Fort Casey and dresses that stayed surprisingly white for the whole ding-dang day.
Olivia returns from her triumphant turn at peeing in the great outdoors. A little did go on her pants, which she told Aunt Kimmy after she had been sitting on her shoulders for about 15 minutes.
That special cousin looooove.
Look at all our hangnails! As usual, on this hike I was yelling at Mitch for taking the kids on dangerous trails that were too close to steep cliffs. I was so concerned for their well-being and so busy bitching Mitch out, that I didn't pay attention to what I was doing and slipped down the cliff myself. He stopped short of saying our family motto: "INSTANT KARMA!"
These kids don't look like they're up to no good, do they?

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So, our annual 'Kate's family' vacation was this week. After our big move and Mitch's terrible car accident, the thought of leaving my little cocoon for a week wasn't all that appealing, so my family was good enough to do Whidbey this year. Lots of good food and wine, and major cousin love. It's like when dogs sniff each other's butts with cousins. One sniff, and you know whether they're any good for the rest of your life. However, when Henry and Anthony realized they wouldn't be seeing each other again for a long time yesterday, many tears poured. Henry brought out the old Emmett Kelly face for the rest of the day. "This is a SUCKY family vacation," he cried. Half the family left Wednesday, and we spent yesterday with Marci, Mackenzie, Grandpa and Grandma D watching the sailboat races and hiking on the beach, followed by dinner out (yay! no dishes!--I have an aversion to paper plates). Marci was kind enough to take ALL my friggin' kids overnight at her cottage, and what did Mitch and I do while we had the house to ourselves for the first time since, um, 1996? I went to sleep at 9:30 and he finished reading the Harry Potter book, because as I've said before, we really know how to party. Jack also finished the book, so now we can talk about how we would have written it better (actually, I'm the only one that does that, but that epilogue was sooo cheesy!).

So today, we were all pretty wiped out, but Mitch is really enjoying the fact that he has a bin full of folded underwear courtesy of Nana. He's never worn underwear that had been folded before. Don't get used to it mister, I don't get paid enough as it is. But! I did get a new totally cute leather Coach purse while shopping with my sisters. Yay! I would post a picture of it, but I don't want anyone to feel bad that they don't have such an awesome purse. I was raised better than that. Sheesh.