1st Day of School!!

So excited for their first day!

Gracie

Cole

Wow, I can't believe how fast summer has gone by. Today my big kids started school! Gracie started 3rd grade and Cole started 1st grade! I can't believe how fast they are growing up!
This house is sure going to be quiet....well....not really! I'm sure Joey and Eli and the little guy Chaz that I watch will keep me on my toes!

New cousin and lots of swimming!

My sister Emily had her baby BOY on Aug. 6th! We were sooooo surprised and excited that she and Chad finally got their son! After three little girls I think a little blue will look nice in their house! Levi Michael is a doll and we are loving spending time with him. The kids think it's so fun to have a baby around again! It's nice to have a baby BOY in the family that doesn't belong to me! It's been a long long time since we have had a baby BOY other than mine! :) In the pictures above Joey and Eli are taking their turns holding Levi. Eli walks after Em saying "I wanna hold it"!! I had to throw in the picture of Joey holding Layla! What a crack up!

There has been lots and lots of swimming going on at our house this summer! The kids enjoy it so much and so do I! Joey has improved so much this year! He is now swimming all over just with arm floaties on and going under water too! He attempts flips on the diving board and actually completed one off of the side of the pool which shocked me completely! I told him not to try that again!! :) Eli likes to hang out on the steps and throw things in the pool! Gracie and Cole are swimming on their own needing no help at all! They are totally comfortable in the water now which makes it great for me! We have had lots of fun with friends and family this year in the pool and are realizing that the summer is quickly coming to an end. We have one more camping trip planned for this month and then school starts!

New Puppy!

I know I keep saying I'll be better, but summer has really been so busy! I at least have to share a few pictures on the latest addition to our family!! His name is Bow and he is our 4 month old Beagle puppy! He is so sweet and we have all been thoroughly enjoying him!

Rockaway Beach!

Here's the house that Mimi rented for the whole gang!
Hayden and Cole hanging out on the deck steps!

Eli turning into a sand monster!

Mike and Eli enjoying the beach together!

Cole and Hayden spend most of a day gathering fire wood and making their own little fire pit on the beach! They even set up little benches for people to sit on. They were so proud of themselves! Actually when Mike went down to start it for them all they needed was a flame! They did a great job building the fire!

Gracie, Charlie and Abby spent a lot of time in front of the fire pit roasting marshmallows!

Cole was the fire pit master! The kid is obsessed with fire! Probably a bad thing, but we let him help start a few and he was the first one out every morning to stoke the fire to get it going again!

Gracie and Mimi doesn't the saying say "smoke follows beauty?" It sure liked them! :)

One day we took a train ride from Rockaway to Garibaldi. It was a neat old train and it was a beautiful day to take a ride!

Brittany (my brother Brian's girlfriend) was able to spend some time with us at the beach too! Gracie took full advantage of her styling abilities and sat patiently for about an hour and a half while Brittany corn rowed her hair! It looked amazing and the best part was she didn't have to do anything to her hair for a week!

Gracie and Abby goofing around!

Building sand castles! Well, Joey would try to build and Eli loved to destroy!!

Gracie, Courtney (My sister-in-law Heidi's niece) and Haylee making sand turtles!

Buddies.....well most of the time! :)

The whole gang of kids at Seaside!

Well a month has gone by since the day we left, but we had such a great time I just had to share! Mom rented a house for a week for the whole family! Em and her girls, Heidi and her kids and nieces, cousin Abby, my kiddos and I and of course Mimi and Charlie! Even Mike got to come up for a few days! It was an amazing house which sat right on the beach! We could literally sit in the dining area and watch the kids play in this little stream that ran along side the house into the ocean! We had nine days of sunshine and one day that was overcast and rained off and on! I don't think it was possible for the weather to have been any better! There were only two days we could even get kites to fly because there wasn't even any wind! Thanks Mimi for the great vacation!

It's been WAY to long!

I have been a horrible blogger lately! I am going to try really hard this week to catch you up on the past month or so of the Isley family! I hope you enjoy some of my favorite memories! I caught Joey giving Cole and Fiona a ride on the tricycle!
We finally got our pool opened up. It has been such a cool spring and summer so far that we haven't been swimming as much as other years. I actually haven't even been in yet...to cold for me! The kids don't seem to mind the cold though!

My sister's dog Marge had a litter of puppies a few months ago and Em brought them down for a couple of days so we could play with them! The kids had a blast with them and were sad to see them go!

Joey and Avery were "quietly" sitting in the playroom where I thought they were watching a movie when I came in to to see this! Joey had scissors in his hand and was cutting Avery's golden locks! He was a little irritated at me when I took the scissors away. He said "Mom, I'm not done, her hair is still long!" Oh man.... sorry Em! I guess it's good I caught it before he was done! ;)

My friend Andrea brought over this delicious chocolate cake to fulfill my pregnant sister's craving and then they left it here! Well....the next morning Eli decided he was going to have some of that cake! I walked into the kitchen and this is what I saw! I think he likes chocolate as much as his Mama!

More blogs to come! We have been so busy since school has been out! Trips to the ocean, family reunion and our annual 4th of July party! I'll try and get those posts up soon! Hope you are all having as much fun this summer as we are!

First camping trip of the season!

Maddi, Hayden, Haylee, Joey, Eli, Gracie, Ethan and Cole

Good morning sleepy heads!

We had so much fun over Memorial weekend! We were able to go spend the long weekend up at our cabin at Goose Prairie. We were a little worried about the weather but it turned out to be perfect! Mike's parents joined us on Saturday and Dan and Heidi and the kids on Sunday. There was a lot of playing in the creek, roasting marshmallows, fishing, throwing rocks in the water and just good old outdoor fun! The kids did not want to come home! I have to say that I was ready for a shower though! We are looking forward to many more weekends like this!

Mariners and Clamming!

A couple of weekends ago Mike and I took Gracie and Cole to Seattle for a little mini vacation! Emily watched the little Isley men for us! (Thanks Em!) Gracie had her annual check up with her endocrinologist, which by the way went very well and she is as healthy as a horse!! Since we have to go to Woodinville for this annual appointment we try to make a long weekend of fun to go along with it! First stop was Game Stop where the kids (okay Mike and I too) had a blast! The played video games until they didn't want to play anymore!! We headed over to Safeco after that for Gracie and Cole's first Mariners game!! We couldn't have asked for better weather or a better game! We beat the Detroit Tigers 11-3!! Woo hoo! Go Mariners!! We left Safeco around 10:00 and drove all the way to Long Beach! Late night but the driving was easy (okay well Mike drove so I guess he may say differently!) We stayed with Ned, Sonia, Mia, Jeramy and Sage in a three bedroom condo that overlooked the ocean! It was beautiful, Thank you Ned and Sonia!! Saturday morning we woke up bright and early and headed out into the wind and rain to dig clams! Needless to say we didn't do so well! Mia got the most at nine clams and the rest of us pretty much struck out...oh well there's always tomorrow! We spend the rest of that day walking around town, swimming and the kids even got to get on a horse! Mia really wanted to ride on the beach with Gracie and if the weather wasn't so terrible and the price so high, I might have wanted to too! Mia took Gracie over to where the horses were and asked if she could get on a horse "just to make sure she doesn't get scared"....LOL Good thinking Mia! Gracie and Cole both got to ride for a few minutes at least and it didn't cost a thing! Next year maybe...?!!
We got to meet Jake the Alligator Man which Cole was deathly afraid of (that's why he isn't in the picture! He wouldn't even stand by the glass...geesh.. LOL). Mia and Gracie even scored some new shoes! Check out those trendy high heel rubber boots! No Mia did not clam in them, but I really think she should have!!

Towards the end of the day we got a break in the rain and walked down to see the whale bones! Pretty cool!! Didn't stay out long as the rain came back as soon as we got out there!

Sunday morning we woke up to beautiful blue skies and NO wind!!! It was gorgeous and the clamming was so easy and fast! Mike and I, Gracie and Cole got our limits in less than 45 minutes! Sure goes to show how the weather can make a huge difference! We beat the westsiders that morning! Mia, Jeremy and Ned went over to a different spot a few miles up the beach and we decided to just walk out in front of our hotel! We were walking back to the hotel with 4 limits when they drove back to where we were and tried again! So everyone got their limits that day! We played on the beach for a while and the kids found some sand shrimp! So tiny we could hardly tell what they were! Of course they wanted to keep them so we put them in cups of water and they made the trip home with us only to be dumped out when we got back....I guess they didn't like the car ride! :)

After we left Long Beach we headed back to Seattle where we ate at the Crab Pot!! YUM YUM Here is a little video of Cole! This kid was in HEAVEN!! He loves any kind of seafood really and Crab is his all time favorite!! He was cracking us up! He really is serious about his crab!!

We stayed at the Edgewater hotel and got up the next morning and headed to Pike's Place Market! It is always so much fun there! The flowers are beatiful and there is so much to see!! We all had a great time! Last but not least we headed to Woodinville for Gracie to see her doctor and she got a good bill of health! What a great weekend it was! We sure did miss our little guys but it was sure nice to spend some time with the big kids!