Dueck's Roost

Okay, so I'm being bad and taking a break from my chronological posts (that sadly are over a year behind!!), to post the family pictures we just had taken by the lovely and talented Sarah Holley ( http://www.sarahholleyphotography.com ). Woohooooooo! These pictures were long overdue!! Our last ones were 3 1/2 years ago, and man have the kids grown. We've gone from 5 young kiddos to really only 1 and-a-half;). The others are all now basically adult size:( :( :(. Seriously! What happened??!! Here they are in no particular order. Which one do you think we picked to enlarge and frame? Hint (that is not much of a hint) ... it's not the one I picked. I was out-voted!:-) Which one would you have chosen?? I'm not including individual pics since they're already on the sidebar.  Option 1: click picture to enlarge Option 2: Option 3:  Option 4: Option 5: Option 6: Option 7: Extras!!

We are so seriously grateful for amazing friends!! There are many many fantastic people in our lives who are always thinking of others and trying to do good and be good.  Two of those such people (yep, the two on the boat!) were sweet enough to sacrifice a good part of their day to take our family on an end-of-summer boating activity. We are officially boating amateurs, but had a super fun time tubing and attempting to wake board;). It was yet another perfect summer day! And despite a bit of motion sickness ... It was a wonderful outing!! Not to mention exhilarating!! Joseph was definitely pleased with his first (hmm, maybe second) official boating experience.  And Kev and I were definitely not complaining with all the amazing sunshine and fresh lake air.  Neither were these goofs!

We always love it when Aunt Carrie and Uncle Jason come to town, or more accurately, come to the country:-). Since we weren't able to plan a camping trip this year, we decided to make their visit our official Grandma Loo weekend!! We ate fish n' chips (and yummy chowder)...  Went on a hike (shocking, right?;) to Rattlesnake Ledge  (https://www.wta.org/go-hiking/hikes/rattle-snake-ledge) , and then spent the day playing at Rattlesnake Lake.  No pictures of the hike for some reason. Hmm ....  But we did have an incredible day at the lake and caught a few shots of our time there!! Three cheers for family-lake time!! It was a perfect day, minus some wildfire smoke! As always, I loved getting to spend time with my mom and sisters!!! Since they're always spoiling us and we're never actually together on their real birthdays, we decided to have a summer "b-day" party for Carrie & Jason. We definitely had fun picking out so...

For the guys' 2017 High Adventure (aka, man-cation) they were lucky enough to get an overnight permit for The Enchantments!!! This is exciting in that the area is incredibly popular and requires a difficult lotto pick-- I believe they'd been entering for a few years with no success up to this point.  There's definitely a reason for it's popularity .... The Enchantments is a breathtakingly beautiful spot in the Leavenworth area of the Central Cascades. I didn't think I could do it better justice, than this description on the Washington Trails Association website ( https://www.wta.org/go-hiking/hikes/enchantment-lakes ):  "In the Enchantments, nature has carved one of the magnificent places of this world--an alpine paradise of granite worn smooth by glaciers, larches manicured by wind and cold, and crystal blue lakes strung together by a creek that tumbles and thunders between them." After lots of planning and packing, here they are ready to he...