Ben's Birthday!

Today is Ben's 9th birthday. Happy Birthday Ben!

Since it is Sunday, we celebrated his birthday yesterday. It started off with breakfast in bed:

French toast, of course. Breakfast in bed is a funny tradition at our house, since the kids always wake up before the parents. So it involves sending the birthday kid back to bed while we make breakfast. But they love it, so we keep the tradition. All meals served on birthdays are done on the "red dishes."

Ben's birthday party was a skating party at Auburn Skate Connection. It was loud, noisy, and hot, but we didn't have to plan anything so it was great. Ben and his friends had a great time:

Tammy made Ben's cake. She went for a simple design that would appeal to a bunch of 9-year olds: Cake with candy on top.

It looks like Ben is having a great birthday weekend. We love having Ben in our family, there's nothing better in the whole world than a happy Ben.

Steven's year-end concert

Steven finished his first year of band this week, with a concert on Monday night. This was their second concert, they had one earlier in the year. It was a pleasure to see how much they've improved! Wow!

Steven plays the trombone, and his teacher decided to feature the trombone section with a special number. All 6 of them came to the front of the stage and played this song:


After Steven's 5th grade class performed, we stayed for the 6th and 7th grade bands. We're looking forward to next year when the band practices together every day.

Afterwards, we went to Ben & Jerry's (or, as Ben says, Me and Jerry's) for ice cream.
Great job, Steven. You did a great job this year!

Good-bye Grandma and Grandpa! And Grandma!

Grandma, Grandpa and Mom (that's grandma to the kids) left yesterday to head up to Vancouver. Grandma's having surgery on her back. We loved having them here, and we'll miss them while we wait for the next time we see them. Grandma, you're in our prayers during your surgery.

We did snap a quick 4-generation photo for Sophia. She really took to my Mom. And now she really misses everyone.

Warning to Snakes Everywhere: Stay Away from the Summers!

So every summer I find a couple of snakes in the back yard. With my lawnmower. Aside from the mess that follows, they freak me out. I don't know why- I grew up in rural Idaho, after all. I had friends who brought rattle snake meat as part of their school lunch. But I've never been able to handle the thought of holding one of the critters in my hands. Oooh- I've got the creepies already.

(No, this isn't Tammy writing this. It's brave old Dad).

So the other day the kids found a snake wandering around our backyard. Instead of chopping it up with the lawnmower, I let the kids play with it. For hours. and hours. It kept looking at me with "please kill me" eyes. By the end, the poor thing was barely moving.

But I had a plan- that evening, we let it go back into the weeds behind the house. That way, it could warn all of the other reptiles in the area that this is one house. We'll see how well it works as the temperature rises. My thermometer says it reached 92 degrees today!

I'm back from Camp Auburn!

Camp Auburn was awesome! I had a great time at Camp Auburn. Camp Auburn is a camp that is like a scout camp that everybody from 5th grade attends in the Auburn School District. (If they have permission from their parents). (Here's a newsreport from the Auburn Reporter.)

(Mom and Dad will post pictures when the film gets developed. They wouldn't let me take the digital camera!)

What we do there is we do things like boating. We also do campfire at night. It is really cool because we sing songs so we can have dinner. There are people called hoppers who have to eat really fast because like every minute he/she has to go get food for everyone. The bad part is we have to learn manners. AHHHHHHH!!!. A good part is we can bring a gallon sized bag of candy. We also get to build a fire, roast hotdogs, go on a hike, build a shelter,and make rope. We get three huge meals a day and get letters, pennants (flag-like awards), and lots of dessert.

There are also points so we can get a really special pennant called honor cabin for a boy cabin and a girl cabin. Some things aren't so cool like we have to clean our cabins and our showers and bathrooms

There are also special people from high school called rovers and counselors. The counselors are high school students who act like adults for your cabin. The rovers are people from high school who encourage you to scream out as loud as you can so you lose your voice on the first day. They can be really annoying and really fun. The camp fire is hosted by the rover (yes the really annoying ones) where you do skits and sing. I had a really really fun time at camp and I will never forget it.

Written by and a witness to Camp Auburn,

STEVEN SUMMERS

Grandma loves me best!

Grandma and Grandpa Gardner are in town visiting this weekend. Yep, out of all of the places they could have gone they decided to spend Memorial Day weekend with us. It's been great to have them over- we always have a lot of fun when we get to see them.

OK, we weren't Grandma's first choice. She had surgery scheduled for this week in Vancouver BC, but the hospital didn't have any open beds. So, instead of driving all the way back to Southbank they came down to Seattle to wait for a bed to open up.

We do get a two-fer out the deal, though. My Mom flew up to be with Grandma during her surgery, and she's stuck at our house too. But I prefer to think that they chose to come over.

We spent today driving around near Mt. Rainier today. Of course, the clouds came out and we couldn't see the mountain at all, but the surrounding forest is a cool place to visit.

And, since it is Grandma, she made sure we sat for a photo.

- Steve

Ben Stays Home from School

Hi! I'm Ben. I'm staying home from school for the second day in a row because I've had a fever. I wanted to go back today, but Mom said I had to wait because I was still sick last night.

Grampa and Grandma Lacey came to our house yesterday (and the day before and today). I taught my grampa how to play Poke'mon ruby. (It took him awhile to understand HP which is Health points or Hit points).






Before I got sick, I got to go to my friend, Chris's, birthday party. I gave him a 20 Questions Game. His birthday was fun.


I like staying home from school because I get to drink lots of 7 Up. After I do my homework I get to play video games a lot too.









Steven left to go to Camp Auburn. He left before I even woke up. (Mom's note: Camp Auburn is a 4 day, 3 night camp for all of the kids in the school district in the 5th grade. We'll have Steven tell you all about it when he gets back. Here's a picture of Steven with all of his gear.)