Happy 8th birthday Marcus

Happy 8th birthday to my sweet babycakes Marcus! This was the first quarantine birthday in the family, and so we tried to give him every reasonable request he could think of :)

Birthday cereal: Cinnamon Toast Crunch
Activities: Backyard Olympics with prizes (we played trampoline games, croquet, badminton, water balloons and tether-ball)
Cake: another Donut Mountain (he started this tradition last year when he turned 7)... Marin also made him (and herself) a delicious gluten free cake

His greatest wish every day of the year, is for someone to play with him. So we ALL played with him ALL DAY, and therefore filled his happy extroverted enthusiast love tank to the fullest! Oh! And he got to finally be rid of his booster seat in the car. It's the end of an era! I'm not even sad about it :)

He is still hilarious, loud, adventurous, servant-hearted, generous and full of life. I literally could not think of one single thing that could make me love this boy more.

4th of July at Camano

This year, our 4th of July trip to Camano was hard won. We were all anxiously watching the COVID reports,  to make sure we could safely gather, and then on our own we all took extra precautions of self-quarantining to ensure we could bring our healthiest selves together! I appreciate my sister and parents so much, and their efforts we all took to give each other peace of mind. We are SO thankful this trip was possible, and it's a bright spot amidst a summer of other cancelled plans and missed family opportunities. The only bummer was Marin got glutened (a VERY rare occurrence) and was up vomiting several hours on the last night. We do our best to protect her on trips, but sometimes stuff happens. I'm so thankful she woke up feeling better, but it was a hard night. Overall though, the trip was a gigantic breath of fresh air for all of us, and we realized how much we all needed more human contact! Being socially isolated is hard. Not hugging people is hard. Being so careful all the time about getting to close is hard. Being free from this for a few days was AMAZING!