What a week!

It's official...Ashlyn is mobile! She started to crawl just shy of her 8 month birthday. She is also trying to pull herself up every chance she gets. She is EVERYWHERE and getting into EVERYTHING!! Wow, I can't turn my back for a second. And to top it off, she also got her first tooth and rode in the grocery cart like a big girl all in the same week! It was an eventful week to say the least. But for a girl who was teething, you would have hardly known. Maybe she was just too excited about everything else. Here are some videos and pictures from the big week...

Woohoo! I'm a big girl!

Climbing up the couch...and check out the motorboating she does..that's her new thing!

Crawling...

Playing around...

The Amazing Race

My friend Stefanie and I did the Amazing Race in Chehalis last Friday night. For those of you who have never heard of it, it is basically a huge scavenger hunt that (on the CBS show)take teams all across the world in search of $1 million. In our case, we raced across Chehalis by foot and car, and it was worth 3 baskets full of goodies! Stefanie I didn't win (damnit!), but we had such a great time!

The clues were definitely tough if you didn't know Chehalis, but during one of our stops at the Market Street Pub (oh yeah, did I mention I had to do an Oyster shooter as a task?), we met "Shorty." And thank goodness we did. Shorty was a regular at the pub and a Chehalis local. He helped us with so many clues and was part of our cheering squad. Well, I'd love to call it a squad, but really it was Shorty and his friends cheering us on every time we had to run by the Market Street Pub, which was pretty often. One mistake we did make though was wearing flip-flops. It was a really hot day that day (90 something degrees) so we didn't want to wear tennis shoes. Hmmm...bad idea! I've ran in flip-flops before, but not when I'm sweating up a storm. And it didn't help that they were cheapos from Old Navy. Oh, well...lesson learned for next time.

Even though we didn't place in the race, it was so much fun. At the finish line there was a good spread of food, beer, wine, and other goodies, and it was fun to chat with all the other teams and talk about all the clues and tasks we had to perform. Here are some pictures I took from the Race:

Stefanie and I (team Double Trouble) getting "hydrated" before the race

Me, Brynn, and Stefani enjoying a little race pre-funk at Ciao Bella Boutique - this might be my new favorite store by the way...so cute!

My mother-in-law, Debbi, and her co-worker, Jennifer, also did the race. This was them at the starting line.

Me and my new friend, "Shorty."

At one of the tasks, after finding a certain book at the local bookstore, we had to run across the street to the Market Street Pub and read a couple paragraphs from the book to the pub patrons on a microphone. Since I did the oyster shooter earlier, Stefani did this one. Oh yeah, and she had to wear this ridiculous hat while she did it.

Stefanie and I at the end of the race. Ugh, we were so sweaty, so we were really glad to see cold beer on ice when we got there :)


Stefani and Brynn showing some good sportsmanship

My mother-in-law at the finish line get-together. She had to get a foil at the stop at the beauty salon. Of course it wasn't really color, just some conditioner.

Mariner's Game

We took Ashlyn to her first Mariner's Game on Sunday. She had a blast and so did we. We went with my dad and his friend, Mark. I was so excited for her to wear her "My first Mariner's Tee Shirt" but the day turned out to be pretty cold and damp so she had to wear a jacket all day. I did take a picture of her in the t-shirt before we left to go home after the game. I bought that t-shirt about a year ago, right after I found out I was having a girl. I've been dying for her to wear it so I was determined to get a picture! She also got a cool "My first Mariner's Game" certificate they give out to all the first timers. They fill in the name, date, opponent, and who they attended the game with. It will definitely be going in the baby book. She did take a little snooze during the seventh inning (even the wave that kept coming around didn't wake her up), but other then that, she was cheering and jumping up and down for the M's the whole game. It must of worked because they won!

For the Fourth of July weekend we went up to Seal Rock up on the Hood canal. We met my mom and Roy up there and had a great weekend. After we got all set up on Friday, we all (Ashlyn, Aaron, and I) decided to take a nap in the trailer. It had been a really early morning for all of us and Aaron and I had been up late the night before so we were sleep deprived and really cranky! We ended up sleeping almost 3 hours! We obviously all needed it. When we finally surfaced from the trailer we strapped Ash in the stroller and went for a walk around the campgrounds to check things out. It was so beautiful, but really hot. I try to keep Ashlyn out of the hot sun so we stuck to the nice shady trails on our adventure. Once we got back we enjoyed a couple cold "beverages," and started getting ready for dinner. I fed Ash and she was ready for bed around 7:30. After tucking her in and watching her enter the "land of nod," I joined Aaron for the dinner around the campfire. I guess you could call it our candlelight dinner! My mom and Roy came up after dinner (they were in the campsite next to ours) and we had a couple nightcaps and chatted for awhile but we all called it a night at 10:30. We were all so tired.

On Saturday (the 4th), Aaron wanted to go clam digging (manilla). My mom and Roy already had their licenses so we just had to stop by a local store and get one for Aaron. Once we secured the licence we were off! It took awhile (and the help of local digger!), but they got their limits in about an hour or so. Ash and I went down to the beach for support and we had a great time.

After clam digging we headed back down to camp for nap time. After our nap, we went up to Mt Walker. You can either hike or drive up, but we opted for the air conditioned drive! It was absolutely AMAZING!!! Yes, I wrote that all in CAPS! If you are ever in the area and the day is clear, you have to take a trip up Mt. Walker. On one side you can see Pt. Angeles and Mt. Baker, on the other side you can see Mt. Rainier and the Seattle Skyline. It is truely one of the most beautiful places I have ever been. It one of those places that makes you realize how lucky we are to live in Washington.

After Mt Walker we had some dinner, got Ashlyn ready for bed, and got the campfire ready. we were surprised how well Ashlyn did with all the fireworks. She didn't wake up once! We chatted, listened to some Michael Jackson (courtesy of the camp next door!), and headed to bed about midnight.

All in all we had a great weekend! Here are some pics...

Ash sporting the red, white, and blue!

Mt. Walker...

Clam Digging...

On the beach

At camp in the jumper

"Mom, do you really have to take pictures of everything?"

Yumm!!!

View from Seal Rock Campsite.