Family....Reunited

The Henry Deming Family

Labor Day weekend was chock full of family time as we headed to Montana for the Deming Family Reunion that my parents planned. It had been years since we had this side of the family all together and we had a great turnout including all of my Grandpa Deming's living siblings and their respective broods.
The highlights of the weekend for me were: 1)Seeing my grandmother (my only surviving grandparent). She is such a special lady to me and I felt so fortunate that we got to see her only a couple of weeks before her 90th birthday. 2) Seeing all of my siblings and their children together. Nine grandkids (7 of which are boys) can make for some pretty rambuncious play but there is definitely a lot of "cousin love" there. 3) Coming home to Spokane instead of the long trek home to Seattle! Gosh it's nice to be able to go to Montana for a couple of nights and not feel like you've spent the whole weekend in the car!

Grandma with Mark and me

These are my parents grandkids with Great-Grandma Evelyn Deming

Maria, Brian, Great-Grandma, Max, Evan, Dylan, Morgan, Dominic

Christina and Henry

Dylan's First Day of School!

Today was a big day in our house as it was Dylan's first day of preschool! He is attending the Pre-K 3-year-olds class at St. Mary's school. Because St. Mary's is a K-8 private school all students wear uniforms including the preschoolers. I must say Dylan looked so handsome and grown up in his navy blue shorts and white polo shirt and he LOVED wearing his new Pumas which are just like his Daddy's. After a pancake breakfast and a quick stop to Walgreens for safety pins (I guess I should have tried on his new shorts beforehand.....they were too big!) we headed out for school. He was maybe a bit unsure but as soon as he saw the kids playing with the classroom toys he felt comfortable very quickly. I was very relieved because although he has been in daycare plenty, he was with "Miss Anitha" ever since he was 5 months old and she knew all of his idiosyncrasies and I never worried about him. Today was a new place with lots of new faces! Needless to say I didn't have much to worry about. =)

As for me, I had 3 hours to myself which meant there was enough time for a trip to the grocery store, a latte, some laundry, tidying around the house and a couple of returns to the mall. Man you can get a lot more done without 3 year old demands! When I went to pick him up he was happy as a clam and his teacher said he did great. I'm a proud momma today!

Girl's Getaway

Over the weekend I was able to get away for a day/night to Seattle with my dear friend Kalie. We decided to make the trek over the mountains together to celebrate the soon-to-be born baby of our sorority sister Rachel. It was such a blast having uninterrupted time with Kalie during the car trip over.....I don't think we've had that much time to just "talk" since we've both become mommies- usually our conversations are continually interrupted by the demands of parenting toddlers! The weekend was packed full of catching up with so many of my favorite girls, paired with lots of laughs and a few glasses of wine (and coffee Sunday morning with Bre!)

A big shout-out THANKS to my fabulous hubby for being a single dad over the weekend....although it sounds as if he had plenty of people around to help keep Dylan occupied!

Me with the mommy-to-be

Razi, Rachel and Kalie and their baby bumps

Ariane, Nicole and Bre
Marcy and Ellie

Little Rockstar

This summer my Dylan has started an obsession with the band Journey. This is mostly due to the fact that my nephews Evan and Dominic have been playing "Don't Stop Believing" on repeat on their ipod since we moved to Spokane. At one point a couple of weeks ago all three of them were singing it together.....Dylan was the lead singer and holding a microphone, Dom was pretending to play the guitar, and Evan was at the piano. I'll just say it was pretty entertaining and would be hilarious to have on video tape to embarrass them with when they are teenagers.


On Sunday night Kevin's mom and I went for a walk around the neighborhood with Zoe and Dylan who sang it the whole time.....when we got home I asked him to perform for the camera. I just love how he gets so into it! It's worth a good giggle!

Countdown

We are officially on the countdown to getting into our new house. Next Tuesday we'll be signing the papers and on Friday we'll get the keys! We are both super excited to finally start getting settled in our new home....for me it's kind of felt like I have been on an extended visit at my parents house and I'm starting to run out of things to keep me occupied. But, in a little over a week I'll be more than occupied including painting, changing fixtures, cleaning, unpacking and decorating our new home! I think the house is going to be a good fit for us....four bedrooms, 3-car garage, finished basement with a great playroom, fenced backyard for Zoe, lots of living space and a very family oriented neighborhood. I know we'll be really happy once we are settled.

On another note, I signed Dylan up for Pre-K this week! He'll be starting school Sept. 1st, 3 mornings a week at St. Mary's School just about a mile from our new house. He's pretty darn pumped about it and has already been wearing his new backpack around the house in preparation. My little guy is definitely growing up quickly!

Vashon Island

Thanks to our wonderful friends Brian and Meg we were able to enjoy a fantastic weekend at Vashon Island with some of our favorite college friends. This group has made several weekend trips the McCarry's beach cabin but this was the first time with kids! Needless to say we weren't probably as rambunctious as we had been in previous trips due to the fact that we were all well aware that the little ones would be waking us up early, but regardless we had a great time and LOTS of laughs.
Thanks Brian and Meg for an amazing weekend!

A Fun-filled Fourth

We loved our good, old-fashioned Fourth of July celebration in Colfax last weekend. The weekend was complete with some golf, fishing, beer drinking, feasting, s'mores and fireworks! We loved spending some time with Grandma and Grandpa Lee as well as Auntie Robyn and Uncle Mike as well as all the extended family (35 people altogether) that showed up for the celebration. Such a fun-filled weekend-- and the best part was that our drive home was only 1 hour and didn't include traffic on the pass!

Making s'mores with Aunt Debbie

First s'more- YUM!

Part of the crew waiting for fireworks.

Some of the kids lighting fireworks at the baseball field across the street.