mmmmm hot

I love this hot weather. IT'S ABOUT STINKING TIME!!!!!!!!!!!!

ok... so bathing suit shopping wasnt so bad. tried on a couple that just made me have to laugh. Then hit the same store where i bought last years suit and after trying on 12 bathing suits, ended up buying the first one I tried on. Then after all that panick that I HAD to have one before camping, I only wore it once and never actually went swimming. The wind was too darn cold. In fact, it was quite cool most of our trip. Oh sure, the sun was shining, but there was this darn chilly wind coming in off the ocean that was a total killjoy. We still had fun, though.

Vicki wasn't too impressed with camping at first. She was scared of the toilets in the washrooms, so she resorted to wetting her pull ups. She was not happy about that at first, but got over it by mid-day two. By the time we got home, she didnt really want to go back to wearing big girl panties and using the potty, but we are back on track now. She is pretty much only in pull-ups when she is sleeping or we are on a long drive somewhere.

We got home from camping Wednesday evening of last week. I went into full unpacking/laundry/clean-up mode as soon as we got home and right thru thursday, cause Sammi's mom came to stay with us. She arrived thursday evening, and it was a total surprise for Sammi. In fact, it was dark when Sherri arrived (((yes you read that correctly, Sam's mom is also named Sherri))) and Sammi was out in the tent. Sherri went in to surprise her and Sammi looked at her and said, "who are you?" Sherri had darkened her hair, so that combined with it being dark and just the unexpectedness of it, Sammi was really quite perplexed. It took her a couple mins of convincing that it was really her mom, then there was a big hug. Sammi and I had a lot of fun showing Sherri around town on Friday. We took her to all the places Sammi has lived and gone to school. Showed her some of the sights and even had a picnic in the park. Saturday, Darin, Sammi, Vicki and I took Sherri down to Larabee Park, which is one of our favorite beaches to go hang out as a family. Sammi loves it there, climbing around on the rocks and finding tide pools with sealife in it. Sherri hadn't been to the Pacific Ocean since she was younger than Sammantha is, so she really enjoyed it, even though some of the trails we hiked to get there put our lives in peril, but that is a whole other post. LOL. After a lovely afternoon at the beach, we went out for dinner and continued on down to Seattle, to drop Sherri and Sammi off at their hotel. Their flight back to Minneapolis was quite early the next morning, so we said our good-byes and made our drive back home. It only took us 2 hours from SeaTac to Lynden.

I sure enjoyed getting to know Sherri more. We get along really great. My plan to make her fall in love with our little neck of the woods worked perfectly, so next time, we are hoping her husband will be able to also swing some time out here, so we can make him fall in love with it here too. Ultimately, we would love to see them relocate here, so Sammi can have them in her life all the time instead of just Summer and every other Christmas.

Sammi has been calling me mommy for awhile now, so we had a few humorous moments, when she was trying to get either my attention or Sherri's. She started to say "Washington Mommy and Minnesota Mommy". And when she wanted both our attention... "Mommies". I am very honoured that Sammantha feels that I am her mother too. She is such a loving girl. Sherri and I are very blessed to be able to be "Mommy" to such a great kid!!!

I am so very grateful for the fact that we have good relations with our kids other parents, because we are all in this together.

So Sammi is gone for the summer now, and our house is just so quiet without her happy little voice singing and giggling. We miss you Sam-sam. Have a great time.

Camping pictures and pictures of Sammi with her mom to follow shortly.