Need A Lift?

We have taken on this huge project of painting our house ourselves. We (mostly Mike) have been prepping the house for the last 5 days in this blasted heat wave. Pressure washing, scraping, sanding and caulking. Mike has two weeks off and of coarse we have to be setting record breaking temperatures here in Seattle. 103 yesterday!!!!! I could hardly take it! We can't even paint until it's below 90, something about the paint not setting correctly. We picked up this lift to finish cleaning and prepping parts of the house we couldn't reach. Mike and I aren't really fans of climbing around on the roof!

Jacob must have said 10 times that he thought the lift was "so awesome" because it kind of looked like a transformer as it was unfolding. We thought it was going to be pretty awesome too, until we realized IT WASN'T GOING TO REACH THE REALLY SCARY PARTS OF THE HOUSE!!!!

Mike going up for the first time.

This is as high as Jacob would go....he wouldn't let Mike send him up at all! Such a cautious boy he is.

The girls went for a ride....Mike joked that he wasn't going to let them come down until they promised to clean their rooms.

So.....we ended up returning the lift 6 days early. We are feeling a little deflated that the lift wouldn't quite reach the areas we really needed it to. So it is back to painting what we can safely and leaving what we are to scared to reach......for the pros.

Party Time

On Monday we had Jacob's party. We invited a few boys to come over and go minature golfing. It was way to hot with very little shade.....I think it may have been the fastest game of golf ever!

The boys kept playing at the same time which is one reason they seemed to just fly through each section.

Happy 8th Birthday Jacob!

Sunday was Jacob's 8th birthday. It seems like he was just turning 3.

Tonight we celebrated as a family over at my parents house. Monday we are having a little party for him.

My brother Brett brought over this little motorcycle. I took it for a little spin. I had never been on anything like this before and Brett didn't give me the greatest instructions before my trial run. I didn't take a spill, but the bike sure did! For some reason I forgot to let off the gas and was trying to slow it down with the brakes, but it just kept going faster and faster. So I let my feet drag on the ground and jumped off and the bike crashed without me! I'm hoping none of my neighbors were looking out their windows. Brett gave me a better lesson and then I drove it all around our front yard....I was a little to scared to take it back out into the street.

Riding all over my parents back yard.

Brett also brought water guns for all the kids to play with.

It was in the 90's today and I think the massive water fight at the end of the day was the highlight to Jacobs birthday.

Haircut

Somebody was not to happy about being sheered like a sheep today.

Jenny

Mike's sister Jenny has been up visiting from California the last few days....and as always we love getting to spend time with her! We went for a long drive over to the Hoh rain forest, which is a little south of Forks for anyone that is a Twilight fan. There were way to many mosquitoes there for our liking, so we only went on a very short walk. Every time we opened the car door one of those little bloodsuckers got in the car.

There is a really large Spruce tree there that is just under 300 feet tall. It's estimated to be around 500 years old.

Jacob got to spend some quality snuggling time with Jenny. He has already been in tears tonight just thinking about her having to go home tomorrow afternoon.

All the McKean's....except for me....someone had to take the picture! (Emily complained that I'm never in the pictures, that's because I'm the one always behind the camera.)

Mike, Jenny, Kim, Tom and Mickey

We miss you already Jenny!

Museum of Flight

We went to the Museum of Flight this weekend.

Jacob liked the hot air balloon and my nephew Trevor enjoyed sitting in a Blackbird.

This was up in the air traffic control tower. The computer screen that the boys were looking at had every plane that was being tracked in the air in the U.S. They both watched planes coming into land with binoculars.

The woodwork on these old planes was quite beautiful.

Does this pilot look like Brad Pitt or what?!? (Mike says this was my favorite part of the day.) His name was Captain George Ashmun. He flew in the South Pacific and was shot down. Mike has always put up with my crush on Brad, but I do have to say he isn't my favorite anymore because of Angie!