As Zach was delivering his newspapers yesterday in the neighborhood, a woman told him to wait a minute on the front porch.  She went into her house and came back out with a $2 bill for Zach as a tip for doing such a good job.  Zach was pretty excited! Now he's thining about Christmas!

Zach's weekend homework assignment for Social Studies was to create a pre-historic tool, 'fashioned in the same manor of construction that pre-historic humans would have used.'  He decided an axe would be the easiest tool to make.  He used the vines from our vinca minor plant on the side of the house, pulling all the leaves off and tying/braiding them together.  He found a branch and square rock in the neighbor adjacent to ours and started constructing!  Very clever and looks good Zach!

9.17.11  We knew our hot weather from last week was short lived as fall has really arrived now.  It was only 55 degrees at game time (a whopping 30 degree difference from 1 week ago)!  And, we had 2 girls missing so only 1 sub for the entire game.  The girls came out firing in the first half and played really well, passing and clearing the ball out on defense.  Kylie scored a goal (turned out to be our only score of the game) and it was a nice hard shot!  Yay!  It was tied 1-1 at halftime and then our girls were tired out.  We played soft in the 2nd half and just couldn't get anything going.  The game finished 4-1 with a loss but they played well only having 1 sub.  Good job girls!

I was lucky enough to get the dr's Mariners game tickets and parking pass for this afternoon game.   Since we were given 2 tickets in the terrace section, we bought 2 more so we could bring the kids too.  Jeff and Zach went to the Yankees game earlier in the week and sat in the terrace seats so they thought they'd let us girls sit there and they sat in the outfield.  It was a close game! The final was 7-6 - dangit!  Not in our favor.  We ate hotdogs, kettlecorn and then Jeff and Zach surprised us by bringing chocolate covered strawberries on a stick!  Delicious and so thoughtful!  Thanks gentlemen!  As we were walking out of the stadium, we passed by the Root sports booth and Brad Adam and Bill Krueger were doing a live show.  We stopped and took pictures and several times (probably after our flash went off) Brad looked at us and smiled.  Too funny!  The kids went behind the camera and table and were trying to get on TV. Probably didn't happen.   Haha!  It was a good game.

9.10.11  Kylie's first soccer game of fall 2011 started off as a hot one!  Literally that is!  It was 85 degrees at game time at 2:30 pm.  The girls were exhausted before the game even started....well, us parents were just as hot!  Those poor girls!  They worked hard and ran hard and played pretty well for being our first game together.  Some girls don't have a lot of experience in soccer yet and are still learning but it was still a good game.  Kylie's team name is TNT (stands for Tori - head coach and Tony - assistant coach).  Pretty catchy huh?  Well, we lost 4-3 but a good game overall.   Kylie even scored her first goal of the season, using her left foot even!  Great job Kylie!

Kylie is a great photographer!  She took a camera to document the 4 days she and Zach spent on Papa's sailboat in the San Juans, heading to LaConner and Everett marinas, ending in Kingston.  The 1st day it rained and Papa got out his raingear.  But the weather got much better and the sunscreen came out again.  They passed a lot of wildlife on the shores, and in the water on the bouys.  Thank you again Papa for taking the kids!  I think that was the highlight of their summer!

8.2011  Here's a picture of Kylie with her first salmon, a 4 lb humpy!  Good job kiddo!  And, here's Zach with his 10 lb King!  Awesome!

8.2011  Here's some great pictures of a momma whale and her baby swimming next to her!  Very impressive shots Jeff!

8.2011  Ok.  This will be the 4th attempt at getting these pictures and post on the blog.  I think I was doing too many pictures so I have decided to break it up a little to see if that will help.  Sorry for the delay in getting this saved.   This past August, the kids were fortunate enough to spend some time with Papa on his sailboat.  Zach left on Tuesday, Aug 16th and spent a few days with Papa heading up to the San Juans to meet the rest of  the Carlsen men in Friday Harbor on Friday night.  They fished and sailed and fixed the boat a little (problem with the sail).  It was great weather and Zach caught tons of humpys!  The Carlsen Men, consisting of Jeff, Darren, Greg and Chandler met them on Friday night and spent the weekend fishing and hanging out and male bonding.  They all had fun.  Darren left Roche Harbor on Sunday morning via seaplane and they all decided that was the quickest way to travel!  Since the men were all leaving on Sunday, Kylie had an opportunity to be on the boat with Papa and Zach for a couple more days as they headed back to Kingston.    So, Kylie and Tanya (that's me) drove up to Anacortes and walked on the ferry to Friday Harbor on Sunday afternoon.  Greg and Chandler took that same ferry back to Anacortes.  The 5 of us, including Papa, had a great fish and chip and burger lunch enjoying the scenery and sunshine.  We enjoyed a cool beverage on the boat as well!  Jeff and I took the late afternoon ferry back to Anacortes and the long drive home to Covington.  Kylie and Zach stayed behind with Papa and fished and motored back to Kingston via LaConnor and Everett.  Kylie even caught her first salmon outside of Humpy Hollow and Zach caught a King salmon just outside of Kingston.  They had so much fun!  Thank you Papa!

9.3.11 Huskies home opener ends with a WIN!!!  Well, just barely.  The final score was 30-27 against the Eagles.  It was a somewhat exciting first half but rather boring 2nd half.  We had no defense and no pass rush.  We touched their QB once in the last 1:37 of the game or so.  Pathetic!  We have a lot to work on that's for sure.  But, a win is a win.  We visited Darren and Shannon at their tailgate before the game and that was fun.  What a great sunny day it was today!  Zach was able to invite his friend Cole to the game as we got some extra tickets from our friends, Bill and Lisa.  Thanks guys for sharing your tickets!