Polished up my mini van...

...and drove my kid to soccer. Am I a soccer mom now? Nah, I have yet to have a parking lot confrontation with another mini van mama. Maybe that will happen next week at soccer practice.

Here's Levi at his first soccer practice:

Bearing Fruit!

The Peterson People are drowning in fruit this year...we love it! Not only is the fruit yummy to eat, fun to share and pretty to look at; it's also very entertaining (more on that in another post). Despite one crop (cherries) that was robbed by the birds while we were in California, we had great success with fruit this year.

Here are some of our crops:

We reaped exactly one blueberry from our brand new blueberry bushes. More on that next year!

This is Leah showing off the blackberries she found behind our shed. Um, Leah, there's something on your teeth!
Levi shows off the Italian Plumbs...this is the first year the plumb tree produced fruit!

Here are the two pear trees! We haven't eaten one yet - just a couple more days!

And lastly, our beautifully grafted apple tree. This tree actually produces 4 types of apples all in one tree. Pretty amazing!

And even though there is some debate about whether tomatoes are a fruit or a vegetable, I remain on the "fruit" side so here are the tomatoes:

When I think about fruit-bearing I can't help but think of all the verses in the Bible that talk about bearing fruit. I hope this coming year we will be bearing more than just physical, edible fruit.

John 15:4 "I am the vine; you are the branches. He who abides in me and I in him, he bears much fruit; for apart from Me you can do nothing."

School Sweetness!

Forgive me if this post isn't what it should be as my brain has been working overtime after a wonderful summer of working "undertime"! Two weeks ago I had no job and we were happily enjoying our summer, when suddenly I "got the call". Shoreline offered me a job teaching a 5th/6th split class in a job-share. (Background: I did a job-share last year so I only had a halftime contract with Shoreline so they only had to offer me another halftime position upon recalling me). Of course I accepted the position, despite rumors of bigger or better positions possibly coming in the future, then proceeded to lose about a week's worth of sleep wondering if I was making a good decision (I really wanted to be fulltime this year). Well, long story short, it all worked out and I actually ended up being offered a second halftime job equalling a fulltime position. My second job is working as a support teacher in a 2/3 split class that's majorly overloaded with 33 students. So that's my story of job-seeking and finding and I'm happy to say I survived my first week and am even working on catching up on my loss of sleep!

So then after my week of job drama, it was time to send Leah and Levi back to school. Leah started 2nd grade on Wednesday. She is in a 2nd/3rd split class this year (splits are a reoccurring theme in our family this year) and is enjoying sort of feeling like a 3rd grader. She misses her best friend Emilie who did not end up in the same class, but was excited to hear they will be doing choir together so that helps.

This is Leah and I on our first day of school: Then on Thursday, Levi got to start Kindergarten. He's been so excited to join Leah at Highland Terrace for the past couple years, I knew his transition would be great. He has a wonderful teacher who I know from working in the district and even has a few friends in his class.

Here he is leaving our house on the first day:

Here's Levi with Ingrid (Yaku) who we know from our church meetings. They're in the same class!

Learning to line up in the correct spot! (check out all those parents sending their kids off!)

Waving "goodbye"! Note the big guy behind Levi. He's from Levi's preschool...he's HUGE!

Later little buddy!

Levi had a great day and can't believe he has to wait three days to go back. We are all happy to have started school. Let the chaos begin!!!

Mt. Dickerman

Last Monday Ben, Erik and I (Ken in case you didn't figure that out and don't look farther below) went on a long walk. We made our way up Mt. Dickerman. Mt. Dickerman is a 8.5 mile hike with an elevation gain of 3900 feet. It is located about 20 min. past Granite Falls. The photo above is from the trail on the first two miles. The first two miles are switch backs through a fairly thick forest so views are limited. Once you finish those fun switchbacks you come across many a happy meadow. In these meadows we found lots and lots of delicious wild blueberries.

Here Erik and Ben show us how happy they are to be emerging from the forest and switchbacks.
This spot was very beautiful large green meadow where we took a little time to run, jump, eat berries and sing The Hills Are Alive. So yes for a fleeting moment the hills were alive with the sound of music.
Hiking this trail became slow do to the many tiny voices of the blueberries that lined the trail saying, "I want to go to the party in your tummy!"
This is where Erik was eating so many berries that Ben and I had to run ahead to get some before he had a chance to eat those ones too! You can see Erik on the trail if you look hard.
Finally we made it to the top. First car in the parking lot and thankfully first folks to the top!
We took some time to eat something other than berries on the top and enjoy the view.
We also tried not to fall off the edge as you can see if we did we would have screamed for a bit. Oh and I believe that is Mt. Baker in the distance. The view in every direction from the top was mountains mountains mountains. You really feel like you are out on the edge of nowhere. Unlike some of the hikes off of I-90 you don't have any freeway noise. Up here it is down right peaceful.
Here I am as proof that I made it. Yes mom the edge is behind me and yes it would be a terrible fall to my death. But it looks closer than it really was. Oh and an elderly man I talked to on the top told me it would not be a very glorious death to die on Mt. Dickerman. So I asure you I was careful.
Ben on the other hand was not so careful...
He didn't really step off down there. It just looked like he was going to, relax. Anyway, it was a great hike with a couple of great guys. I recommend it to anyone who feels up to it. Make sure you bring sturdy shoes and plenty of water. The only water we found on the trail was a very small pool in some rocks feed by who knows where. Next time we will bring the women folk as we missed them something fierce.

A last Peterson Hurrah!

We took a little trip to Ocean Shores - a last hurrah before school starts.

The kids making sure they get as wet as possible! They had fun exploring the dunes!

We walked out on the beach just in time for the sunset!

Almost married nine years...awwwww....

Finally captured a flying "V" with the sunset in the background!

A cute little boy we found on the beach!

The sky was pretty amazing!

All-American Petersons

We consider ourselves your typical all-american family...but we've been short two "all-american" things. The family dog and we had never been to a baseball game. Well, since there is no way we're getting a dog, we decided to try our hand at the baseball game. The kids got free tickets to the Everett Aquasox (minor league) game on Sunday.

Here's Levi showing off his all-american junk food! Sliding down the railings was more entertaining than watching the game!

He gives the game a thumbs up!
The whole family! The kids got free hats for being in the first 1,000 kids!

It was also all-you-can-drink rootbeer float night!

Leah and mom!

Dad and Levi!

Oh, and happily the Aquasox won! They hit at least four homeruns...of course every time it happened I happened to be looking away! lol!

Keeping cool!

Ken and I love hot weather...but especially when it involves spending a day in the lake! So yesterday when we heard it was going to be 95+ degrees we loaded up the kids, our favorite floating devices and lots of water and headed to Rattlesnake Lake!

This is Leah not really wanting Levi to put his arm around her because he had been playing in the mud! See? Told ya!

There they are happily floating away!

A perfect way to spend a HOT day!