Our 4th {...of July, that is--don't be gettin any ideas!}

My Country tis of thee...

We had a super fun 4th of July weekend this year.

We couldn't have asked for better weather and it just felt so picture {no pun intended} perfect!

July 3rd we all met down at Edgewater park for my BIL's birthday. The kids had fun playing in the water and we all enjoyed the sunset.

  

We found Alec in his preferred spot {up in a tree} eating cherries...

    

I swear this view never gets old...i think it's 99% of the reason we live in the

Pacific Northwest

Sweet land of Liberty...

After Scott's birthday we went downtown Poulsbo for the 3rd of July Fireworks on the Bay where the kids got to wear their glow necklaces and eat plenty of munchies.  We're lucky my dad's chiropractic office is in the business complex at the marina so we had primo spots to watch the show...

  

Waiting for the fireworks to start

  

and enjoying the show

Of thee I sing...

We came home from the fireworks and Papa had set up the tent in the front yard to campout with the kids.  It was a tight fit, but they didn't care much, they were just thrilled to be sleeping outside in a tent...{not my idea of "fun", but hey--to each their own, right?}

  

Land where my Fathers died...

The next morning we got up and went to the 4th of July parade in Kingston.  We didn't make it into Poulsbo for Viking Fest this year and we figured the kids should meet their quota of at least one parade a year, right?

             

check out the kid to alec's left--going in for the kill...

                    

Alec was not having very good luck retrieving the candy that was being haphazardly thrown into the crowd...the other kids were bigger and faster and it always seemed like just as he was bending down to pick one up, some other kid would swoop in and snatch it up from right under his nose. But alas, he finally prevailed when he figured out that it's every man for himself when it comes to parade candy!

              

                      

Land of the Pilgrim's pride...

After we came home from the parade the kids played in the pool,

  

  

From every mountain side...

Dad put together a puzzle which he triumphantly finished,

  

and we ate a yummy meal!

  

Let Freedom Ring!!!

The latest installment in the ongoing saga of "The Boy with the Bionic Foot..."

Our superhero lost his powers when his arch enemy in the red uniform used her supersonic saw to cut and pry his bionic armor away and toss it into the bottomless abyss......

(translation:  alec got his cast off)

He was super excited to get his cast off "for good this time" {you might have noticed that the cast he is getting off is RED, not BLUE, like the original...we had some water issues during bathtime so he had to have it re-casted and he elected to get RED "like Spiderman"} And even though the cast tech. took FOREVER taking his cast off {10 times longer than the first time,} Alec was super patient and kept laughing because "it tickled."

I mentioned in the garden post about Alec filling his cast with loads of dirt and i hadn't thought about much more than dirt being in there, but if you look closely you can see round impressions where he had stuffed Othello pieces inside {you know, the black and white round discs}.  I think we counted a total of 5 pieces that came out, and that's only from the day before when they were playing Othello. I thank my lucky stars that he didn't discover his secret hiding place any earlier, or who knows what else we would have found.....

After the cast came off they cleaned off his leg and took him to the x-ray room to check the bones and make sure everything was healed right.  The kids though it was so cool that the picture instantly popped up on the screen and the x-ray tech even printed them out a copy to take home.

  

Alec got the "thumbs up" from the doctor and was good to go.  Too bad I didn't remember that even though he went in with a cast, he would need 2 shoes when he left.  Our next stop was Target.....

Once he got two shoes on, it was so funny to watch him walk.  Since his achilles tendon hadn't been stretched in 4 weeks, he couldn't extend his foot the whole way so he would walk on his toes with his heel up, just like when his cast was on.  It took a day or two to go back to normal and then he was as good as new.  And just as I expected, having a cast didn't even remotely affect his sense of caution, it was just 4 weeks of blue/red armor on his leg.  Would somebody please nail this kids feet to the ground!

Together again...

When I was browsing through my photos on the computer this morning I saw these pictures and realized I never posted them.  Probably because it wasn't a specific holiday or occassion--on the calendar--that is, but for OUR family it was actually a very special occassion.  It's not too often that we have our entire family together without someone at college, or in China, or San Diego, so when we do, we take the opportunity to get some pictures of everyone together.  This was in May, right before Jake and his family took off to China for a year.....this is for you Aunt Barbara :)

All 8 cousins together

From L to R: Brett, Dallas, Alec, Adam, Riley, Grace, Taylor, & Emma

(and yes, that's Alec WITH his cast on, hanging upside down)

{ click on the photo to enlarge}

The 4 Siblings

Jacob, Jenny, Amy, Matthew

{click on the photo to enlarge}

The WHOLE Harlan Family!

Back Row: Matthew, {don't mind him, he was a little tired so he decided to take a snooze} Taylor, Scott, Amy, Dallas, Adam, Riley, Alec Jacob, Emma, Kathrine, Jenny, Angel

Front Row:  Brett, Becky, Tom, Grace

{click on the photo to enlarge}

Take in all in, cause the next time we get a picture together all the kids will have grown a couple inches and the adults will probably have a few more grey hairs {or in some cases less hair}, and who knows, maybe our numbers will have grown?!?!

A Family Affair...

A couple months back my Dad caught the garden bug.  One slight problem--he didn't really have a spot at the house for a garden.  So he did what any resourceful guy would do....{well, not ANY guy}  He asked the perfect strangers across the street if they would mind if he used a portion of their field to plant his garden....And whattayaknow, they said:   "YES!"

So he got to work, tilled it up, planted the seeds, and before long everything started popping up!  The only problem, which normally wouldn't be a problem--considering this is the pacific northwest, is we've gone more than 30 days without rain!  And growing plants need water daily, which means if the water doesn't come from the sky, it has to come from us.  So being the ever so resourceful guy again, Dad rigged up a system for taking water to the garden.  He fills two huge containers of water and puts a pump in one of them with a hose attached to it powered by a generator, and Voila!  Water for the garden!

Well, Dad had an unfortunate tumble and had to have a little surgery on his ankle, after which he was told NO WALKING for 10 days.  So the rest of the family took up the plight and went to save the garden from heat exhaustion.

The kids, of course, thought it was the funnest thing in the world and it really was quite fun for all of us to be pitching in while Dad called the shots from his cushy spot in the truck :)

Some of the growing plants were hard to see so the boys put a

 little rock border around them so they wouldn't get stepped on...

{remember you can click on the pictures to view bigger}

and apparently the little rocks were boring so

leave it to Alec to find something a little more challenging....

   

All Finished!  Good job boys...

It's all about Teamwork....

  
  

Here's Dad from his command post trying to tell Angel what and how to till while Alec happily fills his cast with 

loads and loads of dirt--oh joy... 

{more about that in another post}

Making sure every veggie gets a drink of water...

  

  

It's so nice that we all live fairly close together so we can help out in times like this and create memories that will last a lifetime!  When I think back to this day I'll always see these pictures in my mind and hear the sound of my Dad while he's sitting in the truck bed singing: 

"It's a family affair...."