JULY

 Summer has finally arrived in Washington! We've been enjoying every minute of it! Beautiful sunshine, beautiful weather and lots of fun activities! Here are some fun things we did in the month of July: 

We celebrated the 4th of July of course! 

We went to the beach and enjoyed some unique marine life.

It wouldn't be a Bates outing without posing for a silly picture....

We later enjoyed hamburgers at a park, games, walking trails, fireworks and extraordinary people-watching opportunities at the Tacoma celebration. :) We sat by the waterfront and saw fireworks get shot off from a barge which was awesome! I wish I had a picture of us all in our nice 4th of July outfits we changed into...everyone looked so cute and festive! It was a really fun day. 

Jeff and I went to the "Bite of Seattle" food festival.  We've been to a cheese festival and now a food festival so far. Yum! I'm still waiting for a chocolate festival! :) We tried food from some popular Seattle vendors and it was fun and yummy!

Jeff spent a whole week in downtown Chicago for some Fidelity training.  He got promoted to Investment Representative...which means he needs training for his new role as well as a new license! He's studying furiously for the license tests....one more to go!

I wish I could have gone to Chicago with Jeff...but I was doing my theater camps.... 

I had a three week camp where the kids performed The Jungle Book pictured below, I had another musical theater camp I just finished and I've got one more camp to do in the middle of August. Then I'll take a break and prepare for the baby. :)  The camps were super fun...but quite exhausting being pregnant and on my feet teaching the kids all day.  I'm proud to have taught choreography at 8 months pregnant! It has been great to get involved in a theater here. 

Jeff and I discovered a BEAUTIFUL place called "Rattlesnake Lake".  If you come visit us, we'll guarantee a visit there! Don't worry, they don't know where the name Rattlesnake Lake came from...there aren't rattlesnakes anywhere. I was concerned about that.  :) 

We went to a Mariner's game! It was a beautiful stadium...right in downtown Seattle which was fun. It was LDS night and we got a free t-shirt. :) There's lots of perks to being a Mormon! ha ha. Jeff had to purchase the stadium favorite.....Garlic French Fries. I warned him before he got them he'd have to eat all of them by himself (no problem!) because my pregnancy heartburn wouldn't be able to take it! He enjoyed them....and I enjoyed my Tums. ha.

In addition to these things, we enjoyed a summer festival on Mercer Island, attended a Childbirth Prep Class, my brother and his lovely wife Kate moved back to Olympia, and Jeff made the switch to working at the Fidelity office in downtown Bellevue. What a fun, busy month!