I got an Instant Pot for my birthday. I love it. Pressure cooking, it turns out, is really efficient and easy. I love that it cooks simple things I use often really well, like brown rice and quinoa, but it also does a great job with meats, chicken, fish, and stews. I haven’t tried yogurt or applesauce yet, but it does an amazing job on hard boiled eggs!

I realized that there are so many recipe pages out there and I really just wanted to get tips from my friends, because I know so many ladies with Instant Pots now. I started a page on Facebook called Friends of Instant Pot and invited ten friends to join in, post recipes, and share ideas. Suddenly people kept “like” ing my page, and now I’m over 100 followers and my posts are seen by over 200 people. It’s kind of funny!

It’s a tradition! We love spending a day at the Washington State Fair in Puyallup every September. We haven’t missed a year since JT was born. First stop: scones.

The kids wanted to ride some things, so we picked out bumper cars to do first.

JT and Jim were wearing their matching hats, thanks to Preston, who gave JT his hat that was just a bit too small.

Haley and I rode the octopus. I felt a little queasy, I’ll be honest. I think I may have to give up spinning rides (roller coasters, however, are just fine!).

Then we met the Bonnells – yay! – at the draft horse show and walked around together for a few hours…

Timber Gulch was a good find. It is way over by the green gate. It has hands-on activities for the kids like making butter, drilling holes, sawing wood, sifting wheat, grinding flour, and more. The kids had a great time pretending “Little House on the Prairie.”

Then scones, part two. After turkey legs and ice cream and elephant ears, that is.

Finally, we rode the new Grand Wheel as a family as the lights came on throughout the fairgrounds. We were there wayyyy too late for a school night, but we had a great time!

School started for JT on September 7th, but Haley had to wait all the way until September 12th. Brutal! I am so excited for JT’s year. He has two awesome, job sharing teachers – and his morning teacher was a good friend of mine starting in about fifth grade. You know, 25 years ago. So that’s super fun. His teachers are organized, cheerful, and experienced. He knows all but three kids in his class (who are new to the school) and has a couple of good friends in his class as well. He got off the bus on his first day and proclaimed, “I have the best teachers ever!”

Haley had her kindergarten camp in August, orientation and assessment during the first week of school, and finally her first day. She has a teacher who is new to the school, so we don’t know much about her but her resume is impeccable. I’m sure it will be a great year for Haley too!

(Notice the new sidewalk in between JT’s photo and Haley’s photo? So fun!) I drove them both to school on Haley’s first day, and they were so excited together. It was really cute. This is stopped in a long line waiting for a school bus, so we were very safe. 🙂

HORRIBLE photo but this is what they had to do first – find their name and a place to play.

Miley’s mom took this and sent it to me!

And then they came home.

So fun to have them doing this public school life together.

Homework time!

I have no pictures to record it, but Jim completed the Black Diamond 70.3 long course triathlon on Saturday! (The kids and I were home for JT’s first soccer game, so we missed it – sad.) That’s a 1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike, and 13.1 mile run. Ouch! We are so proud of him and his hard work to make such a thing possible.

Then on Sunday, I completed my first triathlon. It started nine months ago when I started swimming because I couldn’t run anymore. I started feeling really comfortable swimming, and I swam with a pull buoy because I couldn’t kick. Jim mentioned that was good for triathlons because it saves your legs for the bike and the run. Hm.

In May, I was cleared to stationary bike. We have a trainer for our road bikes, so I could pedal for 15-30 minutes in the garage while I watched part of a movie or something. Then, in June, I was cleared to ride on the road, with hills. When I started doing that, I was only riding 5-6 miles at a time. But I started thinking… if I can swim and bike, two things I had not been interested in doing before, then maybe I should be thinking about a triathlon!

At the end of July I was cleared to run, very slowly adding time from 4 minutes to 5, and then a half mile at a time. I mapped out my run recovery schedule and realized that I would be at three miles right before this race my friend Michelle had told me about… so I waited a couple of weeks of beginning running to make sure my knee would hold out. When it did great, I registered!

The month of August was recovery month. I started keeping better track of my swim/bike/runs, and my Garmin report for the month looks like this:

The husbands/cheering section

Numbered and ready!

We listened to a participant sing the national anthem with this view!

Ready to swim!

Coming in from the bike

Finishing – so happy I feel good!

Afterward, we grabbed Seabeck pizza and invited Kacie’s family and my family over for a post-race celebration. We ended up lounging around through half the Seahawks game as well. It was relaxing and a great way to recover!

We’ve been a little busy not being busy! Last week, the kids and I checked all sorts of things off my summer bucket list.

First, we went biking in Jackson Park. It turned out, JT loved the bike jumps and had a great time. We also enjoyed playing “Follow the Leader” through the forest – even tackling obstacles like downed trees in our way.

Then we picked blueberries at our local produce stand. We picked over three pounds in about half an hour!

Haley started gymnastics. She’s in level one and she’s working pretty hard in class. Her coach is awesome and we love that she’s learning to be strong and poised (if she wasn’t already).

JT started soccer. I made a little joke that this is what I look like as a soccer mom. And football mom. And baseball mom. (The other sports are indoor.)

I’ve been practicing for my triathalon. My first triathalon. I did a practice group open water swim last week and had a great time. I hope the real swim goes as well!

JT and Haley have continued a lot of reading and writing over the summer. We had summer journals and I have been doing a read aloud for each child. Haley and I are reading The Secret Garden and JT and I are reading Among the Hidden.

Every year, my mother-in-law takes me shopping to get a “back to school/work” outfit. It is super fun and I always get something I just love and wear a lot. This year, Haley came too and she got spoiled as well. We went crazy at H&M!

The back to school ice cream social came so quickly. Haley and JT and I went to meet their teachers, drop off their school supplies, and see who else will be in their classes. JT has two teachers due to a job share, and his morning teacher is a childhood friend of mine. So it’s fun to say I’ve know his teacher for over 25 years! Haley has a friend in her class from preschool last year, and she’s feeling great about starting kindergarten.

Speaking of starting kindergarten, Haley is a very good reader. I’m interested to see how that goes in school. Yesterday she read her devotional and cruised right through words like “defeat” and “being.”

We did a little shopping last week and the kids picked out things with their savings. JT got a new Lego set and Haley got a princess cash register. It says hilarious things like, “Glitter clean up, aisle 3.”

We also squeezed in back to school haircuts with Mrs. Horan! She took about three inches off Haley’s hair to get it cleaned up, and of course just a trim for JT. His hair is so thick there was a bigger pile than Haley’s when his was done!

Haley also had all three girls she knows in kindergarten at her school over for a playdate. We wanted to make sure they all four knew each other before the school year began. They are split up 2/2 between two classes, so each girl knows someone before the year starts.

 

Meanwhile, my tomatoes don’t think it’s time for fall quite yet. Look at this beauty!

Friday, August 26th was my last day in Kent School District after 15 years as a teacher. It felt like a mini retirement, especially since I’m leaving public education.

For Kent, I taught second, third, fourth, seventh, and eighth grade. My first students have long graduated college and are off finding their way in life. I taught at two elementaries and one middle school before moving to the central administration office in 2007 to support Kent’s One-to-One laptop initiative. I’ve been working to train, support, lead, and coach teachers ever since under six different directors and three different titles.

I’ve been happy there, and well supported, and I have lots of great memories and relationships. I had no intention of leaving until we moved last summer.

So what’s next? I’ll be working from home as “Director, Content and Professional Learning” for a Kirkland-based company called i2e for 20 hours a week starting September 1. That’s right: working from home. It’s very exciting. I will still travel occasionally for training and I have a couple of consulting contracts through my own company, Education Innovations. It is a whole new season of life and I’m looking forward to what God has in store for this new adventure!

For her birthday gift, Haley got a new Power Wheels Jeep. The big deal is that JT decided to sell his Power Wheels truck so he could help pay for her Jeep. It was very, very sweet. It didn’t come until two days after her birthday, so we were excited to give it to her one morning as a surprise.

The two kids had one day of driving around together before we delivered JT’s truck to its new owner. He was getting way too big for it, physically speaking, and he was a little disappointed to see it go. But we’re proud of his generosity and he has more opportunities coming his way as an eight year old!

Haley had a great time turning six. We started the day with her requested breakfast: pinkalicious pancakes with strawberries and whipped cream, egg and cheese omelets, and bacon. She also said she wanted to open her gifts from her immediate family at breakfast. So we got up and got going because we were planning to attend 9 AM church service as well!

After church, Haley changed into her “birthday friend party” outfit. And we did a little photo shoot as well.

She looks tall here!

 

Then we picked up Ashlie, Greta, and Ellie for a birthday party date. We went to frozen yogurt…

And to a park…

And for a walk on the beach to find shells…

It was really fun. Then our extended family came over for dinner. Haley chose sweet & sour chicken, rice, honey cinnamon carrots, and a berry bowl. She opened gifts and enjoyed us singing over her beautiful butterfly cake with surrounding flower cupcakes. Haley certainly knows what she likes and how to ask for it specifically!

Haley is ready for kindergarten! She is reading very well and is working on her first fiction story about a cat and her three kittens. She says when she grows up she’d like to be a scientist, a nurse, or a teacher (astronaut seems to have fallen off the list). Haley is now 3′ 8″ and weighs 36 pounds. That puts her at 25th percentile for height, and well below the baseline for weight. So we are pleased to announce she is putting that petite frame to good use when she starts Level 1 gymnastics next week!

We had another wonderful 11 days at Banks Lake with Grandpa and Grandma Keene, the Bonnell family, and the Jaime family.

Jim and I celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary while we were at Banks Lake this past trip. Wow! It started off with perfect weather, which was really fun. We went out and skied, just the two of us, and the lake was the best we’ve seen it all summer. So that was awesome!

And then Jim surprised me with a card and a new ring… an anniversary band to match my wedding band! (New one on bottom…) That was very fun, to say the least.

We took our annual family photo after we got back and I also got the kids to pose for a few beach photos.

Then we all went out floating and swimming, and the lake continued to be amazing. We saw an F-18 fly overhead (maybe 150 feet off the water!) and a helicopter as well.

Three generations of swimmers

I asked JT to take a photo of Jim and I when we were cleaning up the beach in the afternoon. Didn’t he do a great job?!

Jim’s mom made everyone a very yummy anniversary dinner, and we had brownie sundaes for dessert!

I sure do love this guy. I can’t believe it’s been 15 years already!