July

Most of July was filled with moving in, unpacking, sooooo much cleaning, furniture shopping, paying professionals to fix things, etc. It's hard being a new home owner, but it's been amazing making the space our own. I have lots of plans for this home! Here's some photos from the summer activities we did:

My brother Ben and my mom took my boys to the river while I went out to lunch with my high school French teacher and a bookstagram friend. Good times were had all around!

Audrey stayed at home that day and went out to dinner with Spencer that night, some rare daddy-daughter time.

My oldest niece (Jamie) and her husband (Avery) had their first baby last fall (Ashton). We have enjoyed spending time with him in his first year. Jamie's mom, my sister Laura, lives in Texas now, and she visited a few times this summer, so we got together as much as we could.

This is Laura with me.

This is my other sister, Kelley. She lives in Puyallup and I get to see her more often!

Fourth of July we got together, culminating in an awesome fireworks show at the guitar shop owned by my extended family.

Ian and Audrey both went to FSY this summer, an amazing church camp held at a nearby college campus. They went different weeks, and Ian went with his buddy Grayson. I don't have a picture of Audrey, but both kids had a wonderful time.

We got a new dining table, and are ecstatic that we can have a board game set up and then go eat at the other table, or a craft or puzzle. It will be great to have two tables for hosting events as well!

Spencer took the kids to a new local arcade. I took them and my brother Ben a different day. Both times a success!

Spencer took the kids on some hikes.

We went to the Thurston County fair. It was small but fun, and we checked the boxes of bumper cars, game of chance (Ian won a turtle/cheeseburger plushie), rides, fair food, seeing the animals, and an exotic animal show.

 

May & June

 

In May and June we prepped to move and moved. We made an offer on a house to buy in April, closed in mid-May, and gained possession at the end of June. Then July was moving in and making the house our own. I'm writing this in August, and there are still some pictures to hang and odds and ends to do, but we mostly feel moved in, and we have a list of big projects to tackle over the next few years. 

Here are some highlights from May and June:

Spencer went off to a board-game-filled reunion with his buddies from Atlanta. He had an amazing, restorative trip.

Spencer hiking with the kids.

We adopted a hedgehog! It started out as Ian babysitting his science teacher's class pet, Sasha. After several weeks of caring for her, he asked his teacher if he could keep her, and she was happy to let him. Ian is loving taking care of Sasha, and she's a very low maintenance pet. I am fond of her too, even though she's an anti-social grump.

Ian promoted to high school!

Declan got to run track for a short 6th grade season.

Date in downtown Olympia

Band bash--all the bands in the school district play a concert at the end of the school year. It was pretty cool!

Spencer had meetings in Seattle one day and took his sister and niece to lunch, had a great time catching up. It's amazing to live near so many family members.

Ian ran track on the 8th grade team and had a great time.

More April happenings

General Conference--a good year because we were able to watch all five sessions.

Saturday session was April Fool's day and Audrey successfully put paper fish on all our backs--a French tradition.

She's so cute and creative.

Spring break was pretty normal, but one day we went to Seattle and did an underground tour and went to Pike Place. Great day!

Another weekend Audrey and I went back up to Seattle and saw the Broadway show Sweeney Todd. LOVED IT.

Oh, the other outing over spring break was a tour of the Capital building in Olympia. It was fascinating (to me) and beautiful.

 

Birthdays

Birthday season at the Briens--Ian's birthday is in March, mine is a month later, Declan's is two weeks after that, and Spencer's two days after that. Whew!

For my birthday, I hosted a murder mystery party. I had a fabulous birthday weekend.

(cake made by an amazing friend!)

Declan had a small party at our house, playing board games and running around outside. I made Declan his request: raspberry trifle.

Spencer had a quieter birthday this year, and I made him his requested pavlova with berries and cream. We gifted ourselves a kayak and look forward to spending time on the Puget Sound this summer.