our trip to Cascade with Janeen & will post pictures of that soon. Hope you are all doing well! Lots of love to all of you!
Love, Tammy, David, Ariel & Dylan
