Learning to Fish

The boys were eager to learn how to fish, so despite it being our last day in Seattle and pouring rain, Pop Pop and Messie made it happen!

One of the boys favorite traditions while staying with Messie and Pop Pop is picking out donuts at Top Pop. 

A 40th celebration in New Orleans....

John turned 40, so I surprised him with a weekend away in New Orleans. We spent the weekend in New Orleans exploring the beautiful French city. We fell in love with a handful of incredible restaurants, appreciated the gorgeous architechture and of course loved the Southern charm. We ate as many oysters as we could, took in live music and strolled up and down the Garden district.

We toured the plantations and they were stunning and the history was fascinating

I loved this nursery. Look at that cot?!

Laura House plantation

The fan over the dining room table in the Oaktree plantation that a child slave would manually swing for hours

Oaktree plantation

A swamp tour 

This place had amazing pork belly sandwhiches

We went to Commander's Palace for dinner, which has been around for a century and still serves turtle soup!

We went on a run to this place for breakfast and it was well worth the sweat in the humidity.

It was an incredible treat to spend the weekend being together with no agenda celebreating John. Lucky me, lucky us. 

Another Milestone in the Gibbons House

We celebrated John's 39th birthday with a homemade cake and lots of love. Every day I'm reminded how blessed the children and I are to have him in our lives. 

Matty and Tammy get hitched!

Our dear friend and my partner-in-crime w/ the Symphony Guild, Matty, tied the knot on Orcas Island. It was a simple, yet very elegant, wedding packed with a variety of witty, musically-inclined, incredibly fun and interesting people! We felt honored to be a part of their special day and loved our 48-hour get away in a place so dear to us.

We toured the Sound on a 3-hr whale-watching tour and saw a ton of killer whales

Hanging out sans boys!

Matty catching some zzzz's with his future step-daughter, Sydney

Messina/Anderson 'bear hug'

We spent Friday evening at Camp Orkila, watching a campfire. It was amazing how little has changed and how magical 'camp' continues to be.

Hank our #1 snuggler

Hank has easily held onto 1st place for being our best snuggler. He would sit for hours on John's lap if he let him!

JWG's bday weekend!

For JWG's bday, Michael and I arranged a bday weekend, complete with a surprise visit from him and Sara. I'm not sure who was more excited....John or the little boys...

We also surprised him with a full day 1:1 kite surfing lesson. Levi, Sara and I drove down to Long Beach to watch and it was beautiful. There's only 2 spots in LA that you kite surf, so the sky was literally filled with a 50+ surfers!

 

I was very curious what John would think of kite surfing since he's quite a seasoned surfer. He said getting the feel of the kite is the most challenging bit and and that it's a lot like wake boarding....

They spent the first 3 hours just learning how to fly the kite!

Levi was in heaven just relaxing on the beach

For Father's Day we had a big BBQ at Roy Rogers park which  always has polo matches going on Sundays.

Levi setting the ground rules with his friends

The boys being boys.... Felix is now starting to hold his own quite well

  

Sean and sweet Penelope

Michael, Felix and Hanky just hanging out