Getting better

So, it hasn't been six months since I last wrote, only about five. Here's a brief glimpse at our summer.

 We enjoyed a week-long trip to Yellowstone. We hiked around and waited for geysers to go off. We saw quite a few major geysers and lots of smaller ones.

 We had an adventure with our tent breaking, but we managed to find other accommodations and had a good time.

 We built a fence along the east side of our property. It was a major undertaking, but it looks great now. Which reminds me, I should take a photo of the completed product.

 Kirk had a birthday and ate cake.

 We celebrated the 4th of July while Kirk was in Chile at a conference.

 Also in July we had someone smash the front of our car while we were stopped at a stop sign. Thankfully no one was hurt and the car was eventually repaired.

 We had a fun Tanner family reunion with lots of people and good food and activities.

 In Washington, while visiting Kirk's parents, we picked about 50 pounds of blueberries.

 They were huge and very good.

 We also visited the tidal pools at Tongue Point, Salt Creek State Park.

 This funny castle rock was out in the tidal pools. It gets mostly covered in water during high tide.

 Even though there is a massive die-off of sea stars, we did find one. It is the small red blob near the kids.

 We hiked to Marymere Falls in the Olympic National Park.

 We played at the beach on the Dungeness Spit in Washington.

 Kirk completed a century bike ride (100 miles). It was his first race and he did great, coming in 6.5 hours after he started. That was about mid-range for the hundreds of people in the race.

 We took the family on some family bike rides now that Lucy can ride a bike and Kirk bought me a bike. This ride was to the Railroad Bridge park on the Dungeness River, near Sequim, Washington.

 We visited the Naval Underwater Museum. The kids were disappointed that the museum wasn't underwater. However, they cheered up when they saw all the submarine stuff.

 They got to play at a submarine command center (disconnected from an actual submarine, of course).

 Also in Washington, Kirk took me on some nice bike rides.

 Henry had fun standing in a tree at the Olympic National Park.

 Lucy also took advantage of the nice tree to pose for a photo.

 I battled nasty stink bugs on our tomatoes.

 We picked pounds and pounds of tomatoes and other garden produce.

 Lucy made a pink pinewood derby car. (Henry made a green one, but I can't find that photo--it is probably on Kirk's camera and he's coming back from a conference in Glasgow, Scotland.)

 Edward came in 4th out of the 14 boys with his first pinewood derby car.

 Andrew won first place with his pinewood derby car thanks to his design and help from Grandpa Hawkins and Kirk with making it, and Uncle Ryan for sending the link to the guide on how to win pinewood derbies (the science side of it).

We picked our peached and ate lots of them and canned 21 quarts from our one little tree. And now, we are in September.