As the leaves begin to fall...

As it is the first day of Fall, I sat here thinking "where has the summer gone?"! The past two months have been very full, so here are a few summertime shots to relive the moments (even if only for ourselves). :)

Our Thompson-Cook Family Reunion

During the last week of July, most of Wendy's side of the family had the chance to get together and visit. Avery had a plethora of cousins to play with, and it was so fun getting to visit with people we really would love to see more often! We missed those who couldn't make it!

We went blueberry picking one afternoon. Avery LOVED it! She was actually pretty good at selecting ones that were perfectly ripe and gently pulling them off the bush. Too bad I don't think even 1 blueberry ended up in her bucket...

Some of the cousins at play...

The Family Picture - for posterity's sake I'm told.

Avery hanging out by Grandma's pool. It is like a magnet I tell ya...

Avery and Delaynie working together on a masterpiece. (Notice the wardrobe change? Hint: In the picture before Avery was laying on the side of the pool...)

Keri and I trying our hand at homemade raspberry jelly. Considering it was our first time and it was almost midnight, I think it turned out pretty well. Edible, at least.

San Antonio, Texas

During August, Jason and I headed to San Antonio, TX for one of my best friend's wedding. It was loads of fun, in a sweltering kind of way! :) The average temp was 105 degrees. After the wedding festivities, we stayed for a few days and did "tourist" things. We spent the day at Shlitterbahn (America's favorite waterpark - AWESOME!) and drove down to Corpus Christi.

We spent a few days right near the River Walk in San Antonio. What an amazing idea a few ladies had a century ago! The Texas pride was overwhelming in almost every city we went to!

Of course, we had to visit the Alamo. Well, actually Jason visited it. I stayed in the car reading my Twilight series. I thought I had already been here a few years ago. Come to find out it had only been a replica that I had seen... Thanks for clearing that up, Dad!

We drove all the way out to South Padre Island on our last day. We couldn't be that close without visiting the Gulf of Mexico. The water was so warm!

Pacific City, OR

Later that month, we went on our annual camping trip with our awesome friends the Kleins! They are hilarious! This has only been our second year running, but we were smarter this time. Last year we did the tent thing, this year we rented a little trailer. The weather was beautiful for the first few days, but when the monsoons began, we were incredibly grateful to not be in a tent. Plus, how would we have hooked up our Rock Band then? The kids had so much fun digging in the sand and splashing in the water. Too bad we ended up getting sand in our camera. Now we are cameraless. So, here are a few of the pictures that we got before the lense got ruined... who would have thought cameras and sand don't mix?

Avery and her buddy Parker

The whole gang

There were these HUGE sand dunes there. We climbed and climbed until the little legs wouldn't go any farther.

Priest Lake, ID

Our last summer fling was a trip to Priest Lake, ID with our fabulous friends Jauna and Patrick and their little girl Emily. Jauna's Uncle lives there in this gorgeous house that he and his wife designed. We stayed for the weekend and had so much fun playing in the water by day and staying up way too late at night! These pics are stolen from Jauna's blog, as our camera is stubbornly broken.

Avery loved to just be by the water...

Avery and Daddy splashing in the water.

Believe it or not... Avery and Emily got along quite well! She said during this mini photo shoot, "Cheese! Uh-oh! Mommy, Baby Emily's crying. Uh-oh. No crying Baby Emily! Cheese!" Obviously she didn't convince Emily!

Uncle Roy took us all out on his boat.
Avery is still talking about it to this day...

While it took some convincing to get Jauna out there... she took to tubing like no buddy's business!

Patrick and Uncle Roy just living the life...

Ahhhhhhh, the great days of Summer!