Almost the Last Day

 Saturday, was our last full day with Saben and Annika, before taking them to stay with friends in Bellingham on Sunday after church.  We had planned on going on a hike, but since we'd been busy with various activities all week, we decided to let the kids chose what they wanted to do.  They could chose to go on a hike or go to the Flying Heritage Collection (museum), which was having special things going on that day.  As you can see, they chose the FHC.  The first thing we saw as we entered the building, was this helicopter, with all sorts of guns on it.

 Ken taught Annika what kind of airplane this was and she was able to remember it all day.  (It's a mustang.)

 Saben and Annika standing under a tank.

 I always think that planes, whose wings fold up like this one, are interesting.

 Another section of the museum.

 Annika tried picking up some blocks with a robotic arm.  It was harder to do than it looks like it would be.

 While Annika worked with the robotic arm and did some other hands on activities, Saben and Ken went through the rest of the FHC.

 There were also some bouncy houses to make your way through, with a slide at the end.

 They went on both of them, but preferred this one.

 A Vietnam era Huey made several passes by the viewing area.

 Several different types of planes flew by numerous times.

 Annika lost interest in watching the planes fly by and wanted to do the climbing wall instead.  On her first try, she looked down and got nervous about the height she was at, so she came back down.

 On her second try, I told her not to look down and she got quite a bit higher.  She didn't make it to the top...

...but she got close!

 A last view of some of the planes.

Friday with Grandkids

 Friday morning after breakfast, we headed out for a bike ride.  We rode up the Centennial Trail to...

 ...a barn at the end of the trail.  It was my first time to ride all the way to the barn, which is 4 miles from Bryant, where we started.  (This barn was owned at one time by the parents of a good friend of Kari's.)  So Annika and I rode a total of 8 miles, but Ken and Saben rode from our house to Bryant, because we couldn't fit all four bikes on our bike rack, so they rode 12 and 1/2 miles.

Later in the day, we met Betsy and Seth at the Snohomish Aqua Center and spent some time there doing different activities.

 Saben, Annika and Ken went down the water slide.  This is Annika coming out of the slide.  The second time she went down, she went down with Ken, and she said she went a lot faster when she went with him!

 Most of the time we stayed in the area that was like a river because it had a pretty strong current to keep moving you around it.  Saben liked floating on his back in it.

 In a part of the river, there was a section that was like a whirl pool, Seth and Betsy are in it.

 Toward the end of our time there, a game of tag was started, it looks like Ken and Annika are hiding from whoever was "It" at the time.

This is a view of part of the Aqua Center, with the "lazy river" in the front.

Activities on Day 2

We had Saben and Annika help us pick blueberries in the morning on Thursday.

 With their help we got 11 pounds of berries, so now we have enough for another year.

 In the afternoon, Ken helped Saben build a jump for his remote controlled truck.

Annika and I went out and bought a kit to make candy, by melting chocolate chips, etc.  Unfortunately, it didn't melt the chips very well, so we ended up melting them on the stove, but at least it had some cute molds in the kit, that worked well.

 After dinner we went outside and watched Saben try his truck on the jump they had made.

 The jump has different levels to it, this is the steepest one.

 If you look closely, you can see the truck as it went off the jump.

 Annika had a turn with the truck also, then decided that Gram's hair needed some decorating.

An Unexpected Visitor

 While Kari and Kyle are on a trip, friends and family are taking turns having Saben and Annika at their houses.  We picked them up from one of their friend's house this afternoon. On our way home, we stopped in Mt. Vernon and went to a movie, "The Secret Life of Pets".  After we got home from the movie, Ken and the kids were outside while I was watering my planters, when a deer wandered into our yard.  Saben tried to creep near enough to take a picture with his phone.  This is as close as he got.

Later, he ran his remote controlled truck around the yard before we all played a couple of games at the table outside on the deck where it was a lot cooler than in the house.

Annika's 9th Birthday

 Annika had her birthday party last Sunday afternoon at her house.  Her and her friends spent a lot of time jumping on the trampoline.

 Saben threw water balloons at the girls on the trampoline, so Kari filled a cup with water and gave it to Annika to throw at him.  She got him, but unfortunately, he was carrying a water balloon at the time and got her also, which led to a brief time of tears, since he got her birthday dress all wet!

 Some of Annika's friends hid around the corner in order to ambush Saben and got him wet also.

 There were several other activities, including drawing...

 ...putting some decorative tape on pencils...

  and small notebooks.  There was also a "beanie boo" hunt, where they had clues to solve in order to find the "beanie boos", so they were running all over the yard.

 How many kids can get on a trampoline at once?  There's 10 on it in this picture!

 Annika's friends know what she likes!  She got 4 or 5 new stuffed animals, this was the first one she unwrapped.

 For dinner, Annika chose to have BBQ'd hamburgers.  After the girls ate, they watched a movie while the adults ate.

 Halfway through the movie, they had a banana split break and sang "Happy Birthday" to her.

 A candle in Annika's banana split!

She got it blown out before it melted her ice cream!  I love that Annika always makes sure that we know she wants us to come to her birthday party!  I wonder how many more years that will happen!

First Voelker Family Camp - Part 2

 The 2 boys having a serious "Star Wars" discussion on the way down to the beach.

 Railroad tracks just up from the beach.

 Ken and the grandkids put a penny on the train track, hoping a train would come by while we were there.

 At the beach

 Some rocks to climb up, with a little help.

 Seth is sitting in a hollowed out spot in the rocks, that looked like the perfect place for a 7 year old boy to sit in.

 Papa is showing Seth a very small pool of water in the rocks with a bunch of hermit crabs in it.

 Annika found a nice little home for her new "Beanie Boo"!

I think Maple is saying, " But, Mom, I don't want to get in the water!"

"OK, Mom, you were right, it was fine once I got in!"

 An interesting set of holes in this rock, I thought it looked like the Aleutian Islands in Alaska.  (A few to many islands though.)

 Fun on the beach.

A train did come by, just as we were getting ready to head home.

The penny on the left is the before picture and the one on the right is the after picture.  The penny had flown off the track and we had a hard time finding it, but Ken finally saw it next to a rock that had it almost completely hidden.