Independence (from hunger) Day

Happy 4th of July! Bri went all out to make this 96 cupcake American flag. Just Bri being Bri. Ginny helped by placing all the candy on the red cupcakes (except the hearts). We went to Ben's Brother's house in unincorporated King County for some barbecue and explosives. Yeah, we had mortars. Here's a sampling of some of the ten cousins present (a relatively small number for a Wilson get together).

We partook of steak; potato, pasta, and jello salad; corn on the cob; etc. followed up by some mean desserts, including Grammy's apple strudel straight from the "old country," but shaped in an American flag. America was honored.

After things got dark we busted out the fireworks. It was a little strange to hear parents encouraging their kids to play with fire ("Come on, fire is cool!"). We had sparklers, fountains, strobes, and some of the big guns. It was a lot of fun.

Growing Up

Virginia started ballet today. Okay actually its called creative movement, she has to be four years old to do ballet. Yesterday we bought her her first pair of ballet slippers. I was so proud of her sitting so still but excited as they brought in pairs of slippers to try on. We also bought tights since we were there. It was the same store where I bought my dance slippers back when I danced for institute choir, which actually wasnt very long ago.

Here she is all dressed up, she is using hand me downs from Liliaan besides the slippers and tights we bought.

Here she is going to class.

Her slippers and a snack are in her back-pack.

Ben fought back a few tears last night when he held her little slippers in his hand. He had to chuck them out of his hands to keep the tears back. :) She did just fine even when I left her, this is her first class, besides nursery at church. Her buddy Riley is in her class, so lucky! Our little angel is getting so grown up.

Graduations and Milestones

This last week was a week of milestones for the Wilson Family. Everyone had a little something; let's go in order of age.

Ben

Ben graduated with his PhD in Electrical Engineering. He's not actually done yet, but you can walk if you plan on graduating summer quarter (July 29th, mark your calenders). PhD's get super cool caps and gowns, that make them look like Vasco da Gama or Henry VIII. They also get hooded by their advisers. Interesting fact: by July 29th Ben will have been in college for ten years, ten months, and one day.

Ben celebrated this fabricated milestone by jogging up Mount Pilchuck with Brandon. This was a home-by-lunch hike that packed a lot of punch.

Bri

Bri was working a little magic of her own. She's been taking one institute class a quarter since she got her bachelor's. Well, she graduated from Institute again. This was the fifth time. She would like to share a thought:

"I started attending institute in fall 2001, and basically didn't stop. I knew I wanted to take a class but then I realized I could park for free all day if I took a morning and afternoon class. This was great considering I commuted from Snoqualmie to UW. The institute program has been a guiding light for me throughout college and now into four and half years of marriage (2.3 kids later). With the many trials I have faced no matter the size, institute was the basis for my spiritual development. I have a stronger testimony of the Atonement of our Savior Jesus Christ, have developed scripture study skills, and I have always had others to ask questions to, to help me along the way. I know that our Savior lives and loves us, I know that the Book of Mormon is true witness of Christ, I know that Joseph Smith was a true prophet and restored the church in the latter days. These are all testimonies strengthen by my attendance and personal study. I hope that my understanding will be pass on to my children and strengthen my family. Thanks to all who have help me along the way."

Ginny

After nine months of being potty trained Ginny final past that last lingering hurtle. She ditched the bedtime pull-up. That's right, Ginny is now sleeping away in her big girl panties. Both she and her parents are ecstatic.

Violet

Last of all is Violet. Her milestone is that she is now considering maybe trying to walk. This is a change from not wanting to walk at all. In the mean time she's living up her last remaining time as a free-loader.

BNT

Baby number three is now thirteen weeks old. He/she is now a member of the bigger-than-a-peach club!

Meet Wilson #3

So today we had a bit of a scare with Bri's pregnancy, which turned out to be no big deal.

Back up.

Did we mention Bri is pregnant? Yes, we'll be "tossin' another one on the pile" some time in December. So in addition to our relief that everything was fine with the baby, we got some nice ultrasound images of the most mysterious and enigmatic member of the Wilson Family: Baby Number Three (BNT). So it's still too early to tell the gender; Bri is 12 weeks pregnant and you usually can't tell until 16 weeks. However, this baby struck us as having an attitude and visage quite unlike that of BNT's two elder sister, Ginny and Violet. They were both angelic, docile little ladies with round features and easy temperaments. It was immediately apparent that BNT on the other hand was more austere, perhaps even sinister. Look at that pointed nose and haughty brow. And it's not just the angle, here's another picture.

When we saw this Bri and I looked at each other and said "boy". That's because BNT looks a lot like Dad, even at 12 weeks. Will BNT turn out to be a boy? Only time will tell. But now we have plenty of fodder to come up with a nickname. We were thinking Doctor Fetus, but it hasn't stuck yet.

PS Thanks to the lovely ladies from our ward who watched our kids AND the kids we were baby sitting this afternoon so we could straighten this out.

Index Bash

I'd been saving up for this one since October; Mount Index the imposing sentinel of the Skykomish Valley. It's an impressive sight from Highway 2. Here's the view from our pre-dawn approach.

In addition to the impressiveness of the objective, this trip require a particularly hardcore route to the summit. It started with a six-mile mountain bike. Here's what that looked like.

After that there was a three-mile stretch on an abandoned logging road. It was more like a jungle bushwhack with plenty of washouts to boot. See for yourself. Yes Brandon and Chris are in this picture. From there it was up onto the alpine slopes where the snow was deep, the skies blue, and the views incredible. The one downer on the trip were the avalanche chutes blocking all routes to the actual summit. But it's hard to complain when we got in 20 miles with 4,500 feet of elevation gain and a whole lot of awesome terrain.

Tulip Time

The news got around. Due to our unusually cold spring the Tulip Festival in the Skagit Valley was prolonged an extra week. Time to grab the kids for an impromptu photo-shoot. We met the Robecks and Maxfields from our ward for optimal good times and to have a few more cameras on hand. It worked. Luckily their cameras were much better than ours. We came back with 300 or so pictures, just of our kids. Here are some highlights.

Here's Ginny and Violet in a pristine floral setting. Note the flowers in Violet's hands were found on the ground, not picked! Here's me carrying Ginny from the pink flowers to the purple flowers. It's a good thing all the kids involved were girls, there weren't many masculine colors around.

Bri took some time to introduce Violet to the power of her namesake color.
The whole family had a great time. This was all of our first times at the Tulip Festival. It did not disappoint!

Gunnar's Birthday (April 24th)

Gunnar came up on the train from Vancouver to stay with us for two nights for his 14th birthday celebration. We met Grant at The Cheesecake Factory and ate a great dinner. We even got the birthday boy a cheesecake.

I bought ice cream cupcakes from Haagen Daz for him. Appantly the one on the Ave is the only one that sells vanilla chocolate chip ice cream, they said they dont even sell it in stores anymore. Lucky Gunnar! They are pretty cute! The cupcake paper is soild chocolate.

Happy Birthday to Gunnar!

Enjoying the cupcake

Ginny enjoying a cupcake

We played lost of settlers of catan inculding seafairers and citys & knights expansions. Thanks Maxfields!

The next day we went bowling and played pool at the hub. Then Gunnar and I saw "17 again" it was pretty cute. Then more Catan was played. Then we had to say goodbye to our Gunnar. Ginny was so sad when we put him on the train. I've never seen her lip stick out so far. Thanks for sharing your birthday weekend with us Gun!